Evidence of meeting #129 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pilots.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:25 a.m.
Stephen Fuhr Kelowna—Lake Country, Lib.
Thank you all very much for coming. I appreciate that.
Marc, you ran out of time. I want to give you an opportunity to finish what you wanted to say, and then I have a question.
11:25 a.m.
Flight School Director, Southern Interior Flight Centre, Carson Air
Thank you, Mr. Fuhr.
The thing that was left out for me was the medical requirements that we have to face when we want to have pilots or instructors. I used a small example of people with colour blindness who can use corrective lenses that could fix that, no different from us when we have to wear regular lenses to repair that. But the people with colour blindness are still not allowed to fly at night, and they're still restricted to having to have a radio and a control zone.
With regard to medicals, the other thing is we have this abundance of people retiring at the top end of the airline community right now. Of course, once you reach a certain age, it's harder to maintain your medicals. If they were at the airlines, they could continue to teach in a simulator, whereas we can't use them for any of the specific licensing requirements in our simulators in flight schools.
Who better to train these people for where they're going than the people who are retiring? We have to add that as additional training, and that comes at a cost to the students in addition to what they're already paying.
11:25 a.m.
Kelowna—Lake Country, Lib.
Thank you for that.
It's been pretty clear that we need more students. We need to remove the barriers to getting them into flight training. Obviously, there's a financial piece. That's probably the biggest speed bump on that note. We need to train them faster and we need more instructors.
On training them faster, I was wondering if any of the three of you would comment on how you think competency-based training might shorten that training cycle so we can get people through the pipeline faster. Caroline, do you have an opinion on that?
11:25 a.m.
Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor, Aéro Loisirs
I need you to clarify. Sorry.
11:25 a.m.
Kelowna—Lake Country, Lib.
I'm talking about training people to be competent versus just saying for this phase of flying that they need so many hours. That may not be suitable for ab initio pilot training, but certainly for a commercial standard or an airline transport rating standard, once we get further up the training cycle. Some places will do training to competency regardless of hours. The Canadian system basically says they need to achieve these hours and competency. Do you think if we looked at how we train people that might help us get people through faster once we got them in the door?
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Ms. Farly, please feel free to speak in French. We have full translation available.
11:25 a.m.
Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor, Aéro Loisirs
Okay. Thank you.
Your question is really quite interesting, and I will give you my point of view. That is already an approach we use. Take for example the 45 hours of training required to become a private pilot. It is very rare for candidates, even the most talented ones, to be ready after only 35 hours. With exercises added to it, the 45-hour training is completed quickly and effectively. In addition, people cannot move on to the next flight exercise before they really master the previous one.
I'm sorry. I have difficulty answering this question.
February 7th, 2019 / 11:25 a.m.
Kelowna—Lake Country, Lib.
It's okay. I'll move to Mike.
11:25 a.m.
Capt Mike Hoff
Yes. I think that is a piece of it. Some of it is outdated and antiquated, but I think in the process, you have to be careful that you don't start lowering the bar to meet a perceived problem you have. You have to keep the standard, but there are avenues.
My son is in the right seat of a Dash 8 Q400. He's out flying around in circles in my airplane at night, because he needs to tick a Transport Canada box. I really don't think it's going to make him a better pilot, but the box needs to be ticked.
11:25 a.m.
Kelowna—Lake Country, Lib.
Right. I would agree with you. The standard has to be maintained throughout the entire process. It certainly wouldn't be applicable to every phase of flight training, in my opinion, and based on my experience, but I think it might shorten the process in areas where it made sense.
Marc, do you have an opinion on that?
11:30 a.m.
Flight School Director, Southern Interior Flight Centre, Carson Air
Yes. I agree with what Mr. Hoff has said here. You have to make sure the bar has been maintained.
We use a combination of competency-based and scenario-based training, but you still have to meet the standards. We have students we will test at three-quarters of their training. That would be more than adequate to fly commercially, but we have to fill in another 40 or 50 hours with them. Those are the ones we do advanced things with, which is fine. Again, that would also be a method of potentially reducing costs for them. On the flip side, you're probably also going to see students with whom you have to go beyond the current limits. I guess it's finding the balance.
I think with input from the airlines.... We have a large program advisory committee. If they're provided access in schools in the way we provide access, where we open the books and show them how everybody is performing, I think that could help maintain those standards.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to make a quick comment before I ask my questions. At the meeting's outset, during the opening statements, the interpreters told us that they had not received the texts, which complicated their job. I was wondering whether we could make an effort for future meetings and ensure that interpreters have the texts before the meeting starts.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us this morning.
Your testimony is very enlightening. Since we began our study, I have felt that the situation is complex, but relatively simple to summarize. We have two problems: how to attract new pilots, and how to retain them, regardless of whether they are professionals or instructors.
We are talking about the situation in Canada, but the pilot market is global. With a pilot shortage, I assume that every one of them holds all the cards when it comes to finding the company that will give them the best working conditions.
About a year and a half ago, we carried out a very broad study on aviation safety. One of the issues discussed intensively was the matter of flying hours imposed on Canadian pilots.
My first questions are for you, Captain Hoff. First, can the number of flying hours imposed on Canadian pilots put the Canadian industry at a disadvantage and push our pilots to work abroad in better conditions? Second, are the new regulations submitted by the minister and by Transport Canada satisfactory to you in that regard?
11:30 a.m.
Capt Mike Hoff
Sorry, the volume went down there, but I think you were asking if the hours were adequate and if Canada was out of line globally with.... Was that annual flight times or flight times for licensing?
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
My question is about whether the number of hours plays a role.
Can the number of flying hours Canadian pilots must log compared to what is required of foreign pilots affect our ability to keep our pilots in Canada?
11:30 a.m.
Capt Mike Hoff
I think our pilot qualification times are in line with those of other ICAO countries. We are actually advantaged over the U.S. system where, as a result—
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
If I may, I am not talking about training hours, but about flying hours.
11:30 a.m.
Capt Mike Hoff
I think we're fairly well aligned with other ICAO jurisdictions. I don't see any disparity there that would tip it one way or the other.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
I will move on to another question. In your opening remarks, you quickly mentioned issues with the Canada Revenue Agency that lasted three years. It seems to me that this situation is well within the federal Parliament's jurisdiction. Can you explain to us the issues you have had with the agency, so that we can decide what measures could help retain students?
11:30 a.m.
Capt Mike Hoff
I'm really glad you asked me that question.
Actually, Marc and I went to college together, a college that no longer exists, unfortunately.
One of the big problems I ran into was the inconsistency in pilot training across the country. Ontario and Quebec have much more fulsome, vertically integrated training programs. Out west it's really become the wild, wild west. Some colleges are affiliated with a flight school, but they have no idea what happens over at the airport. They've put together a basket of some economics classes and called it a business aviation diploma. But you go over to an airport and they're not the college's instructors. They don't really know what's going on with the curriculum, and something magic happens over there.
There are really good examples of how to do it properly; it's just that there's no continuity. It was quite interesting to see the juxtaposition with my younger son, who's an engineer, and the resources afforded to him to pursue his dream there the resources afforded to my older son as a pilot.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you.
My next question is for Ms. Farly.
A lot is being said about the cost of training a student. That is a delicate and complex issue because education also comes under provincial jurisdiction, and the federal government cannot act alone. However, you were saying that you bought a company you were already working for. Could the federal government implement measures that would foster business transfer, thus enabling a flying school to quickly find someone to take over instead of closing?
11:35 a.m.
Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor, Aéro Loisirs
That is an excellent question. I was able to benefit from the regional support program for young entrepreneurs under the age of 35. The Community Futures Development Corporation and the local development centre really helped me buy that business, and those measures are in line with what you are talking about.
Currently, flying schools are being bought by people who are passionate about flying, but who are not necessarily flight instructors. In Quebec, I don't know of any schools that have declared bankruptcy or have been closed, which proves that the transition is taking place. However, I know nothing about the rest of Canada.