Transport Committee on April 11th, 2017

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call to order the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. This is meeting number 54, and pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we will continue our study of aviation safety.

We welcome our witness from Nav Canada and the Department of Transport. We appreciate very much your taking the time.

We have Larry Lachance, Laureen Kinney, Aaron McCrorie, and Denis Guindon. Thank you all very much.

Who would like to open up?

Mr. Lachance, from Nav Canada, please go ahead.

[Larry Lachance, Vice-President, Safety and Quality, NAV CANADA]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee.

First of all, I'd like to say thank you for inviting Nav Canada to appear before the committee as part of your study on aviation safety.

Nav Canada is a private company that for more than 20 years has owned and operated Canada's civil air navigation system. We provide air traffic control and advisory services and other related services to pilots. We own the radar and other surveillance technology that enable us to monitor the skies and the navigational aids that help guide aircraft.

We train and employ more than 4,700 air traffic controllers, flight service specialists, technologists, and engineers who support the system. We build air traffic management systems here in Canada, many of which have been sold around the world, including to London's Heathrow, and the Dubai airport.

I started my career as an air traffic controller 40 years ago and and I have had the opportunity to see many important safety-related changes to the aviation industry. In my current role as the vice-president of safety and quality at Nav Canada, I am responsible for our safety management program, which provides internal safety oversight of the management of operational risk as required by the Canadian aviation regulations.

At Nav Canada we often say that safety is our only product. This speaks to the focus of our robust safety culture.

We benchmark our safety performance against other countries, and I'm glad to report that we are among the highest safety performing ANSPs in the world.

The key to our safety record has been a strong focus on developing a training culture and investing heavily in infrastructure and new technologies.

Controller-pilot datalink communications, or CPDLC, is one of those technologies. CPDLC enables air traffic controllers and pilots to communicate through text-like messages. Since the technology's successful implementation in 2012, the number of domestic CPDLC messages has grown to well over 500,000 per month.

This reduces radio frequency congestion and the chance of communication errors, ensuring that pilots and air traffic controllers are able to communicate in the clearest and safest possible manner.

Weather cameras are another innovation that was not in use years ago. Nav Canada has deployed aviation weather cameras at 192 sites across the county, which contribute to safety by enabling pilots and dispatchers to verify local weather conditions.

Another innovation that will truly be transformational for the industry is the much-anticipated launch of space-based automatic dependent surveillance broadcast, or ADS-B. This technology will enable air traffic control entities to track aircraft from low earth orbiting satellites, giving us reach over the world's oceans and remote regions, with significant safety and efficiency benefits. This groundbreaking system, of which Nav Canada is a majority owner, is progressing towards the start of full operations in 2018.

Just as important as our investment in innovation and technology is our investment in our own people. Humans create safety. This is why we've put a major focus on human performance as well as the deployment of controller decision support tools.

An example of one of these tools is our Canadian automated air traffic system, known as CAATS. It is one of the world's most advanced flight data processing systems and is the foundation of Nav Canada's air traffic management system.

These systems allow our controllers to plan, to see, and to resolve potential conflict as far out as 20 minutes in advance, improving the efficiency and safety of the air space they are responsible for managing. We rely on the performance of our people to innovate, to provide world-leading services, to develop and deploy new safety and efficiency-enhancing technologies and procedures, and to create and maintain important safety infrastructure.

Focusing on the human element has allowed us to continually improve our safety record.

Safety is the first priority, not just of Nav Canada, but also across all functions and all members of the aviation community, and knowledge and best practices should always be shared. Collaborative initiatives across the industry therefore represent both a key component of our commitment to safety and a tangible aspect of our plan to continue to improve it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Lachance, but I have to cut you off. Thank you very much for your comments. I'm sure you can give the balance of your information in response to some of the committee members.

[Larry Lachance]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Kinney, please go ahead.

[Laureen Kinney, Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I'm proud to discuss the excellent work that Transport Canada officials perform every day to ensure that our country's air transportation system is safe from coast to coast.

The scope of the industry that we need to regulate is immense. Canada is home to the third-largest aerospace manufacturing sector in the world, which employs approximately 211,000 people. There are 36,450 registered aircraft in Canada and 68,546 licensed pilots. Aircraft take off and land hundreds of times a day at our country's 567 certified airports and heliports. Despite this, we have one of the safest air transportation systems in the world.

While air travel in Canada has grown over the years, the number of accidents in Canada continues to decline. Over the past five years, aviation accidents in this country have decreased by 13%. While we embrace this success, we are always striving to improve. There are many factors that keep our skies safe, but the most important are the people. Everyone involved, whether in the air or on the ground, is essential to maintaining Canada's strong aviation security record.

Transport Canada ensures the safety of the national air transportation system through its regulatory framework and oversight activities. Our regulatory framework sets safety regulations for the aviation industry and develops policies, guidelines, standards, and educational materials. Our robust civil aviation oversight regime uses a risk-based approach to verify that the industry complies with the framework and uses a variety of tools to verify compliance and enforce the regulations.

Transport Canada shares and learns our best practices internationally through our participation in the International Civil Aviation Organization. The department regularly engages with stakeholders to benefit from their knowledge and expertise and to better understand their safety concerns. As a result of our collaboration in Canada and abroad, we have achieved great success on a number of priorities. For example, we are taking active steps to address concerns with flight crew fatigue, seaplane safety, runway overruns, excursions, and pilot decision-making. Many of our efforts will also respond to the Transportation Safety Board's recommendations.

Finally, to ensure that our rules are followed, we are continually working to update our oversight system and taking action when rules are not followed, to keep the travelling public safe.

Our efforts are not limited to developing new regulations. Sometimes it's quicker and more effective to educate and help industry develop its own solutions. To that end, we will be hosting a “Fit to Fly” workshop in early June to address very complicated issues related to pilot mental health and substance abuse. We will also be launching a new general aviation safety campaign in the early summer.

With these actions, I have every reason to expect that our aviation safety record will continue to improve in the years to come.

Madame Chair, thank you for the committee's attention on this matter. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have, as are my colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. Kinney.

We go now to questions from the committee.

Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of you for joining us today. I look forward to the questions to be asked and what we are going to hear.

My first question will be for you, Ms. Kinney. In Deputy Minister Keenan's last appearance in front of the Transport Committee, he stated:

With the advice and help of the special observer, we have done an extensive review of our finances. We have reduced our staffing level through attrition—through turnover, not through lay-offs—down to a level that equilibrates our financial resources.

I'm wondering if you can tell me if the air safety directorate has seen a reduction in its staffing levels. What positions were not replaced through attrition? What processes and actions are no longer being undertaken?

[Laureen Kinney]

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.

As the deputy mentioned previously, Transport Canada went through a fairly difficult year and a half or so of making sure that our actual expenditures were matching our appropriations. We took some decisions during that period as to how to manage our funds in the most effective way possible.

During that entire process, I can say that safety oversight was, if not the top priority, certainly one of the top one or two priorities for the department. Through that period, we managed these very challenging issues by controlling staffing. During the control of staffing periods, where there was a critical safety position that needed to be staffed in aviation safety, in rail safety, in any of the other oversight areas, or in some of our other more technical sides of the program, those staffing actions were made and moved ahead. There was a fairly complex set of changes that occurred during that period of time that were adjusted as we went through it, so I wouldn't be able to give you a summary of the very specific details of that.

I can tell you, though, that we are moving forward now this year. Budgets are being delegated, and we are moving back into a more normal time frame.

However, throughout that entire period our safety oversight was our core mandate. That was kept as a primary target, and we did deliver. In fact, our statistics on the actual oversight activities we carried out will support that.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

The recency requirements for pilots was changed so that pilots can now renew their flying certificates via a simulator. Why was this announced as an exemption from the regulations, signed by you, Mr. McCrorie, rather than announced in the Gazette? Did Minister Garneau sign off on this exemption before it came into effect on August 23, 2016?

[Aaron McCrorie, Director General, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport]

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.

In terms of the delegation of authority within the department, I am responsible for issuing exemptions. This particular exemption related to specific requirements for a pilot to have flown an aircraft within the last five years. With the evolution of technology, what we're seeing is that you actually get better training in a simulator, where you can exercise more challenging manoeuvres and test the pilot more than you could safely do in an aircraft. It was our view that we had better and more proficient pilots coming out of the simulator stream. For that reason we made the exemption.

It was my decision, based on the advice I got from the experts we have working in civil aviation, in consultation with my colleague Denis Guindon.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I want to follow up on what you said about the evidence, that you can gain better experience in a simulator. Is that what you said? Can you explain that a little bit more?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Denis has more expertise in that area.

[Denis Guindon, Director General, Aviation Safety Oversight and Transformation, Department of Transport]

Thank you very much for the question, Madam Chair.

I started flying about four years ago, so I know quite a lot about simulators.

The way we look at the business today is to try to train the pilot to the best capacity to be able to answer to any type of emergency he may face. We don't want to do that in airplanes. We used to do that 30 or 40 years ago, but with the avenue of airplane now, we even qualify the pilots in simulators, and their first real flight is with 300 passengers in the back of the airplane, because the simulators of today are that good.

We have the new fidelity simulators that are built by fantastic companies such as CAE in Montreal, which really replicate everything totally until the last few feet before touchdown on the runway.

Training our inspectors in just the same way Air Canada and WestJet train their pilots makes quite a lot of sense, and it's less risky. To start shutting down engines in the air, and so on and so forth, would be to put our staff, inspectors, and pilot instructors at risk. We're just following the same suit as the large airlines of this world.

Thank you.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

So, there's a belief that you can replace the actual challenges and stress of flying in a simulator.

[Denis Guindon]

Actually, the only way to really replicate everything that could happen in the flight is through a simulator, not in the airplane.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

There are 30 seconds remaining, Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I'm fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sikand.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

This question is for the department. Have you seen the research done by the Canadian Federal Pilots Association through Abacus that was released last week?

[Laureen Kinney]

No.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I was looking through it, and one of the findings was that almost 81% of the inspectors felt an ominous sense that an aviation accident is likely to happen in the near future. I found that a little concerning. Then I also saw in the report that 81% of the inspectors felt that Transport Canada was “a barrier” to their in fixing their problems.

Could you reply to some of these findings?

[Laureen Kinney]

I would obviously need to look at the particular survey and the questions that were asked and what percentage of people were answering, to do that. But I would suggest that it would be more valuable for me to look at how we can work with our employees. If even one or two of our inspectors have those concerns, certainly that's something that I would want to take into account and work with our teams on.

The way we approach the development of new regulations, new processes, new operating procedures, practically everything new in aviation safety is to develop them with working groups. Those working groups typically have members of our regional inspection staff and/or our headquarters inspection oversight staff with them, on board, in developing those. Not every single person can be engaged in those. Certainly I would say that for me the question would be more focused on whether there are people who are not understanding how it's working, and whether we need to hear from them and whether we need to be able to communicate with them as to what changes are being made and how we should do that.

Certainly, in terms of some of the past experiences we've had with an inspectorate advisory board, we've used that approach to bring the voices of our people to a broader table and to be able to focus. That has led to major changes in some of our training and development, etc. So I think that's where I would focus.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Along the same lines, can you tell me if inspector training has suffered budget cuts?