Transport Committee on May 4th, 2017

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

One of the reasons I asked is not just out of personal interest, but I know you've flagged that as well for the six small NAS airports in Atlantic Canada—and don't scare me too much, as I'm flying to Charlottetown tonight. But if we were able to compete with other larger airports for infrastructure funding at small airports, would that help address the specific safety aspects facing the Atlantic region? How would allowing these small airports to tap into the same pool of infrastructure money that other airports can use improve safety?

[Glenn Mahon]

I think that is it in a nutshell, the ability to tap into federal funds. These smaller airports in particular do not have the passenger base to be able to sustain this critical infrastructure on their own, whether it be through airport user fees or an airport improvement fee specifically.

Again, their infrastructure is aging and deteriorating, which increases operating costs and so on. They desperately need to be eligible for some of these programs that exist, such as APEX.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Maybee, I believe you mentioned that it's safer today to fly in Canada than it's ever been, but that we can always be better. Do you know if that safety record is improving at the same rate for small airports as it is for the rest of the Canadian aviation system?

[Steve Maybee]

I don't have that detail with me. We can get that for you.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

That would be helpful.

[Steve Maybee]

When I made that comment, I meant that when we look at the overall safety stats across Canada, incident rates are down.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If you could get it, I'd be very curious about it.

You mentioned as well that training is the focal point of your remarks. I think this is going to be a growing problem over the next generation. I saw a report the other day suggesting that there are more Canadians over 65 than under 15. To the extent that we've already lost skills and knowledge through attrition, I'd suggest it's only going to get worse, particularly in Atlantic Canada where this trend is exacerbated.

From an aviation safety perspective, where can we focus the training resources that I know were a priority in budget 2017 to make sure that we're training people for the needs of the aviation safety sector a generation from now?

[Steve Maybee]

One is to get young people interested in aviation, to attract them to careers within aviation. Once they're there, there are opportunities for training. We talked earlier about training the inspectors for what they're doing. The auditing function is not necessarily an inspector's role. It's what they're doing today, but there are people who can audit and then have the inspectors do something else.

Maybe it's about role definition and bringing other folks into roles where they could do audit paperwork and audit programs, versus having inspectors doing that work and taking them away from the other valuable work they could be doing.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Certainly. On the training of inspectors, we've heard some really conflicting testimony to date on the importance of having inspectors both keeping up their flying time and actually doing their training in the air as opposed to in a simulator.

I'm curious as to what your view is about ensuring that the inspectors have the best quality training. Are we doing enough to actually get them in the plane to keep their skills sharp in different kinds of environments, whether it's weather, nighttime flying, or whatever else it might be?

[Steve Maybee]

I can't speak to the type of training they are getting flying-wise. I can talk to the expertise within airport operations and how it works on the ground.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

We can follow that up with another panel. That's fine.

Mr. Gow, I probably have a minute or two left. You have mentioned the passenger bill of rights and some of the benefits to having that kind of a system put into place. What are the essential factors to a passenger bill of rights, in your mind? How can we help inform the process to make sure we do it right?

[Harry Gow]

Well, there are many, and some of them are not in the safety area.

In the area of safety, there is the question of the right to have food and water during lengthy delays at airports, sitting on the tarmac waiting to either go back to the airport or to go somewhere.

There's the question of the vital space allowed to passengers, and there is some controversy in Canada and overseas over deep vein thrombosis. This is a condition that some allege may be caused by the very small seat pitches on some flights, and perhaps more commonly, on extremely long flights, if the passenger does not get up and move around.

The passenger, therefore, has some rights that are basic human rights, which may or may not be included in the code. The rest of the code will go on to such things as booking and overbooking, refunds, complaints about various matters, and so on. So it's a very vast thing, and only a portion of it bears down on the area of concern here today.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure. I feel like I might be in a position of conflict of interest if, at 6-foot, 7-inches, I recommend that we have larger seat spaces.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

With that recommendation, Mr. Fraser, your time is up.

The floor now belongs to Mr. Aubin.

You have six minutes.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here this morning and for sharing their expertise with us.

I must say that, since the beginning of this study on aviation safety, I have been feeling like a ping-pong ball. Two opposing views have been presented to us. On the one hand, Judge Moshansky is telling us that the situation is so critical as to warrant a public inquiry to shed light on this issue. On the other hand, Transport Canada is saying that safety has never been better and that, even with an increased number of flights, there are apparently fewer incidents.

In light of your earlier testimony, some of the elements seem questionable, even contradictory to me. For example, it was said that oversight or document verification by inspectors is as effective and produces the same outcome in terms of safety as if inspectors were carrying out an inspection on the ground. That's at least what I understood from one of Mr. Mahon's comments. It seems to me that those are two completely different types of inspections.

I will put my first question to Mr. Maybee. I will first establish the context. On August 17, 2016, Transport Canada implemented a policy whereby Canadian airports are no longer subject to a comprehensive assessment of the safety management system. Unless I am mistaken, airports will now be subject to partial inspections that the department refers to as “program validation inspections” or “process or procedure inspections”. So, instead of evaluating an airport's 10 most important activities, Transport Canada will evaluate sometimes one, or sometimes a few, but not all of the activities.

As you probably know, that decision was made and published in an internal process bulletin—in other words, without informing parliamentarians or the public of the decision. Were you aware of that Transport Canada directive at the time, Mr. Maybee?

[Steve Maybee]

No, I'm not fully aware of that directive. We haven't seen that. However, we still follow the SMS regulations, which have a time frame in them for our inspections and the inspections of Transport Canada. In the absence of Transport Canada's doing them, we hire third parties to do full audits of our airfields and our programs.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Your answer has coloured my second question, but I will put it to you anyway because I feel it is important.

Your organization represents 51 Canadian airports. Does Transport Canada consult you when it's time to implement procedures like this one?

[Steve Maybee]

Typically, we are consulted by Transport Canada. We have an excellent working relationship with the heads of Transport Canada in Ottawa, and we meet with them on a regular basis. In fact, we met with them recently and went through a number of files. When they come out with notices of proposed amendment, they typically run those past us for comment first. We have an ability to comment on suggestions around how to make it better, more efficient or effective, and we bounce those back and forth.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Mahon, I would like to get further clarifications on the equivalence you seem to see between a document inspection and inspections that used to be carried out by people who would go directly on the ground to examine the situation with their own eyes. How does that seem equivalent to you?

[Glenn Mahon]

As I said earlier, in the past Transport Canada would send in a team of subject matter experts. They would go physically into the airfield, boots on the ground, and conduct an inspection based on specific standards and regulations. They would identify deficiencies found, and those deficiencies would have to be addressed by the specific airport authority within a predetermined time frame.

With the implementation of SMS now, again, I don't see it as less oversight. I see it more as that the process has changed. With the implementation of SMS, which occurred over a four-year period, and significant consultation with Transport Canada, airports now conduct inspections and maintenance of their airfields on a daily basis. Throughout that process—a proactive process—they identify deficiencies and areas where corrective actions are needed, and that feeds through a specific process.

As Mr. Maybee mentioned, every three years the airport authority itself will have an independent auditor come in and audit our processes to make sure we're picking up on safety issues and concerns, hazards, and so on. Transport Canada really audits from the same perspective, the oversight of how those things are working internally.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

The majority of witnesses—I don't have the figures to show that it is indeed the majority of them, but that is what I would conclude based on the testimony we have heard so far—or definitely a good number of witnesses, say that SMS is a good system, but that it is incomplete. It is not enough to use only SMS, and I feel that this is the main issue.

Mr. Gow, do you have any comments on that?

[Harry Gow]

Absolutely. I spent several months helping the Institute for Research on Public Policy, here in Ottawa, carry out a study on the Lac-Mégantic accident. I do understand that this accident had to do with another sector—rail transportation. The principal investigator, Bruce Campbell, concluded that the existence of SMS is good, but that boots on the ground are also needed. In other words, on-site inspectors need to examine the railway's weaknesses.

When it comes to aviation safety, inspectors can see first-hand problems in the installation of certain screws, rivets and other parts, or the condition of the wiring in aircraft fuselage. So I think that SMS is a good tool, but that it is not adequate as the only tool. It should be supported by the presence of trained and seasoned inspectors—human beings.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Luc Berthold]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gow.

I now give the floor to Mr. Hardie, who has six minutes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

Mr. Gow, I'll start with you. We've heard before, and particularly in the study of rail safety and on a visit to my colleague's community of Lac-Mégantic, about the potential for gaps to exist in the SMS system versus what maybe had been happening in the past.

I'll ask you this, and also throw it open to the other two gentlemen. Have there ever been incidents where the audits show one thing and then a subsequent physical inspection shows a gap between what was reported on paperwork—not dishonestly—and what was actually going on in the facility itself? Are there any examples of this?

[Harry Gow]

I think we could say that in the ground sector, where I have done more recent work, that the Lac-Mégantic disaster was in part an example of the kind of thing you're talking about. SMS reports were filed. They were checked by auditors. Sometimes they went back and told people to pull up their socks at the Montreal Maine and Atlantic, and this was sometimes done and sometimes not. The “sometimes not” was in part because there was nobody going to see, on the ground, what was going on.

In the aircraft sector, I can recall a report that came out, I think, from the Transportation Safety Board over a decade ago, about minor airlines in central Canada—that is, operating out of the Winnipeg area and beyond—not doing enough inspections and keeping sloppy records. It's not quite an answer to your question, but the danger is there that the SMS report might be a little over-optimistic—gilding the lily—and it's possible that the inspectors or auditors reading it might not detect that. That was an instance where we could smell the gunpowder but we didn't see the explosion.