Transport Committee on May 18th, 2017

[Lucie Talbot, Director, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Good morning.

Transport Canada has a procedure to follow for doing surveillance of civil aviation companies. We have selected a certain number of companies to evaluate the extent of the surveillance performed by the department. We found that the department was not following the prescribed methodology. During the period when the department was supposed to be conducting surveillance, the number of companies examined by the department was insufficient.

The department also has a procedure to follow for carrying out its surveillance activities, for example, audits of safety management systems and inspections. The procedure to be followed is very detailed. It explains what elements are to be examined, what information about risks is to be collected, and what must be examined when an aviation company receives an inspection or audit visit. When we looked at the department's inspection records, we found that there were a lot of deficiencies in the application of the methodology. Inspectors and auditors were not following the methodology prescribed by the department sufficiently.

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

Thank you.

You actually answered my second question as well, so I'd like to give the rest of my time to Mr. Tootoo.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Tootoo, you have the floor.

[Hunter Tootoo, Independent, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Sikand.

Welcome, Mr. Ferguson. It's a pleasure to meet you and to work with you. I'm very pleased to see this report.

I've had the pleasure over quite a few years of working with your office, with Ms. Fraser and with Mr. Campbell, in your office's capacity as auditor for the Government of Nunavut. I've always enjoyed a good working relationship with your office.

You indicated that Transport Canada has well documented what these issues and challenges are for the north. Could you give an idea of how far back and what kind of documentation?

[Michael Ferguson]

Madam Chair, in the audit we recently issued, “Civil Aviation Infrastructure in the North”, we have an exhibit in there. We traced the timeline back to the transfer of smaller airports back in 1995. At that time, the federal government established the airports capital assistance program. Then in 1997 it increased the funding to the capital assistance program. As we move forward, there have been various studies done by territorial governments, Senate committees, standing committees, and others throughout the years, identifying some of the capital needs of these airports or some of the problems in the airports. It goes back easily well beyond 10 or 12 years, that type of thing, that these issues have been known.

[Hunter Tootoo, Independent, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you, Mr. Ferguson.

You also say that the department hasn't taken adequate leadership. We all know that the cost of doing anything in the north is much higher than it is in the south. It's almost three times the cost to do anything up there. You mentioned the airport capital assistance program as one vehicle to address some of these needs. If my understanding is correct, a lot of these smaller airports don't qualify for funding under that program. Is that something that has been pointed out as an issue?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll ask Mr. McKenzie to respond to that.

[James McKenzie, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Madam Chair, one of the issues in terms of eligibility really rests between whether an airport is registered or certified. Many of the airports that we looked at were eligible. They were certified. Some registered airports would be eligible on a case-by-case basis if they were close to becoming certified or if their project would allow them to become certified. In terms of the eligibility, that wasn't a major issue with respect to the program. Certainly from the work that Transport Canada has done recently to understand demands, it's more a question of the size of the demands versus the funding in the program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. McKenzie.

Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Chair, I have some questions for you.

I apologize to the witnesses, but it will take only 30 seconds.

You know that I will be in the chair for the last hour, so I would like some clarification on two questions, Madam Chair.

First, we had unanimously agreed to invite representatives from Aéroports de Montréal and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal for our study of aviation safety. I have had an opportunity to speak with representatives of Aéroports de Montréal. They told me that they were prepared to come here, but today's date did not work for them. However, they were interested in appearing. Is it possible to plan an additional meeting so we can hear from them? I think it would be useful, for the purposes of our study.

Second, I have learned from my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Finance that you had sent a letter concerning the response of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to Bill C-44. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy. In the letter, you stated that the members of our committee have until May 19, that is, tomorrow, to inform the Standing Committee on Finance of their recommendations. How do you want us to make recommendations to the Standing Committee on Finance if the members of this committee itself have not been informed that this possibility was open to them?

I would like some clarification on those two questions, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I think we made it quite clear that the finance committee in their letter to us said that any amendments or comments had to be provided to them by Friday the 19th, so you have until Friday the 19th. There was no indication that the committee was going to move any amendments when we had the meeting on Tuesday. We have until Friday to submit any of those amendments.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Is it possible for a copy of the letter from the Standing Committee on Finance to be distributed to the members of our committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, we'd be happy to do that.

The clerk tried to get the folks from Montreal. They were invited. I think we made that clear. They were unable, as you said, to come. We had agreed to seven meetings on aviation, and we've had seven and a half. We don't have the time for another meeting on aviation unless it's the desire of the committee to have another. There would need to be a motion from you asking for unanimous consent to do that.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Chair, the motion adopted provided for holding one or two additional meetings on airport safety, so we already have a motion that allows us to hold a second meeting to hear from representatives of Aéroports de Montréal and the Montreal police service. We do not need another motion. The motion was adopted by all members of the committee. It is very easy to make one last effort to organize a meeting with them, perhaps the first day we are back from the recess week. If that does not work, we can forget it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Are there any further comments?

Go ahead, Ms. Block.

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

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

I would just like to make one observation. In the past, with other studies when witnesses were not able to attend on the dates we had set aside for a study, we worked very hard to accommodate them later on in the calendar. The study was really important at the time, and once we had finished listening to the witnesses who could attend within that time frame, we set the study aside and we waited until we could hear from other witnesses.

If we were willing to do that, for example, with the Navigation Protection Act for certain witnesses who wanted to provide testimony but couldn't be here during the exact time we were holding the study, I think we should be willing to do the same in this circumstance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We don't have a motion on the floor, but the suggestion is that we add another full meeting or half a meeting to the aviation study.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Sorry, to do what? Please repeat that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We had a motion that was for one additional meeting and we had that. There is no—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

No, the motion was for one or two, not just one, so we have the motion and we have all the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It was an informal agreement that we would have.... I don't want us to waste a lot of our time trying to decide this.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

No, neither do I.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I certainly have no concerns with adding another hour, if we're able to accommodate that, if it's the wish of the committee, but it has to be agreed by everyone—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

That's okay; one hour is okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

—that we would add one more hour onto our aviation study so that we have an opportunity to have the Montreal folks come to speak to it.

What is the wish of the committee? Is everybody in favour of adding an extra hour onto the aviation study? Do we have unanimous consent to add on an extra hour?

Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.