Transport Committee on May 18th, 2017

[Michael Ferguson]

Yes, we mentioned that this system for surveillance of practices in these organizations was really important, to guarantee safety. In fact, that is the main reason why we did the audit. So I can say that there is a connection between Transport Canada implementing the system for surveillance of these practices and the results of the system as a whole.

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

Would your conclusion be the same on another aspect that much has been said about, which is training?

Your office has done two audits of Transport Canada's aviation safety surveillance program, in 2008 and in 2012. In 2016, Transport Canada's internal auditors noted that the lack of training for aviation inspectors was a weakness that your audit had identified in the past and that the department had not yet corrected or addressed.

Could you explain how the lack of training for inspectors, or at least insufficient training, involves a risk for aviation safety?

[Michael Ferguson]

Of course, training for employees who have specific duties is very important. We determined here that some training was necessary for the people in certain positions. It is therefore important that training be taken by all members of personnel who are assigned to those types of duties.

In this type of program, the department draws up a list of the training that it is important for employees to take in order to do their work. It is very important that the department ensure that all employees receive all the necessary training.

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

I have a third question, also relating to the audit of civil aviation surveillance done in 2012 and the one on railway safety done in 2013.

You said that Transport Canada did not have the information it needed in order for the department to make sure that airline and railway companies comply with the regulations.

We have heard testimony in the course of this study telling us that Transport Canada did not always know whether the air operators that it supervised were complying with Canadian aviation regulations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Aubin, I'm sorry to interrupt, but your time is up.

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

Is that right? It was too short. Maybe we will have a second round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You always manage to get in an extra 30 seconds.

Mr. Hardie, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the work that the Auditor General's department does. I wanted to read into the record some information from the assistant deputy minister of safety and security at Transport Canada.

According to ICAO's universal safety oversight audit program, Canada is currently ranked fourth best in the world, a score of 95.28%, as opposed to 64.71% for the average across the world. I mention that simply because some of the testimony we've heard has been quite alarmist. I also think there's a whiff of enlightened self-interest in some of the stuff we have heard, because certain people would like certain things to be happening on behalf of their membership, or whatever.

When it comes to the whole issue of safety and security, to use a commonly used phrase these days, better is always possible. In that regard, if we look back at some of the work you have done and the recommendations or observations you've made, I want to bring up something about security.

We had a discussion here on screening for staff that have access to high-security areas. This may not be something that you've had an opportunity to look into, but some information came my way that there's a scan of 80,000 people per day to see if there are any hits, any new flags that have to be paid attention to.

I'm wondering if, in some of your past work, perhaps for other reasons, you came across information that CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, is currently 14 months behind on entering incidents into their system. That isn't very helpful if you're looking at this as a flag for possible security issues at our airports. Were you aware of this, sir?

[Michael Ferguson]

That issue has come up a few times in the audits that we have done of corrections services. Having some of that type of information is important when somebody shows up at the door of a federal penitentiary and they have to identify at what level of security to put the individual. One of the things that corrections services needs is a history of that particular individual, and lots of times they're not able to get that.

I don't believe it's an issue that has come up in any of the work we've done in terms of transport, but the inability to get access to that type of information on a timely basis certainly has been an issue that has come up in our audits of corrections services.

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

It was cited that staff cutbacks to save a few dollars were really behind this. I haven't confirmed that, but it is something worth examining.

SMS, safety management systems, are something that have come up quite often in our discussions. The balance between basically auditing company paperwork and actual feet on the ground inspections seems to, again, be focused on.... What were your observations with respect to that balance?

[Michael Ferguson]

When you look at these types of systems...and I think it relates very much to exactly the type of work that we do. We do audits. When we do audits, lots of times what we do is look at systems. Obviously, when you're dealing with safety systems related to aviation and that sort of thing, making sure that those systems work properly is extremely important.

In this type of work, one of the main things that needs to be done is making sure that the system is properly designed, and then the system executes the way it should execute. Part of making sure that a system executes is doing some on the ground testing. That can be part of auditing, but fundamentally, the way that audits tend to work is to look at systems to determine whether the systems are reliable and are operating the way they are supposed to operate.

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

What were your conclusions after examining this aspect?

[Michael Ferguson]

We could go into a number of the details, but we found that they didn't do all of the audits they had planned to do, and that type of thing. At the time—and remember, we issued this report in 2012—there was still a lot of work that the Department of Transport needed to do to make sure that they were doing all of those audits of the safety management systems of the companies the right way, in the right quantity, and within the right time frame.

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

At this point, I'd like to share a bit of time with my colleague Mr. Iacono. Do we have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 45 seconds.

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

You have 45 seconds.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I will let you respond to the question by Mr. Aubin in that time frame.

[A voice]

What was it?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[A voice]

I would, but I have forgotten it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

We will come back to that later. It would need 30 seconds for that alone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Sikand.

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

After my two questions, I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Tootoo.

In regard to your comments in paragraph 10, you identify that Transport Canada doesn't follow its own methodology. Could you perhaps elaborate on what its methodology is?

[Michael Ferguson]

That was, I guess, related to the planning of the inspection files.

Actually, I'm going to ask Ms. Talbot to give us some details about the planning and the execution of the inspections.