Transport Committee on March 12th, 2020

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

—recertified, I don't know where you get that information, but you clearly do not understand the process of certification and the technical challenges that are involved with it, and the complexities that are involved with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, do you think there should be systemic and formal changes to the international system of accreditation as a result of the Max 8 tragedies, and if so, what changes are you looking for?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I think we have all learned in the last year some very important lessons, and believe me, just within our department we have spent 8,000 hours as part of the process of understanding what happened and, at the same time, finding a fix for it.

As with all organizations, if you do not use the opportunity when something like this happens to improve your organization, then you are failing. I can tell you that at Transport Canada we're very aware of the fact that we have to look at ways to improve our validation process and, perhaps if I can put it in more colloquial terms, be a little more skeptical in the future as we approach these.

It has served us very well in the past, and Canada's record of air safety is really quite outstanding, but this is an opportunity for us to improve.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

More generally speaking, how do you respond to the criticisms that Transport Canada has been a victim of regulatory capture and that too much oversight has been delegated to the industry itself?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

In our case, if we're talking about the Max 8, I think the examples I gave to your colleague Mr. Sidhu indicate that we're very proactively contributing to this and to the fix that is happening.

As I mentioned, after the Lion Air incident occurred, we said that the airworthiness directive provided by the FAA was not sufficiently complete for us, and we modified it, which should be an indication that we do think independently with an eye on safety.

We worked with the three airlines. They agreed and trained to that. Of course, we never had any problems with that.

We make our own decisions at Transport Canada, so we're not captive of anybody else or any regulations.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

What is the aviation safety record in Canada? Can you provide statistics? Are there any trends that can be observed?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

It's a good record. We're talking about all aviation here. There are small airplanes, general aviation, as well as big airplanes.

In 2018, there were a total of 151 aviation accidents, down from 2017, when there were 190. That's a 29% decrease from the previous 10-year average of 214. There were 16 fatal accidents in 2018, which is down from the previous 10-year average of 24. In 2018, fatal accidents accounted for 25 fatalities, also down from a total of 27 and below the 10-year average of 44 fatalities.

The accident rate continues to go down. Most of those accidents, I hasten to add, are with small aircraft in general aviation. The accident rate for large commercial aircraft is one of the best in the world.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Perhaps, Minister, I can afford you some time, and I promise not to interrupt. I don't know if you want to respond to Mr. Doherty. I'm new to this committee, and I hope, going forward, that we don't see this on a continuing basis.

Would you or Mr. Turnbull like to respond to some of the allegations that have been raised by Mr. Doherty?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Unfortunately, Mr. Doherty has not quoted his sources. In fairness, I think I'm allowed to ask why he makes certain statements without providing the sources.

He is guilty, like some of the media who, unfortunately, do not do their homework properly, and in some cases put out stuff that is not backed up by actual facts.

I don't know if Mr. Turnbull would like to add to that.

[David Turnbull]

I would just like to add that—

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Sorry, Mr. Turnbull, but I have a point of order.

I thought this would be without interruption, Minister and Mr. Chair, but Mr. Doherty again is trying to talk over all of us when he doesn't like what's being said. That's inappropriate—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Without having an opportunity to—

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Turnbull, I apologize for interrupting.

[David Turnbull]

I think we need to understand that the regulations and standards that we use to certify aircraft.... There are very many of them; they're very complex and in many cases they're very subjective. It is very common for a validating authority to come along and ask a question. We dig into an issue, we get an answer and we don't quite understand it. We are not necessarily, at that point, finding fault or discovering something that was wrong.

Our aim is to seek an understanding and, in some cases when we do not understand, we reveal a difference of interpretation, perhaps to one of the existing rules or the advisory material that supports those rules. We have to make a decision. I make a decision each and every time, on every aircraft we approve, whether that disagreement on interpretation constitutes a safety concern or whether it is simply a different approach to the same problem.

What do we do if it's that? We take it outside the project, and we say that we don't want to keep arguing about the interpretation of this problem in the future when we validate the next aircraft. Therefore, in other fora we will come together, we will send our collective technical experts to various meetings to try to harmonize the approach and agree on a common approach so we don't effectively trip over these things again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

[David Turnbull]

That is how we migrate to a harmonized position.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Minister, even though Boeing had hidden the MCAS anti-collision system in its aviation manual and falsely claimed that it did not require additional training, your officials were aware of the new MCAS system. However, they decided not to test it during validation. In fact, they trusted the FAA. Furthermore, on February 25, when I asked them if it was a mistake not to have tested the MCAS, they said no.

Since 2018, Transport Canada has engaged in a new automatic accreditation process with the United States, Europe and Brazil. Despite all of the FAA issues we've just been talking about, when I asked your officials, they told me that they intend to move forward and continue this process.

I have two questions for you.

First, do you agree with your officials, and do you believe it was not a mistake for them not to test the MCAS?

Next, before considering a new common certification process, such as the one currently being considered, will Transport Canada ask the U.S. to end the ODA process, under which companies certify themselves and which ultimately results in no quality assurance?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I'd say two things.

First of all, we are all aware that not all the information on MCAS was provided to us. This was one of the important things that came out. It makes us realize that we're going to have to be very careful about this kind of thing when we do certification in the future, and we certainly will be.

In its relationship with Boeing, the FAA is rethinking—it's one of the things that was done at the Certification Management Committee—the way it delegated the task of doing the certification to certain people, which allowed Boeing to select the people.

In some cases, this has resulted in the emails you mentioned. Frankly, it was quite shocking to read those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Briefly, Minister, you spoke earlier about your understanding of the complexity of the certification process. I can assume that this has been an understanding you've had for some time as the minister, and with your previous experiences. Is that fair to say?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Yes, airplanes are very complicated.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'm thinking more about the certification system itself.