Evidence of meeting #130 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you, Mr. Cane.
Thank you, Mr. Vis.
Next, we'll go to Mr. Hanley.
Mr. Hanley, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes, please.
Liberal
Brendan Hanley Liberal Yukon, YT
Mr. Cane, you're still in the hot seat. I'll actually carry on with the same theme.
Liberal
Brendan Hanley Liberal Yukon, YT
This is really about safety, I guess. Sometimes safety is put forward as an absolute. I think you and I might agree that safety is not always an absolute. It really involves a balancing of risks and—
Liberal
Brendan Hanley Liberal Yukon, YT
—certainly as it applies to flight duty hours, you've explained a bit about how that plays out in the northern reality when a pilot times out. Due to a shortage of pilots, it might mean, say, a less experienced pilot in a more risky situation. I think that understanding is important.
Plus, there's the pace of regulatory changes. You alluded to this. A lot has come at you in a short time. I wondered whether maybe in the remaining minute and a half you could reflect on how this could be improved, even as we.... You've mentioned that you're actually facing new regulations coming down the pipeline. What is the change that we could actually apply right now and in the coming months to make it more realistic for northern operators?
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Summit Air Ltd.
I don't mean to make assumptions about our regulator, but it seems to me there's a mandate within the regulatory body to make a regulation change. The consultation process used to be this: “Let's talk to the SMEs in the industry and get their perspective.” That consultation was taken to heart and considered, and changes to the proposed regulations were made.
The regulator was also steeped in a great deal of operational experience across all regions and in Ottawa. We've seen a decrease based on some cutbacks at Transport Canada. We've seen a decrease in skilled operational personnel working at Transport Canada and an influx of a more political bent to drive regulatory change.
What we need to see, as a country, is a regulator that is driven to consult not as a box-ticking exercise but to get it right across Canada, from coast to coast to coast, including the north. It's a very stark difference. An approach ban is coming out. In some Arctic communities—because of their lack of airport infrastructure, lighting and approaches—this will decrease their service markedly, in a big way. I'm including medevac travel and food transportation in that. It's going to have a big effect. With what we saw with flight duty, and with the lack of meaningful consultation, we're all very scared, as operators. This is going to march down the same path.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Cane.
Thank you, Mr. Hanley.
Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cane, your comments remind me of a conversation I had with a small carrier. According to the airline, it kept its pilots for six months, on average, before they were recruited by a larger airline. He didn't see how he could recruit enough pilots to be able to maintain service. The only solution was to reduce the service offered, that is to say to reduce the number of flights. He was unable to provide the desired level of service because of the new rules and the current pilot shortage.
My question is about regulations.
Generally speaking, we understand that everyone wants the best possible safety. When it comes to enforcing regulations, is the need to distinguish between small and large carriers understood?
Do you have any examples of rules that are not exactly the same for small carriers as for large ones, or are the same rules generally applied, regardless of the size of the company?
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Summit Air Ltd.
Similar regulations are applied, though there are some lines in the sand. There are three different categories of airline in Canada: air taxi, which is a small aircraft with fewer than nine seats; commuter, which has 19 or fewer seats; and airline, which is everything above. In terms of what's required to fly an airplane, the regulations are very similar for all three categories.
Yes, the example of that small airline keeping their pilots for six months is a thing. That's real. I'm happy to say that Summit Air is probably one of the middle sharks. We're not the tiny fish at the bottom. That's a smaller airline. We get pilots from the very small airlines. Then, ultimately, Air Canada and WestJet steal the pilots from us, because pilots tend to chase bigger aircraft. Let's face it: A lot of our pilots come from the denser population centres of Canada, because that's just where the population is. They want to return there.
One of the initiatives we're undertaking is promoting, training and retaining a northern pilot workforce and a northern mechanic workforce. Anything that can be done at a political level as far as incenting that would be much appreciated. We feel that's the solution to recruiting and retaining a workforce.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.
Finally, today, we have Mr. Bachrach.
Mr. Bachrach, you have two and a half minutes, sir.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm interested in this flight duty regulation issue.
The federal government has the Transportation Safety Board, which is an arm's-length organization that makes recommendations based on safety. The board identified fatigue as one of the key issues on the watch list. I believe, in 2018, it was expanded to the air sector. We've certainly talked about it in the context of the rail sector a fair bit.
My question for Mr. Cane is this: If Transport Canada had done more extensive consultations—which you indicated would have been preferable—what kind of approach would you prefer to use in order to achieve the same goal of stepping up safety, without resulting in that 10-page or 15-page document you referenced earlier around flight duty regulations?
Senior Vice-President, Operations, Summit Air Ltd.
That's a completely valid question. Please don't take this as a glib answer, but we provided that feedback at least six or seven times to our regulator.
In a nutshell, we provided areas that were causing.... Let me give you an example. A pilot comes back from a duty mission, and because he or she is free from duty one minute after this hour, it requires a complete four-hour extra reset the following day. The regulations are rife with details like that.
We just proposed alternative means to kind of achieve fatigue balance and measure, and a lot of them were summarily ignored. We were kind of branded as not wanting change and as being worried about the bottom line of our airline. That wasn't the case. We embraced wholeheartedly the requirement for change.
I do want to say that there have been some things on the TSB watch list for the better part of a decade that have still not been actioned. As far as the timeline of items on the watch list, fatigue has a relatively short one if you look at when it actually first got added to the watch list, which was, incidentally, based on a solitary event perpetrated by Air Canada in San Francisco, it seems. There isn't a long history of this being an issue.
However, I don't want to get into that. What we want to say here about these regulations is that this ship has sailed. As an association and as operators, we are eager to make sure that this same box-checking exercise of consultation and the lack of understanding of the impact on the north does not occur with future regulatory changes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Cane.
Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.
On behalf of all members of this committee, I want to thank our witnesses for generously giving us their time today.
With that, this meeting is adjourned. Have a great evening, everyone.