Debates of Nov. 7th, 2006

Aeronautics Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. First of all, from talking to some folks in Atlantic Canada, I know that they are sort of happy he has moved on to the Department of Finance so that he is not quite so in their face all the time.

Let me also say that, as I said at the outset, I have nothing against Brian Crowley. I know him quite well, at least from 30 years ago, and I think he is a fine person. He has a lot wonderful credentials that I do not dispute and think are important.

What I disagree with are his ideological bent and his public policy leanings, which I think are hurtful and harmful to the future of this country. For example, on health care, Mr. Brian Crowley has taken a very strong position of being against universally accessible, publicly administered, not for profit health care and in fact has been one of the major advocates of a parallel private health care system.

Dr. Brian Crowley has also very recently been in the news for taking his very strong position against equal pay for work of equal value. Here we are, on the very day that we are debating the report by the status of women committee, which is asking for the implementation, finally, of a report that was undertaken by the Liberals and then allowed to gather dust. It is asking that to be implemented to ensure that the notion of pay equity is recognized, acknowledged, supported and put into law, entrenched into all aspects of decision making, so that women are finally paid what they are worth.

Since when does it make public policy sense or good economic sense to pay women 60¢ for every $1 that a man makes for doing roughly comparable equal work? These are the kinds of issues that cause me and many others grave concern when we hear about the likes of Dr. Brian Crowley being appointed into the Department of Finance, directly into the bureaucracy where he will have enormous influence over future decisions that will shape the department to take a certain direction long after these Conservatives are defeated and gone from office.

It is an insidious way of accomplishing one's objectives without actually being up front, open, honest and accountable to the people of Canada. He is not there because he achieved a certain competition. He is not there because of a particular expertise that the minister needs in terms of fiscal planning, let us say. It is just like the fact that we saw a person who is totally opposed to climate change appointed to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. We are seeing the same thing happen on numerous fronts, causing, of course, this true portrayal, this true position of the Conservatives, to come to light and reveal to Canadians exactly where they stand, and that is with a set of values that are contrary to those of most Canadians in the country today.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I thank the member from Winnipeg North for her intervention on Bill C-6, I want to remind her that it was on Bill C-6 that she stood to read somebody else's speech and then segued into finance and a number of other areas, doing a fine job as a parliamentarian and not answering any questions.

As a warm and fuzzy Conservative, or an alien, because I do not remember what she called me, I do have a question. She talked about accountability and an open and due process and how the bill has been in front of the House and the Senate numerous times.

What does she think about the committee process that Parliament has had for many years? In regard to those amendments, she finally got to at least one of them. I am not sure if she said there were three. I only heard about one. Does she not think that at least those amendments could be dealt with at committee? They may or may not be approved, but is it not an open and accountable process that Parliament always has had? Why is she not in favour of getting this to committee?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I hold out hope that through the committee process we will be able to do the proper amendments to eliminate the serious flaws in the bill.

For the member's information, and since he obviously was not listening, I listed three areas that need amendments. I will repeat them. They are: new safety management systems, and I talked at some length about the problems there; immunity from prosecution for airlines that violate safety rules under certain conditions; and heightened secrecy and less access to information on the safety performance of airlines.

Those are the three areas that I said have to be addressed in terms of amendments. Obviously we had hoped that since this was a flawed bill to begin with we would have seen some of these issues dealt with. I thought the Conservatives understood this when the Liberals brought forward this bill in the last Parliament. We are disappointed. We will be working hard to continue to raise these issues.

I want to be clear that we cannot support a bill that is so flawed. The whole process around the bill constitutes an abuse of the supremacy of Parliament. The substance of the bill causes deep concerns. We have major issues with respect to Bill C-6 and the process around it. We will work hard to improve the bill, but obviously we will not take a two-faced position and give support now when we are so deeply concerned about it.

If the member has the support to get this bill to committee, we will debate it there and we will try to improve it. I just hope that he and a majority of members on the committee are willing to take these amendments seriously and improve the bill.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I saw a report in a newspaper regarding airline safety. It referenced the Air France crash of last year. One of the things it spoke about was the crew on that flight. One of the things that happens to people when they are in their seats and are so used to having a seat belt on is that they forget to push a button. In the shock of the situation, they do not lift the lever and that is why so many people who are in a fatal crash are found in their seats.

To my mind, what we are talking about is the deregulation of the safety aspects of the airline industry. At least two years ago, Bill S-33 was denied in the Senate and then Bill C-62 died on the order paper because there was no will to move it along.

On the immunity to prosecution, does the hon. member not think it would be better if the bill just died?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member has 20 seconds to reply.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to agree with my esteemed colleague from Hamilton. If the bill is so flawed that it cannot be overhauled in a major way and if the committee process does not give serious attention to major amendments, it ought to be shelved.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak on this subject.

The proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act will help to improve the safety of Canada's military aviation system. In order to fully appreciate the need for the proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act, a brief explanation of this flight safety program would be beneficial.

Unfortunately, aircraft accidents have been part of aviation since its inception. This was highlighted during the first world war. In the Canadian air training system alone, there were 56 accidents involving 48 fatalities between April 1917 and May 1918. In those days, flight safety was a secondary consideration. The prime focus of the organization was to complete the mission at all costs.

This attitude prevailed during the interwar years and the early stages of World War II, but as the war progressed, the air force determined that aircraft losses due to accidents equalled or exceeded operational losses. It became obvious that Canada could not continue to sustain this high accident rate and that some standards and measures of safety had to be created. Accordingly, in 1942 the Royal Canadian Air Force Aircraft Accident Investigation Board was formed.

It is interesting for me to speak in the House on this subject. During the war, my dad was in the air force and was stationed in southern Alberta. Southern Alberta is one of the areas that pilots trained in because the terrain was very similar to that of France, so these air force training facilities are scattered throughout southern Alberta. My dad was on the force that recovered and salvaged damaged airplanes. The one comment I remember him making was that he was surprised we were able to have any planes at all in theatre, what with the number of planes being damaged here in Canada.

One of the prized possessions I have in my home is the centre part of a propeller off one of these airplanes. I believe it was an Anson. It is just the centre part because the blades were broken off and buried in the ground. I have the brass bolts that held the propeller on and just the centre part. I prize it very much. However, for me to be speaking on aircraft safety some 60 years later and referring to what happened during the war is possibly more than just ironic.

The mandate of this board was to reduce non-operational losses through the investigation of aircraft accidents. That was a very tall order. Unfortunately, not much progress was made in accident prevention prior to the end of the war.

During demobilization following the second world war, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board was downsized and eventually, in the early 1950s, renamed the Directorate of Flight Safety. This small directorate was overwhelmed by the rapid expansion of the Royal Canadian Air Force in the early 1950s as a result of the Korean conflict and the cold war.

Once again the concept of flight safety apparently took a back seat to completing the mission, as the air force suffered 405 fatalities and lost 476 aircraft in accidents between 1953 and 1957. This loss rate could not be sustained, so in 1957 the chief of the air staff directed that the development of an effective flight safety program receive the highest priority.

One of the first steps taken was to employ carefully selected pilots and engineers with specialized training for the investigation of aircraft accidents. The mandate of these investigators was to find the true cause of accidents so that effective corrective measures could be identified and implemented. Accident investigators were no longer required to assign blame.

Over the next 10 years, this new approach to flight safety resulted in a gradual reduction in the losses of both personnel and aircraft. By the early 1970s, a formal comprehensive flight safety program was developed and the Manual of Flight Safety for the Canadian Forces was published.

The objective of the flight safety program continues to be the prevention of the accidental loss of aviation resources. Today, this program consists of three basic elements: analysis, education and promotion. Let me explain each of these.

The first, analysis, involves the investigation of aircraft occurrences and the analysis of information derived from those investigations. The program is designed to foster a culture of free and open reporting as well as voluntary acknowledgement of errors and omissions.

All personnel associated with air operations are encouraged to report all hazards and potential hazards to the safety of the operation. This includes the reporting of occurrences where there were no injuries to personnel and no damage to equipment, but there was potential for loss.

In the current system, each flight safety occurrence is recorded and, if necessary, investigated. The occurrence information is also entered into a database of the flight safety occurrence management system for analysis. Approximately 2,500 to 3,000 occurrences are recorded annually in this database.

In order to foster voluntary reporting, a long-standing policy of treating information provided to the flight safety system as privileged has been in place. This means that the information provided by personnel to the flight safety program would not be used for administrative, disciplinary or legal purposes.

This is a critical component of the Canadian Forces flight safety program. By not assigning blame, personnel are encouraged to admit their mistakes, allowing others to learn from their mistakes. This gives investigators a much better opportunity to determine what exactly happened during an occurrence, since there is no need to hide anything.

The second element, education, involves the formal training of flight safety specialists. These specialists are then employed as flight safety advisers to commanders at various levels in the chain of command. These advisers work directly for the commander and have direct access to the commander on flight safety matters.

The third element, promotion, involves raising awareness of the flight safety program with the military and civilian personnel who conduct or support flying operations in training. This is done through a system of regular briefings, posters and pamphlets, such as Flight Comment, an illustrative flight safety magazine that is published four times a year and distributed to all Canadian Forces units. A testament to the quality of this magazine is that over 40 countries have requested that they regularly be provided with copies of this publication.

Over the years, our military personnel have grown to trust the flight safety program and it has now become part of the air force culture. This program is very effective and has gained a reputation as one of the best in the world.

The military flight safety program is administered by a network of trained flight safety specialists who are an integral part of each flying unit, as well as each unit involved in the support of aircraft operations.

Unit flight safety staff are assisted by wing flight safety personnel, who are normally employed full time in running the wing flight safety program. A full time staff of six personnel supports the flight safety program of the Commander of the 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This staff is also responsible for conducting the basic and advanced flight safety courses that are used to train flight safety specialists. The 1 Canadian Air Division flight safety staff also regularly conducts flight safety surveys at the wings and units.

At National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, the director of flight safety has a staff of 21 personnel who administer the flight safety program on behalf of the Chief of the Air Staff. Their activities include the oversight of the flight safety promotions program, the management of the flight safety occurrence database and associated software, and the analysis of trends and the information contained in the database.

The director of flight safety is also the Airworthiness Investigative Authority for the Minister of National Defence. As such, 12 members of his staff receive specialized aircraft accident investigator training from accredited international accident investigation training establishments. This training is exactly the same as that undertaken by the Transportation Safety Board air accident investigators and other aviation investigation organizations.

These military investigators are responsible for preparing the final reports on all investigations for the Airworthiness Investigative Authority's approval.

Canada has a robust military flight safety program, however, circumstances change and the Canadian Forces flight safety program must continue to evolve.

Bill C-6 would help the Canadian Forces adapt to a recent change, including the involvement of far more civilian contractors in the conduct and support of air operations. This change has resulted in a gap in the current authorities for Canadian Forces flight safety investigators when they are dealing with civilian contractors. As the minister noted, Bill C-6 would close this gap.

In order to allow the Canadian flight safety program to continue to meet its objective of maintaining a safe workplace for our military and civilian personnel who are conducting their operations, it is important that they have all the tools needed to do this important job.

The proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act will give them those tools and ensure that the critical objectives for the flight safety program are met.

The Canadian Forces has made a significant investment in the flight safety program over the last 60 years. This investment is critical as our military cannot afford to lose personnel and equipment due to aircraft accidents. In addition, this investment has paid off as it has been a key factor in reducing the aircraft loss rates of the 1950s to the low levels that we see today.

The Canadian Forces maintains a cadre of highly trained accident investigators to ensure that the causes of aircraft accidents can be quickly determined and the appropriate safety measures put in place to eliminate or reduce the risk of recurrence.

The proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act will help this excellent program adapt to changing times and ensure that the flight safety program continues to be as effective as it has been in the past.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a little baffled. How can he possibly feel that added immunity from prosecution for airlines that violate certain safety rules under certain conditions, or heightened secrecy with less access to the information on the safety and performance of airlines, which have been endemic in Bill S-33, Bill C-62 and now in Bill C-6, make airlines safer?

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of his question. I believe the amendments put forward in this act, whether civilian or military, to do with aeronautic safety will make things safer.

As I have outlined in my presentation, through the evolution of the aircraft industry and the growth of aircraft operations in the world, we have had to adjust as government to this reality. I believe the process and the evolution of these programs over a period of time has helped to create safety in the aircraft industry and aeronautics in general.

The member's question is somewhat misplaced, if we look at the record. Over the period of time, and if we go back for 60 years and more forward, we have seen marked improvement in aeronautic safety.

I believe Bill C-6 would fill some gaps, allowing further safety measures to be implemented. I look forward to the bill being put into law because the safety of all Canadians, not only our military personnel as I indicated in my presentation, is critical to this government.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following this debate with some interest. I know there were been wide-ranging consultations as the bill was in development. I remind the House of some of the stakeholders. They include the Air Transport Association of Canada, the Canadian Airports Council, NAV CANADA, the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, the Airline Pilots Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Airline Division. As members in the House know, the Department of National Defence is co-sponsoring the bill.

Has my colleague from Lethbridge taken, in anyway, the concerns of CUPE to heart? Could he speak to those and let me know how his government attempts to address those very real concerns that have been put before the House?

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that my intervention today is concerned with issues facing the air force and our military personnel. I am not aware of the issues that CUPE might have brought forward. However, I indicated in my presentation that one of the gaps we found was that some of this work was being performed by contractors. Possibly this is a concern that some have as far as unions and such go.

Overall, whether it is interventions by CUPE or the other organizations that have put forward the recommendations and suggestions to the government, the end focus of the bill is to improve the safety of our airline industry and our aircraft in general.

I will take the point the member makes that there were interventions from many sources to deal with many angles of the industry. However, the scope of Bill C-6 is to ultimately make our industry safer for all Canadians, not only our people in the air force and in our national defence and military.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let me ask my hon. colleague from the Conservative Party about the issue I raised in my speech, for which I have yet to receive a satisfactory response. It has to do with the actual changes that were made by Transport Canada, even though there is no legislative authority for such changes.

Specifically, I refer to the fact that Transport Canada has already transferred the actual operation of the regulatory regime entirely to the private sector for certain classes of air operators. It seems to me that this is exactly what is entailed in part of the bill before us. The bill gives that authority for delegation of authority.

How is it possible for that to have happened already? How did that transfer occur in March of 2005? What other changes are being planned along the same lines? Is the member satisfied that the public's interests and questions about public safety will be protected, when rule-setting is now being transferred to private bodies, away from government and outside the parameters of parliamentary checks and balances?

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, being members of Parliament, there is legislation plus there is regulation involved in most bills that come forward. If there have been some regulatory changes, they would have been made under the guidance of overriding legislation.

On the issue of parliamentary oversight, we take very seriously the safety of Canadians as they travel back and forth across Canada and around the world. Whether it is a service provided by a private sector or through the public, there is legislation that governs the regulation, that provides the incentive to improve the system is how a lot of the system works.

The fact that we are today debating a bill dealing with aeronautical safety proves my point. The government is aware of the issues that are there. We realize some of it is dealt through regulation, some through legislation. The process that we are going through today on Bill C-6 is the legal aspect of preparing legislation that will govern the industry.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues today in speaking in opposition to Bill C-6.

As others have said earlier, the bill constitutes an extensive rewriting of the Aeronautics Act. It is a bill that was introduced by the previous government but had not been passed into law. Nevertheless, key pieces of this proposed legislation had been put in place under the direction of the former transport minister. We believe that these changes should be dealt with in Parliament by members elected to consider new legislation.

The issues dealt with in Bill C-6, which would amend the Aeronautics Act, are very broad: a new purpose clause; new safety management systems; immunity from prosecution for airlines that violate safety rules under certain conditions; heightened secrecy and less access to information on the safety performance of airlines; designation of private industry bodies to self-regulate their safety activities; new employee reporting procedures for hazards and risks; revamped enforcement mechanisms; new levels of fines; new administrative penalties; new airport zoning and land use rules; new procedures for investigations; permission for the operation of fractional ownership aircraft in Canada; abuse of exemptions procedure; changes to the procedures for review of ministerial decisions and actions; and a host of technical issues are dealt with in the bill.

We have identified, through our analysis, a number of problems with Bill C-6 in some key areas that I will now review. The first area concerns the safety management systems. This seeks to give authority to the governor in council to establish and implement management systems, better known as safety management systems or SMS. This is the heart of the change to the Aeronautics Act that will affect the safety of the travelling public and of crew members.

A number of airline crew members who live in my riding have contacted me in the past out of concern, for example, about increasing the ratio of crew members to passengers. They are concerned with their own safety and the public welfare, as they are trained to be.

We know that the SMS process is well underway, quarterbacked by Transport Canada's director general of Civil Aviation. Some of these regulations have already been passed by the Canada Gazette. They were then exempted the same day by Transport Canada officials and replaced with a three year implementation plan for safety management systems, even before Parliament had the opportunity to debate, much less approve, this new enabling legislation. They are now near the end of the first year of the SMS implementation.

What is this new system? It is supposed to be a management system that allows air operators to improve their safety levels by building on existing safety regulations. While Transport Canada insists that SMS is not a deregulation of safety, that is precisely what it is in two ways. First, it is a new role for the regulator with increased delegation of previously performed Transport Canada duties to the airlines themselves. We are talking about self-regulation as opposed to government regulation. It is a transfer of the determination of appropriate “risk levels” from Transport Canada to the airlines or from the public interest to a determination in the interests of private shareholders.

Transport Canada embraced SMS as a result of anticipated budget cuts even before the May 2 budget. Transport Canada officials have openly stated that the current safety framework is not sustainable due to a lack of technical personnel in the industry in the future.

Given the anticipated rate of inspector retirements, which is at the rate of about 40% over the next five years, this will mean a shortage of qualified personnel to oversee the current system.

Budget constraints are expected to continue for the foreseeable future in an era of what is called fewer regulatory resources. These resources are the inspectors enforcing the regulations that determine the safety of the travelling public, not to mention the crew members working in the industry.

Internal budget documents indicate flatline resources for Transport Canada aviation for the next two years, with a more than 5% cut beginning in 2008. However, Transport Canada has refused to provide internal documents to one of the unions involved, CUPE.

SMS is Transport Canada's way to cut its coat to fit a quite limited financial cloth. As a result, there will be a shifting relationship between airlines and Transport Canada. An assistant deputy manager for safety and security was quoted in an aviation magazine saying:

There must (be) a willingness on the part of the regulator to step back from involvement in the day-to-day activities of the company in favour of allowing organizations to manage their activities and related hazards and risks themselves.

This was done through SMS regulations, where the determination of the level of safety has been explicitly transferred to the air operators who will decide how to manage the risks, including the level of risk they are willing to accept in their operations and impose on air travellers and their employees. Under SMS, it will be the airlines that decide safety levels for the traveling public.

The head of Air Canada will now be safeguarding the public interest. Air Canada's bottom line will be the factor in setting safety levels for that airline. Transport Canada staff admitted, as late as last December, that such a redefinition of the role of the minister raises legal questions about the government's responsibility and liability for future system failures. It is also a naive and dangerous change in the relationship between Transport Canada and the airline industry.

Maintaining adequate safety costs money and the public counts on government regulations and the enforcement of those regulations to ensure their safety. However, SMS will foster a tendency to cut corners in the name of efficiencies in a very competitive aviation market wracked by high fuel prices. Today wine bottles are being abandoned to lessen aircraft weight and save a few litres of very expensive jet fuel.

What will happen to safety when the need to save money and make profits is paramount? Leaving enlightened business to manage themselves properly will not mean that safety will take care of itself. How will the public interest be protected under SMS? If anything, there will be increased reliance on time-consuming and costly lawsuits to deal with inevitable system failures initiated by the victims of surviving families of these breakdowns. We simply cannot let this happen.

Transport Canada officials have candidly admitted that some U.S. federal aviation administration officials have said that Canadians are giving away the store with SMS.

I would like to say a few words now about the delegation of rules-setting to private bodies. This is found in the bill's clause 12, specifically the new proposed subsections 5.31 through 5.38. SMS is supposed to enhance aviation safety because it builds on a robust set of minimum standards set by Transport Canada in the public interest.

In its various public and private statements, Transport Canada has been evasive on the future of the level of basic regulation it will maintain in the future. However, actions speak louder than words. Transport Canada has already transferred the actual operation of its regulatory regime entirely to the private sector for certain classes of air operators. It has done so even though new proposed subsection 5.31 of clause 12 of this bill has yet to be passed authorizing such a delegation to organizations. This transfer occurred for business aircraft in March 2005. Who is next?

Transport Canada is now openly speaking about doing the same for commercial operators, most recently at the Canadian aviation safety seminar in Halifax last April. The foxes will be running their own hen houses and it is up to us as parliamentarians to represent the public interest, the interest of Canadians and blow the whistle on this. We cannot let this happen.

We know the government has a very narrow view of the rule of government but we cannot play around with the safety of the travelling public.

The concept of management systems is not defined in Bill C-6. Rather, the key definitions of safety management systems and accountable executives and the basic elements of SMS are confined entirely to the already enacted regulations. While safety management systems exist already in Canada in railway security, Nav Canada and in other countries, not all SMS are created equal.

Key deficiencies in the current aviation version of safety management systems include: under intense industry pressure, the personal liability of the accountable industry for the proper functioning of the SMS has not been added to the Aeronautics Act; the definition of SMS contains only a vague purpose, which is “to ensure aviation safety or the safety of the public”, rather than a specific and achievable performance objective, such as, to reduce risks to the lowest level reasonably practicable; an emphasis on managing risks, rather than eliminating, controlling or minimizing them; the absence of clear and measurable requirements for continuous improvement in the SMS itself; the disappearance of a promised regulatory provision to ensure the effective involvement of employees and their unions in the development, implementation and operation of SMS; established minimum elements to be part of SMS's safety policy, including adherence to minimum legal and regulatory requirements; and, poorly defined risk matrices that have more to do with technical engineering standards than human failures of the costs of human injury.

The biggest failing of Transport Canada's SMS is that it has not been empirically validated against the actual track records of similar SMS where they have performed poorly, failed or missed their objectives.

I would like to speak briefly about the encroachment of SMS on part II of the Canada Labour Code, which addresses occupational health and safety for workers in the federal jurisdiction.

As “notwithstanding any other act of Parliament” legislation, part II of the code has exclusive authority to deal with occupational health and safety for these workers.

Flight attendants and pilots were added to the scope of part II in 1986 as an aviation extended jurisdiction shared between Transport Canada and the labour program of what is now HRSDC. Part II of the code provides a series of important rights. It provides the right for working people to know workplace hazards. It has a hierarchy of proactive measures to deal with such hazards, such as, eliminate, control, minimize and self-protect. It gives workers the right to refuse unsafe work and the right to participate, including in joint employee-employer investigations and inspections.

The introduction of SMS has emboldened employers to try to turn the clock back before 1986 for flight attendants. Safety data available by law to joint occupational health and safety committees are now being routinely denied by air operators as part of the new SMS confidentiality mentality.

Employee occupational health and safety representatives are being excluded routinely from legally mandated joint occupational health and safety investigations in favour of management only SMS investigations. Managers are applying risk indices to determine if corrective action should be taken on health and safety issues contrary to the precautionary principle found in sections 122.1 and 122.2 of the Canada Labour Code.

Air operators such as Air Canada and Air Transat are openly disregarding a joint Transport Canada-HRSDC interpretation document on SMS by integrating health and safety committees into their new SMS programs with the resulting denigration of employee rights.

Transport Canada inspectors, who enforce health and safety under a memorandum of understanding with HRSDC, have limited ability to enforce code rights when their senior managers have overwhelmingly embraced SMS. SMS must be carefully circumscribed within the Aeronautics Act, so that it does not subsume, impact or denigrate other existing rights provided under part II of the code.

There are new, very complex but distinct levels of confidential reporting associated with immunity provisions or protection from reprisals in Bill C-6 and promulgated under SMS regulations. There are three levels of such reporting and immunity. At the air operator level, the SMS regulations call for employers to implement a non-punitive safety reporting policy that requires employees to voluntarily report safety hazards and other problems to air operators. The conditions under which protection from discipline is available to employees can be imposed by the air operator or possibly negotiated with the union.

At the level of Transport Canada, proposed new subsection 5.392(1) stipulates that safety information from an air operator or its employees that comes into the minister's possession will be confidential. It can only be provided to the courts if it is de-identified or if the air operator is about to be shut down. This proposed new section adds that this information, including self-reporting contraventions of the law and regulations, cannot be used against the provider of the information to impose any penalties. Such information will also be beyond the reach of the Access to Information Act.

At a national level a new section would allow a person, conceivably employees or air operators, to report safety information and violations of the law and regulations without fear of reprisal subject to specified limitations on immunity in another new section by a yet to be created national safety body. This information will also become a mandatory exclusion from the Access to Information Act and be held in confidence.

The premise of these changes is that air operator employees may be reluctant to report their mistakes if they fear reprisals from their employers or Transport Canada, but these legislative changes go far beyond this, making all safety information now confidential. This new culture of secrecy has already limited the operation of joint occupational health and safety committees under part II of the code.

The minister's April 27 news release describes these amendments as allowing individuals and operators to confidentially report, on a voluntary basis, less safety critical regulatory violations, but clearly, there is a real concern that this will give the operators a get out of jail free card for self-reported violations of the law or regulations to Transport Canada with no enforcement taken on the self-reported regulations.

In summary, my concern is that this bill would mean more secrecy and would be a threat to the safety of the Canadian travelling public. It would provide operators working in the industry less access to information and action about the hazards that they are facing. I do not believe that this is in the best interests of either people who work in the industry or the travelling public. I urge hon. members to oppose this bill.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's words today took me back to the time when Ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers in the U.S. I have not felt this nervous about flying since then. The reality is that we are talking about the further deregulation of our airlines and I am very concerned.

It is somewhat like union members who clean hospitals. If they see something wrong, they can go to their health and safety committee and deal with it. If we think in terms of putting non-people in hospitals without those rights, they put their heads down and that is how infections spread from hospital to hospital.

In this particular bill, we are taking away health and safety rights from workers who, when they speak out, are protecting not only themselves but the travelling public. Does the member see this as an almost American style deregulation of health and safety?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that question captured much of my concern about the bill. For the travelling public, safety has to be paramount. It should be the number one consideration.

I remember well that when the airline industry in Canada was deregulated, the one assurance that the government made to the travelling public at that time was that occupational health and safety and the safety of the travelling public would not be deregulated. These were of paramount importance to Canadians and they would not be deregulated.

Fundamental to these concerns are access to information, scrutiny by the public, enforcement of government regulations by independent government inspectors, and the scrutiny of the people who work in the industry. My concern and the concern of my colleagues in the NDP is that this oversight and these protections would be eroded with this new bill.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, although I do not have a question for my colleague, I do want to tell her that she has done a fantastic job of putting on the floor of the House the position of the NDP and our concerns about why the bill needs further examination and should not be passed. So, I will just restrict myself to making a comment rather than asking a question.

Between the member for Parkdale—High Park and the member for Winnipeg North, our position has become clear. I know millions of Canadians are riveted to their TVs watching the debate this afternoon. What should matter to everybody is that the NDP's transportation critic is not able to be here to articulate our position himself.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order. I know the hon. member will learn with experience that we do not refer to the absence or presence of other hon. members. The hon. member for Parkdale--High Park has the floor.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the concerns that we are articulating today are the concerns that most Canadians would articulate if they were here with us in the House of Commons. Public safety must be paramount. There must be transparency in the operation of our airlines. When there are safety problems in the airline industry, there must be regulations on the books that people know about and these regulations must be enforced by independent oversight and the action of inspectors.

People do not want industry to be self-regulating in a sector so fundamentally important as the airline sector. People who work in the industry are concerned about it. We are concerned about it and we know that the travelling public would be concerned about it if they had this information in front of them. We hope that the debate today will help to get that information to them.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Parkdale—High Park made a very important reflection on the issue of the appropriate number of flight attendants or crew members on board any flight. I think she connected that with the issue of the safety of passengers being paramount.

Over the years we have battled long and hard for this issue to be dealt with, going back as far as 1991 when former transport critic for the NDP, Iain Angus, had Bill C-5 amended to regulate flight and duty times for flight attendants. Since then we have had numerous occasions to ensure that the Conservative government develops effective hours of work and limitations on flight attendants. More recently, I believe the NDP played a role in improving the ratio of flight attendants to passengers.

From the member's experience, with so many constituents in her area who are crew members or pilots, why does she think it is so important to have an appropriate ratio of flight attendants to passengers? What are some of the issues pertaining to flight and duty times for flight attendants?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I was contacted, as I said earlier, by many flight attendants who live in my community. When the government was considering changing the number of flight attendants, reducing the number of flight attendants required on board commercial aircraft, they contacted me with a fury, calling on me and my colleagues to urge the government not to decrease the number of flight attendants on board aircraft. We were very pleased and proud to be successful in urging the government not to act by decreasing the number of flight attendants.

We saw with the crash of the Air France flight in Toronto in my community the critical importance of the number of flight attendants on that aircraft who saved those passengers from peril in what was a disastrous crash. No one lost their life, so we know the value of flight attendants. We want to ensure that the level of the ratios are protected, not weakened.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am reminded by the story that was just given here of a line from a Kris Kristofferson song which says “The law is for protection of the people”. Would the member not agree?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that in order for us to act in the public interest and to ensure that the rights of the travelling public are protected, it is the duty of all members of the House to reject the bill and vote against it.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, Labour Unions; the hon. member for Windsor West, International Trade; the hon. member for Davenport, Citizenship and Immigration.

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.