Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this very important bill before us. It will have ramifications both in the short term and the long term if we allow it to go through the House today. I think it will put at risk the safety of travellers who fly by air across the country and those flying internationally.
It disturbs me deeply that we are moving with such haste and in a direction that we have seen in other jurisdictions has proven to be not good, and in some instances disastrous.
First of all, I commend and thank my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, for the very vigilant effort he has put into this and the oversight that he has provided. The contribution that he has made to this committee, as it has struggled with the bill, has been nothing but outstanding and he continues right to the last minute to put on the table all of those concerns that we as an NDP caucus in the House have raised about the bill.
The member speaks very effectively on behalf of many people and particularly those who work in the airline safety industry, groups like the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, airline inspectors, and other representatives from the trade union movement. They know directly. They have to sleep with this every night. We will have to sleep with this as well if their ability to act on behalf of the common good, in the interests of safety for all Canadians, is in any way jeopardized by the interests of the airlines themselves.
We have seen this on a number of occasions in the not too far past. Many of us will remember the demise of an airline company called Jetsgo in this country. After it was grounded it was found that the safety record that it had was pretty alarming. Just by way of some commentary, I wish to quote what was said in a newspaper at that time:
Interviews with former employees, incident reports filed with Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board, and internal government documents paint a picture of an airline so badly run that some considered a major accident inevitable.
It went on to say:
The Jetsgo experience underscores some of the major findings that are part of an ongoing investigation into aviation safety by the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator and The Record of Waterloo Region. The probe has found a system struggling to keep up with the demands of higher passenger traffic and a disturbing number of mechanical problems.
To simply say that if we pull some of the government oversight out of this and turn it over to the companies themselves that somehow it will correct itself is, I believe, simplistic at its worst.
For the government to be moving down that road and with the support of the Liberals in particular who brought the bill forward in the first place, I think, is quite irresponsible.
We have our own member for Trinity—Spadina raising issues with the minister and the ministry in the context of this bill that speaks to her concern about an airport right in the middle of downtown Toronto. It already presents all kinds of safety and environmental challenges, never mind if that company, as it struggles to find its niche, gets a toehold in the very competitive market of the airline industry, and begins as well to cut corners where safety is concerned in order to be successful and profitable.
It concerns us deeply in this caucus that we would allow ourselves to be manipulated, led and driven in this way by the industry itself knowing what happened in the railway sector where we have done this, where we went down this road. There was very similar legislation in place in terms of safety oversight. Now we see day after day, week after week, railway accidents, some very close to communities. One of these days one of those accidents will be disastrous. If we have an accident in the air it is automatically disastrous by the nature of the way that business happens.
In light of what we know and what we have seen, our past experience, and the road we have gone down with other privatizations of this safety oversight and other privatizations of government operations, why would we continue to support a bill such as the one we have in front of us today?
I mentioned just a few minutes ago about the member for Burnaby—New Westminster who has worked really hard on this bill. In fact, given that it looked like the bill was moving through anyway because the Liberals, the Bloc and the Conservatives have now agreed that they are going to support, it did make some substantial progress.
However, I think our concern, and perhaps that little bit of progress, needs to be put on the record. These are major policy initiatives that would have a direct impact on Canadians who travel by air.
The financial bottom line of Air Canada and WestJet will be a factor in setting safety levels in the sky. Transport Canada will be relegated to a more distant role as a general overseer of this new safety mechanism that we are putting in place, namely, adequate safety costs and money, but the safety management systems, SMS, would foster a tendency to cut corners in a very competitive aviation market racked by high fuel prices. What would happen to safety when the need to make profits and save money becomes paramount, as in fact it already has?
Bill C-6 enshrines safety management systems which would allow industries to decide the level of risk they are willing to accept in their operations rather than abide by the level of safety established by a minister acting in the public interest.
Safety management systems would let the government transfer increasing responsibility to the industry itself to set and enforce its own safety standards. It is designed in part to help Transport Canada deal with declining resources and high projected levels of inspector retirements.
While the NDP passed an amendment at the transport committee that emphasizes a reduction of risks to the lowest possible level, rather than just accepting or tolerating these risks, we are still concerned about the delegation of safety to corporations.
Some of the amendments that we were able to get through committee included: a new legislative requirement for the minister to maintain a program for the oversight and surveillance of aviation safety in order to achieve the highest level of safety, a new legislative obligation for the minister to require that aeronautical activities be performed at all times in a manner that meets the highest safety and security standards, and a new legislative requirement for the minister to carry out inspections of operators who use SMS.
The NDP supported a government amendment to give the transport committee the unprecedented ability to review Transport Canada regulations that may have a reported safety concerns.
Under pressure from the NDP, the government was compelled to introduce extensive amendments to limit the scope of designated organizations, the bodies that would assume the role of Transport Canada in setting and enforcing rules on airline safety.
One such amendment would require proper government inspection of these designated organizations while another would require the minister to approve any rules made by these bodies.
The designated organizations provisions were also delayed three years before taking effect, as well as being subject to annual reporting to Parliament and the review by the transport committee after three years.
An amendment was successfully pushed through to ensure that the Canada Labour Code would prevail over the Aeronautics Act in the event of possible conflict. An amendment was added that would ensure employees and their bargaining agents are included in the development and implementation of SMS.
The government was compelled, after extended debate, to introduce a form of whistleblower protection for employees who report to Transport Canada. A new definition of safety management system was put in the legislation, emphasizing a reduction of risks to the lowest possible level rather than just accepting and tolerating these risks.
We claim, as I wrap up, that without constant and effective public regulation corporations would constantly push the limits of safety operations, at growing risk to the travelling public. This was said by Dave Ritchie, general vice-president of IAMAW.
While the government's intention to download the regulation and monitoring of safety to the private sector is dangerous, we are particularly concerned about the use of SMS in foreign repair stations. If the monitoring of Transport Canada and SMS in Canada is problematic, it is even more unlikely at foreign work sites. So, we continue to be very concerned and will in fact be voting against this legislation when it comes forward.