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Thank you, Mr. Tweed, and good afternoon, members of the transport committee.
I'm Captain Dan Adamus, and I'm here representing the Air Line Pilots Association, International, or what we refer to as ALPA. I'm ALPA's Canada Board president and a pilot with Air Canada Jazz.
With me today is Art LaFlamme, ALPA's senior staff representative in Canada. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to express our views on .
The Air Line Pilots Association, International, represents more than 60,000 pilots who fly for forty airlines in Canada and the United States. Both as our members' certified bargaining agent and as their representative in all areas affecting their safety and professional well-being, ALPA is the principal spokesperson for airline pilots in North America. ALPA therefore has a significant interest in any legislation affecting aviation here in Canada.
ALPA supports this legislation, in particular the provisions to permit the effective implementation of safety management systems, known as SMS, in aviation companies regulated and certified by Transport Canada. ALPA has embraced SMS as the next great leap forward in advancing aviation safety. We see it as a comprehensive corporate approach to safety that involves both management and employees in the development and implementation of a company's SMS.
You may ask why ALPA is so strongly supportive of SMS and this legislation. We are for many reasons. It clearly establishes accountability for safety at the highest levels within a company. It provides for the reporting of safety occurrences and information without fear of retribution. It requires employee involvement and a formal risk assessment and decision-making process, to name but a few things.
ALPA views SMS as an umbrella framework over the existing safety regulations. Under SMS, no longer will a company be able to ignore a safety issue by saying they are regulatorily compliant. If a safety hazard is known or has been identified, a company is required to do a risk assessment and make a conscious decision on what mitigations are required to deal with it.
SMS clearly establishes responsibility for safety where it belongs: the aviation industry. It is the minister's responsibility to provide comprehensive and effective oversight and to take the appropriate measures where that responsibility has not been fulfilled. The traditional method of safety oversight based on detailed technical inspections can take on the role of operational safety assurance, and the aviation industry can lapse into thinking and believing that safety is the government's responsibility. ALPA believes this legislation clearly establishes where the responsibility and accountability for safety lies, and it provides all the powers required for the minister to take appropriate measures when required.
ALPA has not only accepted SMS in Canada, it has adopted it in the U.S. as the way forward. ALPA has been actively advocating it to the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, and with those airlines whose pilots are represented by ALPA. In fact, ALPA has been instrumental in achieving FAA buy-in to SMS, resulting in the FAA flight standards division issuing an advisory circular with standards for those airlines wishing to implement SMS.
As you are probably aware, the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, has adopted SMS, and it will become an international standard in 2009. In that regard, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association, IFALPA—of which we were a founding member—has worked closely with ICAO in establishing the ICAO standards and recommended practices and strongly supports this international initiative.
We understand the expressions of concern that have been made regarding the protection from punishment and for the confidentiality provided for in the draft legislation. We believe these provisions are absolutely essential to the success of a company's SMS.
We can explain our position as follows. To proactively address safety issues, data is required. Strategies to enhance safety need to be data-driven. In the absence of accidents, the right kind of data is required. Human and organizational factors create errors or hazards that largely remain undetected until the right set of circumstances result in a bad occurrence. An organizational climate where people feel free from negative consequences when reporting errors, deficiencies, and hazards is essential to obtaining all the data that is available. Therefore, a reporting program must provide confidentiality and immunity from discipline to be effective. Of course, exceptions would be a wilful or deliberate offence, gross negligence, or a criminal act.
In summary, ALPA believes a voluntary, confidential, and non-punitive reporting program is an essential element of an SMS and this legislation.
ALPA would like to comment on one other provision of this draft legislation, and that's clause 12, the power of the minister to designate organizations to act on the minister's behalf in certain areas. ALPA is of the strong view that this designation power must not be granted for commercial passenger and cargo operations. We note that the legislative language is quite broad, subject to regulations on which stakeholders are to be consulted, through the Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council, or CARAC. We have been advised by Transport Canada officials that this provision is meant to address only low-risk, non-air-transport areas of the aviation industry. We recommend that the committee obtain, for the record, such an undertaking from the minister.
We thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you, and we would be glad to take any questions you may have.
Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Tweed.
First of all, I would say that we are appearing here on very short notice of only a day or so. We don't have a written brief. Unfortunately, I could not be joined this afternoon by my colleague Gerry Einarsson, who is our expert on air safety matters, but I have been extensively consulting with him over the past two days. I hope the verbal presentation I make today will be useful to you.
You may normally think of Transport 2000 as a consumer organization that is primarily concerned with urban transit and railway matters. We last appeared before you in October of last year to discuss matters relating to rail travel. But we have been strongly concerned, mainly from the consumer perspective, about air transportation for quite a number of years. In fact, we appeared before this committee back in November 1999, as part of a coalition of nine different consumer organizations that were very concerned about consumer issues arising from the merger of Air Canada and Canadian Airlines.
At that time, one of the organizations that joined that coalition, along with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and others, was the Air Passenger Safety Group, which was a group of people with strong expertise in the air industry who were particularly concerned about safety matters. That group subsequently became an affiliate of Transport 2000, and with their expertise over the subsequent seven or eight years, we have been quite heavily involved in airline-related matters. In fact, we're often called on directly by the national media for comment, particularly when there is an air safety issue, when there is a major air incident. We do believe that we try to provide an informed and balanced comment that is useful, in the public interest, and helpful to people when it comes to understanding the circumstances surrounding various incidents.
One good example of this was the crash and burning of the Air France flight at Pearson Airport, where we were quite extensively involved. We were actually told by representatives of the Transportation Safety Board that they had found the interviews we were giving to the media to be quite to the point and appropriate. So that's just some background.
We do also participate quite actively, in a consultative way, with various groups in the administration of the aviation industry, with Transport Canada, and with airline organizations—for example, in CARAC, the Canadian Aviation Regulatory Advisory Committee.
When it comes to , we strongly support the principles of the amendments as they are identified here. Matters such as aircraft emission regulations and the ability of the minister to make emission regulations relate quite closely to our commitment to sustainable transportation and to transportation that benefits the environment.
I'll talk a bit more, but we are quite concerned about the ability of the minister to handle fatigue countermeasures. Whistle-blower provisions are crucially important.
The whole area of SMS and provisions for more self-regulation by the industry is a matter on which we certainly understand the economic importance, but we feel it has to be balanced with a concern not only for absolute safety—which is, of course, always a matter of concern for Transport Canada—but also for public perception. It is in the interests of the industry itself that the public perceives that air travel continues to have the very high safety standards and safety record it is well-known for. In fact, we believe this relates to improved consumer choice.
You can talk as much as you like about a free market, but a free market implies that consumers have the knowledge to make the choices within that marketplace, and knowledge of the safety measures, and even the safety records, of the air carriers is an important part of that informed consumer choice.
I know I have to try to be brief here, but with respect to SMS, we do believe it is essential for the department to continue to have enough resources to do the monitoring, surveillance, and evaluation of the safety programs. In other countries we've had too many examples of where responsibility for safety and maintenance has been devolved. A very bad example occurred in Britain, where maintenance of the railways was devolved entirely to the private sector and resulted in a large number of severe and multiple-fatality accidents. They needed to practically shut down the entire national rail network after one particular incident resulting from the maintenance decisions under a self-regulation environment. There was a subsequent need for the government to re-nationalize both railway infrastructure and railway maintenance after they had been privatized.
It is very important that as you introduce these SMS programs and self-regulatory regimes you retain the ability in government to understand how well it's working, because once it fails, it's very expensive and complicated and difficult for all concerned to rectify the problems and to take it back.
Public oversight is absolutely essential. There have been many incidents that could have been prevented if this kind of whistle-blower protection had existed. As a specific example, I can go back as far as the Dryden crash in 1989, which was a de-icing matter, where it was clearly established that had employees been able to speak without fear of reprisal, the 24 deaths in that accident could have been avoided. We learned from that, and in fact de-icing procedures worldwide have improved as a result of what we learned from those fatalities, but in fact the fatalities might have been unnecessary if whistle-blowing protection was available.
It's not a Canadian situation, but an Alaska Airlines crash that happened in January of 2000 again was a case where known maintenance issues had been suppressed because there was no protection for the employees who could have provided that information. The plane crashed due to failure of its tail assembly, and the 88 fatalities that resulted could have been avoided.
We understand that this legislation is being dealt with against the background of diminishing and decreasing resources at Transport Canada, and although that may be a reality, and there may be great difficulty as experienced inspectors retire and so on--difficulty in replacing them--that by itself isn't an excuse for downgrading the level of safety in the industry. If the resources are required for safety, they must somehow be found.
Finally, we found some very good remarks, which I hope the members of this committee will have read or be aware of--and if you aren't, then I recommend them to you--in the remarks made by Justice Moshansky last November. He did the original investigation of the Dryden crash in 1989. He made a speech in November that was still quite concerned about the state of the management of aviation safety in Canada, about lessons that had been learned but had not necessarily led to improvements being made. Particularly, he had strong remarks related to the problems of inadequate supply of inspection capability--inspectors at Transport Canada.
Yes, it is appropriate to improve the act along the lines that are requested here and to devolve in a way that maintains safety and Transport Canada's ability to monitor the adequacy of safety mechanisms, but also in a way that will ensure that the public continues to have confidence in the safety of the airline system and can make informed choices.
Thank you.
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The problem is that if the industry has the only expertise regarding safety, then Transport Canada largely becomes an outsider. If Transport Canada doesn't itself have in-house expertise that is at least equally capable of evaluating the mechanisms and the provisions the industry provides through SMS, then it's not possible for the government to know whether it's working or not.
I'm sorry to refer back to a different mode, but the British government had absolutely no idea how bad the situation was becoming in railway maintenance in the U.K. until the Hatfield crash and its associated fatalities, which revealed that virtually the entire railway network in Britain had to have very severe speed restrictions applied for many months while deferred maintenance problems all over the country were addressed.
The problem was that the national bureaucracy that had previously existed under a nationalized railway, with the expertise to deal with railway maintenance issues, had not been replaced with enough expertise to at least maintain a government oversight of how well the industry was policing itself. There was no longer the knowledge at the government level to really look critically at that self-regulation of safety and maintenance that the railways were practising.
The railways, when they were privatized, got all the experts. Those experts, over time, retired and were not replaced. The bottom line was the ruling factor; maintenance practices were downgraded, and the government didn't see it coming until it was time to mount a full-scale inquiry to find out why the country's rail network had collapsed.
Fortunately, the airline industry hasn't gone that way, and should not go that way. This must be done in a rational and controlled way that ensures that government oversight is maintained as you devolve self-regulation of safety processes.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to continue in the same vein because we all have a problem. In any case, the bill poses a problem for me. We can agree to have a safety management system, but there are two major qualifications.
The first qualification is the fact that part of the oversight is being assigned to independent organizations. You tell us that you've been told we couldn't amend the act, that we have to wait for regulations. I'm telling you that, as parliamentarians, we can amend the act. We can simply decide to delete this entire part. We can make changes, amendments.
If you had any suggestions to make to us with regard to that, I think it would be time to do so. You can't do them today, but you could send them to us because we can very well make amendments.
So my first problem is that we want to ask independent organizations to monitor implementation in certain areas.
Do you think we should immediately make amendments to the act, if we have the power to do so?
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I understand you clearly. If we could do it while maintaining a certain leeway, you would agree; I understand.
My second point concerns page 2 of the brief that you tabled with us, where you say:
The traditional method of safety oversight based on detailed technical inspections can take on the role of operational safety assurance and the aviation industry can lapse into thinking and believing that safety is the government's responsibility.
So you're suggesting that the industry is somewhat responsible; that's why you're supporting this.
My problem stems from the fact that you cast doubt on the traditional inspection and oversight method. As you said earlier, Mr. Jeanes, the department must continue ensuring oversight. However, in this bill, there's absolutely nothing that reinforces the work of inspectors to ensure that this policy is implemented. It creates something new, but does not clarify the position of Transport Canada and the inspection service, inspectors, federal pilots and so on.
This approach troubles me. In your brief, you seem to say that what happened before and the systematic inspections are not a good solution, that that should be assigned to the industry. I'm very reluctant to assign this responsibility to the industry because that becomes self-regulation. I'm willing to believe that you discipline yourselves, but the idea of you being responsible to yourselves for implementing the regulations concerns me a great deal. I want you to do it, I want the industry to discipline itself, but I don't think it's up to the industry to decide whether things are going well or not. I think there has to be an independent inspection service that is maintained and reinforced, in order to ensure us and ensure the public that the service or what has been put in place is well respected.
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It is our understanding that Transport Canada will continue to have oversight on safety. There will be regular audits on company SMS systems that are in place. If they detect any irregularities, then it'll go back to the more traditional audit.
Transport Canada will still play a huge and very important role. I think they've done a fantastic job in the past in identifying areas where improvements could be made.
I think with today's technology, aircraft training systems have improved to a great degree. This will only enhance that, by being able to identify problems out on the line as pilots, without worrying about retribution. If we say something about what was done that maybe wasn't done the correct way, then this will improve safety. This is how.
I will use an example. One of the companies we represent in Canada has a flight that departs Toronto fairly late at night and flies to St. John's, Newfoundland. It sits for two hours and then returns. The pilots were continually saying how tired they were on the return trip. The company's response originally was that it's within the Transport Canada regulations, it's within the 14-hour duty time, and they were absolutely right. However, under the SMS system in that company, they sat down with the company officials and identified that the two-hour wait at 4:30 in the morning probably wasn't the best thing. Now they've rearranged their flight schedule so they don't have that sit.
That's an area where SMS works perfectly well. I know Transport Canada would certainly embrace that in that situation.
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I understand that's the way it is in a world where the economy is going well and at a business that's running well, but we've often seen companies come and go in the space of two years.
I support the principle of the safety management system. However, we need an effective inspection service, with federal pilots, that is ready at all times to intervene directly with businesses that have not filed complaints, for all kinds of reasons. For example, that could be the case because the company is doing poorly and employees support certain things because they see that things are not going well within the company.
I'm concerned about public safety. That's why we need an independent system. Transport Canada has to maintain a high-level inspection service.
If the bill remains as it is right now, safety could even be turned over to independent businesses, as has been done in Great Britain. That's not what I want. Nothing guarantees me that there will be an independent inspection service of Transport Canada officials who can intervene at any time when they think that something is not right. Do you understand my fear?
Do you think I'm right to continue thinking that way?
Moving on then, raised the issue of inspection. Most estimates say that about 40% of inspectors with Transport Canada will be retiring over the next five years, and there have been budgetary cutbacks as well. There's a concern here about an overlay of SMS in a situation where the inspection foundation is no longer present.
Are you concerned at all about what cited, that being the situation in the United Kingdom with SMS? We've heard some reference to Australia and New Zealand and problems they've had there, and about problems in Canada that we're fully aware of.
With SMS in the railway system, for example, we saw a considerable increase in accident rates. In British Columbia, certainly, we've seen a number of deaths and significant accidents. Some folks say the safety standards aren't being maintained to the same degree.
With marine transportation, we also have the sinking of the MV Queen of the North. Concerns have been raised in testimony around the equivalent of an SMS for marine transportation.
Are you concerned at all about these other examples of where SMS has not led to a better, more safely managed system, but actually appears to have led to a more poorly managed system?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm a little confused. My understanding is that we have one of the safest airline industries in the world. The regulations we currently have in place are going to stay, and in fact we're actually tightening them up according to other evidence we've received; we're actually going above the current regulations with this bill, and SMS is a structure that's going to be over the current regulations. And it's not going to be a self-regulating situation, but will consist of the current regulations of Transport Canada along with a safety management system. That is not a self-regulating system, but a system that reads more efficiency and safety in the environment, to my understanding. I see you nodding your heads.
I'll finish up, Mr. Jeanes, but I have one other comment. My understanding is that we are going to have the same audit and same inspection system that is currently in place and that we're asking for more, not less. I am quite concerned, as are the rest of the members on this side of the table, with some of the comments made by Mr. Julian and Mr. Laframboise.
Mr. Chair, we do have someone from Transport Canada who could possibly answer these questions, and though it depends on what the committee wants to do, I would certainly invite him to the table to respond to some of these comments, because they concern me, quite frankly.
:
I'm interested in your comment about Canada having a very fine safety record in aviation, which is correct; we do. The public have had confidence in it and must continue to have confidence in it. We've had an allusion from the other side to the problems that have happened with railway deregulation, which has led to a public perception—and certainly a media perception, if you watched
W-FIVE on CTV last week—that safety standards have declined very, very markedly in the railway industry in Canada since this kind of deregulation happened.
I would also say, though, that many of the safety provisions that make our airline industry very safe have, unfortunately, resulted from investigations into tragic accidents. Most of the fire measures that are used worldwide now, in terms of smoke detectors in washrooms and emergency exit lighting and so on, stem from the investigation into the Air Canada DC-9 fire in Cincinnati in 1983 that claimed 23 lives. It took an accident to greatly improve the safety of aviation. It's the same with the Dryden crash, as much of the safety of our de-icing procedures today stems from that tragic crash, again with 24 people killed.
One of the leaders in the safety field, Dr. W.O. Miller from the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States, has actually proposed that nations should have the idea of having a TSB-type inquiry on a routine basis every 10 years or so, as though some catastrophe had happened, just to go in and ensure.... And you need the expertise to be able to do that.
[English]
I want to go back to your admonition, Mr. Adamus, that essentially you find the legislative language quite broad, subject to these self-regulated organizations or third parties.
If ever there's a matter that has to go before the tribunals, what will be important in the case, undoubtedly, would be the intent of the legislator.
I've reread the clause while this was going on--clause 12. If indeed what you're saying is the intent, it's not reflected in the clause as it is currently before us. So I need to know if you can tell us...and I'm quoting you here:
We have been advised by Transport Canada officials that this provision is meant to address only low-risk, non-air transport areas of the aviation industry.
I'd like you to elaborate here. Who are these officials, and how did they advise you?
:
We certainly don't monitor the number of inspectors in Transport Canada. Our information comes from sources such as Justice Moshansky's talk last September.
I'd like to say again that we're not coming up with these ideas. I would like to directly quote from his paper, where he stated:
I now understand that senior transport officials have publicly conceded that lack of funding, again, is behind the current promotion of the Safety Management System concept, which on the face of it anticipates at least a measure of self-regulation by the carriers themselves.
That is a perception of Justice Moshansky. We see that kind of thing and we consider it ourselves.
We have certainly benefited from our participation in a consultation group like CARAC, from seeing, for example, the daily occurrence reports, where even small incidents were regularly made known within the industry so that you could see trends happening.
Then, a couple of years ago, the distribution of that kind of information was cut back because of concerns that the information might be confidential, might be misused, might be prejudicial to carriers, and so on.
We have certainly never abused having that kind of information. It made it possible for us to do exactly the kind of thing you're describing as a benefit of SMS, which is having the actual employees and the employees charged with safety responsibilities learning from small incidents, to avoid big incidents. That's a part of the culture of openness that we think must be continued.
I just want my Conservative colleagues to understand me clearly. I was listening to Mr. Fast and the others. I think we can say that the safety management system can constitute an additional safety element, provided we can properly oversee the system.
As you said a little earlier, we need oversight. When I questioned you, you told me that the way the inspectors work was going to change. They'll no longer conduct inspections as in the past; they won't conduct any more detailed technical inspections in the traditional way. That troubles me a little.
I want my Conservative colleagues to understand clearly. If we no longer rely on the public service, if we no longer have the expertise here, when a problem arises, a systematic inspection will have to be conducted, as you said. If we no longer have the staff to do it, we're going to direct a private firm to do it.
We must ensure all that so that safety is even better. If we let the industry do things and don't ensure inspections are done, we risk having a safety problem. That's the problem. I believe that the other witnesses appearing before us, including the inspectors who will be coming to meet with us, will say that. We could also invite the Transport Canada representatives again; I agree with my colleagues.
In my view, until we have made sure we have the staff to intervene, who are able to conduct an inspection, that's fine with me. However, if the inspectors become merely checkers and no longer have the qualifications because they haven't been trained to conduct technical inspections, there will be a problem. I also think you'll have a problem.
It's good that you trust everyone and yourselves, but, as I told you earlier, a number of companies will enter the market and a number of them will close their doors. We risk having safety problems with those kinds of companies. That won't be the case of a reliable, well-established company. So we have to oversee all that.
I hope you'll agree with me that we first need to ensure we have an oversight system that meets users' expectations.
:
Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.
Absolutely, we need to maintain oversight of the company's safety management system, as well as regular inspections. As to your comment about new inspectors coming in and not being qualified, that's something to be directed at Transport Canada. We have full confidence that anybody they hire has been trained properly and will do the inspections correctly.
You referred to established airlines, which are safe, and that's not your main concern, but possibly the newer airlines that come in. If I were in Transport Canada, I would suggest that a new airline probably has even more oversight. They probably take a look at them even more. That's a question for Transport Canada officials, but I would guess that's the way it works right now. They would be required to have an SMS system in place before they got an operating certificate and there would be inspections. Again, I have full confidence in the system. I have repeated many times, and will continue to say, that it's just another layer to improve safety.
Pilots are perfectionists; they want everything done absolutely right. I can assure you that if they report something and a company doesn't follow through with the SMS program, they will report it in a second—guaranteed—and that will get through and put their program in jeopardy. So I can assure you there won't be any holes in the system; it will work, and Transport Canada will know if there's a problem with it.
I do have a couple of comments to make before I come back to questions. We certainly appreciate your coming here today, because you provide an interesting perspective, but the background to this is comments made by the government itself. The ADM said on April 25, 2006: “There must (be) a willingness on the part of the regulator”—that's Transport Canada—“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.” In wanting to allow organizations to manage their own risks or hazards, there's a clear intent of the government not to push for an extra layer of safety and security, but rather to step back essentially from involvement. That's our concern, and when we look at the lack of planning around providing for inspectors and providing for the attrition rate, there are some real concerns that come up around this legislation.
Last year, as I'm sure you are aware, The Toronto Star and The Hamilton Spectator did a really terrific series of articles on mechanics within Air Canada Jazz who had raised safety concerns that had not been dealt with internally, and those mechanics had gone public and were suspended. So I think the issue raised is a clear one, that it is possible in a system like this where there isn't the foundation for a carrier to try to cut corners. We would want to ensure we prevent that.
So coming back to all the examples we've cited in marine safety and railway safety, and in Australia and the United Kingdom, have you covered off within this legislation all of the weakness that have transpired in previous examples of SMS? Can any of you three say with complete and absolute assurance that you believe all the bases have been covered, or do we really need to get into this legislation and see if we can plug holes or gaps?
I'll start with Mr. Jeanes, because you've raised a number of concerns you have with the legislation. You did say you were in favour of it, and I'm not quite sure why, because the concerns you raised are significant ones.