TRAN Day 2: Traditional Safety Checks Depend on Extra Resources
By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service
April 1, 2010 4:32 PM
OTTAWA — Despite assurances from the top brass at Transport Canada that the government will step up safety checks at airlines, newly released instructions to inspectors says this will only happen if there are extra resources available in any given year.
Transport Canada's staff instructions on "surveillance procedures," tabled Thursday at parliamentary hearings into aviation safety in Canada, reveal that traditional forms of oversight, such as inflight inspections, ramp inspections during day-to-day operations and aircraft inspections, are to be considered discretionary and contingent on resources.
"Where surveillance resources are still available after the annual surveillance planning is completed . . . other surveillance activities may be planned," the instructions state.
These "additional surveillance activities" will not be undertaken at any prescribed frequency and "shall supplement, not replace assessments and program validation inspections."
Assessments and program validation inspections form the basis of Transport Canada's new oversight regime, called safety management systems (SMS). The approach is already fully phased in at all large carriers, but Transport Canada has delayed implementation at small airlines for at least a year after being inundated with concerns from its own inspectors about problems during the initial phase-in at these smaller operations.
The system puts more onus on carriers by requiring them to develop and oversee an in-house system of safety checks tailored to their operations. Transport Canada inspectors still ensure all safety regulations are followed, but the emphasis is placed on reviewing a company's SMS to determine whether the internal plan to reduce aviation hazards and risks is effective in complying with regulations.
This system is a shift away from traditional oversight where government inspectors had a much more hands-on role in auditing the safety operation and conducting spot checks.
On the first day of the aviation safety hearings Tuesday, Marc Gregoire, Transport Canada's assistant deputy minister for safety and security, told MPs on the House of Commons transport committee that these traditional safety checks will be brought back to be conducted alongside the SMS program.
"We haven't done as much surveillance activities as we wanted to do, but that will change in the next three years," Gregoire testified, committing to hire 60 additional aviation inspectors on an "urgent basis" before summer and another 38 before autumn to boost oversight.
Richard Balnis on Thursday cast doubt on such assurances during his testimony. The aviation specialist with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 8,500 flight attendants at six major airlines, highlighted the discretionary language in Transport Canada's new procedures manual for inspectors, in place since February.
"If there are sufficient resources remaining, there may be other government surveillance activities," said Balnis, who provided copies of the manual to the MPs.
Transport critics for the Bloc Quebec and the NDP expressed concern about the new instructions.
"When the directive says, 'If there are additional resources,' it's the directive we need to change," said Bloc MP Mario Laframboise.
"When you read the paragraph, 'If resources are still available, other surveillance activities may be planned,' that worries me," added NDP critic Dennis Bevington. "I feel like the surveillance aspect of it can't be dealt with in this policy."
Ron Smith, a national representative with the Canadian Auto Workers, told MPs on Thursday that one of the "fundamental cornerstones" of SMS, the ability of employees to flag safety concerns without risk of reprisal so employers can take corrective action, is more theory than reality.
"Employers don't respect the non-punitive reporting aspects of SMS," said Smith, whose union represents about 14,000 customer service staff and aircraft maintenance engineers at two airlines.
Conservative MPs on the parliamentary committee acknowledged there have been problems with the implementation of SMS, but defended the new safety approach.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Listen to the Committee meeting by following this link
Transcript will follow when available.
