:
I'd like to start the meeting.
First of all, I'd like to extend to everyone a very warm welcome.
Bienvenue à tous.
Colleagues, the meeting today has been called pursuant to the Standing Orders to deal with chapter 3, “Oversight of Air Transportation Safety--Transport Canada” of the May 2008 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.
The committee is very pleased to have with us this morning, from the Office of the Auditor General, the auditor herself, Sheila Fraser. She is accompanied today by Mark Watters, assistant auditor general, and, Alain Boucher, principal. From the Department of Transport, we have Mr. Louis Ranger, deputy minister and accounting officer. He is accompanied by Mr. Marc Grégoire, assistant deputy minister of safety and security, and, Mr. Merlin Preuss, director general of civil aviation.
On behalf of the committee, I want to extend to everyone a very warm welcome.
This morning, colleagues, we will go until about a quarter to one. I will adjourn the meeting at that point in time to deal with two motions of committee business, and then we'll adjourn by one o'clock.
Without any further delay, I'll now call upon the Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, for her opening comments.
We thank you for this opportunity to present the results of chapter 3 of our May 2008 report, entitled “Oversight of Air Transportation Safety--Transport Canada”.
As you mentioned, I am accompanied today by Mark Watters, assistant auditor general, and Alain Boucher, principal, who are responsible for this audit.
Transport Canada is responsible for promoting air transportation safety, developing regulations, and overseeing compliance. The department is now adopting a new approach to oversight, based on the implementation of safety management systems, or SMS. The International Civil Aviation Organization recommends that all member countries adopt this approach by 2009, noting that the rapidly expanding aviation industry and the limited resources for oversight make it difficult to sustain the existing approach. Transport Canada will shift its primary focus from traditional oversight, such as conducting inspections and audits, to assessing the safety systems that companies have in place.
[Translation]
The audit looked at how Transport Canada has managed the transition to the new approach to oversight to date, with respect to the first sectors implementing SMS: airline operators and associated aircraft maintenance companies. We did not examine the level of air transportation safety in Canada, but rather, the management of the initiative.
It is important to note that oversight based on SMS (in other words, evaluation of a company's SMS, as opposed to oversight based on traditional inspections) will not begin until companies in the first sectors have SMS fully in place. That will be this fall at the earliest.
Once implementation is complete in those sectors, other sectors of the industry, including 2,000 small operators and related aircraft maintenance companies, will begin their transition. The transition process is still in its early stages.
[English]
Transport Canada is the first civil aviation authority to put in place regulations requiring companies to introduce SMS. The department deserves credit for this, and for conducting pilot projects and developing a timeline for implementation. However, in planning for the transition, Transport Canada did not forecast overall expected costs and did not formally analyze risks associated with implementation, such as the impact of the transition on other oversight activities. Although resources have been shifted to activities related to SMS implementation, the department did not measure the impact of this shift. It did not set objectives or a threshold for adjustments to be made to its traditional oversight activities during the period of transition. This means that Transport Canada could not demonstrate to us that it is carrying out a sufficient number of inspections during the transition.
Related to this is the need to develop an integrated human resources plan. With only regional plans and no overall human resources plan, Transport Canada has not identified how many inspectors and engineers it needs, both during and after the transition, and what competencies they should have. A reorganization is under way to determine these needs, but it is not expected to be completed until December 2009. Delays in hiring pose the risk that the department will not be able to recruit the people it needs in a timely manner.
[Translation]
Transport Canada has indicated that its development of a national human resources plan will depend on the Department's revised Program Activity Architecture, scheduled to begin in 2009-2010. We recommend more immediate action. For a transition of this scope, best practices call for planning for human resources needs well before implementation begins. But at Transport Canada, implementation is already underway.
Mr. Chairman, Transport Canada has agreed with our recommendations. Action is important to enable Transport Canada to successfully manage the transition in other sectors of the industry, including 2,000 smaller companies. The committee may wish to ask Transport Canada how it plans to address the issues we have raised in our report.
That concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer the committee's questions.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today. As you mentioned, I'm accompanied by Marc Grégoire and Merlin Preuss. I should perhaps say that both are engineers and both also hold a pilot's licence.
At the outset, I would like to say I welcome the opportunity to explain how Transport Canada is improving its approach to the oversight of aviation safety in Canada and to answer any questions you may have regarding the report of the Auditor General.
Mr. Chair, I did read carefully the transcript of the exchange that took place in this committee when the Auditor General appeared on May 8, and I would like to clarify a number of points.
First of all, Transport Canada is not transferring or delegating its responsibility, be it to airline companies or maintenance companies. As the Auditor General explains very clearly in her report, the department is adopting a new approach to oversight based on the implementation of what we call safety management systems. The approach requires aviation companies to have in place a system for managing safety risks linked to their operations. Transport Canada's oversight is changing from one focused only or solely on conducting inspections and audits to one of assessing the process that companies have in place to ensure safety. The department's overall accountability, however, remains unchanged.
Second, I want to assure you that Transport Canada has no intention of stopping its inspections of aircraft and aviation activities. The department will continue to conduct direct inspections and audits when required. It will continue to set regulations and standards and to apply enforcement measures such as fines and licence suspensions, and we do do that.
Actually, as Mr. Christopherson said on May 8, “...we haven't transferred any of that responsibility. We've actually built a secondary area of responsibility.” This is precisely what safety management systems are expected to achieve. They are bringing an additional layer, an additional level, of assurance that safety objectives are being met.
Third, ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, strictly speaking, does not prescribe the approach that sovereign states should take in meeting their aviation safety obligations. Having said that, ICAO, which is certainly the uncontested world authority on civil aviation matters, has stated unequivocally that member states should establish an acceptable safety management system by 2009 in light of two considerations: expected growth in air traffic, and limitations we are indeed encountering with traditional approaches to civil aviation oversight--and we can elaborate on that later, if you wish.
Fourth, we believe the transition to safety management systems in Canada has been successful to date. It's important to mention that chapter 3 of the Auditor General's report—and Mrs. Fraser repeated earlier—does not question the safety of the travelling public. The audit evaluated, from an administrative perspective, how Transport Canada is managing the transition to a safety oversight approach based on safety management systems.
Fifth, Canada has the safest air transportation system in the world and our safety performance continues to improve. The accident rate in the commercial airline sector, which accounts for more than 95% of fare-paying passengers in Canada, is very low. Between 2002 and 2006, the rate of accidents was 0.31 per 100,000 hours flown. Take a one-hour flight, say, between Ottawa and Toronto: you would have to fly between Ottawa and Toronto more than 300,000 times before being involved in an aviation accident.
[Translation]
The implementation of aviation SMS is well advanced and we are applying lessons learned to each subsequent stage. In that context, Transport Canada welcomes and accept all nine recommendations contained in the Auditor General's report.
All responses to each recommendation on planning for the transition, monitoring of compliance and human resources planning and training are outlined in the Auditor General's report and we will be pleased to elaborate on any of them, if need be.
Regarding human resources, I would simply like to bring to your attention that the number of inspector positions at Transport Canada has actually increased from 866 in fiscal year 2001-2002 to 871 today. I chose this period, because it is the one covered in the audit. However, over 15 years, the number of inspectors at Transport Canada has increased by 295 since 1992.
However, we do have a normal number of vacancies. Ms. Fraser is correcting pointing out that not all positions are staffed. This is as a result of open staffing actions and all the procedures that have to be followed. I shall also point out that we are having trouble finding qualified candidates who are willing to accept the pay rates offered by the government.
Human resources planning is now more tightly focused on recruitment and retention issues. We need to identify the skills and resources required to deliver the future programs.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the level of cooperation that has prevailed throughout the audit between Transport Canada's aviation professionals and the Office of the Auditor General. We do believe that our safety management systems and the safety of the traveling public will benefit from this audit.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Ms. Fraser. We see you almost twice a week. It is wonderful. I would also like to welcome Mr. Ranger and Mr. Grégoire to our meeting.
[English]
Sir, welcome.
I'm not trying to haunt you, gentlemen. The reference here is that I was on the transport committee temporarily, Mr. Chairman, when we were looking at the entire matter--so was Mr. Julian, by the way--of safety management systems and the revision of the Aeronautics Act. This is not intended, but since I'm here, I might as well go at it.
[Translation]
Mr. Ranger, from 2001-2002 to the present, has there been an increase in air traffic in this country, and if so, what is the percentage increase?
:
Our director of human resources tells me that in the last two weeks, one of our boat inspectors was approached by the owner while he was carrying out his inspection. He was offered a job on the spot, at twice his current rate of pay.
In my introductory statement, I referred to the fact that we are competing with an expanding sector. We invest considerable amounts of money in training. Our people are finally ready, and now they are being solicited.
Those who remain with us despite those very attractive offers,are close to retirement and thinking about their pension. The ones who remain are not the ones we have to train. We need to train newcomers who are still young and who will remain with us for another 10 years. The challenge is significant.
In this context, I cannot give you figures on how we fare in comparison with other sectors, but 8% is not so bad given the circumstances. I am not saying that this is justified; it is just a fact.
Recently, Treasury Board has encouraged us to completely rethink our Program Activity Architecture. Our department, which is rather large, had 184 programs. We did a major housecleaning and managed to reduced that number to 65. Now in terms of managing the programs, we have achieved much greater clarity on who is responsible for what. In some cases, not one single manager has sole responsibility. But at least we know who is accountable. This is referred to the governance of this Program Activity Architecture.
In fact, for each of the programs, the setting of targets and indicators has become much tougher. As Mr. Grégoire said, we submitted a very comprehensive submission to Treasury Board, which will truly give direction to our program management for the next 10 years.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses.
You have an extraordinary task of responsibility, with 99 million passengers in 2006, and of course you're talking about that increasing exponentially.
Whenever the Auditor General takes a sampling of files, we usually find some very interesting things written, so I would like to give credit where credit is due. In paragraph 3.25, 21 files were assessed. I won't read the whole paragraph, but it appears you had some glowing results from that. You followed up where you found problems. So that's good.
I think the Auditor General has also done a good job of explaining that you are pioneers in this. You began the process before the rest of the member states or the OECD countries. Are the rest of the major OECD countries well on their way in this process as well?
:
I'm glad we happened to get on that, because I didn't know there was a lot of public and private spinoff coming from it.
On page 9 of the Auditor General's report, there is a paragraph that is worrisome, and I'd like you to address it:
However, the Department did not document risks, such as the impact of the transition process on oversight of air transportation safety, or prepare mitigating actions. It also did not forecast overall expected costs for the transition.
And I could go on.
But particularly around the costs, one of my concerns is that if you haven't forecast properly, that means tough decisions often are made that certainly should not be made when it comes to the safety area. Going back to Mr. Bélanger's concern, this juxtaposition of two systems without the appropriate resources available may mean a give or take in one or the other.
Because I know my time is running out, I'll leave it to you to answer in aggregate.
Then bouncing over to paragraph 3.29, it seems there's no standard on individual inspectors. They're going to do inspections at their own judgment. I have a real concern about that as well.
Could you answer those two concerns for me, please?
:
I will try to answer in the aggregate, as you said, and then my colleagues can elaborate.
Because it is truly a second layer, it is true, we acknowledge, that there was no formal assessment of risk. You used the word “formal”. It doesn't mean that we did not assess the risk, but we did not document it properly. But in our mind, because it's clearly an additional layer, we took a lot of comfort in the fact that everything that is there remains there, the accountability is there, and the responsibilities of individuals are clear.
On the comment about not being clear how things are managed from one region to another, there's a clear comment on that. We are managing risk. We've always managed risk. So the standards we've set for inspections are kind of a range. A certain inspection needs to be done between six months and 36 months, which is a huge difference, I grant you. But if you're in a region and you have two airlines—company A and company B—and company A has come up to the six-month required inspection and you know that company B offers more risk, why would you spend the next two weeks on company A when you know that company B should require more attention? So we do move to company B, which is why there is some latitude within a range.
Should we document that more clearly? I think we've acknowledged that we should, but there is some discretion as well.
:
If I may, on the cost issue, the OAG is right to say that we have not assessed the exact cost of the transition. However, we told the deputy minister that it would be costly to make the transition period, and that for a while we would need more money. He has given us, for civil aviation, $9.8 million over the last years to help us in the transition.
Of course, now he wants us to drop this requirement. We're not quite ready to drop it because we're in a critical phase in the transition, but we have a plan to reduce this extra need of $9.8 million to zero over the next three years. That was very helpful, and that allowed us to use that money, for instance, to train people, to hire consultants to help us train, and to set up a lot of things within the SMS transition.
It has allowed us to continue the normal work. We have stats on the number of inspections we have been doing during the transition over the last few years, and we have introduced a number of inspections.
I'm very glad that you've started to look into SMS, Ms. Fraser, because of course we know the controversy around implementation of SMS in the railway system and escalating derailment rates. It has been a real problem.
Your report is very much a wake-up call to parliamentarians. You talk about the department not managing areas satisfactorily, no short- or medium-term indicators, no identification of human resource requirements, and the department did not document risks. Very clearly, there's a problem. It's a bit of a mess--the implementation of the first two phases--which certainly would mean I think that the government should be taking a step back from further implementation.
But I'm interested, now that you've had that first look into SMS.... You didn't look into delegation of licensing. You didn't look into the oversight by industry lobby groups, and we know there's a problem. We've had a very safe business aircraft industry up until recently. We've now had a very high-profile crash with three people dead from A.D. Williams. Now that people are starting to die, I think it's incumbent to look into this whole question of delegation of authority. Clearly we're starting to see the first signs of what we saw happen in the railway industry.
You did respond to my letter about why you didn't choose to look at delegation in the first stage, with the Canadian Business Aviation Association. Now that you've seen that there are some significant problems, I'm interested to know if your next step will be to look into delegation of authority, and to look into the CBAA, particularly, in light of the loss of life.
:
A specific audit on A.D. Williams? To my knowledge, not in the terms you're describing. We've gone back to the oversight requirements that were in place at the time, and we're still reviewing that particular part of the work.
We have to keep in mind that what we have in place in Canada doesn't exist anyplace else in the world. We have put additional requirements on our business aviation community and in the process have engaged the association as partners, and that particular delegation's scheme, if you like, continues to provide extraordinarily good safety performance, especially when you consider the fact that this organization has grown from somewhere around 120 operators to over 300.
So given that type of growth and the safety performance of that sector, although we are concerned with any loss of life, we will be managing those risks as we go forward.
I want to zero in on one chapter of the report of the Auditor General, which for me is the most problematic. I'll quote a good part of it here. It's paragraph 3.30, and I'm sure you focused on it too:
Each region, however, uses different risk management techniques and processes to assess risk. Managers do not always analyze all of the risk indicators listed in the Frequency of Inspection Policy Document and may use other indicators that are not listed. Methods range from formal to informal: Some regions have created their own risk indicator databases, some document the decisions made in the risk analysis process in detail, and others make decisions without documenting details, such as the rationale.
The last sentence I want to quote is the most troubling one:
The use of different indicators and methods increases the likelihood of reaching different conclusions for similar situations.
Now, you've responded to that and you have agreed. I'm very glad you have. You've also said that you created the working group in May of 2007 and it has to have a final report in April of 2008. My first question: is that report completed?
:
Good. Then I expect we'll get to see it.
To bring you back, though, if the purpose is to mitigate and to learn, then I really have a hard time understanding how the department can allow, when it's trying to implement an SMS, a safety management system, over top or underneath--whichever--the regular inspection capacity of the department...how can it allow for this kind of variety across the country?
If you've agreed with the criticism that it's right, that it shouldn't be the case yet we did it, how can that be? How do you explain, Monsieur Ranger, that we have different methods of evaluation of the risk factors in different parts of the country? It boggles the mind a bit that when the department would set out to implement an SMS, a safety management system, throughout the industry to further mitigate risk, it would allow a situation where one could draw different conclusions from the same set of circumstances. It simply doesn't add up.
:
I accept the findings and the recommendations, and we are acting on that. I'm not going to say here that I don't take that seriously, but I think we need to be cautious about any suggestions that we've proceeded with SMS in a cavalier way. This is well documented here.
We announced our intention in 1999 and waited until 2005 to introduce regulations. During that time we did pilot projects, and I think the report observes that this was done reasonably well.
We didn't go into this saying, “Okay, now we're ready; thousands of companies are subject to that.” We picked 74. Not any 74, but some of the most mature companies in the country--ceux qui ont déjà fait leurs preuves--those who already have a record, and we then phased that over four phases. And we're not at the end of that.
So I think it's fairly prudent. I acknowledge that there were discrepancies for one reason or another. I am taking that seriously and we're addressing that.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Sweet.
Colleagues, that concludes the first round.
I have just a couple questions.
The first one is for you, Mr. Ranger, just to follow up on the last question by Mr. Sweet. This is on the whole area of resources. This is a very serious issue, and I'm sure every member of Parliament considers it to be very serious. Can you as the accounting officer and deputy minister give us assurances? You're going from a regime of traditional oversight to the SMS, but you're keeping the traditional oversight too. It seems to me, from a common-sense point of view, that you will need Parliament to allocate additional resources so you can do your job.
Are you giving assurance to Parliament that you have sufficient resources to continue your traditional role of regulatory oversight while implementing in an effective way the SMS, and that you have those resources available at your disposal?
One of the issues I just want to clarify for my own knowledge is the whole operation of the SMS. We're dealing with a very competitive industry, one in which it seems every company that operates is either going into bankruptcy or coming into bankruptcy or operating under chapter 11. We have had a number of high-profile bankruptcies here in Canada over the last 10 years, so obviously with the increase in the price of fuel oil, I'm sure it's tight for each and every company operating in this sector. My own suspicion would be that after they take away the food, the second thing to go would be safety.
Could you take me through what happens if you do an analysis on the SM system being implemented by one of the companies and it's not up to date? Do you lower the boom immediately? To give an example--and I don't know if these media reports are accurate or not--there's been some high-profile media reporting about some of the incidents involving First Air. If your inspectors go in and you see that everything is not up to par, do you immediately and automatically shut them down until they can show the regulatory authority that everything is above board and that they do have proper and efficiently operating systems to ensure the safety of passengers?
Of course, my biggest fear is the cozy relationship, which is not perhaps in the airline industry, but we've seen it in Westray, we see in the crane operation in New York, and we've seen it in a whole host of others. A cozy relationship develops between the regulators and the people who operate in industry, and--I believe Mr. Grégoire has said--there's a lot of movement back and forth. This is a pretty important issue, especially for those of us who travel back and forth every weekend. We're very interested in it.
So could you assure us that if there were a situation in which your employees felt that the SMS was not operating properly, that airline would be shut down until the corrections were made?
If there's time in my round, I'll give it to my colleague Mauril.
Thank you very much for being here, all of you.
I had a couple of thoughts, among many, while I was listening to the presentations. One was ISO. The other was what the Mike Harris government did in Ontario with forestry. Here's the relevance. In the forestry sector the province, in the mid-nineties, transferred responsibility for silviculture to the companies. They cut back Natural Resources staff. So in a way they were oversight, and companies were responsible for delivering all the elements of sustainable forestry. There's still some debate and the jury is out on whether that has worked.
First of all, does the ICAO certify when you implement SMS in a country? For instance, ISO will certify if you want to be an ISO company or agency. You seek, apply for, and get certified eventually. Do you get ICAO certification that your SMS is compliant with a set of parameters?
I'd like to clear up a couple of last things. To the casual reader, it looks as though there could possibly be some disagreement between the department and the Auditor General.
Let me just get to the first one, paragraph 3.44, which talks about training. I understand the complexity of the training, because you were pioneers in this. But the Auditor General points out that there's no regular recurrent SMS training. In your response following her recommendation on the same page, page 17, you state that “Employees implementing the SMS regulatory framework are trained and kept current...”.
Is there some dispute about this fact that there was a recurring...or has the environment changed that much that you can make that vehement statement?
:
The formal recurrent training you will find in other sectors of our oversight mandate does not exist in the same way under SMS. The main reason is that we are still very much in a learning phase as we go through this. So to package the recurrent training as a broadly targeted training is probably not very efficient or effective at this time.
For example, there are some comments in there about the validation process that also indicated that after we went through this, the reports came back and some issues had to be dealt with. We dealt with them. The information was passed on through the pre-evaluation briefings, the pre-validation briefings, through a network of inspectors that are directly tuned in to any changes. It's almost like a fact sheet that comes out all the time, and the inspectors who are working in the SMS world.... And understand, not everybody is working in the SMS world. The vast majority of the oversight is still done the old way. But these people have kept up through the network on an as-required basis.
At the end of the day, once we come to a good knowledge of what's needed, you'll find the same framework for recurrent training as you have for all the other activities we do.
:
The next point is on training as well.
Again, to the casual reader, it would appear there's a contradiction here. The Auditor General stated, in paragraph 3.47:
We noted that about 15 percent of inspectors and engineers had not completed the required recurrent training.
It goes on to say that the real problem is that it's not documented. It's documented regionally but not nationally, so there's no way of tracking it. In your response to her recommendation, you say training requirements are well documented.
Has that changed now? Is there a human resource file clearly stating what the training has been for the people who are involved in SMS and that inspections can be accessed nationally?
:
Yes, we've been working especially with our Australian confreres for many years and with our New Zealand confreres as well. What we learned from the Australians early on, and it applies more generally to almost any regulatory framework, is that if you choose to take the voluntary approach, which the Australians did, in the hopes that you're going to get full compliance, then what you probably get, and that was their experience, is a situation in which the 80% of the industry that thought this was a good idea and could benefit from it put it in place. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the regulator is responsible for 100% of the industry. So if you don't have the tools in place to deal with the 20% who aren't wanting to buy into the new contract and the new approach, you'd better be able to deal with them.
I've just met with the manager in charge in Australia, and they are promoting as rapidly as they possibly can the regulatory framework to put the SMS in place there. Right now it's voluntary. Where it's working, it's working extremely well. And then there are some issues, I guess, with those who are outside, who aren't wanting to buy into the process.
So yes, we learned that early on, and that's why we took the approach we did.
:
My question is either for Mr. Ranger or Mr. Grégoire.
The issue of accidents has been very well covered. We are also aware of all measures taken to guarantee passenger safety.
I would now like to turn to employees, especially because of what was discovered at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport regarding Cara employees. The incident must certainly be under investigation by the RCMP, which discovered there were drug traffickers there.
Do you have access to these RCMP reports, to find out about the employees' connections and how they went about obtaining passes to access restricted areas?
I just want to turn my attention to the Auditor General's comments in paragraphs 6 and 7 of her opening statement, where she talks about human resources. Contrary to what we hear from time to time in the House, I think the biggest problem we're facing in this country—and it's going to get worse—is labour shortages, especially of skilled labour. It seems to me that there's potentially a real challenge here for your organization, which I'm not sure, from what I'm reading here, is being addressed as seriously as it needs to be addressed.
I note here that the Auditor General says that “Transport Canada has not identified how many inspectors and engineers it needs both during and after the transition, and what competencies they should have”. Then in paragraph 7, she mentions that “Transport Canada has indicated that its development of a national human resources plan will depend on the Department's revised Program Activity Architecture, scheduled to begin in 2009-10.” And she recommends more immediate action. I would concur with that. It seems almost as if you have a plan to plan, when it comes to human resources. I think if you wait, you're not going to be able to get the staff you need, based on what we're seeing in the labour market right now.
I notice that in your own statement—the paragraph at the end that you seem, in a sense, to have tacked on—you say, “Human resource planning is now more tightly focused on recruitment and retention issues. We need to identify the skills and resources required to deliver the future program.” But there's nothing concrete there; it's just a statement that we need to do this. It doesn't say when or anything like that.
Is there some more concrete information available within your department in terms of how you're going to staff the needs you have? I understand that you may not yet know what those exact needs are, but surely you can identify that you're going to need more staff than you have right now, and surely you can begin to start to address that potential in a preliminary way.
:
Okay, just to make sure the committee understands what my response to Monsieur Bélanger was, because of the advancement of the PAA, we're ready to do an awful lot more a lot sooner. I don't expect the full implementation of the plan will see much light of day before the fall of 2009, but by this fall of 2008, we should have a pretty good idea of some of the details, which are being fleshed out even as we speak.
We do know already or have already identified—and this, of course, is based on the fact that we're leaders in this, as no other regulatory authority has taken this approach to the extent, and down the timeline, that we have—that we're going to need a lot more inspectors with a human factors background, with an organizational factors background, and with analytical background. What we've seen is an increase of 500% to 600% in the number of reports out there. That's an amazing amount of data compared with what's there today. And it's that data that we must get at, as we must understand how the operators are dealing with it. To do that we're going to need to add those types of competencies to our inspectorate.
As far as recruitment and retention go, those are problems that go well beyond civil aviation, and of course we're doing our part the best we can to deal with them.
:
Just to comment on the growth versus inspections, first of all, growth in industry does not necessarily directly result in more inspections.
For example, there's an audit cycle for Air Canada. If Air Canada grew by 20%, we would still only do the audit in accordance with the cycle. So it's not a one-to-one relationship. Is there going to be an increased requirement under the old sample-based plan? One would say intuitively, yes.
In terms of numbers, I do not have today's numbers for the last year. What I do have is going back to 2002-03. The title of that document is Civil Aviation: Number of Entities Inspected and Audited. According to my numbers, in 2002-03, it was 10,998; 2003-04, 10,984; 2004-05, 10,591; 2005-06, 10,441; and 2006-07, 11,775. These are inspections or activities at the coalface.
:
Mr. Chair, I want to be sure that the committee does not think we are raising any concerns about the move to safety management systems and knows that we really looked at the administration of the process.
I'd like to draw a parallel with our work in financial audit—this is really all about auditing. In the world of financial audits we moved to reviews of systems many years ago. When auditors first did the audits of the Public Accounts of Canada, way back 100 years ago, they would look at every single expenditure. Today, quite honestly, there isn't enough money in the world to have enough auditors to look at every expenditure in government. We have to look at the systems the government itself has in place to make sure the expenditures are appropriate and duly authorized.
We document the systems, we test the systems, we do spot checks, and if the system is working well, then we can use our resources to focus on higher risk, which is really what is happening in this instance. To draw a parallel, it is a more efficient way of doing it, and it is also a much better audit, because you're actually focusing where there is greater risk.
I take the example of our office. We are actually doing more work now with fewer people than we were 10 years ago, and probably we can conclude better audits, because we're really focusing on the issues of higher risk rather than looking at every single transaction.
:
Thank you very much, Mrs. Fraser.
That, colleagues, concludes the second round. We have a couple of motions too that the committee has to deal with.
First of all, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very much for your attendance here today. It's an element of government that's extremely important. I believe there is in excess of 100 million Canadians and non-Canadians who get on a plane each and every year, and safety is of paramount concern to every Canadian.
Certainly the Government of Canada has had a great record, and for that I want to congratulate you and thank you for the job you've done. We've had a good hearing today, and I wish you all the best in the future.
I would now invite the Auditor General and you, Mr. Ranger, to make any closing comments you have.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been around on an annual basis for quite some number of years. I can't remember the first year it came to the attention of the public accounts committee, but I made a determination that we would only grant the waiver on an annual basis. Initially they asked for a blanket waiver that they wouldn't have to do it, and I refused to provide that, which is why we're discussing this today.
The key, of course, is this. Go back to the heating fuel rebates of 2000. There would have been millions of names required to be published, each one in the Public Accounts of Canada. At that point in time I thought about perhaps having it on the website rather than having a document a mile high, because they just asked that they publish the total gross amount. The amount that's spent is reported in the Public Accounts of Canada, but the names of the beneficiaries are not there because these are grants and ex gratia payments and they are required by the Financial Administration Act to be reported individually in the public accounts.
It's only Parliament that can provide the waiver. We've given the waiver on the detail but not on the amount, and you will find it in the public accounts committee. When we talk about the heating fuel rebates, which you may recall was an emergency situation in 2000, here we are in 2008 still paying out because it was attached to your income tax return. So if you're only filing your income tax return now for the year 2000, you will qualify for a heating fuel rebate, believe it or not. That is why the numbers are still showing up on the tax return.
The merchant navy and veterans situation was different. The extraordinary assistance one for tainted blood.... Personally, I would never want to call for names there, Mr. Chairman. Having the total amount, absolutely. Agent Orange problems and the residential school system.... Again, I would be very careful about calling for names, but absolutely, the total amount has to be and must be reported in the Public Accounts of Canada.
I'll admit not being an expert on this, but I have, for example, in my northern Ontario riding hundreds, maybe thousands, of residential school payment recipients. There have been some sad cases reported where somebody was robbed or taken advantage of because somebody else knew they were getting something. I think just on the basis of security alone, that would be sufficient for me, as a single member, to agree that names and amounts not be included. They're available to us on a confidential basis, when the offer is made. That would certainly be my view. I would agree with not including names and individual amounts.
:
We have had people before the committee to explain this in the past, Mr. Chair.
My amendment is to continue on, after “the Public Accounts of Canada”, but that it report the number of payments and the total paid under each category. I thought, Mr. Chairman, that we always had that in here.
With regard to Mr. Bélanger's point about the balance between the executive and the legislative branch, they have tried to slip this through every year. They start off by saying to just give them a blanket “forever” authorization, to which we have responded that there is no possible way that is ever going to happen; we'll give it to you on a year-by-year basis. As you see, this is getting watered down to less and less, and therefore we have to be vigilant.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Lussier.
[English]
I think we've had a debate.
Colleagues, we're through here in two weeks. I would expect that when we come back on September 15, within two or three weeks--maybe a month--we will be having a meeting on the public accounts. I will bring it up with the steering committee and we will follow up. This will be part of the so-called public accounts meeting, to have an examination on this.
All in favour of the motion, as amended and subamended, please raise your hands.
(Motion agreed to)
:
I don't know, Mr. Williams. That's entirely in the hands of the committee.
There are draft reports again on the 12th. On the 17th, we have scheduled “support for overseas deployment”, from the May report, and then on the 19th, which of course is somewhat speculative, we're back to draft reports.
We've also circulated the schedule for the first month or so in September. Again, these were chapters that the steering committee recommended: aboriginal affairs; surveillance, detention, and removal of individuals. You can see that there.
:
I understand why, given the amendments that the government proposes.
Nevertheless, if we want to clear the ground, to move ahead and reduce the backlog of reports, has the subcommittee envisaged tabling the ones that you mentioned this morning? At least three of these reports may be ready for tabling and they could probably be adopted much more promptly.
If such is not the case, I agree that we should do what was proposed. Nonetheless, Mr. Chairman, let me emphasize that if we carry on in the same way as we did during the most recent attempt to adopt the report on chapter 7, things could get very drawn out.
:
No, it hasn't, as far as I'm aware. This system has been around for seven or eight years. It's a system where there is no transparency at all. People have a salary, and then they have another salary that is called “at risk”, and most people earn their “at risk”.
In the private sector if you're at risk, you get fired. This is not well explained to parliamentarians.
On top of that “at-risk” level there is a bonus level.
As a member of the public accounts committee, I certainly think it would be in Parliament's best interest to have a look at this and explain, if nothing else, to parliamentarians exactly how it works. I don't think there would be too many people out there who can explain this. It's well hidden, because when we ask the question to members at that end of the table, basically all we get is mumbling under their breath.
You know and I know that we've asked the question of Mr. Guité and every person who came into this room, “Did you get your at-risk pay?” They replied, “Oh yes”. When asked, “Did you get your big bonus?” they replied, “Oh yes, I got my bonus”. It has no bearing on performance or results.