Air safety flies under Parliament's radar: CSC past presiden

[bk53182]

The Hill Times, June 8th, 2009
LETTERS
Air safety flies under Parliament's radar: CSC past president
In 2003, Transport Canada handed over aviation safety rule-setting to the Canadian Business Aviation Association (CBAA). In effect this allowed an industry trade association and lobby group to oversee the safety of its own members' aircraft. Bureaucrats made the change without Parliamentary approval. Then, in March 2006, they cancelled the National Audit Program, which had been one of the most effective tools in assuring safety.

All of this was done as part of a move to implement Safety Management Systems (SMS) for the larger airlines. However, smaller operators comprise most of Canada's aviation industry—air taxis, bush planes, aircraft used to transport workers to remote sites. Government inspections and audits were also cut for them even though they were not required to have SMS.

To this day, Parliament has not approved any of these cuts or the move to SMS.

In 2007, a Transport Canada review—which a media source was only able to obtain under the Access to Information Act—found these changes had created a system plagued with troubling holes. No procedures were in place to cancel or suspend a private operator's certificate when problems are found. (One must ask how a trade association could be expected to penalize its own members.) There was no structured oversight of private operators. Nor was anyone collecting or analyzing safety data. Transport Canada's own inspectors questioned whether operators were being punished for safety violations and whether there was any oversight at all.

In her May 2008 report, Canada's Auditor General Sheila Fraser found serious problems in government oversight of air transportation safety. Transport Canada had not assessed the risks in its transition to SMS, the appropriate level of safety oversight, how many aviation inspectors are required, or what skills they must have.

On April 23 in the House of Commons, an opposition member raised the issue of reduced oversight in the aviation industry. The minister of state for Transport denied there was problem, and even suggested the member apologize for his question.

Is it possible the politicians just don't know? The information they receive comes from the same bureaucrats who changed Canada's approach to aviation safety without bothering to wait for Parliament. A new website www.safeskies.ca details the concerns of pilots, airline workers.

Emile Therien ,Past President, Canada Safety Council

[snaproll20]

OK<
So, we all know this, please tell how we get the Canadian public to realize they are been shafted?

Count me in.

[C-FABH]

ANOTHER train just derailed near Toronto the other day, wonder how can lobby the government over THAT too???

Just a matter of time before it derails in a suburban neighbourhood and people are killed.

[Cat Driver]

Clunk, this phrase does have some use.

"Flying under the radar",

It is what I now do since I retired from the clusterfuck of rules and regulations that is strangling aviation.

For me " flying under the radar " means far away from any contact with the idiots that think they run aviation.

[Widow]

Is there an industry out there that isn't being affected by lack of effective regulation and oversight? Profit margins are dictating safety across the board - food, health care, transportation, nuclear isotopes ... it's a wonder people don't connect the dots themselves. Self-regulation. Harumph.

[bk53182]

[quote] Is there an industry out there that isn't being affected by lack of effective regulation and oversight? Profit margins are dictating safety across the board - food, health care, transportation, nuclear isotopes ... it's a wonder people don't connect the dots themselves. Self-regulation. Harumph /quote]

Being passionate about a safety issue can lead to thoughts there is a national conspiracy.
There is no government plan to place citizens at risk.
SMS implementation is the natural swing of the pendulum from a period when there was massive government spending to support regulatory oversight programs.
The cost of this oversight was unsustainable.
As well, many elements of the various government oversight processes were a waste of time, such as the very subjective TC approval/delegation of company personnel and unstructured base inspections.
Thats why Bill -45 was promulgated and is very powerful, more powerful that SMS because the Labour Act trumps the Aeronautics Act.. The Westray accident happened in spite of regulatory oversight: Act.http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/legisl/billc45.html
As time goes by, all businesses will learn to be more progressive with their due diligence responsibilities.

[Sidebar]

As time goes by, all businesses will learn to be more progressive with their due diligence responsibilities.

Time will tell. I think the bottom line will rule. Those businesses which are not progressive will have difficulty competing.

[Widow]

And how effective is C-45 and the Labour Code? Since Bill C-45 became law in 2004, has anyone been charged?

Yes. To date there have been three cases where charges have been laid, though, only one case resulted in a conviction. The other two cases were withdrawn.

On March 17, 2008 a paving company (Transpave) was convicted of criminal negligence and fined $100,000 in the death of an employee. The conviction was based on the new provisions of Bill C-45 in the Criminal Code of Canada.

On April 19, 2004 near the city of Newmarket, Ontario a worker was killed after the ground around him collapsed while digging a ditch at a residential construction site. The construction site supervisor was charge under section 217.1 of the Criminal Code with one count of criminal negligence causing death. In March 2005 the charges of criminal negligence against the site supervisor were dropped in an apparent plea bargain which saw the supervisor agree to three of eight charges under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act.

In the other case, in June 2002 near Calabogie, Ontario, two people were killed when a gate to a hydroelectric dam was opened, causing a flood. Two supervisors were acquitted of criminal negligence causing death in 2006.

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/legisl/b ... html#_1_10

Bill C-45 has had very little effect on assuring due diligence.

My contentions are hardly those of a "national conspiracy". Governments (worldwide, not just in Canada) have looked for ways of cutting their budgets - just like any for-profit operation - and with similar results (witness milk in China, or the American banking crisis). Industry self-management has been the latest trend.

Of course there is no "government plan to place citizens at risk" - but it is an "unfortunate" side-effect of not adequately assessing and managing the risk of reducing government oversight (cost at various levels, including liability) and trusting self-interested parties to weigh safety over (or without bearing from) profit margins.

[Cat Driver]

As time goes by, all businesses will learn to be more progressive with their due diligence responsibilities.

Really?

You mean to tell me I worked the last fifty years in this industry when all we had was TC doing some sort of enforcement against all those rule breaking small airplane operators and now I'm going to miss real enforcement of the rules under SMS?

Shit..I was born to soon.

[snaproll20]

fact is, TC never did its job when it had the 'tools'.
Now that it doesn't have to do its job because it doesn't do what it didn't do when it was not doing it, it now does not have to be done.
Seems pretty simple to me. Nothing has changed, only it is different.

[Widow]

The Canada Safety Council has made air safty a "hot issue" in another news release:

http://www.safety-council.org/news/medi ... afety.html

[carholme]

One would think that they would at least get their facts right as seen from this quote:

"The model of helicopter that crashed off the coast of Newfoundland on March 12, killing 17 people, had earlier failed a safety test over its ability to fly with zero oil pressure in the engine. The Canada Safety Council has asked why a helicopter that had failed such a vital safety test was allowed to be sold and to operate in Canada ."

The engines had nothing to do with the problem.

carholme