Overseeing One's Own Standards

Because of radical changes the government is making to the way its federal inspectors operate and by allowing the industry to increasingly oversee its own safety standards, the Canadian Government is imperiling aviation safety standards. That's the opinion of the head of the union representing Canada's air safety inspectors. Speaking on 21 Feb in Ottawa, Union Chairman Greg Holbrook claimed that a new poll of inspectors had found that 74% of them expected a major air accident to result and a lesser figure (61%) concurred that, at the very least, the proposed changes would increase the risk of accident.

Transport Canada is rolling out a new safety-management system that will change the way their inspectors operate. Instead of conducting blanket audits and inspections of all airlines, inspectors will re-focus on companies that are identified as constituting the greatest risk.

While the union representing the inspectors says the changes will be detrimental to Canada's air safety, Transport Canada says it will improve its checks-and-balances system and help re-allocate resources more efficiently. Around 250 inspectors, or about 65 per cent of those in Transport Canada, completed the Pollara survey between Jan 26 and Feb 2. The group appeared at the Commons transport committee on 21 Feb and is calling on the federal government to reject the modified safety inspections regime of turning most of it over to industry associations. Some critics, lobbyists and parliamentary opposition MP's went as far as using the term "reckless endangerment".

Transport Canada was a little hesitant, diffident and obscure about the new inspection protocols. "The inspectors are going to be asked to do things a little bit differently," Transport Canada spokeswoman Lucie Vignola said. "In some forms, we are basically asking for the industry to be more active in aviation safety. We want them to identify the issues." Apparently the union sees the single issue as being one of nil guarantees of transparency under self-regulation.

The Australian experience with TransAir and Whyalla Airlines, each now defunct after major fatal accidents, was that the regulators (CASA and the ATSB) hadn't been aware of what was happening on the inside. Only an accident investigation and the coming forward of ex employees was able to throw light on the pre-existing safety culture within those organizations.