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House Hansard - 266

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 12, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 266 - Dec/12/23
Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)
  • Dec/12/23 5:59:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be rising today to give my thoughts on Motion No. 96, which was introduced by a fellow British Columbian, the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells. I would like to thank him, because it is not every day that the House of Commons gets to take a deep dive into the Canadian aviation regulations. I say that as someone who, like many members of Parliament, has spent many hours of my life in this job on an airplane. Actually, I rarely give any thought to this particular issue, because I think that we in Canada enjoy one of the safest airline usages in the world. I have a lot of trust in the ground crew, the pilots and everyone who is involved in the safe operation of an aircraft. As my riding is about as far away from Ottawa as one can get, it allows me to fly on those aircraft without a second thought, but this is an interesting topic. For members back at home who are watching this debate, essentially what the House of Commons is looking at is a motion brought forward by the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells that is asking the House of Commons to recognize that there are some significant shortfalls in the Canadian aviation regulations, and to recognize, essentially, that there is a requirement that firefighters at an airport must reach the midpoint of the furthest runway in three minutes rather than all points on operational runways within that time period. In recognizing that some of these facts exist, the motion is asking for the opinion of the House, that the Canadian aviation regulations should reflect airport rescue and firefighting standards published by the International Civil Aviation Organization, specifically by giving firefighters at our major airports the mandate and resources necessary to reach the site of a fire anywhere on an operational runway in three minutes or less, and specifying that the required function of those firefighters be the rescue of passengers. I have had a fair amount of experience as a member of Parliament with the Canadian aviation regulations, but in other areas. Those regulations exist under the authority of the Aeronautics Act, and if one looks at the regulatory powers conferred to the minister in the Aeronautics Act, we can see that the minister, or the Governor in Council, has been given quite a wide latitude. I represent a fairly rural riding that has a fairly big chunk of airspace that has been designated for flight training. Many of my constituents are now quite concerned, because that area is not as rural as it once was. We have more and more people moving to Vancouver Island and previously empty farm fields now have neighbourhoods starting to develop in them. People are becoming quite concerned that the airspace in this one particular area, over the Westholme and Chemainus areas of my riding, is being buzzed in the summer constantly by low-flying planes practising flight manoeuvres. What that allowed me to do, as their member of Parliament, was to take a deep dive into the Canadian aviation regulations and to also look at the Aeronautics Act and become somewhat familiar with the wide-ranging powers that the minister has. Essentially, what I hope is the result of the passage of Motion No. 96 is that the minister will take it upon himself to finally act where previous governments have not, because this has been a long-standing issue. The International Association of Fire Fighters has concluded that there are significant regulatory shortfalls. A study by that association found that regulations regarding emergency response at airports do not meet international standards set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization in terms of making rescue a required function of airport firefighters or mandating a three-minute response time to reach all points on the runway. Essentially, this is a motion that is aiming to make sure that those regulations meet that standard. This motion was likely influenced by the IAFF's legislative conference, which happened in March of this year. It definitely did advocate for those changes. I am proud to say that our NDP leader, the member for Burnaby South, spoke at that conference. He expressed his support for the IAFF's position and for improving, generally, Canada's aviation regulations to meet international standards. I am here to say that the NDP supports this motion because we firmly believe that the safety of passengers should always be of paramount importance in the event of an emergency at Canadian airports. We should meet international standards for safety and should make sure the government is providing our firefighters the proper resources to accomplish that goal. Something we always have to keep in mind when we are changing these regulations and requiring firefighters to take on new duties is that they must always have the proper resources and equipment to fulfill the tasks we ask them to do. For firefighters who are willing at a moment's notice to put their life on the line for others, I think this is of paramount importance. I respect the right of every member of this House to bring forward a motion or a private member's bill of their choice, but I find this interesting because regulations, especially when we look at the area covered under the Aeronautics Act, can be gazetted quite quickly. I wonder why we have to resort to a motion to call on the government to do something that I think there is a lot of evidence for it to have already done a long time ago. I think it is a noble motion, but the changes being called for are far too late and should have been adopted decades ago. Those in the industry, especially the International Association of Fire Fighters and pilot unions, have been raising the alarm on these deficiencies in the Canadian aviation regulations since their inception in 1996. We know the Senate has looked at this issue. It made a report in 1999. The amount of time that has passed, it now being 2023, goes to show that successive Liberal and Conservative governments in that time really dropped the ball on what I think is a rather simple and quick fix. The consequence of this is that our country, with a very valued and high safety threshold, is being left behind by the rest of the world when it comes to response times. We owe it to Canadians to really step up to the plate and make sure that those standards are fully included. We know that Canadian and U.S. militaries have adopted these standards, but Canadian commercial aviation continues to lag behind. Why is this particularly important? According to the Transportation Safety Board, 56% of airplane accidents happen during the landing phase and 24% occur during takeoff, so being in the air at cruising altitude is not when most accidents happen. Rather, it is usually when the pilot puts on autopilot and the plane flies itself. When pilots are making the approach to land or are taking off, the stats show that is the most dangerous time for both the aircrew and the passengers on board. Accidents are always happening at airports, and this important change to the Canadian aviation regulations is needed so we have faster response times, so firefighters are well aware of the mandate they are expected to follow and, most importantly, so they have the equipment necessary to do their job. I know I am coming rapidly to the end of my time on this. I would like to end by saying that Canadian air passengers should be able to count on fire service in the event of a fire on an aircraft. I think the firefighters themselves have voiced their strong support for this change in the measure. I think this is a good motion for raising public awareness on this issue. I would like to commend the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells for bringing it forward. I hope that not only through this motion but through the very fact that he gets to share a caucus meeting with the Minister of Transport every single Wednesday, we will see this very noble gesture turn quickly into actual action.
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