IT is past time for the federal government to clarify why some recommendations made by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are acted upon while others are not.
The TSB investigates transportation accidents to determine causes and safety issues and makes recommendations to eliminate or reduce such safety deficiencies. It does not determine liability.
The TSB was created in 1990 as an agency completely independent from other arms of government and enforcement in order to avoid any possible conflict of interest. To do so, it reports to Parliament and the public directly, not to Transport Canada.
So it's pretty hard to swallow when the TSB says "Transport Canada" has failed to act on previous recommendations made in 2006 and several times since on safety measures for small aircraft.
Transport Canada is a creature of the government. If it is not acting, we should be asking the government why not. Either the TSB's 220 employees are Canada's experts in the safety field or they are not. If they are, why are we paying them to make hollow recommendations that have no followthrough? Is it just about cost? Surely it's not to make government look better when scenes of horror and destruction are aired in the wake of major accidents like the rail tragedy at Lac Mégantic.
We would not presume to prejudge the TSB's investigation into the causes of that fatal fire, but there, just as in the Richmond airplane crash that killed two men, there are unaddressed issues of safety previously flagged by the TSB, such as the rules on train hand brakes.
