If it was a good idea, everybody would be doing it.GTFA wrote:Oh Ogee!At its core, this is a proposal which is counter to free enterprise and individualism. Its transparent agenda is to restrict entry to the flying profession, create an artificial shortage of pilots, and thus increase the wage levels of pilots. That has a knock on effect in terms of operating costs to carriers, both good and bad, and in a real market will result in less flying to be done as customers on the margin of choice between air and ground will swing to ground. So you have two forces working against our profession...an artificial barrier to entry affecting supply, and a market driven reduction in demand because of higher costs that will result.
Sounds like you are already scripting the 5th Estate episode! It might be a little early to make this kind of accusation. Why is it a bad idea for a professional group of practitioners to regulate their own standards of training and performance?
Regulation by government authority carries with it the authority of the state, which, at the end of the day is us. Not just us pilots, but the totality of society which periodically votes on the performance of government. It also is subject to review for fairness and other values which underpin society. There is media oversight, particularly when public safety is involved. And a whole lot of other things.
This proposal seeks to have aviation licensing, and God knows what other aspects of aviation, placed in the hands of people whose only link to society is through a "partnership" with the government authority which is supposed to be overseeing aviation. It places Transport Canada at a further remove from accountability to citizens and pilot/citizens and the "democracy" it leaves them with is that of an organization which proposes to be granted authority over all of us when it has authority from only a tiny fraction of us. And actively avoids seeking a mandate to do what it proposes to do from the profession it seeks control over.
There is a divergence of interest between TC and this group. TC has a statutory mandate to ensure safety within an effective and efficient aviation system in Canada and those parts of that system which operate internationally. It answers to Parliament and society. The College does not answer to either Parliament or society. Right now, it refuses to answer to us while it proposes to move forward in our names but without consent to make decisions about our careers. It does not have society's interest at heart, it seeks to gain control over the practice of piloting for both good and bad reasons. Its the bad reasons I am concerned about.
I don't really have any objection to a College as a way of differentiating pilots on a real basis, or even an imaginary basis. What I object to is its compulsory nature. And the fact that there isn't really a bit of concern amongst the public or the piloting profession as to how Transport Canada sets training and standards to obtain licenses. The concern is with how some commercial operators treat pilots and how they run unsafe operations and get away with it.. But I don't see that there is a great concern that my licence now isn't good as a certification of my ability to fly an airplane, or that the interim licences I held in my career were no good. We all know that a new standard, above the core license, is set by operators and insurance companies and becomes more machine specific, etc.
Ya, I can see the College playing a part in that. But a perhaps imperfect comparision is with the legal profession. You get a law degree. A university gives you that, not the Law Society. But to practice, you need to meet further qualifications imposed by the law society. But this College wants to control your career right back to your PPL medical. For no good reason which comes to mind. But with one obviously bad motivation, to be able to control the supply of pilots, which is another way of saying to limit those who can dream about obtaining the rights we are now able to freely exercise upon what seem to me to be demonstrating competence at appropriate levels in our careers.
