Although there may be fraud, it does not relieve the employer from the duty of verification. The compliance process at large employers for professional class employees has the designated compliance officer or HR person verify licenses and their scope of activity, against the professional registry. For example, the employer of a lawyer in Ontario will verify the licensing details with the law society of Ontario information. This includes class of license, education, regulatory actions and current practice restrictions.

It appears that while Air Canada checked to see if pilots held a license, it did not previously cross check with the professional regulatory registry. Air Canada has basically admitted this in its news release. Also, pilot licences are cross-checked by a certified check pilot twice a year as part of the recurrent checks and training, and Air Canada has reinforced its administrative practices when physically verifying licences. This includes verifying the original documents issued by Transport Canada.

And if we play connect the dots, Air Canada most likely had an internal audit, and the audit identified a compliance deficiency. The remediation action was to then audit pilot licenses against the Transport Canada registry. Makes me wonder how a deficiency was allowed to continue for 17 years. At least it was found and corrected. If Air Canada was relying on employees submitting license copies, it was behind the times. My employer pays for my multiprovincial licenses and has been checking my license validity in the provinces where I am licensed for the past decade.

The pilot is age 59. Mandatory retirement is age 60. He nearly got away with it. I wonder if he gets to keep his full pension.