Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in our plan, which was very ambitious and consists of a number of different measures in a number of different areas, we basically set ourselves target dates in terms according to our capacity and how quickly we could work through some things, setting priorities. We ce

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the move to safety management systems, I think, is certainly a move to try to address what we know is growing volumes in the industry. As I was mentioning, the idea is that we put a lot of onus on industry to be systems-based, to put in place systems that are proactiv

Public Accounts committee  Let me open, Mr. Chair, by saying that we haven't reduced the number of front-line inspectors. In fact, we have more than 880 inspectors. We've made sure, despite having to look at some administrative—

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I can assure the committee that Transport Canada provides oversight and does oversight over the industry. The industry is not self-regulated; Transport Canada is the regulatory authority. Some of the changes we made in moving to safety management systems were basical

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in response to the question, what we have put in place in Transport Canada is a risk-based process. In terms of undertaking surveillance, it's a recommendation of the Auditor General's report that we should ensure that we're focusing resources in the areas in the highe

Public Accounts committee  Canada is very highly regarded in respect of the safety of our systems. The move to safety management systems, which the International Civil Aviation Organization is promoting globally, is built on a lot of the work that Canada initiated. We're trying to change the culture to mak

Public Accounts committee  We shared the plan with you yesterday, and you'll see that the plan is actually dated April. Our intention is to give you an update on some our milestones and target dates—things we've already completed, things we are going to be completing in September, October, and December. We

Public Accounts committee  I'm going to open and then turn the floor over to my colleagues. Just to give you a sense of how seriously we have taken this, we have a very rigorous process. We have a steering committee that meets virtually every two weeks, which I chair. We go through the action plan, which

Public Accounts committee  Can I just add one final point? The Auditor General also pointed out the issue of management oversight on our surveillance plans, and we have put in measures to enhance management oversight. In fact, senior management has to approve the surveillance plans. Senior management meet

Public Accounts committee  At this point, I'd say we're roughly at 75% or 77%. We are confident that by the end of March we will be at 99% complete. A lot of this is also continuous work. Now that we've been working on our quality assurance plan, we will be revisiting how we're doing to make sure we're act

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you on the Auditor General's 2012 review of the civil aviation program. With me today are two of my colleagues: Gerard McDonald, assistant deputy minister of safety and security, and Martin Eley, director general

Transport committee  Well, VIA basically ensures that.... I mean, everything it does in terms of safety is not compromising safety. I think that for any of the measures the organization has taken—and it has taken measures in terms of the lean initiative, which is to reduce management structures—they

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  I think VIA basically has said itself that in the markets it operates in it tries to ensure that it has predictable and reliable service, and it's trying to actually increase the customer experience. It has service standards that it sets, and that's a key priority that they've id

Transport committee  Yes.