Industry Committee on March 25th, 2021

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

You've answered it in part. We're really talking about a strategy. We've heard from a number of witnesses about the importance of having a Canadian aerospace or aeronautics strategy in place to have, as you say, a long-term horizon. Yet, according to the witnesses we have heard from so far, it seems that, for the last four or five years, such a strategy no longer exists or it is not sufficiently known, because the federal government does not promote it enough.

Is this the reality?

[Gilles Labbé]

Yes, this is the reality. The people from Aéro Montreal and the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada must surely have pointed that out in their testimony.

What made aerospace successful was really this partnership that we had. Our country is huge and it's bordered by three oceans. Not long ago, we were the fifth-largest aerospace country in the world. Now we are ninth. The domestic demand for aerospace products such as civil aircraft and military aircraft, for example, is not sufficient. We really need to look to exports. So our industry has grown through these programs. We export 90% of our production, which means $28 billion in revenue for Canada.

Earlier, I mentioned programs like the C-130J Super Hercules. We supply Canada, but we are Lockheed Martin's sole source of supply for that product. Every C-130J Super Hercules aircraft produced at Lockheed Martin is equipped with wheels and landing gear manufactured by us. We also do maintenance. I could go on and tell you about many of the products we have designed over the past several years.

That's also true for other Canadian companies located on the east and west coasts. There is, for example, Viking Air Limited on the west coast and IMP Aerospace and Defence on the east coast. There are several in Ontario. The Quebec industry is important, but there are also other companies outside of Quebec.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I fully understand this. In fact, we've seen several examples that show this.

There are more than just subsidies among all the previous measures that a future Canadian aerospace strategy could put back in place. There are also forgivable loans, as they're called in Quebec, or a vision-based strategy.

Has this also helped you in the past?

[Gilles Labbé]

We'll need to develop products while taking into account the context of climate change. We'll need to make much greener products to meet needs. People are already working on engines that will run on hydrogen or fuels other than gasoline to reduce CO₂ emissions from airplanes. We need to have a long-term vision, but we also need to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Labbé, but Mr. Généreux's time is up. You can clarify your answer during the next round of questions.

[Gilles Labbé]

Okay.

Thank you for the question, Mr. Généreux.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

It's never long enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

You're right, Mr. Généreux.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Jowhari.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Once again, thank you to all the witnesses for providing quite informative input into our study.

I'd like to start with Mr. Bain.

Mr. Bain, back on November 24, 2020, the CSA announced that your company had been selected as part of the smartEarth initiative for a project to advance state-of-the-art, multisource data fusion and apply machine learning technology to map Canada's environmentally critical wetland areas.

I'd like to get input from you. Can you share with us what the scope of this project is, and how is it balancing, in your opinion, the support for the aerospace industry, the support for R and D, and the support for environmental initiative, which is the forefront of our government platform?

[Stewart Bain]

We're very happy to be working with the Canadian Space Agency on that smartEarth project. It's a new initiative, as you all well know, from the Canadian Space Agency to look at developing technologies. It's an R and D project to develop technologies for Canada to be in the forefront of aspects related to climate change. NorthStar looks at climate change as a system of systems. Climate change is an easy, quick two-word phrase. It's thousands of things happening at the same time.

The founders of NorthStar are American. As the token Canadian, I convinced them to put the head office here in Canada, in Montreal, because climate change is a global problem that needs to come and have services from a trusted nation when you're providing information.

NorthStar uses satellites, but it is first and foremost a software algorithm company. One of the quotes I heard recently was about how the future of space belongs to the company that can generate the most data and process it in real time, so my team primarily consists of big data managers, big data systems, software and algorithms.

What we're doing with the Canadian Space Agency is developing systems where we can fuse data from other sources so that we can contextualize that data. It's not raw data coming from a satellite that requires a Ph.D. in hyperspectral imagery and a million dollars' worth of equipment in your office so that you can understand in a week and a half what just came down from a satellite. It's immediate so that you can have an app on your phone so that you can say, “I want to monitor the environment in near real time”.

Our concept is billions of users working to help change the planet, and our go phrase is “Empowering humanity to preserve our planet”. This is a very important step, working with the Canadian Space Agency. It's R and D; it's not the long term. The long term is that you want to be able to sell these services, and a lot of my colleagues have talked about how smart or cheap stimulus.... Mr. Whittaker referred to the OT process in the States. It needs to go to the next step.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Next I'd like to go quickly to CADSI and Madam Cianfarani.

You recommended four pillars or a four-part plan. I was looking at your website, and as part of the path forward, your organization made about nine recommendations. You specifically talked, when it came to defence procurement, about pulling forward and accelerating some of the projects with the federal government around defence. Can you expand on that, please?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Like I mentioned, there's a very long shopping list of programs in the defence capability's blueprint. Essentially, that is what the Canadian Forces intends to buy across army, navy, air force, space systems, you name it, over the next 20 years. Largely, the capital acquisitions are in the next 10 years, and there are some hundreds of programs on the books for them to make acquisitions in. Some of those programs have a very natural intersection—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Can you give us an example of one? I apologize, but I only have about 20 seconds left. Could you give us one example of what we could put forward and accelerate?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Sure. Fighter lead-in training and future air crew training are projects that will need to be sourced. They could be pulled forward in the acquisition schedule to start them as quickly as possible. We have Canadian companies that are key industrial capabilities in those areas. These are two projects, just off the top of my mind, that could be pulled forward or accelerated.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll continue with Mr. Bohn from Nav Canada.

Mr. Bohn, as you know, Rouyn-Noranda is the third-largest airport in Quebec. For several years, the City of Rouyn-Noranda has been calling on you. However, your silence, as well as the silence of the Minister of Transport and his predecessor, is creating uncertainty. The answer that you gave earlier obviously isn't reassuring. The technology associated with the automated weather observing system, or AWOS, is creating a great deal of uncertainty and concern about the safety of passengers, pilots and staff.

The Kinojevis River is close to the runway and this affects the reliability of the automated system. The implementation of night services without a human presence also affects all medical services, particularly emergency services for indigenous communities in northern Quebec.

Could you commit to responding positively to a request to meet with me and representatives of the City of Rouyn-Noranda? We could also invite representatives from Abitibi-Témiscamingue public health, our regional airlines that do business with the north, mining companies and Hydro-Québec, all of whom need your services in Rouyn-Noranda.

[Ray Bohn]

We would welcome the opportunity to have such a discussion, so please reach out.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

That's fine.

I want to remind you how important the services of Nav Canada are.

I want to repeat my question from earlier. Would the vision of a moratorium on these studies, particularly on the economic impact studies, help to regenerate predictability, confidence and a long-term vision for our regional airports?

There has been a great deal of investment. I know that you're hearing this plea from other regional airports as well. We just heard my colleague from the Windsor area speak about this. The member for Cariboo—Prince George is also speaking to you about this.

Wouldn't it be good to see how we could talk directly with you? This type of meeting would give us more influence on the decisions made by your company to maintain services in the regions, which I believe are very profitable.

[Ray Bohn]

We have certainly consulted extensively in our aeronautical studies leading up to our conclusions and recommendations, which have yet to be formulated. As I mentioned earlier, we will be adding an additional step to the process to communicate the findings and allow stakeholders to make representations in regard to our specific recommendations before they go to Transport Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Bohn, I'll give you a chance to outline that.

What would be the difference? You're going to have your study. When you come back to it, maybe some issues will be highlighted. Do you then challenge the veracity of the study? How does it get amended and then how does it get sent to the minister? Outline that process if you could.

[Ray Bohn]

I'm going to ask Jonathan Bagg, who is responsible for the level of service initiative, to respond to that.

[Jonathan Bagg]

What I can confirm about this additional process is that with our aeronautical studies, we communicate a term of reference, a scope of study. The outcome of a study can vary depending on what we find and feedback from stakeholders. This additional step will allow stakeholders to make representations on the specific findings of the studies, the outcomes and the recommendations before they go to Transport Canada. If any new issues are raised, we would consider them within the context of that study. It's an additional step for stakeholder input that we've added.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Why was that added? This is a new practice, I guess. Was there a particular reason?