Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for letting me speak this morning about Héroux-Devtek, and also my view on what the government can do to help our aerospace industry. With the pandemic, of course, things are very difficult.
First, let me say a few words on Héroux-Devtek. We're a public company. We're traded on the Toronto exchange. We have close to 2,000 people around the world. We have factories in Quebec, Ontario, the States, Spain and the United Kingdom. Let me just say a few words about me and my team.
I've been in this business for 35 years. I have seen all sorts of things in this business. I acquired Héroux back in 1985. As a very small business, I did this with a partner. At that time Héroux was doing about $10 million to $12 million a year. Today, we're number three in the world in the landing-gear business. We do $600 million in business. I will point out a few things later on. I think it's important to know that, because there was a partnership with the Government of Canada, it did help Héroux to become what we are today—not only Héroux, but many other companies in the aerospace business in Canada.
You met with the AIAC board leader and also Aéro Montréal. As you may know, I'm on the board of AIAC, of course. I've been chairman of Aéro Montréal—actually, I was one of the founders of Aéro Montréal.
Our industry in Canada is coast to coast. It's from the west to the east, so it's not only a Quebec industry, it's also really an industry across Canada. Our industry is the third-largest exporter of Canada, and we export “brain”—that's what we do for a living. We have 235,000 people. We contribute $28 billion of revenue a year to Canada. The people we employ are very well paid, over the average by about 10%.
I want to speak about the partnership that did exist with the Government of Canada for a long time. As you may know, there was the DIPP back then. It was replaced by the TPC, then this was replaced by SADI. These programs had a big impact on our industry over the last 40 years.
Take an example of Héroux-Devtek. Back in 1985 it was $10 million to $12 million, and we were at the time mainly repairing C-130 landing gear for our Canadian Air Force. We were building the CL-215 for Canadair—the water bomber—and the nose landing gear for the Twin Otter.
Today, I will just mention only airplanes that we design, build and repair in the fleet in Canada: the C-130 Hercules, the Chinook, the Cormorant, the Kingfisher, the Hawk, the Twin Otter, the Aurora and the Cyclone. None of this was there when I purchased the business. I can go on and on like this, because we have also a commercial program such as the 777. We build the 777 for Boeing directly.
On the competition for the fighter—guess what?—we build the F-18 landing gear and the E/F main gear. We build complete Gripen landing gear for Saab, and we have many products on the F-35.
My point is that that partnership has been broken. There is no more DIPP, there is no more TPC and there's no more SADI program. I think if we really want to help the aerospace industry in a tough time we need to go back to basics. What we need is very simple. We need a sectorial program for the aerospace like we had in the past. If we have that, then we can develop technology—green technology, of course—more and more. We know that our planes have to be green, and we need to develop some technology to reduce the amount of CO2 and all of this, and design products that will meet climate change.
I think that's the point. The point is very simple: You have helped us to build our industry. Look at the impact of these programs on my business going from $12 million to $600 million and more, so that's my message.
Thank you all for your time.