Thank you.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting Avcorp to speak at this key defence committee session.
First, who is Avcorp? We're a small aerospace company based in British Columbia. We currently employ approximately 500 staff, and we have facilities in both B.C. and Ontario. The company is a designer and builder of aircraft structural assemblies in both metallic and composite materials. Founded over 50 years ago, the company started out building floats for float planes, and it has evolved into a supplier to most of the large OEMs in the aerospace industry. Our key customers today are Boeing, Bombardier, and Cessna.
We are very pleased to be here today to talk about the decision on the F-35. Since 2005, Avcorp has been working to diversify its portfolio of business by adding defence contracts. The aerospace industry is cyclic, and not having defence work in our portfolio was always seen as a disadvantage. To date the company has been successful in winning work on the CH-47 under the current Government of Canada procurement process, and recently we were able to announce a contract on the F-35 program. We will participate in the global supply chains for both those programs.
One of the key things we'd like to highlight is to thank the public servants at DND, Industry Canada, and Public Works for the time and effort they put in to making these opportunities a reality for Canadian industry. Certainly we, as Avcorp, value their hard work.
The impact of participation in the F-35 program for a company like ours has been extremely significant. By participating early on in the program, as Canada has, we have been able to realign our technology base and train our people to be ready to take on this work. That has put us in a position to compete on a global basis and win significant contracts.
A key part of the process has been the transfer of technology into the company for the F-35. That not only enables us to do this kind of work, but it will also allow us at a later date to transfer this knowledge into our commercial programs and hence build on this technology transfer to compete on future major platforms, like the 737 replacement or the A320 replacement. The issue of technology transfer in a program like this is absolutely key to the long-term success of the industry.
Continued participation in the program by Canada is essential. It will ensure that more opportunities will be forthcoming for other Canadian companies, and obviously it will allow companies that have contracts to continue to participate. We believe the important issue for us now should be to focus on driving more of the subcontract work into the Canadian SME supply base, because again we see the technology transfer opportunity and growing the capabilities of the industrial base.
Any delays or pauses in this process mean we would leave opportunities by the wayside. This program is picking up speed. Production is starting to ramp up, and the window of opportunity on certain types of contracts will close as those aspects of the program are locked down for production purposes. There are significant challenges to the program in the arena of capacity. The Canadian industry, as strong as it is on the global stage, has a wonderful opportunity to get more than our fair share, let's call it, on this program because we're not limited by artificial numbers like we would be under an IRB program. We have essentially unlimited capability to take on work if we have the capacity to do it and if we have the will to actually invest to make that happen. So there is really no upper limit to what Canadian industry can do on this program.
Mr. Chair, thank you very much. That is all I have at this point.