Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for joining us this afternoon.
Mr. Lévesque, in the report the Auditor General, Mr. Ferguson, has said that Transport Canada will never have enough resources to ensure that every federal railway company complies with all aspects of the safety regulatory framework at all times; therefore, it must use risk management—mitigation I guess—techniques to choose what to oversee, when, and how often. I hear you on that. I understand that and I applaud you. I agree with the comments from my colleague, Mr. Woodworth, on the improvement arc, as he's termed it, as you've moved the safety management system along to implementation.
However, you also said that we've fallen short on SMS. I've got to tell you, we're here for Canadians to ensure that Transport Canada and our rail system is safe. I don't think, as one Canadian, that our falling short, the government falling short, or Transport Canada falling short is acceptable.
I look at the comment with regards to recommendation 7.70, where the Auditor General has acknowledged that you have 10 auditors, four of whom are slated for retirement or expected to retire some time soon. That takes you to six. You have a need for 20. I wonder if you could just bring us up to speed, and incidentally, I do appreciate the action plan and its comments. But where are we at on it? You're talking about fall 2014 implementation. Are you going to have 20 auditors in place fully trained and ready to go? How can we give confidence to Canadians that Transport Canada is delivering on this aspect in the rail system?