Pilot fatigue is something we take very seriously. I have been with Transport Canada for a very long time, and that issue was studied and analyzed extensively from 1980 to 1990. After over 10 years of communication and meetings with air carriers and pilots' associations, we created the regulations that are in place today.
I believe those regulations have helped reduce the number of accidents. We analyze every accident and read all the reports released by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board. Priority is always given to TSB recommendations. The TSB has not issued any recommendations related to pilot fatigue since 1995. The TSB may have noted fatigue as one factor contributing to an accident, but not the main cause. Just last week I spoke to the Transportation Safety Board's chair and asked her if she had any other concerns. Perhaps you would like to invite her here to speak to the committee. It is not the TSB's top priority, which is why it was not included in the list of the nine main factors they want us to focus on.
That being said, we now recognize that the regulations governing pilot scheduling could be improved and we have introduced a system to review those regulations. To that end, we plan to use a system we developed thanks to the studies cited in the Enquête program, first for mechanics and then for pilots. A working group will be meeting in June, I belive, to begin work on reviewing different hours, primarily, and the impact of circadian rhythms on pilots' schedules.