Evidence of meeting #130 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was students.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, Lib.
Mr. Doiron, welcome from Gander, Newfoundland. Being an MP from Newfoundland and Labrador, I wanted to say hi.
You mentioned some recommendations. One that you just referred to concerned financial challenges, the costs of training. We've heard from other witnesses on that point as well.
Are there other challenges that you wanted to identify? I know you were cut short a little when you did your initial presentation. Is there anything else that you have for us?
Aviation Safety Officer, EVAS Air Charters, Gander Flight Training Aerospace
Thank you for that, sir.
One element we stumbled across—at least in my experience, being in the flight training industry—when we went after funding for students, working with the student loans people and also with the Canada Revenue Agency for being able to claim training costs, was the way we have our training licences set up—we have basically a private, a commercial and so forth. Very quickly, everybody gets hung up on this “private” pilot licence. Even though it is an integral part of the commercial pilot licence, there seems to be a roadblock there. That's one issue.
The second and maybe in some ways greater issue is the fact that most student funding is based upon weeks in class versus costs of tuition. The average student therefore doesn't get any amount near what is really needed to cover tuition costs. An integrated air transport pilot licence or an integrated commercial pilot licence can be done in about 14 to 16 months, on average, while a university degree takes four years. The system is based on that university degree. Some way to change this situation would be great.
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Kendra, I'm a member of Parliament from Calgary. I had the opportunity last week to visit the tower with Nav Canada. So I did exactly what you just talked about, listen in on the conversation. I would encourage any member if they have the opportunity to take it up with Nav Canada and see the operations. It's well worth it.
What I found interesting though was, and correct me if I've got this wrong, to become a control tower operator, there's no school to go to. They train themselves through Nav Canada. Is that not correct?
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
Yes. Nav Canada trains the air traffic controllers.
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Yes. And my understanding is the same thing with pilots. You don't go to a technical school to become a pilot, you go to a private flight school. Is that correct?
Aviation Safety Officer, EVAS Air Charters, Gander Flight Training Aerospace
Or colleges. There are private flight schools; different provinces have community colleges.
February 19th, 2019 / 11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
SAIT has the pilot program in Calgary.
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
It seems to me that would be the area, if we want to fill this gap. The problem is I think there's a bit of a jurisdictional area here because you're appearing before a federal committee and education is a provincial responsibility; SAIT is primarily funded by the Province of Alberta. Have there been discussions with, in our case, the Province of Alberta about increased funding for aviation? And then it seems to me that what Jo-Anne is doing in Ontario is a natural thing to be doing in Alberta. We have lots of young people who unfortunately aren't working these days. I just don't understand why all of these dots haven't been connected to date.
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
I don't either.
Speaking about Nav Canada to start, first you can see when you go into that tower, what an attractive job it is, and what an easy sell it is.
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
I don't know if you've ever been into the air traffic control centre?
Conservative
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
When you start out IFR in the air traffic control centre, the basic salary in Edmonton is $150,000 in your first year.
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
So if any of you want to come and see, let me know.
Conservative
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
It's an incredible career. I find once we get anyone in the Nav Canada building, it's an easy sell. We're selling pilots too. We're saying, how about this career? Do you have $80,000 in your pocket?
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Okay, that's where I get back to the provincial funding. Jo-Anne's talking about their issue being infrastructure to a large extent. I'm thinking about whether it's Edmonton in Villeneuve or Calgary in Springbank...we have the infrastructure. It seems to me you have a high number of young people who need a new career. Many are indigenous, and I think there are great opportunities there. We have the infrastructure. These dots just aren't connecting and I don't know why they aren't and I'm only speaking for our province. I don't know other provinces that well.
Founder and Chair, Elevate Aviation
Perhaps this is a conversation we could start and have a provincial committee to talk about doing this. We're going up to Yellowknife in April to host one of our tours up there, then we're also going to different areas.
We were talking to some people in Yellowknife who want to send some indigenous people to our learning centre for a week. So the interest is there. Maybe the next step is some sort of committee.
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
After Jason Kenney gets elected in a month or so, why don't we have a conversation with him?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you folks for having me.
My question is specific, first of all, to Mr. Doiron because Gander Flight Training is in my riding. I've known the people involved for quite some time. Every time I talk to someone who's interested in aviation—and I'm talking about people in the age group of 18 to about 27 or so—I find that many of them now realize that the opportunities to advance extremely quickly are immense. I saw one son of a friend of mine. He's now 24 or 25 years old, and he's close to becoming a captain with Jazz.
To watch him go from this student of 18 and then four or five years later.... It's phenomenal, and it was unheard of several years ago, as I was told. This tells me “good for him” and that he's an exceptional person, but even at his level of talent, that wouldn't have happened all those years ago.
One of the things that I keep hearing from people that age is that it's like sticker shock. They look at the price of getting in, and right away, they say, “You mean I have to spend that much money in that period of time?”
Now, Mr. Doiron, I'm picking on you because you addressed this earlier. You said you had a solution, at least one step towards getting over that sticker shock of getting into the school.
Aviation Safety Officer, EVAS Air Charters, Gander Flight Training Aerospace
I think what has to happen is that we have to sell the career, not the start-up. One of the issues is that for years when I would talk to parents, for example, at my previous school and I would explain, they would ask how much it costs for training, and I would tell them. Then they would ask, “How much can they expect to earn when they start working?” and I would explain to them that it's literally slave wages when they first start in the industry. That's where the disconnect happened. However, if you took the time to explain to them that that's considered an apprenticeship, that over a period of two or three years that salary changes dramatically, especially in this day and age, and that the progression is so rapid, like the young man you were talking about.... He went from slave wages to a very, very decent salary in a very short time.
To me, that's the most critical aspect. You don't just sell the training. You sell the career. To me, that's the way to do it because if you just sell the training, people just click out and they're gone. They'll never come back because they just get that sticker shock.
