Good day, Mr. Chair, Vice-Chairs and committee members.
My name is Nicholas Robinson, and I am the director general of civil aviation at Transport Canada, responsible for aviation safety. I am joined here today by my colleague, David Turnbull, who is the director of national aircraft certification at Transport Canada. We are pleased to join you again today to support this study related to aircraft certification.
Canada has one of the safest civil aviation systems in the world. As a result of the exceptional level of expertise and technical experience in our department, Canada is recognized as one of the four global leaders in aircraft certification. We've achieved this through our unwavering commitment to safety and to making evidence-based safety decisions in the highly complex environment of aircraft certification.
As I outlined to this committee back in February, the certification of an aircraft involves a careful examination of the design to verify that the aircraft complies with airworthiness standards and regulations—in short, all the things that we expect an aircraft to have in order for it to fly safely.
Transport Canada is the certifying authority where a Canadian company manufactures an aircraft, or aeronautical product such as an engine. When it comes to products that are not Canadian-made, Transport Canada’s role consists of validating the certification decisions—