Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the clarification.
I did have the opportunity to look at section 303 of the Canadian Aviation Regulations during the bells and the vote. It is important to note that there are already stringent requirements there, including the requirement for personnel who are charged with airport firefighting to have specific training and to have specific equipment provided, right down to their personal protective equipment. All of that has to be provided and is specified by the regulations.
We're very clear that in those three meetings to hear from witnesses, we would want to hear both from firefighters....
I note that the union representing firefighters at the Montréal-Trudeau airport has indicated that they have strong opinions on this as well. They're not IAFF, but we'd certainly welcome them to come and be a part of this discussion.
There have been questions about their mandate in the past and about whether or not they can respond to incidents happening just outside the fence of the airport, etc. There was a tragic case in which they weren't allowed to respond, which I believe Mr. Barsalou-Duval brought up in this committee previously. There's a requirement to hear from individuals who have an interest in this, either from the airport management side or the firefighter protection side.
I noted that in the regulations, this applies to airports that have over 180,000 aircraft movements per year, so it's not every small airport. The Chilliwack municipal airport, for instance, would not be forced to upgrade its firefighting capacity, should motion 96 be passed and implemented, but others would. It's important to note that some of them would require new buildings, for instance, to house permanent firefighters to allow them to get to a runway in the prescribed time, as is envisioned in the motion. Others would require new, specialized equipment, which can run into the millions of dollars as well.
These are discussions that are worth having in a robust way. They should be had here at this committee. I think that we would welcome the opportunity to hear from interested parties in order to have that discussion. I'm open to discussion about whether three meetings are long enough or too much, and if we should expand the proposed witness list or whether or not we can make do with what we have here.
Given the debate in the House that's coming up again tomorrow, we wanted to move this motion. I look forward to hearing from colleagues what they think about whether three meetings are enough, whether parties should be invited and whether there are specific items that should be discussed at those meetings. I think this is a good start and a good opportunity for us to have the robust discussion that we need to have.
With that, Mr. Chair, I will turn it over to other members of the committee.