Transport committee  Yes. There is no test, are we going to publish or not type of thing. It is us, so far in all the business we've done, we go ahead and we publish it. But in the process of informing the chain of command that we are about to publish it, if they look at the final report and so on, they cannot put any pressure to change the report whatsoever.

Transport committee  That could be. I haven't seen it, so I don't know, but that's how I would play it for sure. We wouldn't want to subtract the whole report because the whole report goes into a lot of detail about training of the pilot, about the engine malfunction, which is valid and we would like to share for sure.

Transport committee  Involving civilians?

Transport committee  No, it stops at me. I'm the final level that will approve the release. It's for the credibility of the system, so there's no interference from my boss, the chief of the air force, and so on in the report. When I'm finished with that, then I need at least to inform my chain of command of the conclusion of the report.

Transport committee  The Ministry of National Defence may ask us some questions, but the type of questions I have seen so far are very minor, such as have we actioned a preventive measure, or that type of clarification and so on. For the minor stuff, it is available but it is not published on the website, but part of this, when we submit it, is we clearly say to the minister, we clearly mention in the briefing note, that it is our intent for the major ones that they will be published within 30 days on the website and made available.

Transport committee  They could be.

Transport committee  We do have some examples of where we've had some issues. We've been pretty successful in going around them through convincing people because of the contractual arrangement we have.

Transport committee  Well, the civilian contractors who are involved in providing us some services. Let's say hypothetically that we have something really bad happen. Maybe those civilian contractors at some point will feel the heat a little bit and be a bit less cooperative. We're not there yet. But with those authorities changed, we can make sure we will never face a situation where we will not be able to complete a full investigation.

Transport committee  No. There are many factors that have to be looked at, such as whether it happened on a military base, and so on. But let's say it happened in civilian airspace and the military was involved. I predict this would be led by the Transportation Safety Board, and we would be a participant.

Transport committee  No, they don't.

Transport committee  Thank you, sir. That's a good question and actually you provided one of the answers. Other points to consider are that the TSB investigations are carried out under the CTAISB Act. Section 18(2) of the act provides that the Transportation Safety Board “shall not investigate a transportation occurrence that involves a military conveyance or military transportation facility”unless the occurrence also involves a non-military conveyance or facility.

Transport committee  Absolutely. The three helicopter accidents in Kandahar would be cases where you need specialized training in order to go there, to access the location, and do your work—

Transport committee  You'd need the military, yes.

Transport committee  I guess the first thing I should say is that there's really no change in the way we do business. It would be the same. There are many occurrences happening in Canada and many investigations happening. I think we have over 3,300 investigations per year. Many of them are very minor.

Transport committee  There are four classes of accidents. All of the major accidents are investigated, a report is produced, and a final report is published. I don't recall any of them that have not been published. I could ask. My staff have been around for more than 10 years, and I don't think there have been any cases.