Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Honourable members, good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be here as president of the Air Transport Association of Canada to speak to you on the very important matter of Bill C-6. As you may know, ATAC represents the commercial aviation sector in Canada

Transport committee  Do we consult with Transport Canada on this bill? We consult with Transport Canada as the lead regulator of our industry on this bill and many other bills that come before Parliament, sir.

Transport committee  I have not been given any reasons myself, although my staff has been involved with this process longer than I have.

Transport committee  We have always put our position forward, consistent with what we have said here today.

Transport committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Transport committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to clarify for the committee that this is not a back-of-the-envelope approach we have here. Aviation SMS are well established throughout the world, and they're carefully designed to look at the realities of our industry in terms of how we do busin

Transport committee  Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt in our minds, as an industry, that the oversight of Transport Canada, when it comes to safety, will continue, and it will be part of the system. Actually, if anything, we're asking for another layer of oversight to that end in terms of the objectiv

Transport committee  We have a concern about our safety data being transmitted by e-mail, and to that end we welcome additional on-site inspection. On commercial propriety and the data being transmitted, we have concerns that some of that data should be used for safety purposes only, and not for any

Transport committee  We want it to be consistent with other regulatory frameworks with respect to access to information. Sometimes when there is an incident, if it gets released publicly right away without it having any—We cannot promote a psychology of fear in our business. It's not very appropriate

Transport committee  Inspectors would have access to the data as well as other transmission techniques, but we just aren't confident transmitting our data on safety audits and other sensitive information by e-mail. Les, do you want to elaborate on that and give some specifics?

Transport committee  It goes to Transport Canada.

Transport committee  Certainly, Mr. Chairman. The French copy will be available tomorrow.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  I think we have always committed to audits and will continue to commit to audits through this safety management system. It gives a very disciplined, accountable framework under which safety issues have to be addressed, and they can't be altered. This is something we totally agree

Transport committee  I would say that's a very fair comment, Mr. Chairman.