Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing us to appear before your committee to discuss what for us is a very important issue. First allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gerard McDonald, as the chair noted, and I am the associate assistant deputy minister for safety a

Transport committee  We will table it, Mr. Chairman.

Transport committee  It's a very large document. It would take some time to copy if the members wanted to see it.

Transport committee  I only have one copy at the moment.

Transport committee  Yes, we feel it does, Mr. Volpe.

Transport committee  Certainly we do discuss with manufacturers in Canada. We do make efforts to harmonize as much as possible standards between Canada and the United States. However, there are some differences that we have instituted specifically for safety purposes. Vehicle running lights is one th

Transport committee  What we deal with is approximately 1,200 complaints a year. With the ten investigators we have, plus the regional resources that we also utilize, we feel, based on the risk in the system, that this has been adequate to date to deal with that. Obviously, we live within our means

Transport committee  The minister did not tell us to say anything. Obviously, when we became aware of the issue with the various Toyota vehicles, all that interaction took place with our department officials, with Trevor and his team, and Toyota. They had all the meetings with Toyota and made all the

Transport committee  Maybe I can try to answer, Mr. Chair. I had talked about whether we have enough staff, in answer to the previous question. As I said, given the 1,200 complaints that we receive each year, we feel that we do have an adequate number of staff to deal with those complaints. When we

Transport committee  Yes. We would be more than happy to share those with the committee. We'll make them available through the chair.

Transport committee  I did not receive any particular advice from the deputy minister before coming.

Transport committee  That would be both of us. I've briefed the minister on various occasions, as has Trevor and as has Louis-Philippe.

Transport committee  The minister has certainly expressed a great interest in Toyota, and he wants us to ensure that we're using the Motor Vehicle Safety Act to its best use to ensure that the safety of Canadians is protected.

Transport committee  The minister provided me with no direct direction on my appearance--

Transport committee  No. With respect to the black box, obviously this is new technology, and we were on Toyota right away as soon as we found out it was available. We are going to make use of it. We have now received it. We are going to test it and make sure we can use it as soon as possible. With