Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you mentioned, my name is Captain Paul Strachan, and I am the president of the Air Canada Pilots Association. I hail from Winnipeg, Manitoba. I spent a ten-year career as an air force pilot before commencing my commercial career, and I have been flying

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Tim.

Transport committee  Thank you, Honourable Mr. Volpe. As I said, our organization enjoys a very mature relationship with our employer. And certainly our employer has been around for an awfully long time; we've been at this for about three quarters of a century. We work very cooperatively with our op

Transport committee  I don't think we should incite public alarm. Our industry is one of the safest on the planet, and we take a lot of pride in that. I think we've contributed a great deal to where the industry is today. You refer to industrial activity. Again, I would like to make it clear to the

Transport committee  Go ahead.

Transport committee  Yes, absolutely, Mr. Laframboise. We are eager to bring these matters forward and to support the activities of this committee or any other government agency in forwarding those key agendas.

Transport committee  Yes, I believe we could provide excellent expert support to any government effort, and we're eager to do so.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  There is no confidence in the CARAC process.

Transport committee  We need an expedited process. We're not reinventing the wheel, Mr. Laframboise. The data are there and the science is there. Almost all other jurisdictions have already moved on this; in some cases, they did so years ago. It's a glaring shortcoming in our industry right now. It's

Transport committee  Thanks, Mr. Bevington. We're sensitive to economic realities, as is this committee and certainly the government, but in respect of these two issues, I don't think there's an option. I don't think there's a choice. I mean, safety and security should not be economically driven is

Transport committee  I can't imagine one, but I will defer your question to my colleague Captain Manuge. I think he has some creative ideas. You asked about possible contingencies, what sorts of things we can look at. Tim, I think, has some ideas that might well interest you.

Transport committee  Thanks, Mr. Bevington. We talked a little bit earlier in this room about industrial agendas. I won't delve into that, but I will say that I am personally familiar with the incident in question. I presume that you are as well. An aircraft was operating quite late in the evening i

Transport committee  Well, clearly, that is one of the takeaways out of the SMS investigation afterwards, to examine the process of assigning alternates to aircraft. We do it based on a risk assessment as well; it may not be a scientific one. But there's no reason at that time of night, given the w

Transport committee  As I said, it all comes out of the SMS system. Now, if those results, before they're even finalized, are going to make their way to places such as the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, then that's going to go back to what my colleague was referrin