Health committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak on perhaps the most defining health issue of our lifetime. As Air Canada's chief medical officer, I oversee all aspects of Air Canada's health policies and from day one have been directly

Health committee  Thank you for your question. I will answer it in English. What I can say is that we have taken every measure possible to mitigate the risk of acquiring COVID throughout the entire journey. This includes the process of checking through the airport; the wearing of a mask, even at

Health committee  Sure. Could you just clarify that question? Do you mean the provision of PPE for our crew?

Health committee  Specifically, did the government provide us with PPE? Is that the question?

Health committee  When we noted the outbreak, we quickly implemented measures to protect our own employees and customers. We provided them with personal protective equipment, including facial masks, and adjusted our service specifications and reviewed our check-in procedures and boarding procedure

Health committee  It's probably not in my area to comment on that other than to say we were all learning. This was relatively new. There's no manual or playbook for this.

Health committee  For reasons of privacy, we can't really get into numbers. Having said that, consistent with our WestJet colleagues, we thankfully have had no fatalities. The numbers are consistent with the Canadian public at large.

Health committee  These are just my thoughts on that. Firstly, at the initial outbreak of this pandemic, there was not a lot of information, unfortunately. We're learning as we go along, quite frankly. Where we are now with the knowledge of COVID-19, its pathogenesis, essentially its incubation pe

Health committee  Maybe I'll take that question. We recognize that there are multiple points throughout the travel journey, not only here but internationally, where there may be periods when one is unable to maintain social distancing. That's why there's a multi-layered approach to—

Health committee  I apologize, Mr. Chair. That's why we advocate and why all the expert guidance has been on a multi-layered approach, recognizing that there are periods when one will perhaps be unable to maintain social distancing, hence the other non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as hand h

Health committee  No, I think you've covered it pretty well, Ferio. Certainly, just to reiterate, we've instituted a multi-layered approach and are also handing out all those non-pharmaceuticals for intervention, such as masks, the hand sanitizer and the wipes, as well as other measures, includin

Health committee  I can respond to that. As I said earlier in a previous response, Mr. Chair, there is no manual for this outbreak. We've been learning as we go along, and the manual is literally being written. The data and the science have evolved over time, to the point that it is strongly supp

Health committee  This whole COVID-19 has been somewhat confusing, essentially. Literally, we're on month six, and I remember when it started. I was on a beach somewhere when I got my first notification from BlueDot about this potential SARS-like outbreak in Wuhan. It has evolved at lightspeed, a

Health committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for the question. That is a very good question, and it does take a bit of a dissertation, so I apologize for a bit of a lengthy answer here. In flight, the cabin air typically will be a 50-50 mix of bleed air through the engine and recirculated air through t

Transport committee  Thank you, Chair, for the question. I do fully agree that this has been a significant challenge for everyone—all Canadians. I don't think anyone is to blame, per se, for the pandemic. It really just happened. We were fortunate in that we had already developed a partnership with