Transport committee  The only answer I can see to that is that you can't continuously do that. Obviously if you're going to relax measures, it's because you have measures in place that allow you to do that regardless of what happens. I think we have to avoid that at all costs.

Transport committee  We are certainly not against helping large businesses. That is important. We have an aviation continuum in Canada, so we want to make sure that smaller carriers get something too. They connect with the larger carriers and the regional centres in Canada. We are very concerned about this.

Transport committee  We have written letters basically every month since March to the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Economic Development and the Prime Minister. Basically we are doing two things. We are identifying what kind of help would be required and we're offering our services, our co-operation, to work toward such a program.

Transport committee  That's right. We have not had any kind of response to any of those from anybody. We are talking to the ministers' offices; I have to be frank on that. They do return our calls. We have a conversation going on with them, but it's not really a dialogue. We're asking for things, and they're saying, “Well, we feel your pain and we're trying to do something to help you.”

Transport committee  Thank you. Good afternoon. The Air Transport Association of Canada has represented this country's commercial air transport industry since 1934. Our 175 members are engaged in all levels of commercial aviation and flight training in every region of Canada. Our membership includes very large international and transborder carriers, regional carriers, flight training organizations as well as the Canadian air transport support industry.

Transport committee  We've always had a challenge with getting skilled labour, be they maintenance, pilots or whatever they do. The situation now has expanded so that shortages are at all levels of service employee in our environment. The problem is that the passenger experience suffers because of all of this.

Transport committee  Yes, that's a good example. Everyone in the industry was shocked to see that the government didn't assist Nav Canada, which provides a service that we consider essential. Nav Canada requested government assistance after its revenue fell 90%, but the government told it that, since it was now a private business, it had to make do on its own.

Transport committee  Thank you. Our industry is currently suffering from delays of a kind never seen before in connection with services from Transport Canada or other government organizations. The delays are staggering, whether for issuing access cards to restricted areas, certifying pilot qualifications, administering professional exams and periodic tests required for pilots, aircraft certification, and so on.

Transport committee  The air transport industry has come a long way as far as reducing its carbon footprint is concerned, through the improvement of engines, the materials used and so on. However, we are faced with a carbon tax. We are faced with excise taxes. We are faced with all kinds of taxes. Now the government wants us to go to alternate fuels within a few years.

Transport committee  I can't give you any precise numbers because we're still collecting all these numbers, but the impact is that it's slowing down our recovery, of course. That's our concern here; it's our ability to serve the travelling public. A comment I want to make, which complements what's been said, is that whether airlines or Nav Canada or CATSA, they had to send home about 50% to 60% to 90% of their personnel during the pandemic.

Transport committee  Oh, I'd say it has in the last 50 years.

Transport committee  The government needs to act more as a partner than as a collector of taxes. We need them to be a partner. Everyone on this panel today has indicated that we work with government hand in hand. All these people are partners in the passenger experience, and they need to be there to help us along in improving the technology, facilitating the process and cutting down red tape.

Transport committee  Immigration is one thing. We need to have access to foreign workers.

Transport committee  Thank you, sir. I would say yes, especially in the pandemic. I think the people at Transport Canada did their very best to accommodate us, but they were not part of the decision-making process in terms of measures being imposed on our industry. We had no one at the table defending our position.

Transport committee  Who is this question addressed to, sir?