Public Accounts committee  Yes, thank you. I'd like to confirm that during the pilot phase of our risk-profiling tool, we had “financial well-being” as one of the factors. We quickly realized that it wasn't something that our inspectors, generally speaking, were qualified to assess, so it is not present.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. We look at other factors in the company's health, but we're no longer asking inspectors to assess financial well-being, which is something they're not trained to do.

Public Accounts committee  I should clarify. The inspectors' inability to understand this material was one aspect. The other aspect was that this information is not necessarily available for all companies. If they're not publicly traded, it's not public information, so we could not use it consistently. In

Public Accounts committee  That was our view when we started the pilot. We've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of other indicators we can assess more directly to get us what we need without going back to that.

Public Accounts committee  That's a reality we have to look at.

Public Accounts committee  I'd like to answer that in two steps. For the first part of the commentary, the system we've put in place gives us a risk profile across the country. It's developed against standard criteria. We have the ability to look at the industry across the country. It may not be every oper

Public Accounts committee  We would have the ability to see that trend, which we didn't have in the past. It's important we have that ability. The second thing is that we deal with the highest risks first. If we have a challenge, then the resources get directed at that highest risk. There is a limit to t

Public Accounts committee  There are really two primary sources for the mandatory training in terms of ministerial delegated authority for the Minister of Transport. We have policy documents that specify exactly what training the inspectors need to do their work, so that's a requirement for the delegatio

Public Accounts committee  It depends on the level we're doing. If we're doing an assessment, we're going in at a high level. Program validation inspection is a part of the overall program and process inspection is in detail, but in each of those levels, we always have the ability to go and sample. Whereas

Public Accounts committee  If they're looking at the aircraft, it would be different. If we're talking about pilot flight training, for example, then obviously there's less difference. It depends on the area as to exactly what the inspection is focused on and what expertise is needed, and we continue to ne

Public Accounts committee  The statistics are not showing any different trend this year. The accident rate is low. Even a couple of accidents late in the year can make a difference to that number, but at the moment we're not seeing any significant change this year compared with last year.

Public Accounts committee  The aircraft you're talking about are operated by DND—

Public Accounts committee  —so they don't operate within the civil system. I know when they operate civil aircraft, they follow many of the same standards, even though we don't require them to. Some of the support for that is actually provided to our own ASD in terms of some of the work they do on those ai

Public Accounts committee  We were certainly at the forefront in introducing the concept. We slowed things down a bit in 2009, as a conscious decision, to make sure that we were ready for the initiatives that Mr. McDonald just described, but we're doing a lot of work with those other authorities. They're l

Public Accounts committee  In areas where we haven't regulated SMS to date, we find companies that are already doing it, particularly those in Canada. There's a lot of work in the energy sector. You can't get a contract in the energy sector unless you have an SMS in place, irrespective of our regulations;