Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Under the existing food mail program today, approximately 70% of the food mail that goes to Iqaluit is destined for Iqaluit; the other 30% goes up island, whether it's to ACL or Northern Store. Both carriers, Canadian North and First Air, have large infrastructure in place in Iqa

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm very familiar with it, but because we only sell time, we have a number of spare assets. We call them “hot spares”, with pilots sitting in the cockpit ready to go should there be a mechanical failure somewhere. We would do the same thing with weather, so we do have backup asse

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Lévesque, as I said earlier on, we were subcontracted by Canadian North to deliver the final product to all the communities in the north. You need a substantial infrastructure in place: warehousing and a transportation network. We didn't have that at the time, so we just prov

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're in discussions with some of the northern carriers about our business model. Most of the food purchased in this country is purchased in southern Ontario, around Hamilton. Our base happens to be Hamilton. We have aircraft based there during daylight hours. There are warehouse

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've had a number of sessions with them.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Cargojet was subcontracted by Canadian North on the previous bid, but as you know, Canadian North was unsuccessful in getting that. We were subcontracted to lease one of our heavy lift aircraft to fly product from Val-d'Or to Iqaluit.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I didn't say that it would be a better price; I said the business model in the south works very well. Those assets are paid for, so the costs we can provide--subcontract to other carriers--would be economically beneficial to them. The assets we employ down south are already 100%

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  My understanding is that INAC is putting checks and balances in place and will have an audit system to ensure that the subsidy gets through to the consumer.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You let the free-market forces prevail. Cargojet operates a fleet of 727s, 767s, and 757s. Our business model is that we're a co-loader. We operate every business night for a number of major courier companies across Canada. Our business model works very well in the south. Our ob

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, and other guests here today. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to present our views and to provide feedback on the new Nutrition North Canada program, specifically as it relates to the cost of air cargo transportation. Allow