Transport committee  Thank you for the question. The Canadian system of delegating authority, at least in the context of our aircraft certification, goes back to 1968. It's a well-established and well-developed system. I would agree that to the outsider it may involve a suspicion of conflict of interest.

Transport committee  That is a file number, not an issue paper number.

Transport committee  I'd be happy to exchange information with you on that to get the specifics of what you're looking for. The answer is that we'd be happy to provide anything you would request.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question You pointed directly at what is really the number one priority in investigating the certification policies and procedures, i.e., the lessons learned that came out of the accident. That is, as I mentioned earlier in this committee hearing, the changed product rule.

Transport committee  I may need some more specifics there. In the course of certifying domestically—in this case it's a Bombardier aircraft—we may have as many as 20, 30 or 40 issue papers on any certification. I'm not particularly current on the one you're referring to.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Yes. Boeing has produced several service bulletins. All the design changes that were introduced were introduced via service bulletins produced by Boeing. Those service bulletins are the vehicles to convey the information to the airlines to either install modifications or, in the context of your question, to carry out specific maintenance actions.

Transport committee  I have a similar answer. That was probably one of the biggest challenges faced by the airlines. I know that Air Canada—or was it WestJet, I can't remember. One of them had in excess of 400 pilots who have essentially been sitting dormant. It's a very daunting task to get them back up to speed.

Transport committee  Not for me.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. That's a very interesting topic indeed. A previous question touched on the voice that was heard from one of my team members, who looked very closely at that question and did quite an in-depth analysis of the pros and cons of MCAS. We had that discussion.

Transport committee  A lot of them went to the desert in the U.S. southwest, which is a very special spot due to its low humidity. It's not conducive to corrosion. A lot of them are flown back to wherever they may operate.

Transport committee  Of course, some of them are probably still mothballed because of the pandemic. The demand is only growing, so obviously they are not all being put back into service at the same time. That is a gradual process, which is ongoing. With respect to your question—it's a very good one—one of the required actions to be taken before the return to service of any particular aircraft is to follow a Boeing service bulletin—which was developed specifically to address your question—to consider the specific maintenance actions that should be undertaken on an aircraft that has been stored for such a period of time.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  I'd like to redirect the question a little. The concern paper that was referred to and discussed at previous committees was not specifically related to MCAS. It was our investigation of the stall characteristics of the airplane to determine the basic dependency of the aircraft on systems, such as MCAS but also other aspects that comprise the stall identification system, to determine whether the aircraft had inherent natural stall characteristics.

Transport committee  I believe I covered that in one of my previous answers. I'll just summarize it again. The ability for MCAS to fire has been protected. There are more inputs required than were in existence in the previous design. The system is only allowed to fire once per flight, where in the accident situations it was firing repeatedly.