Transport committee  Very quickly, the U.S. military and others worldwide have been using this for the past 40 years. If you've gone to any air show, you'll know that the U.S. Air Force uses huge C-130Js on a regular basis to transport helicopters, fighter aircraft, tankers and so on. These aircraft have been landing and taking off on these surfaces safely for decades now.

Transport committee  I would like to thank you, Mr. Chair. Essentially, we're looking at panels of aluminum snapped together to form a uniform piece of aluminum surface that planes can land on. These individual panels are treated on top in order to provide the friction necessary for any aircraft to be able to land safely.

Transport committee  Right now, I'm working with a couple of cutting-edge technologies that I hope are able to help us. Firstly, in terms of a surface, we are looking at whether or not aluminum surface runways have the track record necessary for us in Canada to feel comfortable to put this in as a potential solution in the north.

Transport committee  Thank you very much for this question. In fact, this is a point I wanted to bring up. Upon further analysis of all the programs available, in order to fund infrastructure development in airports specifically in Canada, I have found that the programs we have on hand are not conducive to helping Arctic aviation for structure building.

Transport committee  Yes, I have two points to make on this. The first one is that, since we're using turboprops right now in the Arctic as opposed to jets, these planes fly with less range and are much slower. When you're looking at limiting the number of hours that pilots are able to fly per day, this is directly going to impact the whole region in a very big way.

Transport committee  Indeed, I would like to reiterate what John just said. Without infrastructure, it is impossible for us to have an optimal aviation sector functioning in the north. We are regulating this sector from the wrong starting point. Once we have a decent amount of infrastructure in place up there, we'll have a much more realistic picture as to what we need to do in order to make sure we are allowing our airlines to compete and deliver a safe service to Canadian citizens.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Members of Parliament, fellow Canadians and participants in today's proceedings, good afternoon. I will do my best to keep this to five minutes. First, Mr. Chair, to you and to all members of Parliament, thank you for your dedicated service to our country.