ms. paulto you. for millions of voters, this is the climate change election. at this critical time, you have been bogged down in internal strife. if your own party does not fully support you, how can canadians trust you to lead through one of the most defining issues of our time? ms. paul: it is an excellent question and it is an honor to be here tonight on the unseeded territories of the algonquin people. it has been a very difficult period. do i wish our party had been further ahead particularly at this moment? absolutely. do i believe we have wonderful candidates running all over the country that you should consider voting for? absolutely. being who i am and in this position has been incredibly hard. being here tonight was not an obvious thing. i have had to crawl over a lot of broken glass to get here. i'm proud to be here. i'm proud to be the first of my kind and because i am the first of my kind, i know i will not be the last. >> and to you, mr. o'toole. [no audio] >> that comes from my

ms. pinkerton. appreciate that much and i will now turn to paul rinaldi who's the president of natca. mr. rinaldi. >> good morning. thank you, chairman deposit, chairman larsen, ranking member graves and members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity for me to protest but in this roundtable on behalf of nearly 20,000 aviation safety professionals and that natca represents. over the years we have highlighted that a stop and go funding stream will negatively affect the aspects of our national airspace system. it undermines air-traffic control surfaces, staffing, hiring, training, timely implementation of long-term modernization projects. it affects preventive maintenance to faa physical infrastructure. and as we are recovering from that long government shutdown in 2019, that we didn't face the unthinkable, the situation of covid-19 in the pandemic. that pandemic has devastated the aviation system worldwide including all the things that are just mentioned that are impacted by the stop and go funding. over the last 15 months the faa and natca through collaboration has accomplished so

ms. pinkerton, appreciate that very much, we will now turn to paul rinaldi, president of. >> think you members of the committee. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. and to give voice to the aviation safety professionals that natca represents. -- it undermines air traffic control services, staffing, hiring, training, timeline plantation of long term modernization. it effects preventive maintenance, for infrastructure. as we are recovering from that long shut down in 2019, we then face the unthinkable. the situation of covid-19 pandemic. that pandemic has devastated the aviation system worldwide, including all the things i just mentioned that are impacted by this funding. over the last 15 months, natca and the faa have accomplished some remarkable things. to keep the frontline work for safe and the aviation system running, now with a vaccinated workforce and traffic levels returning to 80% of pre-pandemic levels, out of the chaos of covid-19, we have an historic opportunity to renew the aviation system in both technology and infrastructure, to ensure that the u.s. remains the gold