Thank you.
I'd like to welcome the guests and also those from British Columbia.
Certainly, listening to some of the speakers here and to Mr. Allen and Ms. Fisher parallels my experience when I was the mayor of North Vancouver. We had problems when BC Rail was sold to CN. BC Rail, being a provincial railway, by obligation of the province, had to comply with municipal standards in terms of noise. Our noise bylaws and the issue of non-whistling at crossings applied. Once CN took it over, it no longer applied.
What I've heard you say sounds like a repeat of the things I've heard. I've had complaints from residents who were awakened all night, and I see that some of the submissions here have detailed times going through the entire evening--how many times the whistle blew. As mayor, I had people phoning me at night and playing tape recordings of whistles to let me know they were hearing whistles. Interestingly enough, I lived several miles away and I could hear the shunting.
It seems to boil down, as Ms. Fisher said, to an issue of scheduling and also of logistical changes. The yard was, in this case, close to a residential area. As Mr. Hubbard said earlier, the railways were here before many of these residential areas, but the very nature of the railways attracted workers and business. The very nature that made them thrive is in fact what is the growth of cities, as we've seen, and they have to recognize that. And they have to look at some of their logistical activities, such as shunting and the assembly of trains, in areas that are different from where they were in the past, because the areas they're in have changed. I agree with that.
Mr. Gantous, you referred to the European standards, and I think you made reference to 45 decibels. Was that the WHO standard that you were referring to? If it was, I'd be interested, because municipalities have bylaws that establish decibel ratings. The big problem with the kind of noise you get from shunting is that it's intermittent, whereas if somebody is running a stereo system or go-carts or something, you can stand with a meter and read them; if it's an industrial noise, it's consistent. It's the intermittent noise.... Some of the bylaws refer to it as nuisance noise, which can be intermittent and therefore difficult to measure, but if they have technologies and you can provide any information on that, I would appreciate receiving that.
Mr. Jobin, I heard you say you'd like to see qualitative rather than quantitative...but if I listened to your wording, I think you meant just the opposite, because what you want is some kind of measurable standard rather than one that is more vague, that talks to the qualitative as opposed to the quantitative standard.
Certainly the issues there are ones that we have to find out...and CN cannot simply hide behind the standards or the defence it has had in the past. It has to recognize that they have to work in cooperation with the areas they serve, and that it's a mutual benefit if they do so.
I'm not going to repeat much of what has been said by my colleagues, and I think they've all addressed the issues.
Some of the comments here relate to rail safety. There's an issue in Mr. Allen's presentation from New Westminster talking about the rail yard having had several derailments in the past. Most recently it was the derailment that destroyed part of the Westburne Electric building, and there are other references. This is also a concern.
I know, Mr. Chair, that in a meeting I was not at there was a decision made that rail safety would be considered by this committee once Bill C-11 has been dealt with, that that issue would come forward. I'm concerned particularly because of the recent CN derailments that occurred in the Prairies, Alberta, and also B.C. As you know, we had a toxic spill in the Cheakamus River that wiped out fish populations, that devastated those fish populations. Last June we had two deaths when rail workers were caught on a runaway locomotive.
It would be my intention, in compliance with the suggestion of what would be appropriate for this committee, that once we have gone through these issues and are ready to move on to rail safety...I would like to see us look seriously at the derailment issues and rail safety, particularly with CN. Whether it needs a formal commission or an in-depth study by this committee, I would like to hear a good discussion. It is certainly a concern that's been brought to me by my constituents.
