Transport Committee on Feb. 24th, 2009

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Just under the transport act. So the holding portion of it would not be affected by the transport act?

[Peter Coyles]

There may be other acts. If you look at CEPA federally, and provincial acts and regulations and requirements, there may be other acts to deal with it. But our act is specifically in the transport, when you're looking at import handling and transporting. And storage is included in the act.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the director general, the assistant deputy minister, and the special adviser for doing wonderful work here.

The minister mentioned earlier that the minister can issue far-reaching interim orders or instructions without going through the usual process of consultations and the development of these regulations. How do the provisions for these interim orders compare to those in the statutes?

[Marc Grégoire]

Compared to those in what?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

In the statutes we have already in place.

[Marc Grégoire]

Well, as far as I know, interim orders are present in at least ten other pieces of legislation. The one I'm most familiar with is the Aeronautics Act, because that's the one we have in Transport Canada. The minister, under the Aeronautics Act, has the authority to do interim orders, and he has used that authority a few times already since it was brought into the legislation back in May 2004.

Generally speaking, when he's going to do that, it's because he has the authority. He can only do that if he has the authority to regulate and if the intention is to regulate.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Okay.

On the other issue, when we look at the borders, the border in British Columbia is already very busy. I mean, I'm hearing complaints every day from the truckers and trucking companies. You're saying that once this process goes in, the inspectors are going to be hired. How much additional burden will it put to enforce these requirements? How many new inspectors are needed and will be hired to make sure there are no delays or no undue hardships on those truck owners and the companies?

[Marc Grégoire]

There is no resource associated with this piece of legislation. We're not asking for any additional inspectors. We don't believe any burden is added, with the potential exception of security clearances, for which we're not resourced today.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

But in section 15 you say that it allows the inspectors to inspect any place or means of transportation. So that means you will be using only the existing inspectors to do this work?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes, sir.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Okay.

The other instance is CN Rail. It was warned about its practices for transportation of dangerous goods in 2007, and then it was also charged in 2008. Do you think the tools available for the enforcement of the act are adequate, or how does the department balance the encouragement of compliance and the prosecution of violations to ensure the safety of Canadians?

[Peter Coyles]

If you're looking at the authorities we have currently, it's criminal law, so you can have a jail term of two years and significant fines that are associated with that. You also have, obviously, public education.

The whole goal of the program is to look at seeking immediate remediation and compliance with the act. So if there's a problem with a shipment, that shipment can be stopped and it can be made to be conformant with the act. You can do education with the individuals to make sure that happens in the future. You can offer a ticket, which is a fine, or you can bring them to court and look at the severity of the courts, depending upon the situation that's present in front of the inspector.

[Marc Grégoire]

We've just started to issue tickets, because this legislation went under the Contraventions Act. It's premature to give you statistics, though, because we just started a few months ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This will be an easy little question. It is important for me that it be recorded.

You have had contact with the provinces. I know that Transports Québec is satisfied with the bill. Could you just summarize for me how long this operation has taken and what contacts you had with the provinces that led to in this bill?

[Marc Grégoire]

The consultation process has been going on for six years, I believe. The public consultation was mostly done in 2004, all across the country. Provinces, including Quebec, are consulted regularly. Quebec is a member of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods General Policy Advisory Council. I do not know if we have figures on the number of meetings and consultations that have taken place.

[Peter Coyles]

There were consultations in some Quebec cities. The committee also meets in Ottawa twice a year. Consultations are on-going. For Quebec particularly, I went there to make specific presentations to make sure that everyone understands what we are trying to do and the new initiatives to be introduced or incorporated in a new bill. There have been a number of consultations, direct and indirect, not only with industry in Quebec, but also with the government and with people in several ministries in the Quebec government.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

With respect to transportation companies, I know that Canadian Pacific and CN are in agreement, but did your consultation include road transport representatives as a whole?

[Peter Coyles]

Yes, it was open to all. Everyone was represented. Even the general public was invited and there was public interest whenever there were cases of particular concern. We have a ministerial council, bringing together all the consultants, all the industry associations, including transportation, unions, first responders, and members of the public. These consultations are held twice a year. We have provided presentations directly to industry and to anyone interested in knowing more. A lot of consultation has gone on about how we handle dangerous goods. The program has been in place for a long time, and so has the consultation. It works rather well, in my opinion, especially given that Quebec has told you that it has been very well consulted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Coyles.

Mr. Bevington, do you have any other questions? I'll give you two minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you very much.

I'm glad to have a chance to go back to some of the concepts I was talking about earlier, because I really think we need to understand how we're going to come to regulation as well.

You talk of a process of consultation and carrying forward, but when we're looking at regulations that have to be approved through a foreign government, what kind of process do you see within Parliament for coming forward with that? If you're going to go to another country and establish what that other country wants us to have for a security clearance, and then you've going to come back here and enter into consultation with groups and agencies to decide that some of these provisions are not part of our law, part of our tradition, part of our idea of privacy rights, how is this going to work out?

[Marc Grégoire]

It's going to work out as I explained before. First of all, we will not go to the United States and ask what they want. This is absolutely not the premise of the conversation we will have with our counterparts. We want them to understand what we have and we want them to accept what we have at face value. So this is where we're starting the conversations.

We think we have a very good program in the ports and in the airports. We're proud of the program that we have and we're always seeking to improve it, but we wouldn't want to have a specific, harsher, or more difficult program in one mode than in the other mode because the vision is to have free flow of movement between the modes for the people and for the various vehicles.

For instance, if we were to require a security clearance for a truck carrying dangerous goods, we would want the same paper to be used when the truck is picking up the dangerous goods at the airport and driving to the ports. So we would want the same clearance to be valid throughout the transportation of the goods, and the same clearance to go across.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to stop you there. We have one more set of questions.

Ms. Brown.