Thank you.
We are urban transit authorities, publicly owned and funded transit regulatory authorities, established under provincial law, with local and regional mandates and accountability. We are committed to safe operations, and our safety records and investments show this.
Bill C-33, as presently written, would impose inappropriate, inefficient, and expensive burdens and risks on urban transit authorities, burdens and risks that cannot be justified or fulfilled, in our view. The three largest UTAs representing commuters in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal--a total of more than 65 million riders annually--make this joint submission to this committee to ask that amendments be made to this legislation. We have shared interests and shared challenges, and we all serve the same public: the taxpayer.
In particular, we request that this honourable committee amend the definition of “company” and “local railway company”, which inappropriately but inevitably include UTAs, which already fall under provincial jurisdiction. We also ask that the committee exempt UTAs from the bill's requirement to apply for federal railway operating certificates.
The bill's definition of a local railway company expands the application and provisions regarding rules and all the proposed administrative and other compliance and filing measures in the Railway Safety Act. In our view, this is unjustified. Parliament has already acknowledged that the UTAs have a distinct and unique public nature. UTAs fall under provincial jurisdiction; each is subject to the special provincial legislation that created them and gives them authority.
We are governed by boards of directors that oversee and are responsible for the professional management of our commuters and other integrated operations. We are already subject to rigorous special checks and balances and taxpayer demands and public scrutiny, which differentiates us from commercial freight operators. UTAs are already publicly accountable, committed to safety, and committed to serving local taxpayers.
We encourage you to question the authority of Parliament to enact laws that impose new obligations and liabilities on provincial entities that are already responsible and accountable. You must question a bill that extends the reach of the federal minister to regulate and certify a provincial urban transit authority and to affect its local public mandate.
None of the urban transit authorities in Canada own all of their own railway lines. They operate on federally regulated host lines, which are owned by federally regulated railway companies. The UTAs enter into contracts with those same host companies to ensure the safe management of the railway. These agreements require the UTAs to undertake extensive and onerous responsibilities and to incur substantial liabilities for their passenger operations. These include the acquisition of insurance coverage, as required by the host railways, which agree to maintain their lines in conformity with existing federal laws and prevailing standards. In exchange, the host must offer a safe railway upon which to operate.
UTAs have no authority over the host railway to inspect or audit them. We cannot manage their infrastructure or staff or contractors. We cannot hold the host accountable if the host departs from required federal standards. It makes no sense, therefore, to require UTAs to be accountable for their hosts' actions as part of a federal certification requirement or as an extension of federal regulatory oversight.
Safety is at the heart of this legislation, and it's important to put on the record that TransLink, Metrolinx's Go Transit, and Agence métropolitaine de transport have operated and continue to operate among the safest railway operations in Canada. It cannot be said that Bill C-33 was introduced because of any safety concerns about passenger trains operated by UTAs in Canada. Transport Canada's representatives must concede and have in this committee conceded this.
The report of the rail safety review panel identified no pressing regulatory issue or concern in relation to UTAs. It did not find any need or justification for making a legislative change to sweep us unnecessarily under federal oversight, which would duplicate existing provisions and processes, would be neither flexible nor efficient, and would not really add to safety.
Bill C-33 is in error in attempting to hold provincial UTAs and their senior officers accountable for what they themselves cannot reasonably control or direct on the lines of federal railways.
The bill also contemplates extensive new obligations to keep and preserve records in order to comply with the federal minister's demand for information. This is another onerous, expensive, and totally unnecessary requirement to which UTAs should not be required to submit. We already have reporting and documentary obligations to our constituting authorities. Here again, Bill C-33 proposes another onerous, expensive, and totally unnecessary burden on UTAs.
All of these proposals in Bill C-33 represent considerable costs for UTAs. Unlike commercial freight railways, UTAs, by their very nature, have no means to recover all of their costs. Additional expenses caused by unnecessary and burdensome requirements will ultimately mean that either taxpayer and commuter support of UTAs will increase, or that necessary growth in urban transit will be constrained, or that service to the public will be reduced, all because of an unnecessarily broad definition of "company" or "local railway company".
For all these reasons, we, the urban transit authorities of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, ask this honourable committee to amend the provisions in Bill C-33 to exempt urban transit authorities, already recognized and federally defined, from the scope and application of the bill. In particular, exempt UTAs from the newly defined terms "company" and "local railway company" and from the requirement to apply and qualify for a federal railway operating certificate.
We thank you for this opportunity to make these submissions. I'd be pleased to entertain any questions.
