Transport Committee on March 10th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Welcome and good afternoon, everyone, to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting 55.

Our orders of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, December 8, 2010, are for an examination of Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act.

Joining us today as witnesses from the Department of Transport are Mr. Luc Bourdon, director general of rail safety, and Carla White-Taylor, director of the rail safety secretariat.

Welcome.

I'm not sure.... You don't have a statement, but are just here to offer advice as we go through; is that the case?

[Luc Bourdon, Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Welcome.

Saying that, we will move into clause-by-clause on Bill C-33.

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1 is postponed to the end.

We are now on clause 2. There are no proposed amendments for clause 2.

Shall clauses 2 and 3 carry?

(Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to)

(On clause 4)

We have several amendments on clause 4.

Monsieur Laframboise, do you have a point of order concerning this?

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

Yes, based on the advice of the legislative counsel, who is near you, Mr. Chair, our first amendment, BQ-1, which involves the definition of railway company and asks that an urban transit authority be excluded, deals with clause 10 directly. I don't know how you wish to proceed, but I wouldn't want to put aside clause 4 or to vote on clause 4 without going through clause 10. Perhaps it would be better to discuss clause 10 right away, given that these clauses are interrelated in terms of the amendments that we proposed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

So, in discussion, there are some amendments to clause 4 that impact the outcomes in clause 10 but actually have to be dealt with in a reverse order.

Would it be fair if we put this on the back table and moved forward with everything else, and then we'll come back to clause 4 after we have completed...?

Is there agreement?

(Clause 4 allowed to stand)

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

(Clauses 5 to 7 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 8)

We are at government amendment two on page 6.

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, I apologize.... I'm trying to keep track, but I'm wondering in particular what we've done with clause 4, with all the amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

There's an amendment in clause 10 that impacts amendment BQ-2, so Mr. Laframboise has asked that we defer clause 4 until the end.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That's perfect. I just wanted to make sure. I thought that's what I heard, but I didn't really understand it exactly at the time.

So we're talking about amendment G-2 on clause 8.

This particular one is asking for a professional engineer to be involved, such that the standard of work that is done must be done in accordance with sound engineering principles.

I think you'll find that all parties would agree that it would make the most sense in a safety bill to have the people necessary to do the design, construction, evaluation, maintenance, alteration, and other works that are necessary.

Certainly, I think it would make total sense to all parties. We haven't really had an opportunity to discuss this with the Bloc or the NDP, but if they had submissions, I would be more than happy to entertain them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Are there any comments?

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the parliamentary secretary for presenting the amendment.

I'd like to ask our witnesses the difference between the clause in the bill as it is worded, which says that the work “shall be done under the direction of a professional engineer” and the clause that's offered by the government, which talks about the engineering work being “approved by a professional engineer”.

[Luc Bourdon]

First, the amendment was to be in line with the drafting instruction, which was only to cover maintenance on top of what we were doing. The change you're referring to is that we recognize the fact that you cannot always have an engineer on the spot, so it would have to be done in accordance with an engineer, as it reads in the act right now.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So what we're actually seeing is a weakening, then, of the standards, not a tightening of standards.

[Luc Bourdon]

No, because for some of the short lines, it's almost impossible to have an engineer on site all the time. So as long as it's done according to work that has been approved previously by an engineer and carried out by the people from the company, then it's being inspected according to that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

But it does mean that the requirement that the work be done under the direction of a professional engineer would be diminished. The work could be done, and engineering work “relating to railway works” would have to be approved by a professional engineer.

[Luc Bourdon]

I just doubled-checked with our counsel, and it was exactly what I just told you. For a short-line railway, it would be almost impossible to have engineers on site all the time. We want the work to be approved but not be carried out with an engineer on the spot all the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Godin.

You're okay? All right.

Mr. Dhaliwal.

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

This is good thinking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Trost.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Both Sukh and I are....

I think you're an engineer, aren't you?

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

I'm an engineer.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Right.

So we've both done this sort of stuff.

[An hon. member]

He's a better engineer.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

He's a better engineer; I'm a geophysicist.

Just to answer a little bit concerning where Mr. Julian was going, sometimes you won't have a professional engineer on site. You'll have an engineer in training or an engineering technologist or someone who works under them. The professional engineer still has to have their stamp to sign off on these sorts of things, so they're still legally liable for the people who will be working underneath them. So the standards don't change; it's just that someone working on behalf of the engineer will do it, but he still has his legal neck on the line.

Although I never quite got the seniority to sign off on other people's work, neither I nor I'm sure Sukh or any other professional engineer is going to put our stamp on anything, because that's legal liability, the same as for lawyers and various other professions. So effectively an engineer controls this, even though someone else is working on it. That's the understanding from our professional background. The lawyers might explain it differently.

Fundamentally, the professional engineer is controlling this, even though someone else may be working. It may be someone who has three years of engineering experience, an “EIT”, or engineer in training, but they still need.... They may have more experience, actually, than the PEng who signs off for them, but that person may be miles and miles away and may have shipped the instructions to them on site and may actually just be signing off on their work.

I've had senior engineers, senior geoscientists, sign off on my work before, and they just double-checked to make sure I had done everything right.

That's my understanding of what this permits, and that's what the witnesses are indicating.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Is there any further comment?

Mr. Julian.