Transport Committee on Nov. 18th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired, Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'll now move to Mr. Albrecht.

You have seven minutes.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today. Congratulations on your appointment and your new role in this portfolio. I certainly remember well your responsive nature in your previous portfolio in labour.

There's no question that Lac-Mégantic occupied much of our thoughts this summer. It certainly was a tragic incident. On July 5 and 6, I was 100 kilometres from Lac-Mégantic, in Lennoxville, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and I can tell you that the smaller communities are very concerned about the kinds of things being shipped through their communities.

I do recall as well that very shortly after the incident you and the chair of the committee were present at Lac-Mégantic to indicate your support and to address the safety needs of our rail system.

I'm just wondering, Minister, if you could outline for us some of the changes in the work you're overseeing now in terms of improving that safety. I think you mentioned it in your opening comments, although I don't remember you articulating the specific items you've mandated that need to be changed in the regulatory system in terms of the emergency directives your department is implementing.

If you could comment on those, that would be great.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

In the days post-Lac-Mégantic, after our visit, I can tell you that I did meet with the mayors in the area. I'm glad you brought it up, because the resilience of the communities.... Although they definitely felt what the effect was, they knew that they still wanted to have rail service through their communities; they wanted it to be as safe as possible.

The deputy and I, with officials, went to Montreal. We met with the mayors in the surrounding areas to hear from them.

That dialogue is extremely important. It's more than just talk. It's about getting on the table the real issues of the people. One issue we heard was their concern about knowing what's going through their communities. That indeed has been brought up a lot. We've been working with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' working group and we've been working with rail, with CN and CP, to get to an agreement for the parties in terms of what kind of disclosure will happen between the company and the municipality so that the first responders, so that the fire department, can have the information in a timely fashion and we don't have difficulties.

I anticipate and I fully expect that these two parties will have an agreement with respect to what makes sense in terms of information sharing. I hope we'll be able to talk about that in the coming days.

First and foremost, in terms of vision, you don't want this to happen again. You want to do everything you can as a government, and I think as a Parliament, to ensure that we have the many steps in place to make sure that we prevent this from happening.

There's another thing to note from Mégantic. It was an incredible loss of life, and it was also an economic loss to the community because of what happened with the devastation of the business community, but it was also an environmental loss. One of the realizations was the fact that the railway company did not carry sufficient insurance to cover off the liabilities.

That's why in the Speech from the Throne...and why I said in my speech earlier as well that we're going to require shippers and railways to carry additional insurance. First and foremost, you don't want an accident to happen, but if something, God forbid, does happen, you want to make sure there's enough accountability there for it.

That's in a broad sense, I guess, the best way to put the big issues.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

Having crossed those very tracks literally hours before the accident at Lac-Mégantic, and having slept in a community 100 kilometres away from there, it makes you realize how vulnerable all of us are. I'm grateful to see the interest you're taking on this file.

Mr. Chair, do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, you do.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

The other safety issue in terms of rail relates to level crossings. Again, all of us, some of us right in this Parliament, were deeply impacted by the OC Transpo accident here in Ottawa.

I'm wondering, Minister, if you could update us on what action our government is taking in terms of improving rail safety at the level crossings.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

As municipalities get bigger, they have housing in different areas. The train tracks have been there for a hundred years. As municipalities grow, of course you're going to have that interaction between a community that wants to be able to cross the rail line, and the rail line communicating with the community what needs to be put in place in order to have a crossing.

In the past number of years, the government has invested heavily and made funding available for communities, municipalities, and rail companies to do grade separation, if they choose to do so, in their areas. As well, we have programming and funding available to improve the safety of railway crossings at grade—if you wanted to add extra lights, replace bulbs with brighter LEDs, and do the other kinds of things needed in order to ensure a safe passage of traffic, rail in one way and road in the other.

Again, it was such a sad incident with respect to the loss of life that you just want to make sure you do all that you can to ensure that you balance the need for the transportation of people and the transportation of goods and the safety of all those concerned.

Most importantly, though, the Transportation Safety Board is investigating. We will see what their recommendations are. Of course, Transport Canada always responds and acts.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you. I do applaud you again for the overall vision you have for the department. You are not simply addressing one issue at a time but have an overall vision that you're clearly articulating in your request of our committee today, and I'm looking forward to participating in that study.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have just over a minute, Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Minister, you mentioned that 99.997% of all shipments in all modes related to the transportation of dangerous goods make it to their destination safely. When you look at Lac-Mégantic and Gainford, it's obvious that the 0.003% can in fact be devastating. Can you talk about some of the actions being taken to improve rail safety in Canada? Specifically, again, I think what's important is the reiteration that directives and rules, once confirmed and accepted, carry the force of regulation in this country.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

I appreciate that. Obviously you learn lessons from tragic incidents like the one at Lac-Mégantic as you move along. The Transportation Safety Board has been instrumental in ensuring that as they progress through their investigation, they're providing us with feedback. One such piece of feedback was regarding the content of the cars in Lac-Mégantic. Indeed, as a result, we issued the directive I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, to ensure that any crude oil being transported be properly tested to ensure that it's rated at the right flammable stage and to make sure that whatever data sheets are being carried with the train or are available for the train match up with the actual contents. That's their directive now for the companies doing business in Canada as well.

Finally, in the case of this incident in Lac-Mégantic, a number of things were reported by the Transportation Safety Board, which we have been made aware of: it was a single-operator train; the cabin wasn't locked; and the train was left unattended. Those are the things on which we did emergency directives. There were further directives to the companies to make these regulations and orders permanent.

Those are the things we learn and we take into account as we move along, and we ensure that whatever we learn from the incident we implement and will continue to do so as the Transportation Safety Board continues to discuss its findings with us and with the Canadian public.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Is our transportation system safe?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. You're out of time.

Mr. Mai, you have five minutes.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll share my time with my colleagues.

Thank you, Minister.

As part of my tour on rail safety in Quebec, I discussed rail safety issues. I heard many comments about the government not applying the recommendations issued by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. I would like to read parts of the November 15 news release regarding the investigation into the VIA Rail train accident in Burlington. The report is fairly scathing. It says the following:

The TSB believes a voluntary approach does not go far enough and will not ensure that the vast majority of locomotives in Canada will be equipped with essential recorders.

The following passage is especially critical:

Citing a lack of firm action, the [TSB] is concerned there is no clear strategy in place to address the rail safety issues identified by the Board.

What does the minister have to say about this?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

The Transportation Safety Board in June of last year issued their report on the investigation into the Burlington VIA crash and had three recommendations for Transport Canada: one was to implement physical fail-safe train controls; the second was to require that mainline operations be equipped with the in-cab video cameras; the third one was to require that “crashworthiness standards” for new locomotives apply to rebuilt passenger and freight locomotives. I tell you these things in detail because we are working on all three of these things.

I wrote back to the Transportation Safety Board in my capacity as minister on September 3, and I gave our response to them. We accepted all of these recommendations. I guess what the Transportation Safety Board reported in November was that they're acknowledging our progress on these three items. With respect to crashworthiness, they're optimistic. With respect to the in-cab video cameras, they acknowledge the fact that VIA Rail is putting these in place voluntarily, but they would prefer to have it as a regulatory measure.

I can tell you that I have spoken with CN and CP and with the Teamsters—all—on the matter of in-cab video cameras. I wish it were as simple as it's stated there in the recommendation. It is not an easy situation. I encourage you to talk to your colleagues involved with the Teamsters on the issue of putting cameras into cabs, because it is a specific issue and we're trying to work through the nature of it in order to satisfy the concern of the Transportation Safety Board.

On the third one with respect to physical fail-safe train controls, I think it's important to note as well that in their report in June the Transportation Safety Board actually referred to this as a “fundamental” change. Fundamental changes are difficult to make at any given time, let alone in the wake of an accident such as the accident in Lac-Mégantic, but what we said was that we would put together a serious working group, including the union, the rail industry, and officials from Transport Canada, to take a look and report and make recommendations with respect to this matter. A hard deadline of April 30, 2014, was applied.

Fundamental changes need to have time to be discussed at all levels, and that's exactly what's happening. If they don't report back by April 30, 2014, they'll hear from me, because we take the matter of serious deadlines very seriously. We expect and anticipate that the people involved will come to us and will tell us the right path forward.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thanks a lot.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Rousseau, you have just over a minute, and that's for the answer as well.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

No problem, Mr. Chair.

As you know, rail transportation should soon resume in the Mégantic region. But people want to know what the freight cars passing through their region will carry. They are very worried about that. Some time ago, the municipalities were told by the companies that the reason rail transportation was slow in their region was that the freight cars contained dangerous goods. They were not even told what those goods were.

How can we ensure that, once the rail activity takes up again in Mégantic, that information will be provided to the municipal authorities?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

In a previous response, I indicated that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the rail companies have been working together on devising a protocol for this. I would anticipate that the information will be coming out in the coming days, and for Lac-Mégantic—

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Before the railway goes back...?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

No, I understand, and I believe I can give you more information with respect to what I think the goods are that are going to be going through Lac-Mégantic first. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that it's going to be dry goods only at the beginning—

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Okay.