Transport Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

We asked CN and CP specifically last week whether or not they had done risk assessments for the 400 times multiplication of the transportation of crude oil, and they didn't know.

We also asked if they had done a risk assessment for the abandonment of the northern Ontario lines that would have avoided going through heavily populated areas, particularly southern Ontario and Toronto, and they didn't know. However, the good news is that CN at least said they would provide their corridor risk assessments to this committee, which is the first time I think anybody said that they're going to provide a risk assessment that they've done.

What is your view of these risk assessments, and are they like project and defend? In other words, we'll do something and then we'll defend it with a risk assessment. Is that really what's going on?

[Brian Stevens]

Certainly that's our experience in terms of the freight railways. The decision is already made that they're going to implement an operational change, whether they want to leave westward trains out of Winnipeg, for instance, or give them about seven miles so that they're braking and come back up to 100%, but those decisions have already been made. Operationally then they just send out the crew, their team, to conduct the risk assessment and the risk assessment once it's completed gets thrown in a file and off we move.

In the risk assessment process, as Jerry said in his opening comments, there's never been one in my experience where the railways have done the risk assessment and said, “My goodness, this is way too dangerous. We're not doing it”. They simply don't do it. It doesn't matter whether it's even in the face of prior events, all the risk assessment does is just provide a bit of a lens and they say, “Well, let's try to do these items to mitigate the risk.”

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

The other example is the abandonment by CN of the railroad that VIA would like to use will in fact cause a risk, in that only one freight railroad will be available across the Maritimes through Plaster Rock, and we know what happened recently at Plaster Rock with the explosion of an oil-carrying system. If that had been the case there would be no way across the Maritimes. That's a risk, apparently, CN is willing to take because they're going to abandon it.

Is the Canadian public willing to take that risk is the next question. I'm going to ask Mr. Del Bosco from VIA. If in fact you are not planning to purchase the CN line, why is it that you are willing to spend half a billion dollars on lines in Ontario, but nothing in New Brunswick?

[Steve Del Bosco]

Right now the Ocean is a train that loses somewhere between $12 million to $15 million a year. So we're ready to operate the train, but we also have to act in a commercial way as well and look at the fact that if we invest money to purchase a line, and we're investing just to continue at an operating loss, there's a little bit of a disconnect. So we're interested in moving on that northern line, but we'd like to find a way other than purchasing a line to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Ms. Young, you have five minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here today. It's been very interesting hearing your testimony.

As you know, we're embarking on this study because of certain incidents. Being a new person on this committee as well as being a Canadian who's observing all this, I think the general public was quite surprised to see where the gaps were in terms of safety on the rail systems.

I'm a sociologist and I've studied communities across Canada. Of course, we recognize the fact that communities have actually grown around the railway system, the railroad tracks, the stops, and that sort of thing. We have a certain history in Canada, of course, with the railway system.

How much work do you feel has been done, not just because of this recent study perhaps but over, say, the last 5, 10, or 20 years, to gather that information and to actually look at the entire rail system and what can be done to protect it? Or has nothing been done and we're just responding to a situation here?

Perhaps Mr. Del Bosco can answer that question.

[Steve Del Bosco]

I'm not aware of extensive studies that have been done. I think often municipalities take on that role. As you mentioned, communities build themselves around tracks, and eventually traffic and congestion develop and other safety issues may develop. Part of it has to be the community itself reaching out to the railway. Obviously, the railway also has to reach out to the community. If we are seeing, as Jean explained before, incidents and we measure them and we know when they happen and how often they happen, we will reach out to communities to do something to help us, whether that means programs, as Jean described earlier, or whether we have to start looking at better ways of protecting citizens and better ways of ensuring that traffic flow is safe and can move.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Right.

Because I have a number of questions for you, I'm going to ask you to keep your responses as brief as possible.

What you're saying to me then is that for over 100 years we have not done, say, every decade, a review of the entire safety railroad system in Canada to say, look, there's this community or these poor practices over crossings here because they're in family areas, or whatever it happens to be. In itself, the rail system monitored or developed these kinds of safety risk assessments. So there's no yearly review or anything like that.

Are you saying to me that there's none in place?

[Jean Tierney]

Through the Railway Association of Canada we're monitoring that continuously. We're working more closely now with the FCM, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, a lot more strategically. They're helping to introduce regulations. Montreal was one of the first cities, I'm pleased to say, that adopted it, because there are a lot of high-risk areas. We're working very closely and doing lots of outreach. The week of April 28 is Public Rail Safety Week.

Minister Raitt has offered to do a presentation in the greater Toronto area because of the dense population, and we're hoping to raise awareness even more so. We are continually looking at this and studies are ongoing. Everyone is doing as much as they can to try to keep raising awareness.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Would it be possible—because I have very limited time here—for you to submit some kind of a report or an update on this whole aspect? How closely are you working with the communities? How current is that? What systems are being put into place to protect things? We've all seen those pictures of people running across the tracks with two or three kids. It blows my mind, because I have kids.

[Jean Tierney]

We see that every day. It's very distressing.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

That is my point. I guess what I'm saying is that instead of being distressed about seeing those pictures, we need to be doing something about them.

I would like to know, on this committee, what it being done about them. What kinds of plans are being put into place?

I have a final question for you, very quickly. It's a yes or no question. Is the $80 million that you put in enough?

[Jean Tierney]

It's never enough.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Railroads are getting old. The ties.... Everything is getting old.

[Jean Tierney]

Those are maintained to standard, though. Safety is not an issue in that sense. However, there are communities growing along the tracks. Every day new buildings are going up as well as new housing communities. It's a continuous challenge to stay on top of it. There's been a lot of outreach from the railways. It's not only VIA Rail, because we're fairly small, but we do knock on the doors of people along our tracks. CN and CP have been very present in the communities in recent years trying to raise awareness through the Railway Safety Act review. There was a request by the industry to have joint risk assessments with communities. If they are considering building, they should talk to us. Let's find a way to do it safely for everybody. There has been outreach.

Has the Railway Association of Canada spoken? We'll reach out to them to get the studies for you.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Well, just very quickly, I think it's a really important thing that communities recognize, or that it's somehow put to them, that they have a responsibility too. It's not just the railways—

[Jean Tierney]

It's partnerships.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

The partnerships have to happen.

Thank you.

[Jean Tierney]

Yes. If I may say so, the Railway Association of Canada has been on the agenda of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to speak about rail safety awareness. At every opportunity, we're trying to get out there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

On that, Ms. Tierney, just to add a little more substance to it, basically what you're saying is that you would like to see a little more input from or better planning by communities around existing rail lines, etc.

[Jean Tierney]

That's correct, and anything we can do together....

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Ms. Morin for five minutes.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Fleming, in your presentation, you said something which I found very interesting. You said that if you were a manager, you would not ask yourself which method to use, but rather whether what is being done works, how this can be promoted and assessed, what the objectives are and how to assess strengths and weaknesses. I found that very relevant.

I would like a representative from VIA Rail to answer these questions. You really insisted on the fact that VIA Rail's standards are higher than those contained in current regulations. People usually do not engage in self criticism. People usually do not ask themselves what their weaknesses are, nor how they can be overcome. But when you do not know what your weaknesses are, you cannot overcome them. Can you answer these questions?

[Denis Pinsonneault]

I will answer your question with pleasure and I will give you a very current example.

We have 23 local health and safety committees all over the country. Each of these committees is comprised in equal parts of unionized members and management members. These committees meet each month to go over what happened in their area. Every month, we receive the minutes of these meetings. We read these reports every month.

Each month, we have meetings with all of our managers, who report on situations which were brought to their attention in the course of that month. With those managers, we look at how we could have done even better. This week, all of the people who are jointly responsible for the local and health and safety committees from across the country were invited to participate in the annual conference in Montreal. We will have the pleasure of welcoming Mr. Dias, who will open the session with Steve Del Bosco.

As Mr. Fleming said, in the course of that meeting, we have the opportunity to assess our culture of safety with members of the union-management local health and safety committees. After the meeting, safety objectives are established by both the union representatives as well as those from management. Every three months, when these committees meet, reports have to be filed following up on the objectives.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you very much.

I know it is hard to say this publicly, but can you tell us about one weakness VIA Rail has in the area of health and safety? If you cannot admit to your weaknesses, how can you make progress?