Transport Committee on April 10th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Toet for five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, everybody, for being here today.

We talk quite a bit about the gaps in liabilities, gaps in the response mechanism, the response issues. I want to try to move that conversation to the actual movement of dangerous goods safely in Canada. I think a large part of what we're working through on this committee and what we're trying to aim for is to not see a repeat of any of these incidents such as Lac-Mégantic. We do not want to see that again. So, yes, we need to talk about the responses and the liabilities if these incidents do arise. But I think the bigger picture that we really want to see here is, how do we make sure this does not happen again?

In light of that, the Canadian Propane Association specifically talks about safety requirements being consistently applied to different types of transfers, which is not currently the case. So you believe there's a gap there. Can you speak to that?

[Andy Bite]

Yes, we do believe this. When you transfer from rail to fixed storage, that falls under provincial regulations. There are strict regulations governing the use of safety valves, of protective barriers, informing the municipality, getting permission from the municipality to carry out these operations. In Ontario, you even have to do a risk assessment, which takes into account residential areas, schools, hospitals, etc.

However, if it's unloaded from a railcar into a mobile truck or transport, the provincial regulations do not apply, so you don't have the same level of safety with the emergency shutdown type valves. You don't have the zoning requirements to meet all of those things. So we believe that there's a gap there.

I think it's similar to what another member talked about, these transloading facilities and putting them near cities, etc.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Great. Would you be able to give us written documentation on that? Tell us exactly where you see those gaps, what the regulations are, and what the difference in those regulations are, as you said, when you're going from a railcar to a truck now, which is different from some of the other facilities. I think that's very important for us to be looking at, and I would appreciate receiving that information.

[Andy Bite]

We can do that and compare fixed storage versus mobile storage.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

CAPP and CFA, is there anything that you've also seen in the loading, the transloading, or the unloading that we need to be looking at to make sure that, again, we're doing this in the safest manner possible? Are you looking at those kinds of things? Have you looked at them? Will you be looking at them to see if there are any gaps that need to be addressed?

[Bob Bleaney]

Again, Greg touched on that briefly, and I'll let him follow on with a more fulsome response to that.

Sorry, it was Dave. My apologies.

[David Pryce]

That's fine.

The transloading business is actually not directly part of CAPP membership, so I can't speak to that with any knowledge. I would think there's merit in looking into that. Per the Propane Association's comments, when you have two different jurisdictions, there is always a question whether or not there's consistency in approach, so I think there's probably worth in looking into that.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I would assume, Mr. Pryce, that your industry would be concerned about making sure that the goods that you're moving are moved in a safe fashion, that you're not just—as had been alluded to before—handing these off and saying, “Now it's your problem”. You want to make sure that those goods, I would assume, are moving in the safest manner possible, so you'd actually want to be part of that process of looking at how they are loading and unloading your goods.

[David Pryce]

Absolutely, and we'll look into this per your request. I think our members, with their contractual arrangements with the transshippers, would have contractual arrangements with respect to the safety requirements. We will look into that.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

There's another thing I want to touch on. Mr. Boag, in your opening comments, you talked about supporting the upgrade of the DOT-111s, but you talked about replacement and retrofitting. From what we've understood from the testimony we've had during this committee's hearings on this, do you believe that retrofitting really is an option on this at all?

[Peter Boag]

I think that will ultimately fall to individual tank car owners as to what they see as the most effective and efficient way to deal with the higher levels of safety required under the new DOT-111 standards. I'm not a tank car expert so I'm not about to get into the granularity of whether it's better to retrofit or to replace, but I would suspect that replacement is probably going to be a much more significant strategy than retrofit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, your time has expired, Mr. Toet.

We now move to Mr. Braid for five minutes.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you to our panel for being here this morning.

My first question is for both Mr. Boag and Mr. Bleaney.

For each of your associations, before crude is shipped by rail, Transport Canada requires that it be tested for its level of volatility, and there's been some concern about the under-reporting of the level of volatility of types of crude. I have a twofold question. One, could you comment on that? Two, what, if anything, are your respective associations doing to ensure the integrity of that testing and reporting?

[Peter Boag]

I'll start and then again defer to those who are directly involved in this activity.

Certainly in the working groups that were established by Minister Raitt back in mid-November, there were three: one was to look into the DOT-111 tank cars; one was to look into emergency response capability; and one was actually to look into the whole issue of the testing and classification of crude.

We, as associations—probably more from the CAPP side than us on the fuel side—have been directly involved and significantly involved in that ongoing activity with respect to ensuring that the testing and classification of crude is done appropriately and adequately to address the levels of safety that are required.

With that, I'll defer to Dave. He's the one who's probably been most directly involved in that.

[David Pryce]

Yes, thank you.

That working group did identify a couple of needs.

One is to make sure that the testing was happening at the appropriate transfer points. I think there's merit in having a mechanism to affirm that from a regulatory perspective.

The minister did direct all the industry to re-test all of the product they were moving just to confirm we had a good understanding of that. I think it was emergency order 31 back in July. As the working group undertook its business, it was determined that the methodology for testing was in need of enhancement. Concern about representativeness of the volatility was the key point.

We have committed to working with the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association in Canada and the department to look at and develop a new infield test for that process. That was part of the recommendation that was made in the report.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you. I'm moving on.

Mr. Bleaney, in your brief you indicate:

While Industry is of the view that the current rail liability framework is fundamentally sound, there is a need for more rigorous oversight and better alignment of liabilities to insurance in order to ensure that all rail companies have the financial and management capability to manage an incident.

I think we've probably sufficiently covered the financial aspect of this, but what do you mean by ensuring that rail companies have the management capability to manage an incident?

[Bob Bleaney]

That partly relates to what I think was being talked about in the emergency response abilities and the organizational ability to respond to an incident. We have been promoting that there would be a rail carrier's lead in organizing that arrangement to be able to be responsive. That's what we're talking about in terms of management capability.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Bite, in the conclusion of your presentation, you indicate the CPA supports the harmonization of TDG regulations between the U.S. and Canada as significant amounts of propane move between the two countries. Why is harmonization so important?

[Andy Bite]

It's important because significant amounts of propane are moving back and forth and there is a slight variation in regulations, the paperwork associated with it, the documentation associated with it. We could be more efficient and more consistent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Mai, you have five minutes.

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

I'll give my time to Mr. Blanchette.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Blanchette, welcome to the committee.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to our guests for being here.

There is a refinery in the Quebec City area that is being supplied by rail to a significantly greater extent.

A few minutes ago, I was surprised—to put it politely—to hear that firefighters do not have in their hands the information they need to respond to a disaster. So that means that, in all the communities across Canada, those responsible for emergency measures do not have information they can use.

Our situation is that we are playing with volatile products more and more. The risk has increased considerably in recent years. We no longer have the stable situation we once had, when we were just working with petroleum in the classic sense. There have been major changes.

I hear that the necessary measures have still not been put in place to properly inform the people responsible for emergency measures. We have to think about that seriously. In some places, people are paid to do it; in other places, they are volunteers. We have to help them.

First, I do not understand why they do not have the information already. Second, I wonder how the federal government could help you to circulate the information as quickly as possible. Informing emergency responders is not an option; it is a moral obligation for you.

[Peter Boag]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Blanchette.

Yes, clearly one of the gaps that's been identified in this process to date is the need to provide more and better information to first responders. That's part and parcel of an overall enhancement of the emergency response process that's been a key part of the ongoing examinations within transport, within industry, and the collective examination by stakeholders. Certainly the expansion of the emergency response assistance program, and in our view in the context of a single entity responder, will directly address some of that.

In addition, in terms of the additional information, I think you heard me refer to an existing program, TransCAER, which has largely been established and run by the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada for the transport of their products which are considered dangerous goods. We see that as an excellent model, which we're now examining on how we can use and piggyback on an established and proven system that is designed directly to provide first responders in communities across the country with much better information in order to make their job more effective and efficient.