Transport Committee on April 29th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I call our meeting to order.

I want to welcome our witnesses here today. Thanks very much for coming, gentlemen.

With no further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Powers and Mr. Boissonneault, from the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. You have 10 minutes or less, please.

[Paul Boissonneault, Fire Chief, County of Brant Fire Department, and First Vice-President, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Paul Boissonneault. I'm the fire chief for the County of Brant, Ontario, and the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs' first vice-president.

On behalf of the CAFC and our chief fire officers and firefighters from across Canada, I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to present the perspective of first responders on the transport of dangerous goods and railway safety.

The tragic derailment in Lac-Mégantic has focused attention on the impact of dangerous goods incidents on public safety and the environment. The Lac-Mégantic fire service and their mutual-aid fire departments did an outstanding job in dealing with the largest, most destructive dangerous goods incident in recent Canadian history.

All of us here have the shared responsibility of mitigating the risks associated with the transport of dangerous goods in Canada. To do so, we need a system with preventative measures and protections, including legislation but also inspection and enforcement, information sharing, training, and safe operating practices that ensure safe communities.

The goal of our testimony is to broaden your understanding of the composition, abilities, and needs of the fire services across Canada as well as our recommended actions.

In the Canadian fire services, a significant number of fire departments in Canada share one important characteristic: railway lines run through the communities that they protect. When an accident occurs, they will most inevitably be the first responders on scene. Let's put that into context.

There are approximately 3,500 fire departments in communities of all sizes across Canada, of which 3,200 are volunteer fire departments. Of the 120,000 firefighting personnel in Canada, 80% are volunteers, meaning these men and women, with their full-time jobs and family obligations, volunteer to help protect their communities.

With the diversity in size, resources, and responsibilities of these departments, dangerous goods or hazmat response is only one of many emergencies fire departments must prepare for. Our hazmat, or dangerous goods, training is most frequently based on the National Fire Protection Association's NFPA 472: Standard for Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials/Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents, which has three levels of training/competency.

First is the awareness level, and then there's the operations level and the technician's level. Due to the high cost of training requirements, most fire departments do not operate beyond the awareness level, which basically gives them the ability to recognize hazardous materials, protect themselves, call for trained personnel, and secure the area. In rural areas, the gaps in training and resources are understandably much wider. Fire departments rely heavily on the emergency response assistance plan or ERAP holders to provide the special technical expertise, and logistical and tangible resources to help us mitigate an incident.

Last week the CAFC applauded transport minister Lisa Raitt's announcement that the Government of Canada will now require ERAPs for the shipments of crude oil, ethanol, and other specific flammable liquid products by rail. This will result in first responders having access to specialized response capabilities when responding to these high-risk dangerous goods incidents.

This was a key recommendation put forward by Canada's fire chiefs as part of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods General Policy Advisory Council and the ERAPs working group that we participated in. The establishment of a task force to review ERAPs requirements in the application is an important step in improving emergency response systems in Canada. As we move through this process of addressing classification in ERAPs, we believe there are various components to the system that will require further discussion and action to mitigate future incidents.

In terms of dangerous goods response requirements, to evaluate what is required to manage dangerous goods incidents, emergency response planners consider several key aspects: information, training, resources, and planning. For the benefit of the committee, we want to focus on a few programs and ideas in these areas that we believe are particularly relevant.

We should first consider information and the vital resource that is the Canadian Transport Emergency Centre, CANUTEC. CANUTEC is critical for the emergency response and planning in Canada, especially in rural areas. CANUTEC is the equivalent of a first responder calling 911 for dangerous goods incidents. Its industry-leading emergency response guide for initial reference and its experienced 24-hour-a-day professional chemists assist emergency responders with advisory and regulatory information in the event of a dangerous goods accident.

We cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining, and frankly strengthening, this service in order for first responders to continue to protect Canadians, the environment, and themselves.

While it has been suggested that individual municipalities should receive real-time data from the railways on trains scheduled to transit their communities, we believe this would be unrealistic and a largely futile exercise, given the thousands of train movements daily across Canada, 99.9% of which occur without incident.

However, when a derailment does occur, the fire service needs immediate access to the train manifest information, as well as the material safety data sheets, the MSDS, and contact with remedial measures advisors, RMAs, having specialist knowledge of the dangerous goods involved. This is the role that CANUTEC can play and must play for all municipalities, and this is where the CAFC believes Transport Canada has a critical responsibility to assist first responders in safely mitigating an incident.

In training, until the Lac-Mégantic tragedy and subsequent incidents in the U.S. and Canada, the dangers presented by large quantities of crude oil had not been recognized as an area where special training and equipment would be required by municipal firefighters. It is imperative that we provide firefighters with the appropriate training and equipment for these types of incidents.

The CAFC has worked with various industry stakeholders to help develop and promote training programs for fire departments, municipal officials, and emergency planners. This has included firefighter training by CN Rail on incident command at derailments, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada and its transportation emergency assistance program, as well as the Fertilizer Safety and Security Council, in the development and distribution of training programs on anhydrous ammonia.

Flammable liquid firefighting requires special training and equipment that was not included in earlier programs. This now must be developed using a national standard program delivered effectively across Canada. The CAFC is actively working with its stakeholders to further enhance promotion of these resources to our members as well as to develop new programs. To reach the thousands of firefighters with the basic awareness level of training, we believe that using a web-based program will be the most effective means of delivering this information. Additional advanced hands-on training is necessary and should be coordinated with the railways and fire services on a regional basis to maximize the number of firefighters that can be included with the capacity of training resources available.

When we talk about resources and planning, two main issue arise from discussions with our members and stakeholders: access to organized resources, and standards for coordination and planning. A critical point that needs to be recognized is that part of the risk assessment planning process for these emergencies is defining the operational capabilities that are required.

These operational capabilities will be based on three key technical elements. First is the amount of class B foam concentrate that is available to suppress the vapours or extinguish the fire. Second is available water resources or supplies to make finished foam, recognizing that class B firefighting foam streams consist of 94% to 97% water combined with the foam concentrate. Third is the foam education and application devices to apply the foam streams to the hazard. To successfully apply the foam onto the fire for extinguishment requires trained and competent responders who can size up these scenarios and perform the required tasks.

On the planning side, we believe that standardizing an incident command system process for railway incidents is required to coordinate emergency planning and identify the roles and responsibilities of municipalities, railways, producers, and the federal government. Jurisdictional issues and conflicting priorities should be identified and resolved as part of the emergency planning function, and not during an emergency incident. A clearly articulated system that's based on a changeable, scalable response organization providing common and predictable hierarchy will make for a more efficient and effective collaboration and response to incidents.

With regard to resources for ERAPs, the CAFC believes that a mutual aid approach, with all shippers and carriers participating, would be the most cost-effective and efficient means to deliver resources needed to assist first responders. Western Canadian Spill Services, WCSS, and the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Emergency Response Corporation, LPGERC, are two examples of this very approach.

In conclusion, we believe the systematic approach outlined here is required to address the evolving risks associated with the transportation of dangerous goods in Canada. As the voice of the Canadian fire service, the CAFC is proactively seeking opportunities to find collaborative solutions and best practices.

We were proud to actively participate in the TDG advisory council and to lead the emergency response assistance plan working group. We have engaged the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Railway Association of Canada to initiate longer-term projects to identify gaps as well as align resources and planning to mitigate future risks.

We will diligently work through Transport Canada's newly established ERAP task group, and with the Government of Canada, this committee, and all members of Parliament, to strengthen rail safety across Canada.

On behalf of Canada's emergency responders, thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to taking any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks, Mr. Boissonneault.

We'll now move to the Freight Management Association of Canada, Mr. Robert Ballantyne, for 10 minutes or less, please.

[Robert Ballantyne, President, Freight Management Association of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Freight Management Association of Canada was the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association until this year. We've been representing the freight transportation concerns of Canadian industry to various levels of government and international agencies since 1916.

The 90-plus members of FMA spend approximately $6 billion annually on transportation services by all modes, and we advocate for our member companies’ interests regarding air freight, trucking, marine, and rail.

As background, I am a member of the Transport Canada advisory committee on rail safety representing the shipper community. The role of the advisory committee relates only to the Railway Safety Act and its regulations, including SMS, and does not generally deal directly with TDG issues. While your committee's mandate from the minister is to consider transportation of dangerous goods and safety management systems in all modes, my remarks will focus primarily on rail freight.

Before addressing the specific topics, I would like to offer a few general comments about transportation safety. One, by any reasonable standard, modern transportation in all modes in the western world is very safe. Two, as long as there is movement controlled by human beings, there will be accidents. Three, safety can never be taken for granted and vigilance can never be let down, and four, there is always room for improvement.

The Canadian transportation safety regime—that is, the policy, the laws, the regulations, enforcement, accident investigation, and practice—focuses on prevention of accidents. This, of course, is the right emphasis. The recent Lac-Mégantic derailment was a tragedy, and the work by all stakeholders in both Canada and the U.S. to take actions to minimize the possibility of another such accident has been intense and thorough. As the Transportation Safety Board continues its investigations, it is expected to make further recommendations that will lead to even more improvements. While many of the recommendations and subsequent actions of the minister focus on prevention, there is a tendency by both media and government to focus on “the next Lac-Mégantic,” and by that I mean that considerable activity is focused on the characteristics of, in this case, the DOT-111 tank cars and on making them more robust for the next big accident.

Such accidents are extremely rare, a fact that needs to be considered in any actions the government decides to take. The last accident that came even close to Lac-Mégantic was a derailment of propane cars as well as some cars carrying other DG substances, including chlorine, on the CPR in Mississauga on November 10, 1979, nearly 35 years ago. In that accident, no one was killed or injured. There was limited direct property damage, and about 250,000 people had to be evacuated for several days. Transport Canada and the railways learned significant lessons from the Mississauga accident, with the result that there has been no accident as severe as the one in Mississauga on either CN or CPR since that time. There of course have been other derailments, and some of them have been relatively serious, but there has been nothing of quite that magnitude.

The Transportation Safety Board is the scorekeeper with regard to accidents in aviation, marine, rail, and pipeline, and the statistical trend in all modes is uniformly in the right direction.

When we look at the TDG Act, the evidence is that the TDG Act and the regulations administered by the TDG directorate are generally working well. There continues to be a downward trend in DG accidents, even with increased volumes of these dangerous goods.

The minister has asked your committee how Canada’s TDG regime compares with that of the United States. The minister’s recent actions announced on April 23 provide some insights into the working of the TDG regime here as compared with that in the U.S. The ability of the minister to quickly issue protective directions pursuant to section 32 of the TDG Act when there is danger to the public indirectly indicates that it compares well with that of the U.S., where rapid response seems to be somewhat more difficult.

While specifications regarding the DOT-111 tank cars should be mandated and older models should be removed from service, the most important follow-on work should be prevention. The Lac-Mégantic accident involved a runaway train of 72 cars that derailed at a speed well above the allowable track speed. If the cars had contained only grain, there still would have been significant damage to the heart of Lac-Mégantic. The immediate focus of the TSB was on actions to prevent runaways, and this was of course the correct immediate focus by the Transportation Safety Board.

In this connection, the minister announced last week that the DOT- 111 cars used to transport crude oil and ethanol that do not meet the CPC-1232 standards set by the Association of American Railroads in October 2011 must be phased out or retrofitted within three years.

Just to give you some idea of the size of the fleet, there are currently about 1.5 million freight cars of all types in operation in North America, and virtually all of these are able to move between all railways in Canada and the U.S. According to the AAR, included in this 1.5-million car fleet are 228,000 DOT-111 cars, and 92,000 of these are used to move flammable liquids.

As of last fall, 14,000 of these cars moving flammable liquids were built to the new 2011 standard. The Railway Supply Institute reports that an additional 30,000 compliant cars are expected to be built by the end of 2015. This will leave a significant shortfall of car capacity to move flammable materials, including crude oil and ethanol.

There is provision to retrofit the older cars to bring them up to the current standard; however, there is not enough North American capacity to build or retrofit enough cars to meet the three-year timeline. As these cars move cross-border, it is imperative that the regulations and timelines be harmonized between Canada and the United States.

Turning now to the Railway Safety Act and the safety management systems, the RSA is the enabling legislation for safety management systems, and it is useful to understand the philosophy and context that the RSA provides. This was one of a series of laws passed in the final third of the 20th century that ended the long dark night of oppressive regulation on the railways.

The RSA places responsibility on railway management for safety and provides for relatively rapid rule-making by the industry to facilitate the introduction of new technology and operating methods, but gives Transport Canada very strong powers to protect the public interest. The RSA also provides a significant role for organized labour to participate in the rule-making process.

The RSA became law in 1988. The first rules submitted and approved under this new act in 1990 were the Canadian rail operating rules. This was the first significant update of these fundamental rules since 1962. These are the basic rules that train crews and other operating employees must follow for safe train operation.

I was directly involved in this and the subsequent rules and engineering standards submissions throughout the 1990s, so I am familiar with that rule-making process.

The introduction of SMS in 2001 was a logical extension to railway safety culture, and it facilitates improved oversight by the railway safety directorate at Transport Canada. Safety management systems have been successfully implemented on all the major railways, including the commuter railways, and on the short lines.

The class I carriers have more extensive and complex operations than short lines and have more depth of resources to implement SMS and to provide the required data to Transport Canada. SMS of course will be much more complex on the class I railways than on the short lines, which may have a top speed of only 30 miles an hour.

In 2013 the Auditor General undertook an audit of Transport Canada’s administration of SMS. In his report, the Auditor General validated the basic philosophy of the RSA and SMS and stated as follows:

Safety risks are inherent to all modes of transportation, and rail...is no exception. Federal railways have the primary responsibility for managing these risks and ensuring the safety of rail operations, while Transport Canada plays a key role in advancing the safety of rail transportation...specifically by maintaining the regulatory framework and overseeing federal railways.

The Auditor General’s report identified issues that need improvement by Transport Canada related to data gathering, the number of audits undertaken, development tools to assist inspectors, and skills development. Transport Canada has responded positively to the Auditor General's recommendations and has set timelines for implementing the changes that were recommended.

In answering the three questions on SMS posed to you by the minister, I offer the following comments.

First, SMS implementation in the railway industry is well advanced. Transport Canada is addressing the recommendations of the Auditor General, especially to increase the number of audits.

Second, while it's difficult to determine specifically how SMS has improved transportation safety, the TSB statistics indicate continuing improvement over the period that SMS has been implemented.

Three, on the question of additional methods to improve SMS, continued education and training both within the railways and in Transport Canada will be needed as SMS evolves. The oversight by Transport Canada needs to be robust, not only by the audit function but also with continuing inspections. Where the carriers are found to be deficient, Transport Canada needs to take strong action, including the imposition of administrative monetary penalties.

Safe transportation is vital to the Canadian economy. The members of our association are ready to work constructively with the government and the carriers to improve the safety of Canadian supply chains for the benefit of everyone.

I would be pleased to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Ballantyne.

Now we have, from Teamsters Canada, Mr. Phil Benson.

You have 10 minutes or less, please.

[Phil Benson, Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Phil Benson, and I am a lobbyist with Teamsters Canada. With me is Mr. Rex Beatty, president, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, locomotive engineers.

Mr. Bill Brehl, president of Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, maintenance of way, couldn't be with us today, and my prayers are with him.

Railways have been self-governing and self-regulating without meaningful supervision or inspection, conducting business behind a wall of secrecy. These safety management systems are so secret that the MPs, the public, even we can't see them.

Are you surprised that there is no safety culture at railways? You know it, and Parliament has acted by unanimously passing, by voice vote, the amendments to the Railway Safety Act. The inspectors and auditors are ready. Workers will have a direct line to Transport Canada to report safety violations. Unions will take part in developing all components of safety management systems and will sign off on them. Workers are not inattentive; they are fatigued and will welcome fatigue management based on science.

We recommend a change in the current rule-making process. The rail sector should follow the rule-making process of all other sectors. The advisory council to the minister of rail safety should vet and recommend rules, like other sectors. Exemptions should be rarely granted, if at all.

We recommend that safety management systems audit safety violations and the resolutions should all be made public. The public has a right to know.

After the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, the delayed Railway Safety Act regulation process is moving forward. Next year they might clear the approval process, and it might be years before the safety management systems and fatigue management is in place. This is unacceptable, and we strongly recommend that it be sped up. Companies and unions should immediately commence discussions on both factors. The direct reporting line to Transport rail safety should have been put in place yesterday.

After Mississauga, the transportation of dangerous goods is something that all sectors do well. ERAPs and the knowledge of dangerous goods that are transported through communities remain an issue. Without knowledge of what dangerous goods are in transit, first responders cannot be prepared. Even with knowledge, long response times are possible. A glaring problem is that of our first nations. They need to know and to participate in all discussions. That is a problem shared with smaller towns, especially regarding resources.

We recommend that ERAP discussions be expanded, and cities and towns and the public be given access to the information of dangerous goods in transit through their communities, reserves, and nations.

Crude oil has a UN designation. Diluted bitumen and Bakken are not crude oil. Dilbit may have environmental issues, but I'm not sure that explosion of the product is a concern. Bakken oil can contain more than 30 psi of gas; it would not be transportable by pipeline. If Bakken is like a gas, it should be treated as one and transported as such.

The new DOT-111 cars may not be adequate according to the TSB, and the acquisition of what may be inadequate DOT-111s is dismissed through cost concerns. The industry does not want to deal with these issues.

Teamsters, me included, have spent many years dealing with the post 9/11 crisis. The government, industry, and unions worked together because they knew they had to restore public confidence. It was inconvenient, costly, and “business as unusual”. Lac-Mégantic is rail's 9/11. I do not see any desire by the rail industry to work in any meaningful way to restore public confidence. It is business convenient, at no cost, as usual.

Teamsters Canada is Canada's transportation union. Moving oil by rail or pipeline is in our interest, as long as it is safe for the public, the environment, and our members. Our recommendations are to help get the public licence to move oil, consistent with government policy.

We have confidence in Minister Lisa Raitt. She knows her files and is moving forward. We ask that you help her move quicker, so that we can work with her, and you, to make rail transportation as safe as possible.

The following are the comments of Mr. Bill Brehl, president of the TRC maintenance of way. They are the people who look after the tracks, the infrastructure, at CP, and most of the short lines in Canada.

He says that they are understaffed, overworked, and they are tired, many working 10- to 12-hour shifts five days a week and then travelling hundreds of kilometres home on their own time. At home they have a handful of hours with their families before having to turn around and drive hundreds of kilometres back to the job. Their work shifts change regularly between morning, afternoon and night, sometimes all within the five-day cycle.

As a personal comment from me, that is a clear violation of fatigue management science.

This has been going on for months. So far this year we have been told that it will continue for the rest of the season. There are other cycles, more humane cycles, that we can work. However, current management has decided to experiment with this new cycle, which practically eliminates any proper rest.

Seemingly with no concern for our fatigue, our ability to focus, or for safety, we are constantly told by front-line supervisors that production is all that counts. Human beings aren't built for this. We break down. We become fatigued. When there's no attempt to manage it, we can lose focus. We can lose lives.

When the vast majority of main line derailments are caused by infrastructure or equipment failure, don't you think that the men and women maintaining these tracks should be properly rested?

The railways do not share their safety management systems with us. We have no education concerning what these systems are, let alone how they manage safety. We need this information shared with the workplace health and safety committees. Ask yourself, who's better to look after the safety of the tracks than the people on the tracks?

The way to achieve safer railways is through regulation, education, and communication, with all stakeholders fully involved. We are proud Canadians. We are hard-working, loyal employees, many of us second, third, and sometimes fourth generation. We want and Canada needs a safe, productive, and viable railway system.

Mr. Beatty.

[Rex Beatty, President, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, Teamsters Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee.

I don't have any written notes to pass out. This is ad lib. I just want to talk to you about what it's like to be a railroad in Canada these days.

Let me start off by saying that I represent 99% of the operating crews in Canada: the locomotive engineers, the conductors, the yardmen, etc. We represent the main carriers: Canadian National, CP Rail, VIA Rail, Bombardier, the GO trains in Toronto, etc. We have a vested interest in the safety and the movement of goods.

A lot of people don't understand what it's like to be a railroad. I'm going to walk you through a trip so you really get the sense of what we deal with.

What we do is we leave from what's called a home terminal, where we live, and most of the time those trains are scheduled. In other words, we have an eight-hour window in which we know we're going to go to work, and we can prepare ourselves for that as far as rest is concerned. Thereafter, we're on that train in a cab that's 12 feet by 6 feet, for a minimum of 10 hours, and in most cases, 12 hours straight, with no breaks. You're not allowed to stop and have lunch; that train has to move.

When you get to the other end of the road, the terminal, which in some cases is as far as 300 miles away, what happens is that you go into an unassigned type of service. You do not know when you're coming back. For example, you go off duty in the morning at eight o'clock after working all night, and you don't get called right away.

You don't get called right away because of the way they operate their trains. You're not entitled to book rest except at that initial time, so even if you've booked rest, which is a maximum of eight hours, after eight hours you're subject to call. What takes place is that you might not get called for another eight hours. In other words, just when you're ready to go back to work, there are no trains, and you sit there for another eight hours. Then you get called to come back to work. You cannot refuse that. You must come back. Fatigue sets in. These crews coming back now have to work for 10, 11, or 12 hours, with no breaks, moving these trains.

When I hired on in 1973, these trains were roughly a mile long, maybe. Some of them were up to two and even three miles long. There used to be four-member crews. Now there are two-member crews. The management style of the major freight railways right now is very Machiavellian. What happens is that we work on what's called the Brown system of demerits. You get up to 60 demerits and you are discharged from the service of the company. That's what happens.

When you take a look at the Canadian railway operating rules, you can see that there's very little that can happen on the property where you can't point to an employee failure somewhere. That's the reality of the life in how we operate. The problem is that the companies.... For the discipline that is assessed, they don't want to have the employees discharged. They'd rather have you at up around 50 to 55 demerits. Why? You're more apt to do what you're told because you're subject to being discharged if you get 5 or 10 more demerits, which puts you over the 60. It's very Machiavellian in how we operate.

Then you take a look at the stress of the crews. I don't know if you know that within labour law we have what's called “do now, grieve later”. You cannot refuse. Other than for issues of safety, you can't refuse. You must go to work.

Right now, we have thousands and thousands of grievances against the company moving their way through an arbitration process. Just to let you know, there are two arbitrators who sit three days a month, 11 months out of the year. Three days a month, that's all they sit, and they hear virtually every case of every railway union and every railroad in the country. If you think you have a grievance and you think it's going to progress in your lifetime to arbitration to get a result, give your head a shake. It's not going to happen. This adds to the stress.

They've done a study. The railroads have done a study on retaining employees. If they can get an employee to be on the railroads for up to five years, they're locked in then, because they're vested within the railroad. They have mortgages and families and so on, so they're in a situation where they can't leave. But it's very hard to retain employees right now under this system. Just take a look at the moving of grain and the problems with moving grain. A lot of this is that you don't have the manpower to do it.

This is the environment we live in. When I see this type of committee where we can sit here and have our voice, I have to say that the first responders are the crews. They're the first responders, because when those trains derail—and I've been in derailments—I'm the one who has to go back and assess the damage.

I have no knowledge of SMS, the safety management system, no input. When I walk back to find out where the derailment has occurred in that two-mile train, I don't know what I'm coming to. I don't know if gases are going to be blowing my way. I have no idea what's on that train. The training in dangerous commodities for workers is superficial. It tell us where we have to locate those cars within a train.

The whole system is fatigued, not just the railcars. I would appreciate it being looked at very carefully.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to questioning.

Mr. Mai, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. It is very important for us to hear what they have to say, especially given that they have all played a role in the studies that have been done and in the recommendations that have been made.

I will start with the representatives of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.

First of all, I would like to thank you very much for the work that you do in general. I know that all Canadians have a high level of admiration for firefighters, particularly given that 80% are volunteer firefighters. I would like to thank you for that.

Among the questions that are being asked are questions on the Emergency Response Assistance Plans. These plans were introduced following a recommendation from the Transportation Safety Board. We know that none existed previously, as you said. This is a new plan that has been put forward.

I would like it if you could explain what is happening in concrete terms. We will not talk about the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic and of what could have been different if there had been a plan. Instead, let us look towards the future. How will we intervene directly? Concretely, what does this emergency response plan do?

[Paul Boissonneault]

Thank you very much for the question.

We believe that the ERAP process, where we're going in future plans.... We are very pleased with the initial steps, the inclusion not only of crude oil but also ethanol and other flammable liquids. We feel if we prepare for the worst, we will be much better prepared should it be a less volatile product.

One of the things that was shown with the Lac-Mégantic situation was that most fire personnel, who were trained and understood the burning characteristics of crude oil, realized very quickly that the characteristics they thought they knew were not the reality at Lac-Mégantic.

What we want the ERAP process to do, and why we're so excited to be part of the task force as we move forward in the ERAP process, is to allow communities to prepare properly through scientific and data-based research on all flammable liquids, and for our firefighters to have resource planning and training, so we can ensure that communities have the most information possible and safety processes in place.

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

I did gather information regarding important training and resources. You talked about real-time information, but that's not necessarily what we're talking about. We're talking about the municipalities and especially first responders having all the information beforehand, knowing what's going on in the municipalities so they're better informed, and knowing they have the necessary resources to intervene should something happen. How important is it to know? In 2009 we had 500 tankers of crude oil, and in 2014, almost 200,000.

[Paul Boissonneault]

We believe there is a responsibility for emergency management training and planning in our communities, and that the information provides us that planning piece. In the event of an emergency, the real-time information would come by contacting CANUTEC to find out immediately what's on the train manifest so we could mitigate the situation from that point.

We feel the protective directive offers information sharing for our communities once a year. It provides emergency planning so we can do proactive exercises and plan for specific derailments.

If we knew all products that were going across our municipalities on a daily basis.... The reality is that we're not going to park fire trucks at various intersections just in case there's a derailment, so that real-time information is not really a viable option for us at this stage. A more comprehensive approach to planning is essentially what we're after.

Chris, do you have any comments on that?

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

That's why I was mentioning it. It's not necessarily real-time information that we're asking for.

Also, in terms of a general comment representing all the fire chiefs, do you feel comfortable that you have all the information from railway companies? Are you comfortable that the communication and information sharing is really there?

[Paul Boissonneault]

I'm going to ask my colleague Chris Powers. Certainly I've done enough talking.

Chris has been a great stakeholder for our organization at various committee levels, and I'd like Chris to comment on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

Mr. Powers.

[Chris Powers, Retired Fire Chief, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs]

Thank you.

I think we identified in the ERAP working group report that we need more data. We need to know the routes being used by the rails to transport this, the volumes, and the frequency. This is something we hope the ERAP task force will be able to achieve.

There is a gap in data now, but certainly protective direction that requires an annual reporting to municipalities is key to long-term planning. We don't plan for the emergency when it happens; we plan ahead of time.

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

I don't have much time.

I have a question for Teamsters.

The analysts—who do very good work—say that a strong safety culture is essential for the full and effective implementation of a safety management system within an organization. Another condition for an effective safety management system is that railway employees must be involved in the development of the company's safety management system, be able to escalate their safety concerns to the highest levels in the organization without fear of punishment, and receive appropriate supervision and training to ensure that errors lead to improvements in safety.

How comfortable are you in terms of all of those criteria being met when we deal with safety management systems?

[Phil Benson]

We represent 65% of rail employees. You've heard from all the other unions. We've made it very clear today that the safety management system doesn't exist. There is no safety culture. It is not safe.

However, to be very fair, you know that. Parliament has acted. The Railway Safety Act amendments are in place. They changed that to our signing off on all components. All of these things, hopefully, will be in place.

Again, with the companies seeing it post-9/11, a lot will have to do with their willingness to move forward. We're certainly willing to move forward with them, but as a backcheck, the minister shall inspect.... To be blunt, that's why the direct line to Transport Canada was put in place. If you deal with the company more than likely you'll be disciplined, as brother Beatty said, and it will not be good for your career.

At this time, it doesn't exist. It will exist. We're asking you to move it forward more quickly. It was delayed by the companies as we've moved forward.

That's why we're asking to start the process now. We don't want to wait until September or October of next year. It took seven years to get fatigue management, or eight years, which I worked with. It took 18 months for the pilots just to continue, which I also worked on. They're sitting on the minister's desk. I hope she signs them soon.

To redo their safety management system, with all of their involvement, is going to take a long time. That's why we're calling for a recommendation to start the process now or in September, not next April, May, or June, whenever the regulations come into effect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. Pacetti for seven minutes.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming.

I have to agree with you also, Mr. Boissonneault. It was not only the firefighters but also the first responders who did a great job at Lac-Mégantic, and of course made us proud. The incident was unfortunate, but these are the things that we have to deal with.

I'm not a regular member of the committee, but the way I look at it is that there are two things: prevention, and I think we spoke a bit on that; and what actually is going to happen in the case of an incident, whether minor or major.

I'm trying to understand how you would view it if an incident were to happen. You said yourself that there are thousands of cars going around. You're not going to put fire trucks at every stop or potentially dangerous place because you can have a train derailed in the middle of a major urban centre without flammables and it could cause damage.

How do you react when an incident is going to happen, in terms of accessing the data on that railcar, or accessing the first responders and whether it's medical people or firefighters who are needed? In your view, how does all of that get put together if an incident were to happen?

[Paul Boissonneault]

Thank you very much for the question.

I would offer that much like the process initiated by the minister in terms of protective directives and a phased-in approach, plus data supporting the information and task groups and working groups, I think what you're seeing as far as the Canadian fire service goes is much the same. We realize now that the incident was dealt with very well, but certainly there needs to be that preventative and planning piece in place, so that communities can rely on their first responders certainly providing a safe response.

You are correct. It doesn't necessarily happen in the core of a location like it happened in Lac-Mégantic. It can happen outside of areas, which becomes very challenging for resource deployment and/or management.

The three points that I offered as far as information, training, and resource—

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I'm sorry. Can I just interrupt for a second? I'm trying to conceptualize this.

Let's say a derailment happens in the middle of a large urban centre. You call the firefighters and they'll go online—no problem—and they'll figure out or be able to assess what's on the railcar.

How about some faraway municipality where there is no Internet access, or where they have difficulty that day accessing the Internet, or where there's just one person at the booth because the derailment happens at night? There may not even be somebody there because that person is outside smoking a cigarette or on a coffee break or whatever. What happens in that situation?

How do you compare both of them? How do you make sure the firefighters are not just properly protected but also have proper access to information?

[Paul Boissonneault]

The information—and that's what I spoke about—is key. The process for a large urban centre and a rural fire department operation needs to be the same, and that would be that when the public realizes an incident has taken place, they phone 911. When an emergency takes place out in the field or an urban centre, as a first responder our 911 is the immediate call, not the Internet.

There needs to be an immediate call to CANUTEC to advise that there's a train derailment on the line. They also need to be told the location of the incident. Because we're trained to an awareness level, we can give information on the type of car that's being used and the products that are on that train. From that, they can give us initial isolation distances and how to react to that situation appropriately. That's whether we're in the smallest community across Canada or in the largest urban centre.

That information sharing and the necessity of ensuring that these chemists provide that vital information to our emergency responders is absolutely key.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Okay. So what would you need as a firefighters association to make sure that all of your ground people have the same service from one end of the country to another? Is there anything that's lacking anywhere?

[Paul Boissonneault]

I think it's the training piece and information sharing right across Canada to ensure that every fire department is on board. As we said, there are 3,500 fire departments, and 3,200 of those are volunteer. In some municipalities and some small centres, we're dealing with situations where they raise money to put gas in their vehicles. We're talking about a very diverse group of fire departments and very different resource allocations across Canada.

For the information component, we want the CAFC to be a conduit of resources and training availabilities that we develop with stakeholders, so that we can certainly be the voice of the Canadian fire services to provide that information to everybody, so that in the event of an emergency our communities are safe.