Transport Committee on April 29th, 2014

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Again, I am actually very shocked about the transloads. That came up in a previous testimony in a previous meeting, the fact that there are no fire or building codes, or protection and safety systems. One would think these should be standardized across Canada. So again for the record, I'm going to direct this question to Mr. Boissonneault or Mr. Powers...actually all of you.

Why is there this lackadaisical sort of build-anything-as-you-happen-across-it...particularly since some of these transloads are very close to communities and don't need to be? They can be better designed, put in safer places slightly away from communities with some kind of coding around them, obviously, to ensure maximum safety. Can you answer that question for me?

[Chris Powers]

I think we're in the investigation mode to try and find out. I don't want to leave the impression that there are no codes at all, we're simply not aware of which codes. When these facilities are built...and some of them are described as mom-and-pop operations with a pump and trucks show up and they pump it into a car and away they go. Other ones are multi-million dollar installations. The thing is that because they're fixed facilities, the extent to which TDG regulations apply and what standards would be applied may have some interface with local fire and building codes.

There has to be cooperation between Transport Canada and the local municipality because, while it's a transportation facility and they're handling dangerous goods, I think the exact interface between those codes and regulations still has to be looked at.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Very quickly—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Very quickly.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

—is there no committee looking at developing this right now?

[Chris Powers]

As I said, during the ERAP working group, transloads was not identified as an issue. It was basically the railcars and the movement of the goods. But it did come up at a meeting in Calgary a couple of weeks ago and it is a concern with the railways, and now it's something that has been flagged as something that needs to be looked at. I agree that it should be investigated and some consideration given to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, thank you very much.

I'll move to Mr. Sullivan now for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you to the witnesses.

We recently learned it's not difficult to find out what's on the trains as they pass by, because it's right there on a card saying exactly what's in them. So ethyltrichlorosilane and methyl bromide, both of which cause death by inhalation, are routinely running through the centre of the city of Toronto. The issue that the residents and the councillors in the city of Toronto have tried to come to grips with is the public's right to know. The railroad's response has been that it's a security issue. Mr. Benson, you're sitting on a security committee. Is this ever raised as a security issue?

[Phil Benson]

First, only to be on the record, I agree with the firefighters and Mr. Powers when they talk about the issue of the knowledge and the timing of the knowledge. What you raise is the side that I think we're raising, which is the public's right to know. I'll try to deal with that question, because it's difficult.

In the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act—unanimously supported by the industry, it was a great act—there was one controversial point and that was a disagreement between the Teamsters and truckers associations on the need for security. Everybody agreed that security would be required because of the issue of.... I'm sorry, it's a difficult thing to talk about. On the terrorism issue the workers would have to have some kind of security clearance. The Teamsters policy is that it will be the transport security clearance. It is in the act. It has never been enacted. It's not in force, in fact. It's the only section of the act that.... I would put it to you, if there were any concerns whatsoever about terrorism and the transportation of dangerous goods, those two sections would be enacted.

As to the second part, I am bound by the secrecy legislation. There are things that I simply cannot talk about in public. I strongly recommend that the committee, perhaps, would like to have an in camera hearing, or maybe a few, at some time to talk about terrorism, etc. I would say I lose sleep at night about our members losing sleep at night. I lose sleep at night about the lack of a safety management system. I lose sleep at night about lots of things. I do not lose sleep at night worrying about terrorism in the rail industry.

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

Thank you, Mr. Benson. That's good to know. So the railroads are really only trying to keep the public from knowing what's going through their communities for public relations reasons, not for security reasons. At least, that's the impression we're left with.

The minister's safety directives last week are welcomed by all and I appreciate that they have dealt with some of the problem, but I don't believe they went far enough. The Transportation Safety Board made other recommendations that were not acted on. One was to avoid major population centres, like Toronto, by routing rail around the city. We have learned in this committee that the DOT-111s are not safe even at 20 miles an hour and there was no recommendation that these cars should go less than 20 miles an hour, which is what the public seems to be asking for. If we must have this stuff go through because you're not going to reroute it, can you not slow it down?

In addition, we found in this committee that neither CN nor CP seem to have taken into account the effect of abandonment of less populous lines at the time they decided to abandon them. So we asked them if they did a risk assessment when they abandoned those lines, and they said no. So now to Mr. Ballantyne, are you concerned? Is the freight association concerned about the fact that there are so few choices left for the transportation of dangerous goods, when they're abandoning lines in New Brunswick, when they abandoned the two Ottawa Valley lines, leaving no other choice but to go through heavily populated areas?

[Robert Ballantyne]

That's clearly an issue that has come up only recently, especially in the movement by rail of crude oil and ethanol in larger quantities. Prior to that, while the railways have been moving dangerous goods for 100 years, this had not been considered an immediate issue. The railways have been abandoning lines for quite a long time now, certainly since the late 1950s, early 1960s. In some cases, they were branch lines that weren't handling a lot of dangerous goods. They wouldn't have been appropriate alternate routes in any case.

There are other routes that in retrospect might have been kept if there had been proper analysis, the two lines up the Ottawa Valley that you mention are a good case in point. The CPR second line west from Perth through Peterborough and Havelock, and those places, which was abandoned some years ago, is also another case where that might have been an appropriate place. It's really very difficult to answer your question definitively, but there may be some cases where that would have been appropriate.

I think one of the things that the minister's announcement dealt with last week was the fact that Canadian railway routes tend to be somewhat linear, so there aren't the same opportunities for looking at alternative routes as there are within the U.S. rail network. One of the options where there isn't is to look at speed restrictions and while the minister's announcement talked about a 50 mile an hour speed limit, there also was a provision in her announcements that there would be investigations through certain municipalities. Obviously in municipalities where there are large populations, there would and could be lower speed limits as well.

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

As I understand it, that analysis will be done by the railways themselves. They have no interest in slowing down their trains.

[Robert Ballantyne]

I have to look at the minister's announcement specifically, but my recollection was that more than just railways were to be involved in that.

If I could, Mr. Chairman, I have just one comment on the DOT-111 cars.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Make it quick, please.

[Robert Ballantyne]

That's a very broad category. Within DOT-111, there's a whole range of different specifications. Some of those cars I think have been considered. The ones post-2011 specification are considered to be adequate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Ballantyne.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Benson and Mr. Beatty, you both talked about the second, third, and fourth generation of railroaders. I'm quite familiar with that from my riding, which was essentially built around the railway. How long have the rail lines been established in the corridors they're in? There are always going to be exceptions—but on average, would you say...? I'm sure you're both very familiar with rail history. Even in major centres, have the rail lines been built essentially outside major centres and essentially the major centres have crept around the rail lines and development has happened around the rail lines?

[Rex Beatty]

You're right. I know we're the oldest union in the country, so there's a lot of history there. If you go back in history and you see where the lines were built, they were in rural areas and the cities grew around them. I think that's a fair statement.

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

So it's fair to say the rail companies have to be able to move their goods far out of municipalities and avoid them. Essentially at one point, it was that way. The municipalities encroached on the railways more than the other way around, if you want to be true to history.

I can see that for myself. I have historical pictures of my riding in my office. The main CN shops there were completely isolated with just the odd home around it. Now they're completely surrounded on both sides and houses are being built closer to them all the time. I think we have to be fair about acknowledging that fact. We can't blame the rail lines for houses that are being built close to them. If they had their say, I think they would rather have those houses further away.

I want to go on to the fire chiefs. Regarding the response process and specifically how you acquire the information from CANUTEC, what is that information and how does it support the firefighters' response to an incident?

[Paul Boissonneault]

Thank you very much for the question.

Essentially what takes place is that we're notified that there's an incident, be it through notification from a rail line that there's been an accident, notification from the public through a call on 911 that there's smoke, or whatever the case may be. Indication of an incident obviously comes from many different means, and in the world of many cell phones and everything else, 911 is usually the means through which we get the call.

So the initial process is that the first response to that location would indicate if it's a train derailment. Most of our individuals are trained to an awareness level, so they approach the location of the defined incident from a safe distance, and that's isolated through training of awareness level. They try to ascertain where and what products may be involved and/or indicated, and that's where communication centres start the process of contacting the rail lines—

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

So how do they ascertain what products are involved?

[Paul Boissonneault]

Usually safe distance indicates binoculars and/or closeness to the proximity of the incident. You approach an incident upwind, uphill from any location, and there are various means to actually get to the scene. In more remote locations like what was indicated, that process might become very much challenged.

So if there is an indication of an identification number that's identified when we speak to CANUTEC, then initial evacuation distances or isolation distances, if there's more than one product involved.... That's where those.... If there's fire impingement, if there's environmental considerations like rivers, drinking water, or whatever, that's where the complexity and scalability of the incident grows immensely and very quickly. That's where we talked about the necessity for the train manifests and the MSDS sheets to be available very quickly. They are needed very quickly.

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

So you're able to access the actual train manifests through CANUTEC?

[Paul Boissonneault]

We are hopeful that in this process that will become automatic. The answer today is that the information may not be available. In some circumstances, it may. In some circumstances, it may not, so that is a key recommendation.

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

So it's a visual recognition at this point in time.