Government Operations committee  I would add a couple of things to what Gilles has said. I think the other important point is that not only is it a valuable organization for our industry, but it provides a considerable degree of value to Canadians more broadly as consumers of our products, to ensure they have confidence when they go to the pump or, if it's a commercial customer, to the card lock, or if it's the agricultural community.

Government Operations committee  If I could just add, I think the real key there, in terms of the differentiation between standards that are adopted and accepted in other parts of the world, is legitimacy. We work very hard in the context of the CGSB—I think Gilles talked about it—and 85% to 90% of any given standard finds its basis in either a European or a U.S. standard, with much larger markets.

Government Operations committee  That's correct. Actually, from a fundamental position, we believe in harmonized standards. In fact, when we're working with the government on regulatory issues, it's largely about ensuring that the outcomes are harmonized with those of our biggest competitors, which is largely the U.S. , in an integrated North American fuel market.

Government Operations committee  In our business I would not say it's so much in the standards area, from a CGSB context, but it's in the case of regulated standards. There's a significant degree of regulation on a province-to-province basis, primarily in the area of the growing renewable content requirements. We have a different regulatory requirement in B.C., we have a different regulatory requirement in Alberta, and we have a different regulatory requirement in Saskatchewan.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I'll start, and I'm sure Monsieur Morel will add some comments. We agree there is a role for government to regulate some aspects, principally in the area of health, safety, and the environment. For example, the federal government regulates sulphur content and benzene levels in fuel.

Government Operations committee  I would just add one more point. I think Gilles has covered the unique requirement within Canada very well. There are organizations in the United States, like ASTM or SAE, but there is no other organization in Canada that is doing this kind of work, other than CGSB.

Government Operations committee  I'm not sure it's definitely doing the work for Transport Canada. It's doing the work, broadly, for consumers of fuels. Of course, it's doing it for government, which is also a consumer of fuels. So in many ways it's doing it for PWGSC as a procurement organization. To say that it's doing it for Transport Canada, in part, yes it is, but probably from a narrow perspective.

Government Operations committee  Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Members of the committee as well, good morning. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to participate in your study on the programs and activities of the Canadian General Standards Board. I am the president of the Canadian Fuels Association.

Transport committee  That's a process that's ongoing today. It's a question of how we can do that faster, better, and how we can provide, as you say, information to all of those people who need to know it in an effective, efficient, and timely way. That's a process we're doing right now on how we can continue to build on that.

Transport committee  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.

Transport committee  I don't think anyone's waiting for there to be another catastrophe. I think the key point of much of the discussion and the engagement that's been going on over the last months has been to directly address that. So yes, there's a role for regulation. Yes there's a role for voluntary action on industry.

Transport committee  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.

Transport committee  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.

Transport committee  I would actually defer to those who participated directly in the working group. We have some of those by video conference from Calgary right now.