Public Safety committee  Sure. It really depends on the type of mode. Some of the requirements we have are legislated, and we do have regulations in that regard. With others, as with the rail industry, we work through a memorandum of agreement. The objective for us is to achieve a certain behaviour as opposed to passing laws and regulations.

Public Safety committee  I'll try to answer that. Obviously, it's very different. Probably the biggest similarity to the rail structure we have in Canada is that of the States. With Europe and the Asian countries, their systems operate in a highly urbanized environment, which is much different from how we operate in Canada.

Public Safety committee  With respect to that, those are goods we would classify as dangerous goods. They are covered under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. First and foremost, they have to have an appropriate means of containment to transport those goods. They also have to have what we call an ERAP, an emergency response activation plan, so that if anything goes wrong, they have a plan in place and they can activate that plan should it be necessary.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I think that falls into my capacity. I'm not sure if I understand all the questions. In terms of searching these trains when they're crossing the border, that's a CBSA responsibility. I can't respond to that. With respect to the security of the operations of an organization like the St.

Public Safety committee  It funded things such as construction equipment, training, public awareness, signage, internal assessments, surveillance technologies, infrastructure in these locations, security centres, and access control measures. As I indicated, we also have the MOU with the railways. We work regularly with the railways to enhance the MOU, make sure that it's lived up to, and ensure that the railways are meeting their obligations in that regard.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for your question. As I indicated earlier, we've had two major initiatives. One is the Transit-Secure program that ran from 2006 to 2009, I believe. That was to improve security at railway stations and operations, and urban transit operations. That provided funding for our organizations to improve what they had.

Public Safety committee  In response to your question of whether we're front line or back room, in fact we're both. We exercise the functional responsibility for our safety and security programs. Then we also deliver those programs on the front line through our inspectors and what have you in the regions and at headquarters.

Public Safety committee  We might do that. In many cases what we'll do, specifically with respect to the rail industry—all of the rail industry has security plans in place—is go in and verify that they are living up to what they say they are going to do in those security plans. We'll also consult with them on the development of their plans, and if required, if we see that something is not there, we may do surprise inspections.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I may be able to provide a bit of clarification. One of the programs under that rubric was, as I alluded to earlier, the Transit-Secure program, which identified roughly $115 million to be spent to enhance the security of rail and urban infrastructure. Under that program, all rail and urban transit operators were eligible to apply.

Public Safety committee  We have a number of mechanisms. First and foremost, we conduct oversight of the operators to make sure that they're living up either to our regulatory framework or to the MOUs that we have in place. We've also established security networks in each of the modes where we ensure that operators have people cleared at the appropriate level, at the secret level, so that we can share any information with them that might become available to us in the event that there is a threat to the system.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you committee members. I appreciate this opportunity to meet with your committee today to provide information about Transport Canada's role in enhancing the security of the rail transportation system. Let me begin by saying that the safety and security of transportation systems are of the utmost importance to the Government of Canada.

Transport committee  There are two aspects to it. If you're looking for increased air services to Canada, there's the aspect of the types of bilateral relations you have with other countries and whether or not those affect what services are offered. I'll let my colleague Mr. Streiner get into more detail on that.

Transport committee  That's the Transportation Safety Board. That reports to the President of the Queen's Privy Council. It's not part of the Department of Transport.

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  I don't know the details of their reduction. They have less money, obviously.