Transport committee  Mr. Bevington, speaking for CN, we have three rail traffic control centres in Canada—Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton. We have no plans at this point. It is not under any discussion to move.

Transport committee  Speaking for CN, we absolutely agree with that view. In fact, in addition to a moral, legal, and ethical responsibility to operate safely at all times, it's only good business, and we run a very asset-lean model. In order to provide the kind of service we have to provide to grow

Transport committee  From CN's perspective, Mr. Dhaliwal, a number of our employees are subject to some type of scheduling now—not nearly as many as we'd like. I do believe it's something that properly rests between the employees and their representatives and the company. I'm pleased to report that

Transport committee  Would it change? Well, it always does change; it continues to change. The collaboration with employees and their representatives, the outreach to employees, and the outreach to the regulator are I think just further enhanced in the legislation the way it's written.

Transport committee  I am the chief safety officer for our company now, and I am the person responsible for submitting our SMS each year to Transport Canada, amongst other responsibilities. Again, sir, I would just focus on the fact that the work the panel did is I think very well reflected in the

Transport committee  From CN's perspective, sir, interestingly, we just did a survey on safety culture with our employees. This was done in November. For our unionized employees, we got responses back from about 2,200, so that's over 10% of the population, and that gave us a 3.5 out of 5. So it's not

Transport committee  Mr. Dhaliwal, please be assured that CN and CP are fierce commercial competitors. We cooperate with my colleague Glen Wilson and his people on safety and operational matters, but we are fierce commercial competitors. I share Mr. WIlson's perspective on this. It's not that we do

Transport committee  Mr. Jean, even today there are multiple ways into the system for an employee to report. As I mentioned, they can report directly to Transport Canada now, and they do, because Transport Canada in turn speaks with us, whether that's an official or a semi-unofficial method. It certa

Transport committee  From the CN side, Monsieur Gaudet, we've tripled our ultrasonic rail detection since about 2003. In 2010 it was just over 200,000 miles. It's far in excess of the minimum regulatory requirement. Track geometry is a similar story. We've added a second track geometry test vehicle a

Transport committee  This is with regard to the service review. These are the.... Sorry, sir. I shouldn't interrupt.

Transport committee  Sir, we agree with that as well. The key, as was mentioned a few moments ago, is to do a full assessment of these crossings: risk, benefit to the public, whether there is other easy access for the public or the landowner so that they can get across. One of the reasons for the su

Transport committee  For CN, Monsieur Gaudet, our capital budget in 2010 was about $1.6 billion. It'll be about $1.7 billion in 2011. Roughly $1.2 billion of that will be on basic plant and equipment renewal, track infrastructure renewal.

Transport committee  Mr. McCallum, the commuters operate very, very safely now. They have a tremendous safety record. We find that the way we interact with the commuters and Transport Canada is quite satisfactory now. However, if the committee, in its wisdom, wants to change that approach a little bi

Transport committee  Yes, sir, we do. We have a couple of suggestions as per our written document, but we have no issues whatsoever with the bill.

Transport committee  Sir, once again for CN, we have no issue whatsoever on non-punitive reporting, and we know we have to improve our own processes in this regard. We have no issue with employees reporting directly to Transport Canada, and we do see it as part of an SMS. Again, just with the comment