Transport committee  Christine said this in her opening comments, but it's very important that the minister sets the tone. The powers exist in the acts for the minister's delegates, the inspectors, to take action, to put a go-slow order in place or whatever. However, if the inspectors and the people

Transport committee  I'll take that one. In 2014-15 the budget of Transport Canada, in the estimates, was $1.6 billion; in 2016-17, it's $1.265 billion. There's been a reduction of $339 million in the Transport Canada budget over two years. The $143 million over three years is on top of this, but whe

Transport committee  On the issue of the rail lines reaching out and being more responsive to communities and so on, I think it should happen. It's happening now. The principle of SMS is certainly designed to achieve that in all modes. We've always said that as long as there's sufficient oversight, a

Transport committee  If I recall, Teamsters was asking for the ability to appeal to SCOTIC if you had issues--the same as the Aeronautics Act amendment. No one specified what that would mean. In other words, all regulations wouldn't come here, for example. I don't think that's what people are saying.

Transport committee  We support it. It's in Christine's comments that we support it.

Transport committee  Unfortunately, it is not always the case that Transport Canada delegates to people with no conflict of interest. It's a small world, and some of those people are in a clear conflict of interest. They might be delegated to inspect the very people who pay them for other services.

Transport committee  We recommend that it be defined in regulation or in the statute. You may recall, with regard to the Aeronautics Act, amendments that were before this House. It was added by the committee to specify highest level of safety--again, not defined, we just assumed that the government

Transport committee  If I could just comment again. There are international organizations that do provide these kinds of definitions. In the case of air it's ICAO, and rail as well. It's not that hard to find. We just didn't feel it was appropriate to recommend it here.

Transport committee  You have to differentiate between people who work for the railway companies and people we represent who inspect for the government. Obviously, for the people who work for the railway companies, an appeal to Transport Canada represents, to them, a good way to deal with management