This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2013.
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
The amendments amend the Railway Safety Act to, among other things,
(a) improve the oversight capacity of the Department of Transport by, for example, requiring companies to obtain a safety-based railway operating certificate indicating compliance with regulatory requirements;
(b) strengthen that Department’s enforcement powers by introducing administrative monetary penalties and increasing fines;
(c) enhance the role of safety management systems by including a provision for a railway executive who is accountable for safety and a non-punitive reporting system for employees of railway companies;
(d) clarify the authority and responsibilities of the Minister of Transport with respect to railway matters; and
(e) expand regulation-making powers, including in respect of environmental management, and clarify the process for rule making by railway companies.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC
Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to commend and thank the hon. member for his speech. He emphasized the need to pass this bill in order to implement rail safety measures.
Can the hon. member tell us how this bill also supports sustainable development?
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to again thank the hon. member for Saint-Lambert for her excellent question.
As I mentioned earlier, economic development is vital. I cited the Railway Association of Canada, which explained in a recent report that railways can play a big role in enabling Canada to meet commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without sacrificing economic growth. Investing in rail will not only help to combat climate change and improve our environment, but it will also promote sustainable development, as the hon. member just mentioned. It will allow us to foster a strong economy, a strong Canada.
That is why, I do not understand why the Conservative Minister of Finance did not take this factor into account in his budget, which seeks to build a stronger economy for the long term.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I am able to add a few words today on Bill S-4, which has come from the Senate. I have always wondered why some bills come from the Senate versus the House of Commons, but I will leave that particular discussion for another time. I believe that the bill has the support of both opposition parties to go to committee.
The railway industry has had a profound impact on our nation, even prior to Confederation. From an historical perspective, in good part, the railway has made Canada the nation it is today. I would suggest that it is only relatively recently, in the 1980s, that we started to look at issues of safety and security and our environment, and the impact of the railways on our communities.
The last real change to the act would have been in 1999, under the Chrétien administration. Even then, we within the Liberal Party acknowledged the degree in advancement of technology and the impact of technology on our railways. We need to be constantly looking at ways to improve the circumstances and the environment for railways across Canada. It is good to see the government has seen the wisdom to reassess the issue and bring forward other aspects that would help us modernize the legislation. One could argue that we have been waiting for that for a while. We welcome that.
I want to share some personal opinions about the city of Winnipeg. In Winnipeg, in the area that I represent, there is a great divide and in that divide we have CP Rail. It has been a distinguishing characteristic of the city: those who live on the north side of the track versus those on the south side of the track. However, Winnipeg is not unique in that. We would find jurisdictions all over Canada that have developed around our railway tracks.
If we take a look at how Winnipeg North is able to connect to the city, there are three underpasses, King Edward Street, Keewatin Street and McPhillips Street, and two bridges, the Salter Bridge and the truly unique Arlington Bridge. Many people will walk over the Arlington Bridge just to see the heart of the CP tracks. They get a better appreciation of just how much traffic goes through Winnipeg, in terms of CP's perspective.
Years ago, the CP expanded into the CP trucking terminal. There are many ways in which the railway industry has led and fed other industries; in particular, in Winnipeg, the trucking industry. At one time Winnipeg was the hub of eight of the ten major trucking industries. CP or CN fed into the development of that industry.
Anyone standing on the Arlington Bridge would get an appreciation of the type of train traffic occurring there. We need to be aware of that and why bills such as this are so important.
If we stopped at a track and watched what kind of cargo is on our trains, we would find that it varies from lumber from British Columbia to chemicals from Alberta, to wheat from the Prairies, whether Saskatchewan or Manitoba. There are many commercial goods from provinces like Ontario and Quebec and commodities from our Atlantic provinces. Many of those commodities are absolutely safe. If there were an accident, other commodities are not safe. One of the reasons we have a system in place is to ensure that we know what is on the trains.
I will go back to the example of the Arlington Bridge. It is important to go over legislation of this nature and look at ways to improve upon it. Suggestions have been made for amendments. Stakeholders have made presentations to the government dealing with issues of safety, security and the environment. When we go to committee, it is nice to have experts share what we could be doing to enhance the legislation. By enhancing the legislation, we would ultimately make our railway system that much more healthy.
There are other issues that I think the House needs to give more attention to when we talk about our rail lines. One is in regard to rail line abandonment. A former speaker was talking about the importance of looking at other opportunities for rail lines or expanding rail lines. If the government had an interest in looking at those two issues, I think the industry would be doing that much better as a whole.
From Manitoba's perspective, many people are concerned about the community of Churchill. Now that the Canadian Wheat Board has been brought to its knees by the government, there is a real threat. We will have to agree to disagree on that particular point. Many individuals in Manitoba and well beyond are concerned about the port of Churchill, which is very much dependent on rail line services. With the threat of wheat no longer going through that particular port, because we need certain quantities in order to make it economical, that is now in question. As a result, there is a great deal of concern about the rail line and what the future may hold for it, and the profound impact that would have on the community. If we do not have an active rail line, it could ultimately lead to the closing of that port. Therefore, we look to the government. It is great that we have this particular bill before us today, but we need to think in terms of the potential that is there, the economics of our rail lines and how they have such a profound impact on our communities.
Over the last number of years, rail lines have been abandoned. In some situations a rail line will disappear and a walking or ATV track will be put in to replace it. It causes a great deal of concern for many individuals who have relied on the tracks in the past. There is a great deal of merit for having some sort of overall rail line strategy. It would be great to have a debate in the House as to what direction the government would like to take Canada into the next number of years with regard to rail lines. The future could be wonderful within that industry. The potential demand for railway services is increasing. If we fed on that increasing demand, it would increase job opportunities and would be better for our environment. There are many positives to ensure growth within the rail line industry.
I made reference to the CP tracks, the north-south divide in Winnipeg. CN also has a huge history in the city of Winnipeg: Symington Yard and Transcona shops. In fact, my grandfather and other family members used to work in the Transcona shops. The Transcona shops, in part, are what built the Transcona community. In some of the older homes, a good portion of the lumber that was used to build those homes came from the CN railway. People will see the odd stamp on the lumber. There was a great dependency on CN as that community developed. When we look at the expansion of Symington Yard, we again see the real potential.
There is also VIA Rail, which has had a lot of changes over the years. In some areas, people get pretty good service. There is a nostalgic value that is tangible for many individuals out west who, on a per capita percentage basis, do not take the train as often as perhaps people in the Montreal-Toronto-Ottawa corridor. Yet the desire for train travel still exists. I know that individuals would welcome the opportunity to travel from Winnipeg to Regina, for example, by train. My understanding today is that people have to go through Saskatoon. At one time, they could go straight to Regina. Hopefully something will happen in the future that will allow train traffic to ultimately go through Regina.
People recognize how important the railway industry is in Manitoba, whether it is the city of Winnipeg, rural communities, Churchill or Carman. Many of the communities are very dependent on our railways. Having said all of that, we need to be aware of the fact that there are a great deal of safety-related issues.
A number of years ago, we had an organized, planned train crash in which we had a train run into a vehicle crossing a street. I was able to be at that demonstration and it was quite interesting to watch the locomotive coming down the track in Inkster industrial park. They had a vehicle parked on the road and they had a locomotive coming at about 15 to 20 kilometres an hour. The impact did not seem to affect the train whatsoever, but what it did to the vehicle was truly amazing, even at that speed. The train does not stop right away. It took a while before the train came to a stop and we could go down and see the type of damage that was caused.
One very important aspect of our railways is the issue of safety and the interaction with our highways and streets with regard to train traffic. That is one of the reasons we see this push for bridges or underpasses in our larger centres. It is to try to prevent those types of things from occurring in the real world.
Unfortunately, every year we see collisions between trains and vehicles, and it saddens all of us. That is one of the reasons it is important that we look at ways to improve upon the system. We have many different forms of crossings and we need to look at how we might improve them, whether it be the flashing lights in some of our rural communities, the control arms that go down, or where they are warranted, underpasses and bridges, which are so very important. This needs to be considered when we talk about safety.
I alluded to another issue when I referred to the Arlington Bridge and the amount of traffic and the type of cargo that is on these trains. If today we have a derailment of any sort, whether it be in the city of Winnipeg, in small communities or anywhere in Canada, one of the first questions we have to ask is: What is on that train and are there chemicals that could endanger the immediate neighbourhood or communities in which the derailment occurred?
That is why we need to have regulations in place to ensure we have a fairly quick assessment of what cargo is on a train as it is travelling through our communities, because we have seen a buildup of communities. Over the last couple of years, we have witnessed train derailments where communities in and around the area have been asked to disperse while an assessment was done.
There are issues that cause these train derailments. This legislation attempts to deal with part of that; for example, when we talk about human fatigue and the role it plays. Expanding and providing definitions of what human fatigue means and what it can result in, I think, is a positive thing. That is the reason we have the legislation before us now. We recognize it is important.
However, that is not all. We see more and more trains and the potential of traffic increasing in the years ahead. If we had a progressive government that saw the value of providing commodities across the country for world trade, it would see that the train is the way to go. I see it as one of those cornerstones, and our trucking industry supports it in many different ways. I suspect as time goes by, we will need to periodically modernize the safety regulations and our laws to make sure we are keeping our communities healthy and our citizens safe from what is travelling on our tracks.
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned rail accidents quite a few times. In the 1960s, my riding had a very tragic rail accident where a bus was hit by a train and many children died.
Would it not be good if in this bill there were a mechanism that allowed the federal government to get together with the rail companies, the municipalities and the province to sort out safety issues and other nuisance issues that exist? Could the member speak to this question?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of merit to the member's question. We have to acknowledge that the federal government plays one role in the overall safety element of our railway lines. There are many municipalities, local governments, cities, provincial governments and even other stakeholders I have not listed that all have a vested role. In this particular case, it could be school divisions.
In some areas we need to be putting more of a focus on the arms. Today every bus, as it approaches a rail line, has to come to a complete stop. I could not say for sure if that is a principle that applies across this country, but if it does not maybe that is what we should be doing. By bringing the stakeholders together, we can develop a more standard policy so that all Canadians would benefit by it. The key is getting the stakeholders together and the best agency to do that would be the Government of Canada, to say it is taking the issue of safety seriously and wants to hear from the different stakeholders so we can make our rail lines as safe as possible.
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Mr. Speaker, people from my riding of Burlington, which has just experienced a very tragic derailment in our community, understand the need for good rail safety. This act has been around the House for a number of years in terms of its upgrade.
I had an opportunity to meet with the rail company leadership. CP, CN and VIA were all at a meeting yesterday that I attended. They were talking about getting this through.
I am not sure there would be an answer to my question from the Liberal Party. However, based on the legislation that is there now and has been around for awhile, are there amendments the Liberal Party is looking for in the committee process? That is assuming that we are supportive of getting it to committee, which we certainly are.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, as I said at the beginning of my opening remarks, the Liberal Party supports the bill in principle. We recognize how important it is to improve rail safety and to that end, in opposition, as in other pieces of legislation, members will find that in all likelihood it is the Liberal Party that has the greatest open mind toward looking at the possibility of amendments. We do not want to say we own all the good ideas. If there are good amendments, we will support them. At the end of the day, we have one goal and that is to achieve better rail line safety, to improve the system so that the environments of our communities are better.
The accident the member refers to was horrific and it is sad to see the human cost of that. I would ask the member to pass on my thoughts and prayers for all those who were involved in that incident.
It is worth the fight and I appreciate the question.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I also am happy to support Bill S-4 and the importance of rail infrastructure in this country.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North spoke of the nostalgic element of rail. That reflects the fact that we have not invested in rail for so long that we almost have an antique system for passengers. We also have not invested sufficiently in safety for freight. We need to upgrade. We need to expand sidings, so that in the competition for rail use between passenger and freight, passengers are not needlessly delayed.
We need investment. There still is currently pending the $7.5 million that is needed for the former E&N corridor rail on Vancouver Island. We need it, it makes sense and it has wide community support.
In the same way that the hon. member spoke of the fact we can no longer travel by rail from Regina to Winnipeg, people cannot travel from Edmonton to Calgary or from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Sydney, Nova Scotia. Many commercially valuable rail lines have been abandoned by governments that have not been looking to the future.
Does the member agree that on top of Bill S-4 we need to see substantial investment in safety and modernization and, yes, high-speed rail, particularly in areas like Edmonton to Calgary?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, in the past, whether it was former prime minister Paul Martin or Jean Chrétien, they recognized the value of infrastructure spending. They realized that by investing in the infrastructure we can in fact make a difference.
What I would suggest is that we do need to look at our rail lines as a whole, as an industry and as something that could be of great value and benefit. We need to look at how the Government of Canada can invest scarce tax dollars the best it can in terms of building that infrastructure so our rail lines are safe and ultimately progressively moving forward to where we could actually see the expansion of rail lines, which the member is talking about.
The sky is the limit in terms of the potential that is there within the rail lines, but what we need to do is come together. We need to see strong national leadership that will demonstrate a vision that will incorporate the benefits, economically and socially, of investing in the rail line infrastructure.
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague and friend for a terrific speech and for the history.
Transport Canada is responsible for the transport of dangerous products, including by rail. The Environment Commissioner has reported that Transport Canada has not designed and implemented the management practices needed to effectively monitor compliance with the act. Key elements that are missing are a national risk-based regulatory inspection plan and necessary guidance for inspectors. In many instances the nature and extent of the inspections carried out are not documented.
There is little indication that the department has followed up on identified instances of non-compliance to ensure problems are corrected. Transport Canada is not adequately reviewing and approving the emergency response assistance plans. In fact, nearly half of the plans submitted have been given only an interim approval, some for five and ten years.
I am wondering what my hon. colleague thinks about this and what can be done.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member, someone who has a caring heart for our environment. I appreciate the concerns she has expressed.
The member is quite right when she says we could ultimately pass this legislation, maybe even bring in some amendments to make it healthier and better legislation. However at the end of the day if it is not enforced, if there is not compliance to the rules we are passing, whether in the form of legislation or regulation, then we are going nowhere.
It is one thing to talk the line that we want safer rail lines. However, given everything that is on the rail lines nowadays, it is critical that there be a very strong compliance element to it. Otherwise, for all intents and purposes, we are doing more of a disservice when we talk about doing something and try to give the impression that we are doing something, but we are not enforcing any sort of compliance to what it is we are actually talking about doing. I appreciate the question.
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place today and speak to this important bill on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport in Toronto.
The bill addresses many important issues, one of them being rail safety, which I will get to a bit later. It also puts some focus on the importance of rail infrastructure, which a number of my colleagues have spoken to this morning. They have spoken of the need for a heightened focus on our rail infrastructure for a number of different reasons.
Of course, Bill S-4 is pertinent and weighs heavy on our minds and hearts right now because of the tragic accident that happened in Burlington in February.
We in our party have long called for heightened rail safety measures and so we are very supportive of seeing Bill S-4 get through the House.
This bill seeks to do a number of different things. When we look at the way our rail infrastructure has been developed and how our cities and towns have developed around it, it is increasingly important to ensure that issues of rail safety are really top of mind when we are talking about urban development, safe cities and environmental issues.
As for my riding of Davenport, I know that everyone in the House likes to study maps of Toronto and if we looked at one we would see that my riding is the only landlocked riding in the downtown core of the city and is criss-crossed with rail lines, some coming right up against backyard fences in many of the neighbourhoods. Rail lines run right up along parks and playgrounds. Fences are very much a part of the streetscape of my riding. Rail safety becomes a very real issue in a riding like mine with many level crossings, and so we take the issue of rail safety and rail infrastructure seriously.
A number of my colleagues today have talked about the importance of investing more fully in this infrastructure. The GTA loses $5 billion to $6 billion a year in lost productivity due to gridlock. It is going to be hard to build more roads to accommodate this gridlock because, as we know, if we build another road it will soon fill up.
We need to start thinking much more seriously about how we can incorporate more passenger rail service, speedier passenger rail service, more affordable passenger rail service. When we start talking about intensifying rail infrastructure, we necessarily have to talk about how to deal with greater safety measures and better technology as well.
Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Chambly—Borduas.
The speeches this morning have been interesting. I say that because on this side of the House we talk a lot about environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and local environmental issues. An increase in public transit, in mass transit, is one of the most obvious ways to deal with both greenhouse gas emissions and gridlock, and the way we can build and develop more intensification in our urban areas.
We need to do this. Countries around the world are investing in clean rail technology. Just as an example of how backward we are in doing things here, we have a link from Pearson airport to Union Station being built right now to run diesel trains. Toronto is the only major city in the world right now that is building rail infrastructure from its downtown core to its international airport using diesel. Not a single country in the world is doing this but us.
For a long time we have been calling on our federal government to engage in this very serious issue. So far it has been willing to sit on its hands and has been doing that for years. I would add that the Liberals before it had a similarly poor record on this file. The Liberal government, when it was here on the other side of the aisle in 2001 and 2003, ignored calls from the Transportation Safety Board for additional rail safety measures. We have been calling not just for increased rail safety but also a heightened focus in the House on the need for municipalities to develop green transportation infrastructure.
I recall the days of the Mulroney era, and I know the folks on the other side do not necessarily like us to use the former prime minister's name, but we do. They were cutting passenger rail transit back then. I was on one of the last trains across the prairies to Toronto, then they were cut. As some of my colleagues this morning have underlined, one cannot get from A to B in many places in the country by train. One can get from Toronto to Ottawa by train, but at virtually the same speed as driving a car, and so there are a lot of missed opportunities there. There is no doubt that Canadians would love to have more access to passenger rail transit.
One of the reasons we need to see greater safety measures, accountability and transparency and a better order of things, a better chain of command, is that we really need to focus our attention on this mode of transportation, because this is the future of mass transit. As a matter of fact, in my city of Toronto, we have a rail corridor that runs along the west end of my city. It is a perfect place to run greater mass transit. We need to be looking at all opportunities to do that.
However, if we are going to do it, we have to look at greater measures for rail safety. That is why this is an important bill and why we on our side are going to support it. I am happy to be standing here in this place today on behalf of the great citizens of Davenport in Toronto speaking on this issue.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that Canadians from coast to coast actually do want to be able to travel from coast to coast in something that reflects a modern rail system.
I was intrigued that the member from Davenport mentioned the fact that when one travels from Toronto to Ottawa the rail speed is never much more than if one was actually driving. Speed, though, can also be dangerous, and without adequate regulation and the automatic brake systems that we need, speed can cause derailment.
I would like to ask the hon. member whether in his view we need to substantially invest in the modernization of the railbeds so that we can bring in high-speed rail and actually live with the advantages of modern societies around the world that buy Canadian technology from Bombardier to have high-speed trains?
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, members on the government side love to talk about how they are great fiscal managers and brilliant economic planners, but the fact of the matter is that if we look at emerging economies, they are investing in high-speed electric train technology right now.
We have the tracks laid. We need the major infrastructure investments to bring our rail transit up to speed for the 21st century.
Jean-François Larose NDP Repentigny, QC
Mr. Speaker, I took the Operation Lifesaver training offered by CN. I believe that CP offers a similar course. I worked as an officer and manager of inspectors on the commuter trains in the Montreal region. I have always admired the fact that the rail companies have always been focused on safety. Also, as a regular VIA Rail passenger, I am extremely impressed with all the effort that is made with regard to safety.
However, as a passenger and a father, I have concerns about this bill. I believe that safer is always better. That being said, the problem is that, today, we recognize that the rail system is a system of the future and so imposing more safety requirements on private companies without considering the investment aspect of the issue is not necessarily the best approach.