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 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.
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton
There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed without debate to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON
moved that the bill be concurred in at report stage.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON
moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.
Pierre Poilievre ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House on the third reading of Bill S-4, the safer railways act.
Before I begin, allow me to congratulate my colleagues across the entire chamber for the successful manner in which this bill has been discussed, debated, analyzed and moved to this point.
I thank the hon. member for his applause and I want him to feel free to interrupt my comments with his applause at any time.
I hope he will join me in applauding our Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, who has proven himself to be a quiet, diligent builder in the true Canadian sense. We see the success he has had in moving forward with a plan to build a new bridge, a replacement of the Champlain Bridge over the St. Lawrence. That bridge is going to be at a minimal cost to taxpayers and at a higher quality for the residents of Montreal and the many people who pass through that corridor from right across Canada.
The minister is succeeding in building linkages with our friends south of the border in the hopes that we will have a Detroit-Windsor bridge. He has moved this bill on railway safety quietly but quickly through the House of Commons, and he has also worked with municipal partners toward the eventual development of a replacement for the building Canada fund, which will expire in just a few years. We all have a lot to celebrate when we look at the record of this Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.
The bill in front of us deals with one of the few legitimate roles of government, and that is to protect the safety and security of the person. Canada has one of the strongest rail safety regimes in the entire world. Last year we saw reductions in accidents on the railroad by 23%, and derailments dropped by 26%. Obviously there is a lot more work to do. Until such time as there are no accidents whatsoever, we must continue to work with industry and in partnership with government to have the strongest and best laws to ensure safety.
It gives me great pleasure to say that committee members have thoroughly re-examined this bill and have given their unanimous approval for the second time, exactly as it was received, with no further changes. It has been a long journey, but our final destination is in view. This important piece of legislation reflects our desire to ensure that our national railway system remains one of the safest in the world for the long-term benefit of our economy, our communities and our environment. The safety and prosperity of Canadians is always a priority for our government.
Before going further, I would like to remind members about the origin and the intent of this bill. In late 2006, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities appointed an independent panel to review the Railway Safety Act and make recommendations for improving both the act and railway safety in general.
Through 2007, this panel travelled from the Atlantic to the Pacific gathering input from a very broad spectrum of stakeholders, including the railway companies, their associations, the railway unions, shippers, suppliers, municipalities, other national organizations, levels of government and the public.
The end result of these extensive national consultations was a final report with more than 50 recommendations for improving safety in the rail industry. While the rail safety review was in progress, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities undertook a complementary study of railway safety in Canada. After hearing extensive comments from municipalities, industry and labour, the committee accepted 56 recommendations of the Railway Safety Act panel and tabled its own report with 14 recommendations, many of which were built on those in the Railway Safety Act review.
Some of those amendments proposed in the bill before the House today are a direct result of the standing committee's extensive work in this regard. I heartily thank its members for their dedicated efforts.
In short, Bill S-4 is our Conservative government's detailed response to those two national reviews. The amendments it proposes would significantly modernize the current act to reflect changes in the industry and ultimately to increase the level of safety for the benefit of our generation and those to come.
First and foremost, Bill S-4 would provide stronger oversight and enforcement capacity to Transport Canada through the introduction of railway operating certificates and monetary fines for safety violations as well as an increase in existing judicial penalties to reflect the levels found in other modes of transportation.
Throughout all our stakeholder consultation and committee examinations of these amendments, we heard strong support for the implementation of the safety-based operating certificates for all railways that run on federal tracks. These certificates, which would significantly strengthen Transport Canada's oversight capacity, would ensure that companies must have an effective safety management system in place before beginning operations.
Companies that are already in operation would be granted a two-year grace period to meet the requirements of the certificate. This includes all federally regulated railways as well as several of our largest national transit systems that use hundreds of miles of federal track and carry millions of Canadians to and from work daily. Increased safety for these travellers would be a significant benefit for businesses, communities and families.
Many stakeholders also expressed strong support for the introduction of monetary penalties and an increase in the judicial fines for serious contraventions of safety regulations. Monetary penalties already exist in other modes of transportation. They serve as a complementary enforcement tool and provide additional leverage on companies that continue to persist in safety violations.
This is consistent with the principles of minimizing regulatory burden for Canadians while at the same time promoting compliance. In that sense, we want to streamline and focus our rules so they cause a minimal encumbrance to the passenger and the business while punishing violations with serious monetary fines to discourage non-compliance.
In the interest of fairness for all, the proposed penalty scheme would allow for a review of the regulator's penalty decisions by the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada. It would also include provisions related to the minister's decision to impose a penalty, the due process to be followed, the review of decisions by the appeal tribunal and the level of fines to be paid for non-compliance and infractions.
The maximum levels of these penalties would be $50,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a corporation, which is consistent with similar schemes for other modes of transportation. The proposed increase in judicial fines, which were originally established 20 years ago, would also strengthen Transport Canada's enforcement options and bring those fines to a level currently found in the other modes of transportation, as I mentioned earlier.
Maximum judicial fines for convictions on indictment for a contravention of the act would increase from $200,000 to $1 million for corporations and from $10,000 to $50,000 for individuals. Maximum fines on summary conviction for contravention of the act would increase from $100,000 to $500,000 for a business and from $5,000 to $25,000 for an individual.
These amounts are consistent with those established for federal air and marine transportation and transportation of dangerous goods. Those modes of transportation are comparable enough to ensure that they would work in this mode of rail transportation. They are large enough to effectively deter contraventions.
The bill also provides for a significantly stronger focus on the importance of railway accountability and safety management systems, which both industry and labour applaud and support.
With these amendments in place, railway companies would be required to appoint a designated executive responsible for all safety matters. They would also be required to provide whistleblower protection for employees who raise safety concerns. Besides increasing our level of protection from accidents and oversights, these amendments would ensure the growth of a strong and lasting culture of safety in the railway industry.
On the administrative side, the bill would effectively close the gaps in the existing act by clarifying the minister's authority on matters of railway safety. It would expand regulation-making authorities, which would enable Transport Canada to require annual environmental management plans from the railways as well as a requirement for railways to provide emissions labelling on equipment and emissions data for review.
The safer railways bill is all about better oversight, improved enforcement tools, enhanced safety management systems and better environmental protection. These are the things we need. These are the things we applaud. I think my hon. colleagues would agree that these are the things we can all support.
In sum, these proposed amendments to the Railway Safety Act would improve rail safety in Canada for the long term. They are the culmination of two important studies and extensive consultations. They would provide increased safety for Canadians and Canadian communities, economic benefits to the industry by decreasing the likelihood of costly accidents and delays, and a variety of benefits to external stakeholders, including provinces, municipalities, shippers and the travelling public.
Last but not least, these amendments would provide additional support for a stronger economy, a modern infrastructure and a cleaner environment for all Canadians.
With the House's support of these amendments, the government's ability would be enhanced to effectively regulate companies in an environment of continued growth, free enterprise competition and increased complexity. We would have the ability to ensure the safety of not only the passenger but the motorist and the pedestrian and the communities through which these trains travel. Improvements to Transport Canada's regulatory oversight and enforcement programs would be limited. The pursuit of new safety initiatives with respect to the management systems and environmental management would be badly constrained without these changes.
Without the support of the House, the legislative framework for railways would also remain inconsistent with other transportation modes, which have a broader range of enforcement tools. Regulation-making authorities could not be expanded to allow for the creation of safety-based operating certificates.
Without the support of the House, we would ultimately be looking at greater long-term costs to Canadians due to continuing fatalities, serious injuries and damage to valuable property and the environment.
Happily, it appears we do have the support of the House. All members of the House would agree that because of this cross-party consensus and the passage of the bill into law imminently, the Canadian public would be safer and the industry and its workers would be stronger.
Canada has one of the most dispersed populations in the world and it is the second biggest country on earth. Our railways have 73,000 km of track stretching from coast to coast and more than 3,000 locomotives handle more than 4 million carloads yearly. They operate more than 700 trains per day, moving nearly 70 million passengers and 75% of all service freight in this country. Railways have been the backbone of our economy since the days of John A. Macdonald and Confederation. They were the foundation of our national growth in the past and they remain integral to our prosperity in the future.
It is timely and forward-looking legislative amendments such as these that will ensure our rail industry remains a safe, secure and dependable component of our national infrastructure and global economy for many years to come.
In 2009, our Conservative government affirmed its commitment to safe, reliable transportation systems by investing in rail safety systems and putting the right kinds of rules into place. These amendments to the Railway Safety Act that we have before us today are the fruit of that commitment.
Since the launch of the Railway Safety Act review in 2006, our government has worked continuously with stakeholders, through the Advisory Council on Railway Safety, joint technical working groups and individual consultations across the country, to ensure that this bill meets the needs of all the parties engaged in this industry.
The net result is a strong, forward-looking bill that updates existing regulatory authorities, brings railway legislation in line with other modes and significantly improves the safety of our railway system for the benefit of all.
I will mention some of the leaders who played a role in the early stages of this process. I think of then minister Chuck Strahl, or Lawrence Cannon, two members who have now moved on to other career pursuits but who served as ministers of transport. I think of the hon. member for Ottawa West—Nepean, now our Minister of Foreign Affairs, who also served in the capacity of transport minister. I think of our current minister who, as I highlighted earlier, has achieved a record of quiet, diligent results in this and in many other areas.
The bill demonstrates the ability of our majority Conservative government to get things done. To continue to preserve our free enterprise economy while protecting the security of the person is one of the fundamental responsibilities of government. Together, as we focus on the next phase of Canada's economic action plan, which is a plan for jobs, growth and long-term prosperity, and as we build upon the free market foundations that made this country what it is today, I encourage all members to support these common sense changes to improve rail safety and keep commerce moving across our tracks for the future and for all of us.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for what might be a case study or even a lesson for some of us on how to be a parliamentary secretary. He spent a full five minutes in the opening remarks of his speech complimenting his minister. He would more or less have people believe we should be erecting a statue to the Minister of Transport, never mind supporting this particular bill. It would be under the category of infrastructure, surely.
I would like my colleague's opinion and view on one glaring thing that jumps off the page to me as we begin the debate on this bill. It is the fact that it is called Bill S-4, not Bill C-4. In other words, it has its origins in the unelected, undemocratic Senate. The last time I checked, members of Parliament do not work for senators. I was elected by my constituents to represent them. By the Constitution, it is this body that comes together to amend legislation or create new laws, et cetera.
It surely offends the sensibilities of anyone who calls himself or herself a democrat, and in our case New Democrats, to tie up the time of the House of Commons with a bill that finds its origins in the other place. I do not understand it. It seems to be a trend. It seems to be a burgeoning pattern. It is almost becoming one of the hallmarks of the government that it uses and abuses parliamentary procedure.
No one elected senators to make legislation. They were appointed by the Prime Minister, usually because of their membership in a certain political party in their back pockets. They were either “failed” candidates, and failed is the operative word, and we were successful candidates. It is we—
The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton
Order, please. The period of time for questions and comments is limited. I am sure there are other hon. members who may wish to pose questions.
The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is upset that the bill is called Bill S-4 and not Bill C-4. He is upset that the bill originated in the Senate and not in the House. The reality is that this is a bill that has consensus across both chambers and all parties. At times, government introduces bills at the Senate level because that chamber might be undercapacity while this one is overcapacity and, in order to get that legislation passed quickly, we start it there and we end it here. Either way, it must go to both places. I conclude by saying that Bill S-4 or Bill C-4, what the heck is he fighting for?”
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member has one thing right and that is that there is a high sense of recognition in terms of how important railway safety is to all Canadians. We understand and appreciate that this vital railway industry is the backbone in terms of the modes of transporting commodities, whether it is from British Columbia through our prairie provinces to Ontario, Quebec and to our Atlantic provinces. We in the Liberal Party have acknowledged how vital that industry truly is, which is one of the reasons we recognize the importance of railway safety and, therefore, in principle, are supporting and encouraging this bill to pass today.
My question for the member is in regard to making reference to the backbone of our economy. I want the member to reflect on the role that his government played in terms of the potential threat to the railway in the province of Manitoba, in particular from Winnipeg to Churchill, in a decision in regard to the Wheat Board. We need to look at the railway as an industry that provides life to many rural communities, not only in Manitoba but in Quebec, Ontario and throughout our country.
I would ask the member to provide a comment as to why the Conservatives do not see, as the Liberals see, that the railway can provide wonderful economic opportunities for all Canadian communities.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Mr. Speaker, I represent an Ontario riding. We have grain and oilseed producers in this province. They all sell their grains on the open market without being compelled to participate in a central monopoly. Guess what? There is a successful rail line industry that operates in Ontario. I encourage the member to call CN or one of the other railways and ask for a little ride so he can see how well our system functions right here in Ontario without the presence of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
One of the best decisions that any government has made in transportation policy was made when both the Conservatives and the Liberals supported the privatization of the industry. Because of that privatization, we now have profit-generating businesses that employ people, pay into pension funds, create jobs, support communities and move goods from where they are to where they need to go. That is proof of the power of the free market economy. It works in railways and it also works in agriculture.
Chungsen Leung ConservativeParliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism
Mr. Speaker, the bill obviously represents a lot of hard work on both sides of the House, especially on our side, to put forward a bill that represents railroad safety. However, we need to look beyond that. We need to look at the pan-railroad economy in Canada. The railroad system in Canada embodies perhaps the soul of Canada in linking us from east to west.
My forefathers are among the Chinese who came here over 150 years ago to help build the railroad, representing our contribution to the building of this economy. In the last 20 years or so, I have been involved with the railroads of Canada in areas of innovation such as the development of the steerable bogie, the double deck of the GO Transit and the long-haul trains that make it so efficient for us to move containers from the west coast to the east coast at a fraction of the cost of going around by the Panama Canal. The contributions that the railroad brings to us are safety for Canadians, the innovations and contributions to our economy and today a better and cleaner environment.
I would like to know from the opposition members what suggestions they would have to improve on this bill.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am sure the opposition members will not mind my answering on their behalf, but I would rather start by thanking the hon. member whose expertise in the area of railway transportation has been sought by governments and businesses all around the world. This House could learn a lot from that expertise.
The member mentioned the importance of container shipping. It is interesting that in the late 1950s international trade, as a percentage of the global economy, was in decline. In other words, there was something called reverse globalization. That changed with the invention and mass application of the container shipping box, which effectively allowed massive quantities of goods to move through ports with minimum handling costs. As a result, a container can be filled in Beijing, transported to Vancouver, lifted off, put on a railway, transported to a warehouse in Calgary and then delivered to a retail outlet without ever being opened and at an extremely low cost. That has given Canadians and others access to lower-cost goods, which helps raise our standard of living and allows us to get our goods to hungry foreign markets at minimal transportation costs.
We need to build upon this wonderful free enterprise creation that has improved the quality of life for so many people around the world.
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Speaker, having a safe and reliable rail network is essential to Canada's mobility and economy. Seventy percent of all service goods are shipped by train. Passenger and commuter trains transport more than 70 million people a year. Our railways also have an environmental edge over road bound traffic as they only contributes 3% of Canada's transportation related greenhouse gas emissions.
By choosing rail, passengers and shippers also choose one of the safest modes of transport in Canada. However, although modest gains have been made in reducing accidents over the past few years, we are not where we want to be in terms of rail safety. The tragic VIA Rail collisions in Burlington in February of this year and the recent derailment in Alberta show that more needs to be done. Bill S-4, the safer railways act, is a step in the right direction.
Members know that the bill has been in front of the House of Commons several times. In fact, the history of it is quite extensive. It started in February 2007 with the department telling the minister of transport that there should be a full review of the operation and efficiency of the Railway Safety Act.
An advisory panel was established and came out with a final report entitled “Stronger Ties: A Shared Commitment to Railway Safety”, which was published in November 2007. That was five years ago. It included 56 recommendations for improvement of rail safety, some of which are included in the legislative changes in front of us today.
Throughout the past five years, the bill came before the House in many forms. In May 2008 the standing committee tabled 14 recommendations after it studied the Rail Safety Act. In June 2010 Bill C-33 was introduced by the government in the House of Commons, but unfortunately it did not pass. We now have Bill S-4 in front of us.
However, Bill S-4 is only a step, not a leap. Depending on whom one talks to, it is more of a baby step. It is long overdue, but it is certainly not universal in addressing ongoing rail safety challenges.
Rail accidents have decreased over the last five years, but only in a very limited way. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, an independent government agency responsible for advancing transportation safety through investigations and recommendations, has some insightful statistics, some of which I will list.
The number of railway accidents went down by a meagre 5% from 2010 to 2011. We still have more than 1,000 train accidents a year. That is almost three a day. Slightly more than 100 train collisions and derailments happen on the main tracks and not tucked away in some slow-moving marshalling yard.
Off the main tracks, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada reported 573 collisions and derailments. There were 33 accidents in which the culprit was not due to human error or rolling stock, but because the rails themselves were unsafe.
Every other week, somewhere in our country, there is a rail accident that involves fire or an explosion. VIA Rail unfortunately does not own its own rails but leases them from CN/CP. This makes it hard for VIA Rail to have much control over the rails.
Needless to say, a rail accident's harmful potential is compounded when dangerous goods are involved.
In 2011 there were 118 accidents involving toxic cargo, most of them were derailments. In three of those accidents harmful contents were spilled, damaging the environment and threatening the health of residents and workers.
Even without collisions, once a week there is an incident somewhere in Canada in which dangerous goods are leaked.
The Transportation Safety Board reported 51 incidents in which harmful and toxic substances were inadvertently released into the environment, and things do not look much better this year. From January to March, there were 16 dangerous goods leakages. During the same time frame last year, there were 11. We actually had five more incidents of dangerous goods that leaked into the environment than last year.
While the number of overall accidents has slightly decreased, 5%, the number of serious accidents, those that have to be reported to the Transportation Safety Board, has increased by a dramatic 27% from 2010 to 2011. The number of mandatory reported rail incidents rose from 160 to 204. That means we are on par with the numbers again in 2005, 2,004 rail incidents. That is a big number. It makes one wonder about significant and sustainable safety gains that were supposedly to be achieved under the Conservative government.
In 2011 there were 68 accidents involving passenger trains. Just to keep the record straight, travelling by rail is still several times safer than taking a car, but 68 accidents involved passenger trains last year.
In addition to the potential damage to passengers and working crews, passenger train accidents have a corrosive effect on public perception. Right after the Burlington accident, VIA Rail suffered a slump in passenger numbers. The solution is not to talk about it, but to really tackle our rail safety deficit head on. It is timely that this bill is in front of us at third reading. Hopefully it will be law in a few days.
There was a train accident on February 26 of this year in Burlington and one in Montreal a few years ago. Rail accidents not only impact workers and passengers who are hurt or fatally injured, but the damage and the grief goes beyond those immediately affected such as local communities and residents and businesses. Whenever these accidents happen, emergency personnel and local residents show valour and compassion beyond the ordinary. The five heroes who were honoured by Burlington city council yesterday are prime examples of just that.
Tragic accidents also leave deep scars in local communities. Almost two years after the fatal accident in Montreal, the parents of three teenagers who were killed are still looking for answers as to why their children were run over in the dark by a train with dimmed headlights.
The Transportation Safety Board has investigated more than 170 rail accidents in recent years. Based on the insights from its investigation, the Transportation Safety Board has made a whole host of demands for improving rail safety. For the particularly urgent and important ones, it files a formal recommendation with Transport Canada and tracks the ministry's response and action.
Since 2005, the Transportation Safety Board has issued more than 50 of those formal recommendations. Unfortunately, under the Conservative leadership, Transport Canada has not been very proactive or eager to follow those recommendations. Less than 60%, that is 6 out of 10, of the Transportation Safety Board's file demands have been completely addressed in the eyes of the independent agency. Why have not 100% of the recommendations from the safety board been addressed and implemented?
Fifteen per cent of the expert's recommendations were partially addressed. One-quarter of the Transportation Safety Board's recommendations were essentially left unaddressed, with no meaningful action taken. I will take some time later on to go through them.
The TSB, in its very charming wording, said that it was “satisfactory intent”. There is intent, but no action has been taken. In some of these cases, the ministry has been sitting on its hands for seven years, so it is very subtle to call that intent.
The first of the recommendations is the voice recorders. We will recall, in all of these accidents, whether the one in Quebec or the one still under investigation from Burlington, that the investigators have not been able to get to the bottom of the accidents because there are no voice recorders in the locomotive cabs. Therefore, unlike planes, we do not know precisely what happens in the locomotive cab.
Even before 2007, close to 10 years, the safety board has said that Transport Canada must mandate these voice recorders to be installed in the locomotive cabs. For six years nothing happened. Recently we heard from the minister that some discussion had taken place, that there was some negotiation with the unions. The unions have said that they are not opposed to them, so there is absolutely no reason why it is not mandated. Apparently there are more discussions. There is a lot of talk, but at the end of the day there are still no voice recorders in locomotive cabs. That is just not acceptable.
The second area the Transportation Safety Board has talked about is the need for an alternative mechanism to slow down the trains if the trains go too fast. In these times of modern technologies, certainly the switches and tracks can be connected with the braking system. Such technology exists. It is called a positive train control system. It is a system that is being installed across the states. Amtrak, for example, has them now. As of 2005, it is mandatory that every train in the U.S. has such a control system. Therefore, as in the case of Burlington, the train would have automatically slowed down to the appropriate speed and not jumped the track because it was going too fast.
Another area we need to look at occasionally is driver fatigue. What happens is a driver might report to work at 8 a.m. If the train is late, or for some reason there is a breakdown or mechanical problems, the driver waits and waits, then starts work. In this case, by the time drivers start their work, they have waited for many hours and some of them are in fact very tired.
We need to look at the whole area of rail crossing in the future. We did not make any amendments to that, because rail crossing is fairly complex. A lot of developments have built condominiums and shopping malls around railway tracks. Some of the railway companies say that if municipalities want to go ahead and build such developments in areas served by trains, then at least the railway companies should be advised.
Local municipalities, local government is a provincial matter. In many ways it does not necessarily come under federal jurisdiction. However, this is an area we need to look at. We do not want a developer building a series of high-rises, an entire neighbourhood on one side of the track, and then a school or a shopping mall being built on the other side of the track. People are then tempted to cross the track, even though there might be barriers. They might take shortcuts and put themselves in danger. Urban planning needs to recognize rail safety as a very important issue.
In European countries and in Asia, railway crossings are increasingly separated by grade. The train either goes into a tunnel or it goes up on a bridge so that the pedestrian can walk across directly. It is not a shortcut. In some cases, pedestrians go across a bridge to cross railway tracks. It costs a bit more money, but it is infinitely safer than asking people to go around railway tracks and not take a shortcut.
Railway associations are quite concerned about those areas, but given how long Bill S-4, the safer railways act, has been before the House, the committee and other members of Parliament and the NDP did not want to slow down the bill. It was fast-tracked through the committee, which is why I did not move any amendments on voice recorders, positive train control, rail crossing or driver fatigue. Those issues, important as they are, need to be investigated and considered in a future study, maybe in future recommendations.
I was assured by the minister that voice recorders are coming soon. After all these years of waiting, they will come and we do not need to mandate them. I will not quite believe this until I see it, but let us see what happens.
I want to turn the rest of the few minutes I have to talk quickly about the rest of the Transportation Safety Board's recommendations. They were left unaddressed by Transport Canada. Let me list some of them.
The department of transport, in conjunction with the railway industry and other North American regulators, should establish a protocol for reporting and analyzing tank car stub sill failures, so that unsafe cars are repaired or removed from service.
Another recommendation where no action has been taken is that Transport Canada work with the provincial government to expedite the implementation of a national standard for low ground clearance advance warning signs at railway crossings. Railway crossings are very important, and we need advance warning signs.
CN should take effective action to identify and mitigate risk to safety as required by its safety management system. We should require CN to do so, not just ask politely. We should implement Transport Canada standards to improve the visibility of emergency contact signage at railways crossings, again, it is about railways crossings, and then conduct assessments of level crossings on the high-speed passenger rail Quebec-Windsor corridor and ensure that defences are adequate to mitigate the risk of truck-train collisions.
There are many more recommendations that I want to go into, but I am running out of time. I know that when we work together we can get the job done and make train service in Canada even safer than it is today.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by the member. A couple of thoughts came to mind.
When we look at the railway industry, we see this growing need for rapid transit in our urban centres. Quite often it is overlooked in terms of its importance today when we talk about rail line safety because, more and more, we are looking at different forms of rapid transit for urban centres. I am wondering if the member would provide some comment on that.
I would also be interested in knowing if the New Democratic Party has a recent position in regard to the whole nationalization issue. Is it still in favour of nationalizing a rail line?
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am thankful that the Liberal member reminded me that CN was privatized by the Liberal government in the 1990s. As a result, a large number of tracks and passenger services were eliminated. The tracks were ripped up.
Thanks to the Liberal government, as a result of losing those services, through the years we have lost 10,000 kilometres of railway tracks in Canada. That is a huge number. Think of all the cities and towns that are left without rail and freight delivery services. There are now many trucks that do not need to be on the highway because any number of goods can be shipped by train. It is that much better for the environment, and that much safer. I wish that had not occurred.
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Mr. Speaker, the member for Trinity—Spadina does a phenomenal job on this portfolio. I know that all of my constituents appreciate her important work.
As I have mentioned in the House previously, I was a direct victim of a major derailment on the CN line in the largest freshwater spill of bunker C fuel oil in the history of North America, into Lake Wabamun. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada wrote a report. I have seen some changes come forward, but I have a deep concern with its recommendation with respect to inadequate emergency response planning. In this past budget, the government removed all emergency response capabilities of the federal government yet we have had the largest spill in history. In Alberta, we are still having very serious incidents occur. We have a lot of movement of petroleum and chemicals, including right into the centre of my riding.
I wonder if the member could speak to this issue. Unfortunately, these rail companies own a lot of real estate in our country. There are major chemical cars coming into my riding. However, the city cannot do anything about it because the rail companies hold the lands. We have rail lines running along all of our major rivers in the country.
Can the member speak to the matter of whether or not the federal government should step up to the plate and start dealing with this issue and maybe help the municipalities and other areas buy up these lands?
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Speaker, the Transportation Safety Board was quite concerned about what my friend said. It recommended that the department of transport extend the safety provisions of construction standards applicable to 286,000 pound cars to all new non-pressured tank cars carrying dangerous goods.
It also asked that the department conduct in-depth studies on the behaviour of saturated organic materials under cyclic loading. It talked about ensuring that maintenance standards and practices address the level of risk in heavy tonnage other than on the main tracks. It also said that the department of transport needs to make sure an assessment is conducted of the suitability of current Canadian rail operating rules and railway instructions concerning the immediate reporting of operating delays to all concerned where there is a safety risk.
Lastly, it called upon the department of transport to establish minimum standards for the type, location and requirement for fencing along railway rights-of-way approaching railway bridges and any other areas where frequent pedestrian incursions are known.
We can tell from these recommendations that the Transportation Safety Board wants to make sure that Transport Canada, local municipalities and the railway companies work together to keep everything safe.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for Trinity—Spadina for invoking, for me, the memory of the Hon. Rev. Bill Blaikie, the former member for Elmwood—Transcona, and his regular and frequent admonitions to the House of Commons that we need to get the freight off the trucks and back onto the rail where it belongs. That should be our number one job for the environment, for rail safety, for any number of compelling reasons.
There is one thing I would like my colleague to comment on. We are dealing with the Railway Safety Act today. There has been a call for a rail service review, and there has been a further call for a rail costing review. Prairie farmers are being gouged as badly as they were gouged in the 1930s, because nobody has reviewed whether what they are being charged to move their grain is in any way related to the actual cost of moving that grain.
Will the member comment on the need for a rail costing review as the next initiative for this chamber?
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Speaker, the prairie farmers have waited for years and years for regulations that would govern CN and CP service standards.
Right now there are no service standards. There was a review. The review recommended mediation and regulation. Before the last election, in March, the Conservatives promised regulations. They promised that CN and CP would be regulated, so they would have to have performance standards and service standards. Right now, it is completely unfair as all the power lies with CN and CP, and none with the prairie farmers, whether they grow soybeans, grain or lentils.
The farmers do not have the power. They are not given adequate notice. They are not given any information. They have been waiting. We have not seen regulations, which is quite unfortunate. If CN and CP were regulated, then there would be much higher service standards and much safer transport. We certainly hope the service would expand even more, because the farmers would feel secure in being able to deliver their grains to port by rail. They would not have to look at alternatives, such as trucking.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, once again, more specifically, we have heard about a rail safety review. Even this legislation refers to a rail service review and the promised regulations. However, the rail costing review is what I want further information on.
It seems the robber barons are once again gouging prairie farmers with impunity. The last time we did a rail costing review was 15 years ago. The Canadian Wheat Board estimates they are paying 30% more than a reasonable cost of transporting their grain.
Does the House not have an obligation to do a rail costing review to make sure that prairie farmers are not being gouged by robber barons?
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Speaker, I agree. We do need a rail costing review.
CN is doing very well. I saw two days ago that its profit went up by 13%. Billions are being made while prairie farmers are not getting the services they need, are being gouged and are losing millions of dollars because their grains are not showing up at the port on time.
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Mr. Speaker, I should start by saying that I am going to share my time with the member for Winnipeg North. We like to keep things collegial, and I know that my colleague works hard on this issue, because we know the importance of the railways in the Prairies, just like elsewhere in Canada.
I must admit that I am not inclined to rehash the statistics because we have talked about them at length.
The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton
I realize the hon. member for Bourassa has indicated that he may wish to split his time. This being the third round, I assume the member is seeking unanimous consent to split his time in this particular slot. Is there unanimous consent for the member to split his time?
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Mr. Speaker, everybody is happy about this debate because it is probably the only bill that everyone agrees on. I thank the member for Beauce, who was initially against the bill, but then supported it later on. Apparently, even he sometimes sees the light. We thank him.
One thing is certain: I was proud to suggest at the last committee meeting that the bill be fast-tracked and reported without amendment, so that it can return to the House. This is a subject that everybody agrees on, because health and safety are not partisan issues. Everyone has made an effort and worked hard on this issue.
The issue should have been considered as part of Bill C–33, which unfortunately died on the order paper. We know that the subject was then dealt with in the other chamber, in the form of Bill S–4.
I would like to begin by thanking my colleague, Senator Mercer, who did an admirable job. What is important and interesting about this bill is that we had proposed a series of amendments as part of Bill C–33. These amendments were adopted virtually unanimously thanks particularly to the tireless work of my colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville, who did a very good job.
We could talk about what more could be done. There is obviously a lot more to be done. Health and safety are ongoing issues. This had to be done to be in sync with the other forms of transport. It was therefore crucial that it be done. As far as air and marine transport are concerned, we know that measures had already been proposed. It is important that the same thing be done for the railways.
I would also like to thank the members on both sides of this House, especially the minister who answered my questions. Someone said earlier that he was quiet. It is true that he is sometimes quiet on a number of issues, but at least he answered the question in this case. I am quite happy about this.
As a former minister, I have always been in favour, whether from a curative or preventive standpoint, of having some power to protect people's quality of life. I believe that this is the very core of this bill: enabling the minister to intervene. This of course is a power that can be delegated. Often, such an intervention can prevent things from getting bogged down in administrative or bureaucratic details. In a democracy, it is crucial for the people's representative, the minister, to have this ability and this power to intervene. Very often, this kind of prevention can save lives. Providing it is essential.
In short, it is clear that this bill will improve Transport Canada's oversight capacity. It will increase the department’s powers to enforce the act. There will be punitive fines. This is important. It is not always enough, but it is important.
I also believe that it is necessary to have someone who is accountable where safety is concerned. In my view, the other essential element is that whistleblowers be able to intervene without becoming victims of intimidation. As we know, very often, knowledge is power. Once people realize, whether in the private or public sector, that they can have this "political” power to intervene and prevent problems, it becomes not only the right thing to do, but the essential thing to do.
Needless to say, there has to be a process that leads to a form of certification. I believe that such certification is vital. It is a step in the right direction. It is even several steps in the right direction. After the two reports were prepared, we were able to demonstrate that we were listening carefully. It was essential and important to be able to intervene.
I do have one concern, however, because this is not the end of the story, and it is not a panacea. All our amendments were accepted, but a further step is still required, because things are different in rural communities and urban communities. I asked the minister some questions. There is of course this whole concept of accountability of individuals, parents and everyone who has a supervisory role to play. You can put up 12-foot-high fences. You can build all kinds of infrastructure to prevent people from getting through, but people will get through anyway.
Given the existing urban reality and even, in some cases, the existing rural reality, it is important that all stakeholders make a pact so that, after this bill is passed, they can move on to the next step and come to an agreement about safety.
Earlier, the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina spoke about certain elements that could be added to improve safety and protection, both for passengers and workers.
Today is May 1, International Workers' Day. We must therefore also think about the railway workers whose do quite an admirable job.
This is not just a legal battle. We cannot say that this is not our responsibility because it involves the private sector or it falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces. We also cannot say that we are not going to get involved because this falls under the jurisdiction of the municipalities and they are creatures of the provinces.
With regard to security and protection, it will be essential to come to an agreement with all the stakeholders, whether it be the Federation of Canadian Municipalities or the major cities. In areas where there are railway crossings, it will be key to have additional tools to protect our youth and others who too often recklessly decide to cross the railway tracks.
In addition, certification is not a solution in and of itself but, rather, a means to an end. It is an additional tool that will aid in prevention.
Yes, the train is one of the safest forms of transportation. The other day, we spoke about the train that derailed in Burlington. We were very distressed about that situation. Could this type of accident have been avoided?
In order to prevent those kinds of incidents, it is important to provide individuals with all the tools they need to ensure their security. I proposed a fast track at committee because we have been talking from both sides, not only this time but even before the last session. It has been a long process since 2006 but it is not the first time that we have talked about security and prevention. This is why the Liberal Party of Canada will take responsibility and support the bill.
I believe it is very important to mention that if everybody wants to work together, majority government or not, it would be a great thing for democracy because we would be sending a true message that we are all equal as representatives and that we have a role to play. The fact that we can put forward some amendments that, from the two chambers, we can talk together and work for the sake of our communities, is the good news today. It is a lesson learned that we should take note of that process. It is like the movie Field of Dreams, if we build it they will come.
It is a wonderful process. I am very pleased with the answers that Transport Canada and the minister provided to us on that issue. The minister and I do not agree on everything but I do recognize that in that process he delivered. We are looking forward to providing some new alternatives afterward because there are some other issues regarding alternatives for security.
What is important is that it is a living paper. We will need to see what happens in the future but we have a framework here that addresses some of the issues that we wanted to address and the fact that the stakeholders, such as the unions, are on the same page. Nothing is perfect but I believe we are better having an imperfection realized than a perfection en attente, as we say.
We will support Bill S-4.
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by mentioning that railway is a very important part of Canada. In my riding of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, I have been working fairly closely with a group called CAPT from Sault Ste. Marie in order to bring passenger rail back to northern Ontario.
We see this piece of legislation as a move forward to protect the railway system and those who use it. I think it is an important part. However, it has taken a very long time to get to the House.
As members know, the bill was tabled in the previous Parliament and was close to being brought forward. Therefore, I would ask my colleague to talk about the need for expediency in moving the bill forward.
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Mr. Speaker, if members want to support it now, then let us do it. I have fast-tracked it already in committee.
To speak to the question, I believe that, truly, Bill S-4 is a matter of culture, and if we push these kinds of processes forward together, we can achieve it. We are all focusing on the same thing: we want to have a better quality of life.
I believe in the chemin de fer. This country has been built on the railway. It is the link between regions. We will be able to push forward those kinds of policies and change of culture in every region.
Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments on this important issue. I wonder if he could comment on the current safety situation.
In the past number of years in British Columbia we have had a number of rail derailments and accidents that have caused spills into waterways and caused concern for communities. I wonder if the member could comment on this important bill and how it could perhaps affect spills in the future.
Could the member also comment about not only the need to improve rail transport safety in the country but also the noise issue at crossings around residential areas? Could he comment on how the bill might address some of those concerns that residents face?
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Mr. Speaker, these are ongoing issues. There are two questions. First, it may be about alternative technology to address the noise. Second, with Bill S-4, I believe it is also a matter of prevention.
I think railways are secure. Of course, we have derailments and sad accidents. We always have to ensure they are dealt with in an open and transparent manner to understand what truly happened. However through that tool, Bill S-4, we can better prevent than cure.
We do have to address situations. However, through the prevention tool and the certification process and the fact that we would have whistleblowers and people able to bring back the intelligence we need in order to understand what is going on in a particular company or the situation of the rail, I believe it will be a real good thing to do and it may prevent incidents. We have to be focused and vigilant.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Bourassa, for splitting his time with me. I do know that, as our Liberal Party critic, the member for Bourassa has done an outstanding job in terms of ensuring there is this sense of urgency to see this particular bill pass through the system.
It is great to see. It is not that long ago that we had it before us in second reading, and we have it again today in third reading. I suspect we would love to see it pass here today and, ultimately, continue on going through the system.
It is important to note that this particular bill was in a different form prior to the last election, better known as Bill C-33, which had its origin here in the House. I know there was some concern as to why this would have started off in the Senate.
However, I do think there is a sense that this particular bill does need to be fast-tracked, primarily because we recognize just how critically important it is to the railway industry as a whole to ensure we do what we can to improve rail line services throughout the country.
It has been a long time since there was an actual significant change to the Railway Safety Act. My understanding is we would have to go back to the 1990s, I think it was 1999, under the Chrétien government, where there were other amendments of significance that were made. A lot has happened over that period of time. That is one of the reasons we have the bill here today in recognition of the changes and the number of things that have been brought to the government's attention by a wide variety of stakeholders.
I think it is worthy of note that the stakeholders come from a fairly wide spectrum of individuals and groups who have actually been able to contribute to what we have here today.
It is interesting. When I had the opportunity to read through the bill and some of the notes that my colleague from Bourassa had provided on this issue, one of the things that really came to mind is the whole whistleblower content and how important it is to recognize that people working somewhere within the industry or with the train company have the ability to say they are concerned about the safety of X, whatever that X might be, and not be in fear of losing their job. To me, that is something that is good to see in legislation.
I can recall when we supported similar legislation with regard to whistleblower legislation in the province of Manitoba and how well that was received.
I would suggest that the same principle applies here. This way reasonable issues would be brought up because individuals working within the industry would now feel comfortable knowing that, if they have a concern that is related to safety, they could actually bring it up and would not have to be in fear of ultimately being fired because of raising an issue that is related to safety.
That is just one aspect of the bill we have before us that makes it so important that the bill ultimately passes. At the end of the day, I believe all members here in the House recognize that the bill would in fact improve the overall safety of our rail lines. We have seen that demonstrated through comments with regard to this bill, whether in committee stage, in second reading or, now, in third reading. So, I see that as a positive thing.
It is also important to recognize, and I have already made quick reference to it, that there are advisory committees out there, there are members from within our unions and there are others who have had the opportunity to provide input. I know we, as the Liberal Party, have had that opportunity and appreciate that the government, on this particular piece of legislation, seems to have listened and responded in kind.
It is somewhat noteworthy, and I put it tongue-in-cheek, that the government does not require time allocation in order to pass this particular bill, which tells me it is another good reason to believe we are seeing more of an all-party approach to recognizing this as a good idea.
Well we should, because the consequences of rail accidents, whether in our rural communities or urban centres, are quite significant. On the macro scale, a derailment can cause a complete and total evacuation of communities. On the micro scale, people may be hit by a train, causing fatalities. Both of those happen far too often. At the end of the day, this is what we are hoping to deal with by passing Bill S-4 today.
I want to emphasize the importance of rail safety. It is not just up to the federal government to pass this legislation. There is a need to have co-operation among different stakeholders. Some of the stakeholders I am referring to are municipal governments. I would suggest municipal governments of our rural communities all have a role to play. They are in essence the groups that ultimately decide, in many communities, where there will be flashing railway signs or railway arms that are lifted to accommodate the flow of traffic versus train traffic.
Provincial governments also need to step up to the plate. A lot of the monitoring of our highways is done through our provincial governments. They too need to step up to the plate and deal with what they can of their responsibilities.
Obviously, it goes without saying that our rail lines, companies like CN, CP, VIA Rail and other rail lines that are operating on our tracks, have the most significant role to play in ensuring the quality of the line or the quality of the vehicles they are using to transport goods is of a high standard, so we can minimize any sort of damage to the individual or the community as a whole.
I have spoken in the past about how the rail industry has played a critical role in the development of the city of Winnipeg and many communities. I want to focus some attention on the city of Winnipeg. I have had a history with the rail line in one form or another, primarily indirectly, with the impact of the railway industry on my ancestry. I can talk about my grandfather's time and today, in terms of how it divides communities in geographical regions.
The last time I had the opportunity to speak, I talked about Main Street, Salter Street, McPhillips, Arlington in between those other two, and Keewatin and Route 90. All of those have either underpasses or overpasses that cross the CP tracks. There are tens of thousands of people who live around the CP yards. One can rest assured that the constituents I represent have a vested interest in this legislation and how important it is that it passes. It is all about rail safety.
I see my time has expired. I posed a question about the expansion of rapid transit and where rail lines could play an active role in it. It is something I may be able to talk about in the future.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, there are a host of good reasons for relocating the CPR marshalling yards from the heart of the city that I represent in Winnipeg Centre. There is a desperate need for more green space, for more recreational opportunities and for inner city affordable housing, but one of the most compelling reasons in the context of the bill we are dealing with today is that since 1882 there have been a host of spills, collisions and even explosions in the CPR marshalling yards, which are the very heart and core of the city of Winnipeg. Essentially, the reason we have “a tale of two cities”, this great divide between south Winnipeg and the north end of Winnipeg, is that in 1882 it was decided to put these marshalling yards exactly where they are.
Under the rail relocation act, if a municipality applies to the Minister of Transport specifically, then for safety reasons or any urban development and urban planning reasons, the federal government can pay, and has paid, for up to 50% of the cost of removal of these inner city rail lines so that the urban development can take place and the safety of the people living around the rail yards can be protected.
Would my colleague agree that the present Minister of Transport should entertain an application from the City of Winnipeg to remove the CPR marshalling yards from where they currently exist out to the new inland port of CentrePort so that we can have an intermodal, tripartite shipping and transportation hub called CentrePort?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg Centre and I share a common boundary. I am on the north side of the tracks; he is on the south side.
The member's idea does merit further discussion and dialogue. What the member is talking about would no doubt have a serious impact on the economy of not only Winnipeg's north end but the entire province of Manitoba. It would also have a ripple effects on the country. The amount of money involved would likely be in excess of a couple of billion dollars.
We do not know, for example, where the CP trucking terminal would be put for the trucking firms that are located in the north end and hook up to the trains. The member is talking about hundreds of acres of land.
It is an idea worth exploring. I myself am definitely open to the concept and would welcome an apolitical discussion as to where the City of Winnipeg, in co-operation with the provincial government, might be able to move it to see if it is feasible. If it is feasible, it would be wonderful to see the federal government involved, especially if we are thinking about CentrePort and the potential economic boom that would be generated for thousands of Manitobans well into the future.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg North has his numbers way out of line. Manitoba had good senior political ministers in Lloyd Axworthy and Reg Alcock. Both of them pitched this idea. At that time the cost to relocate the tracks was $80 million, and it was to be shared jointly.
The vice-president of CPR said it would take 12 years to tear up those tracks. Tim Sale stood up at a meeting and challenged the vice-president of CPR by saying that it took the company three years to build the entire Canadian Pacific Railway from Thunder Bay to Victoria in 1880, blasting through the mountains and working with nothing but mules and pickaxes, so how could it take 12 years to tear up a few tracks in the inner city of Winnipeg when tracks are being torn up all over the whole Prairie region at a mile a minute? It would take a matter of months.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to question what the member is saying, but Winnipeg had the good fortune of having a brand new air terminal put in at a cost of several hundreds of millions of dollars.
It would be worth looking at what the actual cost would be. I agree with the member that Lloyd Axworthy and Reg Alcock were high-calibre Liberal members of Parliament. I suspect that their numbers would have been accurate for that time.
This is something I would be most interested in pursuing. I look forward to future discussions with the member for Winnipeg Centre.
The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton
Before I call on the hon. member for York South—Weston to resume debate, I will just let him know that I will need to interrupt him at the top of the hour, as we will need to start statements by members.
The hon. member for York South—Weston.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to again speak to Bill S-4, the Railway Safety Act, at third reading and report stage today.
This bill, as others have mentioned, originates from a previous Parliament, and the good member for Trinity—Spadina had a lot to do with putting forward the bill in the first place. I want to congratulate her and others who have worked on this bill, and congratulate those in the industry, in the unions and in the safety agencies who have contributed to what will be a great improvement to the bill.
Unfortunately, it has taken us six years from the commencement of the study on whether or not the bill needed to be improved until today, when we hope the bill will pass the House. That was way too long. When we are talking about safety, six years is way too long for something as critical to Canadians as the safety of the railroads, as has been mentioned by several members here.
These railroads travel through dense urban areas. In order to ensure the safety of not just the railway workers and not just the patrons of the railway but also of the people who live around these railroads, there needs to be a regimen in Canada that provides for the safe operation of these railroads, which the bill goes a long way to providing. It does not go all the way, and I will get into that in a few minutes.
Every school child knows that railways built this country and that railways play an important role in transporting goods and people from coast to coast. We believe that railways should actually provide a much greater role in transporting people in this country, and perhaps in transporting goods.
Railways are a more efficient way of transporting people than cars. Railways are a more efficient way of transporting goods than trucks. It would take some of the pressure off our highways and cities if we were to move more goods safely by using rail. However, I emphasize the word “safely”, and that is what the bill would, in part, do.
There are 73,000 kilometres of track, and as the member for Trinity—Spadina noted, track has been removed. We have lost 10,000 kilometres of track as the railroads have moved out of transporting. The most recent loss of a railroad was the CP secondary line between Ottawa, the nation's capital, and North Bay. One of the reasons for removing that track was that CP wanted the steel; it was not because it was an uneconomical piece of railroad but because it needed the steel for replacing rails in other places.
It is a shame that the railbed could not be used for public transit or could not continue to be used for the transportation of goods, because generally speaking, the rail line from here to North Bay goes through no cities. It does not go past any homes or businesses that would be endangered by a railway spill.
Last year, railways moved some 72 million passengers and carried 66% of all the surface freight in Canada, so railways are a very important part of the infrastructure of this country.
However, there are some places where we are actually still building railroads. We are building railroads in my riding in large numbers. We are expanding the capacity of a rail corridor that runs through my riding from 40 trains a day to 464 trains a day. That is one of the reasons I am anxious for the bill to pass, because I want to ensure that the government has some power to make sure that railroad is operated in a safe manner.
Some of that railroad may in fact be exempt from this legislation, becausegovernment will decide, for whatever reason, that some of that railroad is not a federally regulated railway. I want to ensure that all of the railroad systems in Canada, whether they are passenger rail or heavy freight rail—and we are talking heavy rail, not the little light rail streetcar systems in some cities—are all run in a safe and efficient manner.
According to the Transportation Safety Board, in 2009 there were 1,081 rail accidents, including 68 main track derailments. If rail traffic continues to grow as anticipated—and the rail companies tell us that it will grow at roughly the same rate as inflation, meaning 3% a year—in 10 years there will be 40% more rail traffic than there is today, and the potential for accidents will increase.
The rail industry believes that the way to prevent accidents at rail crossings in particular is to remove the rail crossings. The idea is to just close the road. That is the easiest way to prevent rail crossings. There will not be any cars crossing the tracks, and the tracks will reign supreme.
That does not work in many urban centres in this country. There is some money, a very small amount of money—about $12 million a year, according to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister—that is set aside by the government to remove rail crossings in this country. I assume that means putting in grade-separated rail crossings so that either the roads go under or above the rail corridor or the rail corridor is dipped below or above the road.
The trouble is that $12 million might pay for half of one of those, and there are hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands—I do not have the number in front of me—of railroad crossings in this country, each of which has the potential for a fatal accident. In fact, there was a fatal accident on the railroads in Toronto just two weeks ago. A pedestrian was killed on a railbed in Toronto. We do not need any more of those.
Keeping people and trains apart should be an important part of what the transport minister strives to do in the implementation of this act.
One of the new key points in the legislation is the requirement for railways to obtain a certificate for operation. The certificate must include a safety management system acceptable to Transport Canada. It is a key element of this legislation that the safety management system be acceptable to Transport Canada so that Transport Canada actually understands and accepts that the railroad applying for a certificate for operation has in place measures that will prevent accidents, that will prevent overwork of their employees—which is why the unions are in support—and that will prevent trains from colliding with one another.
We recently had such a collision involving a passenger train in Burlington, Ontario. No one is really certain yet of all the causes, but speed was definitely a factor. This train went way too fast through a switch. The switch was rated for 15 kilometres an hour, and the train went through at about 60 kilometres an hour and derailed. There was loss of life and there were injuries.
What will prevent, in large measure, many of these kinds of accidents is something called positive train control. In this system the speed of the train is not controlled just by a person watching lights, which is how it works today and which is the same way it worked 160 years ago. A person runs a train by watching lights in order to know when they should go slower and when they can go faster.
Positive train control is widespread in all of the world except North America. It is already in place in some parts of the United States, but it is not present in Canada. It is a system whereby the train's speed is controlled externally. If a switch is closed and the train should slow down, the train's speed is controlled automatically if the train operator does not do it himself or herself.
It makes all kinds of sense, but it is not a system that the government is prepared to impose on the railroads yet. Why?
We would immediately start preventing accidents. It is true that it would be an expense to the railroads, but it is part of the cost of doing business. Railroads that operate in the United States will already have to comply with the positive train control system in the U.S. They already have to build their infrastructure to deal with positive train control. CN and CP and VIA Rail trains that travel across our border will have to do this, yet for some reason the government is not prepared to impose it in Canada.
I wonder why we always wait for the accident or the problem to occur before we act. Most people can see that this would be a good addition to the rail safety system in this country.
A number of problems were identified with rail safety that did not have to do directly with this bill but instead had to do with the oversight that Transport Canada applies to rail safety in this country. In a 2011 report, the federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development identified serious deficiencies in the transport of dangerous products.
It is up to the minister to ensure that his officials at Transport Canada are actually enforcing the laws that it already has regarding safety. If it is not, something is wrong with the system.
The commissioner stated that 53% of the files he examined had instances of non-compliance and, of those files, an astonishing 73%, nearly three-quarters, little or no corrective action was taken. We have a law that tells us how to transport dangerous goods. We have a system in which Transport Canada is to actually monitor and enforce that law. We have a commissioner who looked at it and said that Transport Canada was not enforcing it and we have silence from the government. We do not seem to know how to enforce the laws we already have.
Bill S-4 contains a lot of very generous provisions toward the minister who will make decisions about how this law will be implemented. The minister needs to take the most protective and precautionary stance possible with his officials in Transport Canada and with the safety of Canadians because to do otherwise he would be derelict in his duties.
What we are saying about the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, which is already in force, is that if it is not being enforced by the officials who need to enforce it, the minister and his staff, then could S-4 face the same thing? We cannot sit here and pass laws that nobody enforces. The Conservatives believe that laws are to be enforced and enforced to the letter of the law. We heard yesterday from the Minister of Foreign Affairs that, no matter where Canadian companies operate, they are to abide by the laws. The same should be true in Canada but it is up to the government to enforce those laws.
Bill S-4 has quite serious penalties for failing to comply with the legislation. Those penalties are now administrative penalties where the minister would not need to take a company to court. The minister could impose a penalty without actually having to file suit against an individual or company for failing to comply.
We would hope that Transport Canada would actually impose those sanctions when it finds violations. It is no good to have a bunch of sanctions in a law if we do not apply them when there are violations. We hope that corrective action is only necessary very rarely, but we want that corrective action to be taken when it is necessary. We do not want a situation in which the government, as it apparently has done with the transportation of dangerous goods, ignores the law or the enforcement of the law.
The other portion of this law deals with the emissions of pollutants into the air. This is of great interest to the residents in Toronto who would be faced with a rail corridor that will have 464 trains per day or a train every 90 seconds going past. These are diesel engines of 4,000 to 5,000 horsepower emitting huge clouds of black smoke. People want to know that something will be done to limit that pollution.
The bill provides mechanisms whereby the minister can demand that these emissions be reduced, curtailed, regulated or monitored. It will be up to the minister to actually impose those regulations and enforce them.
The people of the city of Toronto are watching this with some great interest because one of the issues that has raised a huge storm is the issue of the amount of pollution that comes from train engines. When people looked at it, because they did not look at it until someone said that we would have 460 of them, they discovered that there were carcinogens, nitrous oxide and particulate matter in that exhaust that can cause grave harm to individuals. To increase it by tenfold, without also putting in some kind of limits, has people in my riding and in other ridings in the city of Toronto demanding that trains be made electric.
In 1908, in the city of New York, the use of fossil fuel burning trains was banned. As my time as run out, I will continue that thought when I come back.
The Acting Speaker Bruce Stanton
The hon. member for York South—Weston will have five minutes remaining for his speech when the House next resumes debate on the question and the usual 10 minutes for questions and comments.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act, be read the third time and passed.
The Speaker Andrew Scheer
There are five minutes left for the hon. member for York South—Weston. I am sure he would appreciate all his colleagues leaving the chamber if they need to carry on conversations so the House can hear what he has to say.
The hon. member for York South—Weston.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to continue my discourse on Bill S-4.
As I suggested earlier, the new Bill S-4 contains some amendments to the environmental protection portion of the bill which would give more power to the minister to enforce environmental protection. As I started to say earlier, one of the things that gives residents in urban areas, and in particular in Toronto, significant worry is the exhaust from diesel trains.
New York City is 104 years ahead of Canada because it banned fossil fuel-burning trains from Manhattan Island in 1908. Since that time, only electric vehicles have been permitted to operate in Manhattan, to the point where engines actually have to be changed on the way in. That has resulted in a much cleaner and more manageable environment in the city of Manhattan.
The citizens of Toronto would like the same courtesy. As such, they are pushing GO Transit in particular but ultimately all the other train operators, CN, CP and VIA, to use electric vehicles wherever possible.
I note that environmental regulations are currently stronger in the United States than they are here and I hope the minister will make Canadian railroads adopt tier 4 standards for all their engines in 2015, as is the case in the United States.
The other piece of safety worry for residents in the city of Toronto is derailments. One only has to witness the kind of destruction that takes place in adjacent areas when there are derailments.
In the city of Toronto rail corridors traverse significant residential populations. The rail industry requested that this bill be amended to allow it to have some say over how close houses can be built to the rail corridor.
In Toronto the rail corridor is being moved closer to homes by the rail company itself. It beggars belief that it would actually do this, but that is happening. In one case, CP Rail expropriated the backyards of several homes in order to move its rails 20 feet closer to the homes. If a derailment occurs in that piece of my riding, the devastation will be unimaginable.
Therefore, what does the rail company do? It is now building a crash barrier for protection, but it will not protect the homes. The crash barrier will be between two sets of rail corridors so if a crash happens, CP freights will not damage CN and VIA rails, but nothing has been built to protect the homes. The bill should provide the minister with the power to look into this. Why are we protecting against a crash if the crash happens toward the rail corridor rather than toward the homes?
A school is right on that rail corridor. The play yard is literally five feet from the rails. When that was criticized, the rail company said that people should not build schools so close to a rail corridor. The trouble was the school was there first and the rail company just did not know that.
One cannot talk about rail safety without saying something about the deteriorating infrastructure of our railway system. My colleagues in the NDP from coast to coast see rail service being closed for safety reasons as a result of deteriorating tracks and a lack of adequate maintenance. Clearly, track maintenance is an issue in rail safety. Significant investment needs to be made in rail infrastructure across Canada, not only to improve rail safety but to continue to provide, and hopefully expand, rail service both in terms of passenger service as well as freight service.
Passenger and freight services were closed recently in the Gaspé and on Vancouver Island as a result of deteriorating rail infrastructure. These services were handed to the local authorities by the big rail companies in what was almost an unfit state. The local authorities do not have the funds to keep them up the way the rail companies did. Therefore, we need federal action to create rail safety on these and other such rail corridors.
Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate my colleague’s words. I particularly appreciate the last thing he said, when he spoke about something that is of enormous concern to people in my riding: the fact that the railway has deteriorated to the point that it no longer offers its services. The train no longer goes to Gaspé, and that is of enormous concern to us. The federal government is not stepping up to provide us with the assistance and improvements that are needed to get the railway back in service.
I would like to ask my colleague what the government could do and how the bill that is before us could be improved so there would be significant improvement in terms of the deterioration of railway services everywhere in Canada.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, the Railway Safety Act on its own would merely determine that a railroad had become unsafe, but that having been determined, I think it is incumbent upon the federal government to determine the best mechanism for reinvigorating it or making that section of rail useful again to the public
. In the case of the Gaspé and in the case of the Vancouver Island passenger rail service, both of those corridors are now owned by small local community groups. They are not owned by the big powerful rail companies, which handed them off knowing that they were in a deteriorating state. The federal government needs to assist with the maintenance of these rail corridors financially. I am not suggesting that it needs to pay all of it, but when a rail corridor is owned by small local municipalities, there needs to be a sharing of that responsibility federally, provincially and locally, and there needs to be some recognition by the government that those infrastructure improvements are for the good of Canada and for the good of those communities.
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
Mr. Speaker, in northern Ontario many communities, including the city of Sudbury, were created when the rail line came through back in the 1800s, so rail has been an important economic link for most Canadian communities right across the country from coast to coast to coast. It linked coast to coast to coast for many of us.
Now we have seen the government not investing in the infrastructure to support rail and we have seen the safety of rail service decrease. We have lost rail in northern Ontario, which could be the life hub for many to get from community to community. Passenger service has stopped because rail has become so unsafe. There is not enough infrastructure in place. I know my hon. colleague has spoken to that. I would like to hear his comments and hear what we can do to continue to make rail safe and get people using the trains once again.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a very good point that rail actually built this country in large measure and opened up cities like Sudbury. The community that I come from, Weston, owes its size and diversity in large measure to the fact that the rail corridor was encouraged to come through the town back in 1852, with the building of a huge trestle over the Humber River. That trestle is still in existence. The original brick and the original pillars at the bottom of that trestle are still there, exactly as they were placed in 1852. They just do not build them like they used to.
However, the member's point is about what the government needs to do to encourage the use of passenger and freight rail as the medium of choice for travellers. For passenger rail, the service has to be frequent, convenient, on time and reliable. That currently is not always the case.
Certainly in a place like northern Ontario, where it is difficult to get around by any other means, rail is essential. In the case of freight rail, we have to realize that it is the way we have to move. We have an undertaking to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2050; that is not going to happen unless we move a lot of our goods transport away from trucks and onto trains. The only way we are going to manage all of that is if the current government is part of the investment into our rail system in Canada.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member made a great deal of reference to communities. Because of many things that could happen as a direct result of the presence of rail lines, some of the most significant vested interest groups are the communities built around these lines.
We would argue ultimately that we have to ensure all stakeholders are involved, including the different levels of government, as well as industry as a whole in order to protect those industries.
Does the hon. member see anything in future legislation of this nature that would enable some sort of structured system that would allow for that consultation in the name of protecting our communities?
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, in the discussion leading up to this amendment to the Railway Safety Act, there were a lot of consultations with a lot of stakeholders, including community groups, transport activists, unions and other interested stakeholders, including the railroads.
That is a good sign for the government. In the minority Parliament that preceded this one there was a sense of collaboration that was necessary in order to make the bill into the best bill it could be at the time.
These bills generally get reviewed every five years; it has been six years since this review was started, so we really should have been starting the review of the bill last year. I do not know when a review will be started, but there are always improvements that can be made to safety.
There is a need for voice recorders in the cabs of all the locomotives and a need for positive train control. Those things should be a part of the government's agenda; they are not; currently, but we can certainly hope that we and the communities we are talking about will put enough pressure on the government to make this part of its agenda going forward.
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, because of its shortsighted vision of northern Ontario, the Liberal Party in Ontario is cutting back the Ontario Northland Railway, which connects a lot of northern Ontario regions to southern Ontario. It will be dismantling that railway. It will cut it off and put more buses and more transport trucks on the road.
Could the hon. member tell us how this will affect not only the communities but also the people who are using the highways in northern Ontario?
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, the demise of the Ontario Northland is something that should be prevented. The Ontario Northland is a vital part of the north's transportation infrastructure.
Northern Ontario is subject to bad weather for nine months of the year, maybe ten, and highways are just not safe. They are not the safe way to get around in northern Ontario. By getting rid of the Ontario Northland, we are removing a safe option for the transportation of people and potentially of goods. It should not close.
The Conservative government should be looking at rescuing the Ontario Northland from the ravages of the Ontario Liberal government.
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the fabulous member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.
I am happy to participate in the debate on Bill S-4. I would like to congratulate a couple of my colleagues. The first is my colleague from Western Arctic. He prefers to be called the member from the Northwest Territories rather than Western Arctic, but indeed his riding is in the western Arctic. I would also like to congratulate the member for Trinity—Spadina, who has been working on this transport file for quite some time, along with the member from the Northwest Territories. In the last Parliament she was very adroit in making sure that many of the suggestions that ended up in the bill were amendments to previous legislation to make sure we actually came forward with a transport bill that addressed the safety concerns of the passengers on VIA and the workers who have to travel on those trains. They are the locomotive engineers, the brakemen, et cetera, who deserve, especially today on International Workers' Day, the safest place to work we can make for them. It is an obligation that I think we all share.
We are pleased to see that the bill contains slightly over 80% of the things we would have like to have seen, although obviously there are a few other things that we would like to see in it.
It strikes me as ironic as I look through the history of where things were at over a number of years. A report that was called the advisory panel's final report was published. The actual title of the report was “Stronger Ties: A Shared Commitment to Railway Safety”. I thought it was quite striking to use that title of “Stronger Ties”. I was a train spotter growing up in Glasgow, and we knew more about trains than we knew about anything else. The ties lying on the railbed keep the rails firm and make sure that those rails do not come apart. It is the ties, as they call them, that hold the rails at an exact space apart and prevent the rails from being flimsy and coming apart, or the spikes from leaving and so forth. I thought this report in 2007, “Stronger Ties: A Shared Commitment to Railway Safety” was rather ironic in that it took almost five years to get us to where we needed to be in 2007.
We are looking at what has been requested from workers and from passengers, which is a safe railway system. The railway system in our country is indeed a safe system; however, as in every system, there are always things we can do to make it safer. That is what New Democrats have been pushing for, not only in this Parliament but in past Parliaments. They have been pushing to ensure that those who travel by rail have safe passage and that those who work on the rail will go to work and come home safely. As we know, there have been episodes when that did not happen.
The train that leaves my municipality in Niagara and takes itself through the Niagara Peninsula to Toronto, as was pointed out by my colleague from Trinity—Spadina, derailed just outside of Burlington. It was an absolutely tragic accident, but as my colleague pointed out, one that was preventable. If the 2007 report, “Stronger Ties”, had been implemented with the suggestions that my colleagues from Western Arctic and Trinity—Spadina had suggested, that accident might indeed never have happened. Three men might not have lost their lives and three families might not be suffering the loss of fathers, husbands, sons, uncles and brothers. They might have still been with us. Unfortunately, that is not what happened.
Therefore, in memory of those three men who lost their lives in that derailment in Burlington, we need to do everything within our capacity to ensure that it does not happen again.
The trains are perhaps being operated a little faster than they should be, so when they come to a switch and change tracks, it is a dangerous moment. Switching to a different track is hazardous, and speed is a very critical aspect.
However, there are mechanisms. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. When it comes to health and safety, we can have mechanisms that, if the train is approaching the switch too quickly, it can be automatically slowed down to ensure it makes the switch appropriately and does not come off the rail, as we saw in Burlington.
It is unfortunate that is not part of the bill but it should not stop the bill. In my view, it would not be something that would be an impediment to voting for this but it needs to be thought about in the future. We need to do this in a more comprehensive way. We may never find out what happened in that derailment because those three gentlemen are no longer with us to tell us what happened. The passengers are not sure what happened either, as they were in the carriages behind, not in the locomotive, and no one in the locomotive can tell us exactly what happened.
This is a transport system that carries large numbers of people and, in some cases, carries more people than an airplane might. However, in an airplane we have voice recorders in the cockpit to tell us what the pilot and co-pilot are saying at all times during a flight. In the case of a crash, heaven forbid but there have been some over time, we now have a voice recorder and a data recorder that can actually help us to understand what happened and, just as important, help us understand how to avoid it. That is the crux of it. If we had had a voice recorder in that locomotive in Burlington and in others that have crashed, especially when we saw loss of life and have no independent witnesses who were in control of the locomotive, we could have then pieced together exactly what happened. We would have known what they were saying at that moment or the moments leading up to it? What could they have told us to ensure that the same thing would not happen again?
That is a critically important piece of information that is missing in the safety bill, which is unfortunate. I would look to the government, hopefully, to ensure that gets done in the very near future but we do want to ensure this safety legislation gets passed. Ultimately, it is about taking people on the rail lines. As my colleagues have pointed out, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who travel by rail across this country.
I had the great privilege, when I was younger, of spending some time in the lovely city of Edmonton while at the University of Alberta. I travelled there by train. However, unbeknownst to me, being a young person who had not travelled the breadth of this country, it took 54 hours to get there, which is a remarkably long time. It is two days-plus, but that is the breadth of the country. I must admit that, although I was a student at the time and did not have one of those luxurious cabins people may have today on the train, it was a pleasurable journey travelling across this country by rail, not only because of what I saw of the country but because of the service that was committed to us as passengers on that particular rail passage.
For those of us who enjoy trains, which many of us do, when it comes to travelling by rail we have many lessons to learn from places around the world and in this country where we see light rapid rail systems, whether it is in Vancouver or in downtown Toronto.
In fact, if we look back to Niagara, where I live, in the riding of Welland, it was a number of years ago, before I was born, when people could travel by rail from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. We cannot do that today. One hundred years later and we cannot get from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario by rail. I know members will find this hard to believe but up until about six months ago people could not do it by bus either. I congratulate the Niagara region for implementing a regional bus service but we can just think if it had kept those railbeds. We could actually have taken a train from Port Colborne in my riding all the way to the riding of the hon. member for St. Catharines in the north and get from one lakehead to the other. Would it not be an amazing thing to think that we could do it, not for the first time, but again? We did it over 100 years ago.
Folks went by train to see their families if they were living in the north or the south end of the peninsula, never mind the places that my colleague from Sudbury was talking about. When one is in the north and is isolated, then rail it is. When we think about communities in the north where rail is their mode of transportation, their of getting materials and supplies in and how they move people, we need to continue to support rail, not only from a safety perspective. My friends in the Ontario legislature need to keep the Ontario Northland open because that is a crucial link to the northern part of this province. Therefore, I would send the message to Mr. McGuinty that he should keep the ONR open.
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for Welland for his wonderful and eloquent speech on rail and rail safety and the importance of rail to northern Ontario, but most important, to the country.
As I told my colleague from York South—Weston earlier, rail built this country. I once worked a summer swinging a sledgehammer for one of the large railways. I really learned what manual labour was all about when I did that. I tip my hat to the men and women who do that day in and day out.
Unfortunately, as the member said, we are losing the ONR. It is a provincial decision but we are losing the ONR in northern Ontario. We really hope the government there changes its mind and keeps the ONR open, but we have seen more and more of the small communities that are linked with rail lose that service if a foreign company does not come in and buy that rail to operate it.
We have seen the current government not invest in rail, which means the rail lines have started to deteriorate and we cannot have passenger service. Freight service is starting to disappear. Would it not be a wise idea for the government to start investing again in infrastructure like rail to ensure safety and transportation?
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague from Sudbury. It is amazing what happens when we let a rail system go. Once we decommission that particular mode of transportation to that community, it is not much longer after that the rail line is gone.
I can attest to what is happening in Niagara. There is a trail in Niagara that allows people to walk around the entire peninsula. It is a wonderful trail and a deserved trail for the residents but, unfortunately, it is on a vacant railbed. All the tracks have been pulled up and it is now a walkable trail, which is a marvellous activity for folks to do. However, if the company were to decide to reinstall the tracks, it could not as the railbed is now gone and therefore it could not be done.
My colleague talked about this sense of how communities interact and how people get back and forth. When I was in Scotland last year, my cousin asked me why I did not go to downtown Glasgow. I told him that I would drive down but he said that I should not drive but that I should take the train. He lives in East Kilbride, a community outside of Glasgow but not that far. Lo and behold, people can take the train as if it is a bus. It has about five stops along the way and within 25 minutes it arrives in downtown Glasgow. It goes back and forth every 25 minutes and it is packed with commuters. People do not need to go into a big town. That is a convenience for someone who is close to a big town.
We can just imagine what it is like for those who are further away in remote communities whose service is only rail. We need to ensure we enhance the service, not diminish the service. We need to ensure that those residents have the same attributes as those of us who live closer to big cities continue to get. That is why the ONR cannot be lost and we must keep it.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, I was interested in my hon. colleague's comments on the issue of safe rail and the importance of rail. He talked about the Ontario Northland Railway, which is a perfect example of the government ignoring the importance of rail for years, ignoring public safety and ignoring the benefits while the rest of the world is moving ahead and building railways.
I would like to ask the member what he thinks about the fact that in Ontario we have a government that is so blind that it takes a public asset, public transit, and decides that an entire region of the province just does not merit that kind of basic level of service.
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. The Ontario Northland is a critical link for folks who live in northern Ontario, just like any other rail line is when it comes to folks who live in remote areas. It is not a federal matter but it is absolutely critical that we stand up for the Ontario Northland. I know my friends from Timmins—James Bay and Sudbury will be doing that, as will we who live in the south be doing.
We need to send a message to the Premier of Ontario that he must not close the Ontario Northland. It is a crucial link for those who live in the north. That is what needs to stay and we are committed to ensuring that it does stay.
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am going to take a break from these rather technical discussions to talk a little about philosophy. I would submit that we sometimes have to look to philosophy to light our way and our common future.
We are considering a bill that deals with railway safety. The railways are inextricably connected with the building of this country. They are the key factor in the marriage of diverse regions that we call Canada.
Canadians and members of this chamber will know that any marriage that is successful is based on trust. It is the essential element of any good relationship. When one loses that element of trust, that foundation, no matter what we build on top of it, the relationship will crumble.
Many will say that we are past the days of railways and have moved on to other more flashy, more attractive means of transportation. We must not forget that railways are still a foundation of our nation and of our economy. Canadians need to trust that rail will always be there.
This bill is an important part of building Canadians' trust in our railways. I want to turn to the issue of trust in terms of the presence of rail rather than the security.
Too often, in the past, railway service has been a favourite spot for making cuts. In 1981, Prime Minister Trudeau made cuts to popular VIA Rail lines. His government reduced the operations of VIA Rail, a crown corporation, by 40%. When the Mulroney government came to power it restored the services that had been cut. However, heavy rail traffic resulted in one of the most tragic accidents in Canadian history: the collision of a VIA Rail train with a CN train in Hinton, Alberta. Twenty-three people died. That is one of the reasons behind the bill we are considering today.
Cuts were made to VIA Rail in 1989, 1994 and 2003.
Canadians love the train, but they think service is not as reliable as it should be. To restore confidence, there have to be investments and improvements in terms of administration.
I return here to the analogy of a marriage in the specifics of the bill before us. In any marriage, people make vows, usually with the intention of creating a bond that will last a lifetime. In the day to day, people make negotiations and compromises. Now the vows, negotiations and compromises do not mean very much if one of the parties does not intend on enforcing or following the rules.
That is why those provisions in Bill S-4, which touch upon enforcement, are important. Time will tell if the judicial penalties are effective. I believe it is important to pass this bill as soon as possible but I must admit to a bit of skepticism that it will solve all railway safety problems.
I believe the government's work in this area is not over and we will see in the years to come what other measures will be necessary. There are many tools in building trust so that Canadians feel safe about their railways. Mandatory voice recorders in locomotives, for instance, would be a beginning.
Another thing that would be helpful is separating out elements of budget bills so that proper debate and discussion could take place about security. Instead, the government goes on with its infantile method of putting everything into a omnibus bill and then claiming that we vote against particular provisions.
I will return once again to the marriage analogy. It is like the government is a cheating spouse and we, the opposition, who want to make this work, just want to search through the credit card records to find the hotel where our partner made a dalliance. Instead, we get flooded with all the household bills and office papers and are told that we are never supportive. It is bad faith.
The government should accept criticism where criticism is due instead of using this infantile “You voted against it” line. Canadians are intelligent. They see through this kind of politics.
As well, we have heard rumours that VIA Rail is going to be privatized. We often hear this government, and in particular the minister, proclaim that they do not interfere in the affairs of a private company. We can therefore expect this legislation to be meaningless, since it is coupled with that ideology of non-intervention in regulation of the private sector.
I am still skeptical about the effectiveness of enforcing a law like this. The government has already shown that it is powerless against the private sector. We hope it will change its mind in the case of railway safety. I would remind the minister that it is the job of government to provide services to the public, for the public welfare, and that this must be done responsibly. Sometimes the government does not believe in its own laws, as was the case with the 1988 Public Participation Act.
The minister has said before:
Railways are the backbone of our economy. As such, they are an important part of our history and our future. It is our shared responsibility to ensure they remain safe.
We in the NDP certainly agree.
I would like to conclude by talking about something important to many people in my home town of Saint-Lazare. It touches regulation directly.
Presently we do not have a mechanism which would get municipalities and rail companies to sit together and discuss issues such as vibrations caused by the speed of trains as well as a panoply of other issues. I have spoken with citizens and with rail company officials. They both tell me that they would like to see a mechanism through which dialogue could take place and that the federal government could play a role in this process. Bill S-4 does not have this provision.
These issues, the relationships between the municipalities and rail companies, directly affect the ridings of Vaudreuil-Soulanges and Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. The head of operations at VIA Rail, Mr. Marginson, indicated that there are 98 level crossings between Coteau and Ottawa.
Currently, companies are forced to contact private landowners if they wish to close a level crossing. The government must play a role to avoid the kind of conflicts and economic repercussions that are often the result of these disputes.
We all have the tools we need, but what is lacking is the political will to use them, because of this government's ideology and its belief that the state should not intervene.
I quote Mr. Cliff Mackay from the Railway Association of Canada, who said this about Bill C-33, the earlier bill:
Increased proximity between rail operations and everyday life in our communities across Canada is a risk factor that must be addressed to improve rail safety. We believe that Bill C-33 can be strengthened in this area. At the centre of these concerns involving proximity between railway lands and municipal development is the wide variation that exists across Canada with respect to land use planning regulations....Bill C-33 is silent on this issue at this time.
Unfortunately Bill S-4 remains silent on this issue as well.
We will support the bill but, as I said before, there are places where it could be improved.
Recommendation 34 that was made would require a process of consultation, which would have been an effective tool in reducing use conflicts and in turn increasing safety. Education campaigns are fine, but they rarely do the whole job.
Cliff Mackay also said:
We believe that one of the most efficient ways of improving railway safety in this area is to give the Governor in Council the power to make regulations respecting notices that should be given to railways regarding the establishment of a local plan of subdivision, or zoning by-law, or proposed amendments thereto, where the subject land is within 300 metres of a railway line or railway yard. We believe the 300 metres is a distance that makes sense from a safety point of view.
In terms of jurisdictional questions of this quote, they do it already in the air, not exact, for air infrastructure. Why not for rail? I admit maybe 300 metres is excessive. It could be less, but it was not really even discussed in a serious way, either as Bill C-33 or in its present incarnation, as Bill S-4.
For Pete's sake, all the companies were asking was that municipalities send a notice of when they were going to make changes that would fall within the area of this rail corridor. They were not even asking for any sort of decision on these questions. Those companies are forced to go to 10 provinces and 3 territories to negotiate an agreement with each one. It could be so much more simple and effective. That is what good governance means. It means the federal government takes its role seriously in bringing the country together.
In the future I hope the government will move from merely being a force for awareness of these issues to being a responsible public administrator that ensures that marriage between Canadians and their railway lines remains healthy for generations to come.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on one of the points the member made on communities. Individuals also have a role to play in the issue.
The member has made reference to the vibrations trains cause quite often in communities that, at times, can lead to foundation issues and so forth. I had the opportunity to work with residents who had contacted me when I was an MLA. Citizens can contact their elected officials and the rail lines if they feel there is an issue that is important for the community to deal with. Generally speaking, and in particular case, CP was very accommodating in listening. We responded and were able to fix the problem by putting in a buffer wall of sorts.
Therefore, citizens have a role to play in this. Would the member care to comment on that?
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Mr. Speaker, I too have had similar instances where citizens have approached me, particularly about the vibration issue. I admit that we do have recourse. I have spoken to CP several times and we have had a response.
However, I have to admit that this process for all parties, the citizen, municipality, myself and the railway company, appears to be ad hoc. There is no formal process for these claims. The railway company has its process, the municipality has its process and when we are contacted by our citizens, we have a process too. Each member in the House will have a different process.
I am talking about finding a mechanism, a formal process, where we can deal with these issues in a more efficient way rather than the ad hoc way it is done now. We do that through regulation, the idea of good governance and being a responsible public administrator.
I believe that in the future we will probably need a formalization of this process so every citizen can feel satisfied that there is a process in place that they can go through to have their concerns addressed.
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, in general the NDP supports the bill because it would improve the oversight capacity of the Department of Transport. It would strengthen the department's enforcement powers, enhance the role of safety management systems, clarify the authority and responsibility for the Minister of Transport, expand the regulation-making authority and clarify the process for the rule making by railroad companies. These are good reasons to support the bill.
If there were ways to improve the bill, could the member tell me what would they be?
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Mr. Speaker, I do not want to give the impression that I do not support the bill. It has been in the House for a long period of time. I believe other members have mentioned that the review process for a bill is about five years and this bill has been before the House in different incarnations for more than five years.
One of the things that was brought up at committee when the bill was known as Bill C-33, as I had mentioned to the member for Winnipeg North, was asking municipalities to give a formal notice to railway companies of any changes in land use planning in a set corridor. This would avoid a lot of the problems that are created when developments happen next to railway lines.
My area is primarily agricultural. In the process of change, certain areas go through rezoning and where farms were next to the railway, condo developments sometimes get built. However, the people who move into these condos all of a sudden complain about train noise and things like that. This could be nipped in the bud if there were a formalization of the process where a municipality would give notice to railway companies to say that it intended to make changes in land use.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.
I am pleased to rise in the House to share my support, along with so many of my colleagues in the NDP, for Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act.
This bill seeks to amend the Railway Safety Act in order to improve the Department of Transport's oversight capacity by requiring that railway companies obtain a safety–based railway operating certificate indicating compliance with regulatory requirements.
The bill strengthens the department's enforcement powers by introducing administrative monetary penalties and increasing fines.
The bill also enhances the role of safety management systems by providing for the identification of an executive who is legally responsible for safety and for protecting railway company employees who voice serious safety concerns against reprisals.
The bill also clarifies the authority and responsibilities of the Department of Transport with respect to railway matters, expands regulation-making powers, and clarifies the process for rule making by railway companies.
As my NDP colleagues have said, it is clearly a positive and long-awaited bill. I know that in the last Parliament, my NDP colleagues, the critics and those who are very familiar with the railway industry file fought hard not only to improve safety, but to urge the government to act in order to develop a safer rail transportation system for all Canadians.
As I noted, we in the NDP support the bill, but we also wish these changes had been implemented before and that there was a real understanding of the sense of urgency to ensure rail safety in our country.
In discussing the well-being of rail transport, the safety aspect is critical and we must act on it, but that is only one side of the coin. While we have seen the government hesitate and delay when it comes to making these critical implementations, it has actually acted in a way that serves to weaken our rail system.
VIA Rail funding is being cut by almost $200 million, as indicated in the last budget, something that I and my colleagues in the NDP believe is a crying shame. We all know how critical rail transport is to our country, to ensure our urban areas and our rural communities stay connected. We know how critical the maintenance of the rail line is when it comes to not just transporting people but also goods across our country. As we see VIA Rail, an institution that belong to Canadians, an institution we are proud of, receive such major cuts in funding, the only thing we can conclude is there will be a reduction in both services and quality of services.
This is not the first time this has happened. Unfortunately, in recent decades federal governments, the Liberal government previously, and now the Conservative government, have turned a blind eye to rail service in Canada. I know this well from the region of the country that I come from, having been born and raised in Thompson, Manitoba. Many people notice that on VIA Rail map the only line that goes straight north in the west is the one that reaches up to Churchill, and it goes through my hometown of Thompson.
We know that years ago, when the Liberals privatized the line, it had already needed repair for some time. Of course, we were hoping the government would do the right thing and invest our own taxpayers' money to fix such a critical link between our communities. In fact, it chose to privatize it, sell it out to an American company, a company that has taken far too long to make the kinds of commitments to maintenance required on the track.
There have been some signs of hope with respect to the work of this company. Federal and provincial partnerships have supported the work along the way. At the end of the day, the fact that the government privatized this line leaves it out of our hands. What that essentially means is a reduction in the quality and dependability of service for people in a part of the country who do not have more choices than to use the rail service.
I am honoured to represent people who live and work on the bay line in communities like Ilford, Thicket Portage, Pikwitonei, War Lake First Nation, which are between Thompson and Gillam, and on to Churchill, and actually have no all-weather roads. People in these four communities I just mentioned depend entirely on the rail service for getting back and forth to medical appointments, making sure they have foods coming into their communities and making sure they can bring in materials to build homes and infrastructure in their communities.
This is no small issue. This is the only link for these communities. It is deeply disturbing to see the way in which the government has turned its attention away from communities, not just in my riding but in rural Canada in general, when it comes to rail service.
I would like to note there are a number of other communities I represent in northern Manitoba that are also isolated. I have heard from many people, whether they are in Oxford House, Garden Hill or Berens River. I have heard from elders who know what it was like for communities that were isolated to receive the rail line. These communities that are still isolated are asking what some of the options are, so they can have year-round sustainable transportation, something like a rail service.
I have to say that in many cases they have lost hope, given the government's reluctance to come to a solution with respect to the needs they have for transportation. Fortunately, we have a provincial government that has stepped in and made a real commitment in partnering, especially with the southern first nations for the time being, in building an all-weather road. However, the same cannot be said for the federal government in building sustainable transportation. Fundamentally, as the federal Conservative government pulls away from rail transportation in rural Canada, it is pulling away from the quality of life rural Canadians ought to have.
When we speak of something like VIA, community owned railways or producer cars that communities may own as well, these are things that belong to all of us. What we are saying is the federal government should be there to work with communities, our urban centres and everybody around the table to ensure we have a dependable rail service, quality rail service and safe rail service.
I would like to point out that whether it is on its actions on the Wheat Board or its continued effort to cut away from the basic services rural Canadians need, the government is turning its back on rural Canadians, many Canadians who see rail as the way to the future.
I would say in closing that I am proud of the work our party does to stand up for not just rail safety but rail service in general. I hope we can send the message loud and clear that when it comes to representing rural Canada and Canadians who believe in rail service, we in the NDP are the ones doing it.
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member believes in rail safety so much that her party voted against every major investment our government has made in rail safety. If the NDP did not think our budget this time around got the job done, it not offer a single amendment in that direction.
I hope the member opposite is not suggesting for a moment that VIA is somehow unsafe. It got a four out of five ranking in an independent panel study, which looked into rail safety in Canada, for having a very highly integrated safety culture. We made record investments in the stimulus period to help it renew its fleet. The member voted against that, by the way.
The member knows full well that, with the completion of the stimulus projects, it requires less money being sent to VIA than in the last two budgets. That is not a cut; that is the end of stimulus.
I would like to ask the member, if this bill needed more for rail safety or needed to be improved, why is it that her colleague sitting over shoulder, the vice-chair of the committee, gave consent along with all the other NDP members to pass this bill in its entirety in less than 10 minutes with not a single amendment. Let the member explain that one.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Mr. Speaker, I wish the member across would show the same kind of passion when it came to actually standing up and investing in rail service in our country in a meaningful way.
There was a $200 million cut to VIA Rail, and yet the member across claims to be a champion for rail service. I know the government is averse to facts, but that is exactly what we are seeing here.
Let us take the case of rural Canada, for example. Coming from western Canada and having had the chance to sit down with so many people who live across the Prairies, I see a real concern about what the government is doing in terms of cutting back on rail service, the impact of the dismantling of the Wheat Board on short-line rail, producer cars and the breaking down of linkages that rural communities depend on.
I would like to see the member turn to his colleagues and show that same kind of fervour in convincing them to invest in the rail service we all believe in.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments on what I want to focus some attention on. The member represents the Churchill area. It is an area in which I have had opportunity to raise, on a number of occasions, concerns in regard to the rail line and the impact, such as on the Wheat Board and so forth. We have talked about economic development with the rail lines, and how important that is.
My question is on something that I had asked a previous member of her party, and that was in regard to the New Democratic Party's position or policy with regard to the nationalization of our railway. What is the position of the New Democrats? Do they see that as something they are in favour of? If the member would not mind answering, I would really appreciate it.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring my colleague's attention back to what we are discussing here today.
The member mentioned my riding in his question, and I appreciate that. The more attention to Churchill, the better. Unfortunately Churchill is going through some very difficult times as a result of the government's dismantling of the Wheat Board and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's insulting commitment of $25 million to hopefully inspire grain companies to ship through Churchill, something that is a complete farce.
What I would say is that I am proud that our party has always stood for public services and ensuring that when we have something like VIA Rail, a crown corporation that we believe in, we recognize that it is there to be invested in to the benefit of all Canadians. The threat of privatization under the government is a very real one. Unfortunately the Liberals got the ball rolling on that one in a big way. We have seen the impacts, a decreased quality of life in many parts of rural Canada and an unwillingness of young Canadians to move to or move back to rural Canada.
What we are saying is that the way to do it is to stand up for a critical service in all ways, safety and funding. I am proud we are doing that.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act, be read the third time and passed.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is always a great honour to rise in this House and speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay, a region that exists because of the railway.
It is also important to talk about this bill on safer railways at a time when we have so many issues facing railways in Canada. It is clear that if we look at the simple test for whether government has vision, whether government understands the issue of infrastructure, whether government has a forward-looking vision, we look no further than rail. Rail has been the kicking dog of Liberal and Conservative governments looking to squeeze it, to undermine it, to so-called privatize it, and we have seen a continuing loss of service while the rest of the world moves forward with smart high-speed rail.
Just this past February, when the VIA Rail train derailed at Burlington, we had three people killed and 42 passengers injured. We see the $200 million in cuts that are coming to VIA Rail now under the Conservatives. We see the undermining of rail links in important jurisdictions across rural Canada like Churchill, Manitoba. We see the government's complete lack of interest in the importance of a high-speed rail corridor that would connect Windsor to Quebec City through our densest populations and allow people who are pretty much trapped because of the density of traffic in the suburban regions of this country to be able to move at a reasonable rate.
However, nowhere do we see it more than in the deliberate dismantling of the Ontario Northland railway by a government that, if we look up “myopic” in the dictionary, there Dalton McGuinty would be. Let us talk about the Ontario Northland as an example of the failure of federal and provincial governments to address railway services. I know he is a good friend of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but I hope the Minister of Foreign Affairs does not mind my castigating his friend in the House of Commons.
The story of the Ontario Northland is interesting because at the turn of the last century Queen's Park had zero interest in the land that was north of the French River. It did not have any desire to spend a dime on it until it found out that Father Paradis and the Oblates were bringing francophone settlers over Lake Timiskaming to settle into Ontario and suddenly the good Orange Protestant burghers of Queen's Park were outraged. They had to find a way to get anglophones up into land that was being settled by francophones. That was the only time they ever wanted to spend money in northern Ontario. So they decided they would push a rail line north of Lake Timiskaming.
However, as the workers were getting to Lake Timiskaming, at mile 103, they hit the largest silver deposits that had ever been found there. They were found by railwaymen, Fred Larose, Mr. McKinley and Mr. Darragh. Suddenly Queen's Park thought that maybe there was a use to northern Ontario and that it would go up and find all the resources it could and take them out. That has been pretty much the colonial relationship between northern Ontario and southern Ontario ever since.
It transformed the economy of Ontario, in particular Toronto. Toronto was a sleepy backwater at the time of the silver rush in Cobalt. However, so much investment money was coming in from the United States and from London that they needed a place to set up, so they set up in Toronto because the train line got them within six hours of the biggest rush since the Klondike. That ease of access on the train transformed economic development, so Toronto established itself and it still has that claim today as the largest centre for international capital for mining exploration in the world. That started from that rail line.
Out of Cobalt, the prospectors went north. They went to Val d'Or in the east and as far as Red Lake in the west because they knew there was a value to the land. So the Ontario Northland railway was set up as a development corridor and all the communities were built along that.
Now fast forward 100 years and the Ontario Northland still plays that important role. It is not just with trains, not just with buses. We have the role of telecommunications to isolated small communities that would otherwise pay exorbitant rates so they are now under Ontario.
A few weeks ago, we had a flood in Fort Albany up on the James Bay coast and the flood separated the community from the mainland. People were contacting me and saying they had run out of food. They needed to get food up there, so we spoke with the Cochrane food bank and we managed to secure 1,200 pounds of food to get into Fort Albany, and we did that through my office.
The question then was how to get 1,200 pounds of food to Fort Albany in the middle of the flood crisis. We called Ontario Northland and said, “We need you to move 1,200 pounds of freight to help this community in need”. Ontario Northland said, “Get it to the freight yard in Cochrane tomorrow. We will get it to Moosonee. That is the end of the rail line; from there, you figure out how to get there”. We managed to work with Air Creebec and we got it in.
When we asked Ontario Northland, it was not even a question of whether they would get paid to help one of our communities in northern Ontario. They did it as a public service because they are there for the public. I want to commend the excellent work that Ontario Northland did in that situation, as they have done time and time again in the past.
The rail plays an important role, and it is fascinating that the Liberal government in Ontario has decided that public transit is something it does not invest in if it is rural public transit, that it is not right to subsidize public transit if rural people use public transit. In an urban area it is implicitly understood that there will be some kind of support, because public transit is not about making profit, it is about offering a public service.
We see the McGuinty government exaggerate the numbers. Every time there is an investment in the Ontario Northland, it claims that is a subsidy. How could anybody run a province if they figured that every time they had to make an investment, they were somehow subsidizing the province, subsidizing the people? The fact is that this is an investment, just like highways. Governments never say they are subsidizing the highways.
However, work needs to be done to ensure safe corridors, because we have had accidents on the Ontario Northland railway. South of Temagami about 12 years ago, acid tankers overturned. We need to invest just as we need to invest in roads, yet there seems to be a double standard that says it is okay to invest in highways—even though there is not much investing in highways in northern Ontario—but it is not okay to invest in freight.
In northern Ontario, on the Ontario Northland Railway, we are moving thousands of tonnes of freight a day and we are moving passengers. It plays a unique role. Beside that, we have two-lane traffic running through some of the roughest rock cuts in Canada, and it happens to be the Trans-Canada Highway. It is the trucker route across Canada. In January, I do not know how many times I have sat at North Bay, unable to go north because some poor driver has hit a rock cut or hit passengers, yet beside it we have a perfectly safe rail system
The government's solution is that it will save a few bucks somehow along the way by getting rid of that rail service and putting the freight and the passengers onto the two-lane ribbon of moose pasture that runs through northern Ontario. Somehow that will be more efficient.
Perhaps most galling was Mr. McGuinty's assistant in northern Ontario, Rick the anti-minister of northern Ontario Bartolucci. Their explanation is that the reason they are cutting out the development corridor and allowing it to be cherry-picked by the private sector, who will take this or that but leave the rest to fall apart, is that they will reinvest it in health care.
Northern Ontarians has seen a lot of dubious mining deals over the years. They are not saps and they know that people in Kirkland Lake, Cochrane, Iroquois Falls, Timmins, New Liskeard, Englehart or North Bay who are getting cancer treatments have to go down on the train to get medical services. I do not know how many families I have seen on the Ontario Northlander with a sick child going down to SickKids for cancer treatment. They can travel on the train because it is at least comfortable for the family.
Dalton McGuinty tells us, “Do not worry. We are going to put those sick kids on a bus, and you are going to get better service.”
People in the north know better. They remember how just last year the ONTC—and I do not blame it for this, because it was getting no support for offering public transit in the north—was actually trying to save money by excluding going into some of the most major communities on the route because the ONTC does not have enough money to serve the public.
When we talk about development of the rail lines and talk about safety, it is about an investment. It is fascinating that the McGuinty government is looking to rip up the rails and ditch the Northern Ontario Development Corporation at a time when the Ring of Fire is about to be developed.
The Ring of Fire will be the largest mining development perhaps in the last half century, perhaps in the last century. The fundamental question is this. Getting access to this ore comes from rail, so if they are going to rip up the lines and get rid of the development corridor, is this all about a plan to take unprocessed ore and ship it off by truck to China?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words in regard to the member's comments.
The hon. member seems to focus his attention on the Ontario Liberal government. The NDP in the province of Manitoba, I can assure the member, has no better an approach at dealing with rail line abandonment or improving rail line services to people who live in northern Manitoba.
One could talk about the impact of the Wheat Board on the community of Churchill, which is dependent on the rail line. The NDP Government of Manitoba was truly quiet on it.
I think it is important to recognize that all three levels of government have a role to play in rail line safety. That means there needs to be co-operation from the federal government, provincial governments and municipal governments in order to deliver better, safer rail line services. That is what this bill is all about.
I wonder if the member can comment on how important it is for governments to work together in order to provide better-quality rail line service across the country.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to invite my hon. colleague to Liberal Ontario. He would probably go back and sing the praises of the New Democratic government in Manitoba, because if one has lived under Dalton, it is something that my hon. colleague across the way would agree with.
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
That's true. Never have I heard something more truthful.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to make this an issue of partisanship. This is not about being partisan. This is about the facts, and the fact is that at the provincial level we are dealing with a myopic government that does not understand the need for investing in infrastructure. It thinks it can just walk away and infrastructure will magically take care of itself. Its real message is that it figures it can just walk away from it and the people of northern Ontario will just shut up and take it, just as they are supposed to take it every time Queen's Park pulls out another service.
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. He certainly represents his riding quite well. I am sure his constituents are quite happy with the member.
The member referred to “Rick the anti-minister of northern Ontario Bartolucci”. He made the announcement about the cuts to Ontario Northland hundreds of kilometres away from Ontario Northland's headquarters. He made the announcement in Sudbury instead of North Bay.
Why does my colleague think this minister would make such an important announcement so far away from the headquarters of Ontario Northland?
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
Order. Before I go to the member for Timmins—James Bay, I would like to remind all hon. members that the matter before the House is Bill S-4, which deals with certain matters. I would encourage all hon. members to make their comments relevant to that, and the questions as well.
The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, thank you for that excellent intervention, because we are talking about rail safety, which means fundamental investment in order to ensure safety.
I do not want to talk about whether Mr. Bartolucci has invested in safety or not. I like the man; Rick is a good guy. However, he would not even come into the communities that are affected and are worried about rail safety.
I would invite Rick Bartolucci to come with me to North Bay, Englehart or especially Cochrane to see how well the McGuinty lack of investment in northern Ontario is going down.
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Southwest.
I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this matter as the NDP critic for high-speed rail between Quebec City and Windsor. The dream is eventually to connect with Detroit and Chicago. Rail provides our future with an incredible opportunity, and I will come back to that in a minute.
I want to note a number of important things with respect to Bill S-4 that are important in terms of jurisdictional changes in updating and modernizing the act. These changes are important not only in terms of Canada's overall economy but also in how they relate to people in our constituencies.
In relation to a rail issue taking place with CP right now, I would like to thank Mary Reaume and Mary Kavanaugh in Windsor. I am pleased as well to note Robert Taylor and Randy Marsh from CP and councillor Allan Hoberstadt and staff person Ian Bawden. These individuals have agreed to meet to work on a rail noise, vibration and flooding issue.
I would like to talk a little about that, because modernizing the act would provide a little more accountability, and hopefully more co-operation will take place with respect to rail issues.
We were able to get funding from the Let's Get Windsor-Essex Moving fund to separate a grade on Howard Avenue in Windsor. This is a fund for border infrastructure improvements. It is a very busy area, and there were a lot of issues with regard to pedestrians and with trucks and cars backing up.
A proper process was not in place or it was missed somehow in the planning process, and residents suffered repercussions when the grade separation took place. Consequently, residents living behind on Memorial Drive have been subjected to flooding, noise, vibration changes—a whole series of things. They have submitted a petition asking for a panel to look into this. I would like to thank those residents for their patience. Perhaps we can identify this with a meeting coming up.
It is important to note that rail was the birth of the country in many respects and is still important daily to our constituents. Companies need to be held accountable and changes have to take place.
We are going to see the macroeconomics of the importance of rail in the future with the opening of the Panama Canal. A lot of goods will be coming in through the Port of Montreal and Halifax. It is anticipated that a lot of these goods will be shipped on the rail system as we transfer them into the midwestern United States. That country does not have deep enough ports, and the ports are not as attractive as what we have on the east coast.
The safer railways act review is really important. I was a former transport critic, and we held many hearings at committee and looked at everything on this issue from safety management systems to the necessary infrastructure requirements. We have the romantic notion of rail being part of our past, but it is really going to be much more for our future.
It is important to note high-speed rail as well. The Railway Safety Act would modernize some of the issues with respect to high-speed rail, and that would be very important.
We all heard about how the recent tragic VIA incident took place. I wish to send my condolences to the families and to those who were injured.
The rest of the world is moving forward with investments in high-speed rail. Many G8 countries are doing that. Canada is the only G8 country that does not have high-speed rail. We are the only ones who have been left out of the equation. Modernizing the act is important, but at the same time we need funding allocation.
I have been working on the Quebec City to Chicago run. Last year I went to Michigan and met with officials of a department there. I wrote a letter to Kirk Steudle of the Michigan Department of Transportation inquiring about what is happening on the American side, because tens of millions of people live along the Quebec City-Chicago corridor. This would provide us with an opportunity for great urban planning as well as for improving the environment and bettering our economy.
I asked Mr. Steudle what his department is doing. He replied that improvements are being made that would eliminate a series of choke points, thereby relieving congestion and resulting in an increase in speed to a maximum of 110 miles per hour. The long-term vision also includes doubling the number of daily round trips in the Detroit-Chicago corridor.
There are rail tunnels that connect Canada and the United States. There are two in Windsor. We did have passenger rail between the United States and Canada through this corridor in the past. However, it stopped in the 1930s. We still have that infrastructure today available to us. It is exciting that the tunnel for passenger rail service is available again.
Improvements include: the Kalamazoo - Dearborn Service Development, for $200 million; the Ann Arbor Station Project; and the Midwest Corridor Regional Equipment Pool, where another $268.2 million was awarded to purchase 48 more passenger rail cars.
I want to quote Kirk Steudle, who was appointed director of the Department of Transportation for the state of Michigan. He states:
It is our understanding that the investments being made in high speed rail service in Michigan will prompt similar projects and studies in Canada, which would allow expansion of the high speed corridor from Chicago-Montreal. Improved and expanded service along this corridor will enhance our economic competitiveness,promote energy and environmental efficiency, and support interconnected communities by providing a more reliable passenger rail service.
MDOT looks forward to working closely with you to bring new investment to our region.
Sadly, I have seen the department of transportation on this side cut $200 million from VIA Rail. The United States is going in exactly the opposite direction. It sees the merit of this project. It is open to it and wants to connect to this corridor. It sees the bigger vision. Imagine, we could have Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and maybe eventually extend the improvements to Ottawa. We could have good passenger rail service around this corridor. This would be an economic investment that is critical at this point in time.
I proposed what I think is a modest strategy similar to the Detroit corridor. The Minister of Transport could convene a special working group. It has been done before with the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council. I think it is important to lay out the strategy behind this. The CAPC model not only brought in the auto manufacturers, it also brought in the union, the dealers, the parts people, the tool and die/mould makers, the entire automotive chain. The CAPC laid out a business plan and a measurement system for how to deal with our auto sector.
Sadly, the government has not convened a major meeting of this kind in two or three or four years. It has only had some executive meetings. It is sad because that is a model that I could envision. I was hoping the minister would take that up and would bring in the cities.
I have had a chance to meet with Mayor Fontana of London. He is interested. The mayor of Quebec City is interested. The mayor of Windsor has been supportive. A number of municipalities would provide opportunity and guidance with regard to this project. Then, on top of that, we would have the railways, CP Rail, CN Rail and VIA Rail, and other groups that could look at the overall business plan with regard to passenger rail and rail issues. They could look at the things that are preventing some of the improvements from taking place, and get them out of the way.
The goal is, and this is what they are doing in Michigan, to improve the overall line. It is really critical to eliminate some of those things, whether they be separation grades or improvements to the lines so they can go faster. Michigan is buying some lines, and those municipalities will know the problems and weak spots. It would be very important for us to get them together and look at the costs and how we make the improvements. That would be a positive way to approach things.
Once I conclude, I really hope that the government and the minister rethink their decision and take advantage of this opportunity for economic development and environmental development along the corridor with Michigan. That would be a real benefit to all of us. It would be an economic issue championed by municipalities, the province and the federal government.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member talked about looking at rapid transit and the potential of rapid transit in many of our municipalities. He highlighted one area where there is a great deal of support to move ahead and look at the possibilities, such as feasibility studies.
The bottom line is that for many of the municipalities we are talking about in that Toronto corridor, there is great merit.
I would ask the member, when looking at rail line safety, to look at the whole concept of a high-speed corridor. It is something that, ultimately, could even be incorporated into future amendments. We want to ensure that it is done in such a way that it preserves the integrity and safety of rail lines.
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Mr. Speaker, I agree, I think it can be. However, I think it becomes a larger issue. When looking at that corridor and high-speed rail, we could also be protecting, for example, farmland and other types of areas where there is urban sprawl. We would have development along the corridor through strong urban planning. It would become a natural attraction to live and work along the corridor, and use the corridor. For example, we can look at how many people now commute from Kitchener to Toronto.
Improving our rail safety, whether through the act or improvements for VIA passenger rail, would also improve our capabilities to protect our other infrastructure, such as the 400 highway system which gets pounded by excessive car and truck traffic. I would look to see the benefits there as well.
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member opposite's intervention about high-speed rail. However, since Bill S-4 is about a safer railways act, I wonder if the member has any comments on the requirement for a rail operating certificate.
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River, Pensions; the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, Asbestos; the hon. member for Davenport, Housing.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest.
Dan Harris NDP Scarborough Southwest, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his tireless leadership on the rail issue, his involvement in the rail caucus and everything he does to try to improve rail and rail safety in the country.
It is certainly a shock that today a country as vast as Canada still does not have a high-speed rail link. We are even having trouble speaking about a higher speed rail, which would involve getting rid of level crossings in some of the corridors. This would help to improve rail safety.
With its far-flung population centres and vast land mass, Canada is unique in its geography. As such, our railways have always been an integral part of how we connect with each other across this massive country. Railways are not just a means of transportation, they tie us together at a much deeper level, as many of the speeches today have done, in particular, the member for Timmins—James Bay's speech just a while ago.
I know a great number of members in the House, myself included, rely on VIA Rail as a means to getting to and from our constituencies. In just the one year since I was elected I have already travelled over 25,000 kilometres on our rail network.
Railways are used every single day by thousands of people and it has been this way for hundreds of years now. The benefit of railways are clear. Trains are substantially more fuel efficient than motor vehicles when it comes to moving passengers, and especially cargo, over great distances. Of course, by potentially electrifying rail lines, greenhouse gas emissions could also be reduced in the coming years.
Despite the shortcomings of safety regulations, travelling by train is still roughly five times safer than using a car. It is still the main mode of transportation for Canadian goods. With 70% of all freight in our country shipped by rail, it is literally the backbone of our economy. Every interruption to our rail network comes at great cost to our economy. Rail lines provide crucial links to our biggest trade partner, the United States, and of course also connect to our ports in Halifax, Vancouver and Churchill, to provide access to important overseas markets for Canadian companies.
In large urban centres, commuting by rail is a vital component of our public transit networks, helping to get millions of Canadians to their workplaces every single day. VIA Rail connects to our country's most vibrant cities, carrying more than four million passengers a year. It could do a lot more with more government support.
The Railway Safety Act was implemented in 1989. It sets out a regulatory framework to address, for railways under federal jurisdiction, matters of safety, security and environmental impact. Transport Canada has noted that the Canadian rail industry has changed significantly since the act was amended in 1999. Operations have become increasingly complex and traffic is growing rapidly.
The department points out that in February 2007, the minister of transport, infrastructure and communities launched a full review of the operation and efficiency of the Railway Safety Act through an independent advisory panel. According to the department, the findings indicated that although the Railway Safety Act is fundamentally sound and efforts have been made to improve rail safety, more certainly needs to be done. The advisory panel's final report, Stronger Ties - A Shared Commitment to Railway Safety, published in November 2007, included 56 recommendations for the improvement of rail safety, some of which require further legislative changes to the Railway Safety Act. Then in 2008, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities issued its own report, which included an additional 14 recommendations.
On February 26, 2012, a VIA Rail train derailed in Burlington, Ontario, killing three VIA employees and injuring 42 passengers. We are still in the early stages of investigation but the indications would seem to suggest that speed and a lack of signals inside the train may have played a role. The crash reinforced what the NDP has long said, that although railways in Canada are relatively safe, tragic accidents can and do still occur. These preventable accidents should be avoided at all costs.
The federal government has a key role to play in the effort to make train travel safer. Federal initiatives, like Bill S-4, would go a long way toward making train travel safer for passengers and rail employees. However, other initiatives, like the NDP's call for positive train control and calls for the Conservatives to reverse their cuts to VIA Rail and transport safety programs, including rail safety, would also help to create a safer rail system.
While we applaud the eventual passage of Bill S-4, it is unacceptable that the bill and the important provisions it contains has taken so long. Now more than ever we need to see these changes realized. The NDP welcomes the bill and we see it as a step forward for Canada's rail safety. However, it is time for the Conservative government to take action and satisfy the long-standing demands from the independent experts at the Transportation Safety Board. More talk is not what we need. Action is what we want.
By the time the bill is passed, it will have been five years since the recommendations of those experts were first published. That is too long when making changes where safety is concerned. Canadians are demanding that we make the railway safer and we are more than happy to oblige.
We are happy to see the bill before the House, but it is a pity that it has not been a priority of the Conservative government, the government that likes to boast that it is the champion of the safety of Canadians. Let it try to say that to the families and victims of the derailment in Burlington, or to the families who lost their homes in St-Charles-de-Bellechasse in 2010.
The safety of Canadians is important. The bill is needed for railway workers, passengers on the trains and people who live near railway lines. It is also important to our economy, as I said before. Every disruption to the rail network potentially affects millions of dollars worth of goods and time.
The government likes to advocate for smaller government and for getting the government out of everyone's business. Large oil companies and their employees, the shippers that use the rail lines, citizens who live near the railways and passengers who travel by train would all disagree. They understand that government does have a role to play. It has a role to play as a regulator and protector to ensure the safety of all Canadians. It is a shame that it has taken the Conservative government so long to provide this measure that would ensure safety is enhanced, and it could go further.
Unfortunately, in the ideological zeal of the government, safety and well-being are often left to free market forces to decide. The government expects industry to regulate itself, but that rarely happens and so unnecessary accidents and tragedies occur.
I would like to now focus on some propositions we have made since the bill was introduced.
The first proposition from our party is that the government should not cut safety from its budget. The upcoming budget would cut money that could go toward safety. The parliamentary secretary mentioned that the amount of money spent on something should not be the measure of its effectiveness. Yet the people who enforce safety regulations and who have developed new safety systems need to be paid. They need to be remunerated for their work and it is not work that anybody can do. It takes experts to do this work. We cannot shortchange them. Nor can we cut corners in this area. When corners are cut on safety, we see the results. People who work in the transportation sector say that it jeopardizes safety. The government cannot say it defends safety on the one hand and then cut safety with the other.
We also ask that the proposed cuts of $200 million to VIA Rail be reversed. VIA Rail has challenges and it needs to implement certain systems.
The NDP would like positive train control implemented in Canada. It was done in the United States. In California there was a tragic accident in 2008 and the leaders decided that positive train control should become part of the system. There are positive benefits to implementing it. Yes, it is costly, but there are companies in Canada that contribute to this technology. Therefore, investing in this technology to improve safety would also be an investment in our economy. It would stimulate the innovators who contribute to positive train control and other technologies that make our railways safer.
We would also like to see voice recorders in locomotives. This would help to find out what happened when things went wrong. When there is an accident, it is in the interest of everyone to find out the full story of what happened so things can be improved in the future.
We must always be vigilant in working to ensure that we never take our hands off and that we are always working to ensure that life becomes safer for Canadians as they travel, going about doing their business and contributing to the economy.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member brings up a good point in terms of how frequent we should be looking at railway safety and bringing in legislation necessary to make changes. The last time it was done, prior to this bill, which is yet to pass, would have been during Jean Chrétien's era back in 1999. A great deal has changed since then.
The Conservatives have dropped the ball. Given the type of support that the bill has received, there is no reason why this legislation did not get passed years ago. Many of the measures being proposed were in fact known and well-established even a few years ago.
How often should the bill be reviewed? Should it be reviewed every four or five years? Does the member have any thoughts on that?
Dan Harris NDP Scarborough Southwest, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that it had taken a little while. As I said in my speech, it has taken five years from the time the recommendations came out to the point we are now with this bill. With the support from all sides, one wonders if it could have passed in a minority Parliament that existed for the last several years, and I think it would have. It probably would have been one of those bills that all sides of the House could have looked to proudly and said, “This is how minority governments work when we work together”. Unfortunately it was not a priority for the government and it did not happen.
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, this bill was in the last Parliament and I will point out that the NDP did not have much zeal to pass the bill at that particular time, but it did have zeal to cause an election that caused the bill to die.
To the issue of voice recorders, and I know the member has raised the issue, unions have been clear that they have some difficulties with the idea of voice recorder technology being implemented on trains precisely because the issue has not been settled at this point about who would have access to the voice recorders. The point is well taken that voice recorders can have some positive impact.
However, is the member suggesting that the government should make a decision that the other partners in rail safety, the unions and the companies, have not arrived at a solution on yet? Is he suggesting the government should move ahead with that right now and mandate the technology, or should he wait until the working group has first resolved that issue so the government can then move ahead on it?
Dan Harris NDP Scarborough Southwest, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would suggest the government take a vastly different approach than it is taking with practically every other labour issue that has come up since the Conservatives were elected in May 2011. We look at the workers at Canada Post and at Air Canada. The government shows absolutely no respect for labour and for labour agreements that have been negotiated. Therefore, we would say that the negotiations have to take place, we have to treat all of the stakeholders and parties with respect and come to an agreement on the issue.
We have voice recorders in airplanes. We can certainly implement them in a way that respects all sides and where that information would only be used in the strictest of circumstances, and privacy laws would apply.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act, be read the third time and passed.
Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Mr. Speaker, thank you for your intervention, which I found very fair.
With respect to Bill S-4 and rail safety in Canada, this bill is certainly of interest to my constituents. We have a railway that is over 100 years old. It has an unusual history that I will share with my colleagues in a moment or two.
On the one hand, the government says that it wants to improve rail safety in Canada, but on the other, it wants to privatize Canadian railways. I do not know how the government can square those two objectives without considering the fact that Canadians railways have been neglected and have deteriorated to the point that rail service to some of the regions has been cancelled.
We have been waiting quite some time for a bill of this scope that can improve rail safety. However, we must also work together to ensure that our railways do not deteriorate. A railway's safety cannot be assured if the rail line itself has deteriorated to the point where trains can no longer travel on it.
In Canada, for instance, two railways have deteriorated to such an extent that trains no longer use them. I am referring to the Malahat railway on Vancouver Island and the Baie-des-Chaleurs railway, which no longer travel on the rail lines. This is precisely because the railways were left to deteriorate to the point where passenger safety could no longer be guaranteed and commercial goods could no longer be transported on these rail lines.
Some communities are now in a precarious situation because they depended on the railway, the tourism it created and the goods it transported. These communities no longer have access to the railway because the government drags its heels when it comes time to ensure the safety of the railway. The communities affected by these deteriorations are now in dire straits. They are no longer able to do what the Conservative government is proposing that they do and that is to take over. Remote communities are told not to worry because they can restore the railway themselves. There are also told that legislation will be passed once they have finished restoring the railway.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I forgot to mention at the beginning of my speech that I would be sharing my time with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, if I may.
The bill the Senate is proposing today on improving the safety of our railway is meaningless if the railway has deteriorated and the means are not in place to restore it. By the way, I am a little disappointed in everything the Senate proposes, regardless of the bill, but that is another issue.
The Conservatives would have us believe that privatization is the answer to just about all Canada's problems, but this privatization will not work.
In the Gaspé, a consulting firm was hired to assess the condition of our railway and to determine what it would take to restore it. The cost of upgrading our railway was estimated to be $93 million. The government is saying that the municipalities in the Gaspé are supposed to find $93 million to repair their railway. That does not work. They cannot do it.
Furthermore, the government sold them on a project in 2006 when it told them that their section of the railway would be privatized, the ownership transferred to the municipalities and a co-operative of municipalities would be created and would be responsible for the work to be done. At the time, CN and its allies did not conduct a real assessment of the government's needs and trotted out any old figure.
They said it would cost $19 million to restore our railway. That was not the case. Today, five years later, we see that $93 million is required. There is a $73 million deficit to make up in order to restore our railway. We asked the Conservatives whether they were prepared to help us improve our railway, and the answer we got was total silence. We got no answer.
The communities in the Gaspé, and it is apparently the same on Vancouver Island, depend on their railway. It is a job creator and a wealth generator. It is worth a lot more than the $93 million that has to be found in order to restore it. It creates jobs and it means that tourists can come to our region and spend money. It makes it possible for new businesses to set up and have a safe and effective shipping service. But we do not have the money to restore it.
We want to get serious and enact a bill that says safety is the primary concern. Safety is important, but people still have to be able to use the railway. But it has closed down. I am very happy for this bill to be passed, but the railways outside the major centres are going to be left behind, and that is not going to change. They are going to continue to deteriorate. The government has privatized them. It no longer believes in railways for remote regions and it is abandoning them.
Now it is deciding to focus only on railways in urban areas. I am very happy about that, but even there, the Conservative government is abandoning us. Certainly there is no money in places outside urban areas. The Conservatives are not prepared to give us a hand. We do not have the money to hire people ourselves and buy the resources that are needed to improve our railway.
I would like to give the House an idea of how the railway stands in the Gaspé. The railway network in the Gaspé is a section that is unique in Canada. It is 202 miles long, and it is probably the section with the most bridges anywhere in Canada over the same distance. There are 93 bridges in 202 miles. That is why our railway is so expensive. It has been let go and our bridges have been allowed to deteriorate. That is why we have no VIA Rail service today. We have a “VIA Bus”.
The railway in the Gaspé is supposed to be class 3 track. Trains are not supposed to exceed 45 mph, which is about 70 km/h. At present, trains go over some bridges at 5 mph. That is why VIA Rail no longer wants to go there, because it has become ridiculous. Not only do the trains travel at 5 mph, but they cannot brake on the bridges. If they do, even at 5 mph, the bridge could collapse. This is really very disturbing. It is very important that money be invested so the railway is brought up to standard.
It is all well and good to pass legislation that is, in theory, very useful to Canadians, but if the Conservatives are not prepared to allocate the appropriate resources, at the end of the day, this bill is worthless. This bill is more theoretical than anything else. It needs to go much further than what the Conservatives are proposing. We need a real national transportation plan, a plan that improves transportation for Canadians and that sees it as a given that the environment must be protected, in short, a green plan. That is what we need, a cost-effective plan that generates jobs and wealth.
For the time being, I do see that happening. I am waiting for the Conservatives to propose something appropriate.
Isabelle Morin NDP Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to finally see the rail safety bill at this stage. I know that it has been many years and many people, including members of our party, have fought to pass this legislation. We know It is not perfect but anything that makes rails safer for our workers and passengers can never be a bad thing.
As we do have some time to speak to this bill, it is important to highlight some of the issues that are missing in the legislation for the future. This bill is an important first step that everyone wants to see but it is not the final one.
The Transportation Safety Board has had a wish list for some time, and it should come as no surprise that one of the safety issues needed is positive train control. This will improve both passenger and freight trains. Voice recorders are essential on airplanes and naval ships but not on trains. Without voice recorders, we have a hard time knowing exactly what went wrong. The TSB has been clear about this since 2003 and it is now 2012.
Did we leave this out of the rail safety bill because the United States does not have this regulation? That is what we heard in the committee. Is the government afraid of creating a regulation that will keep our people safe just because the Americans do not have the same rules as we do?
Every time there is an accident, we do not know what happened. We cannot get to the bottom of it because there are no voice recordings. The voice recorders are essential to train safety. They should be reviewed by independent safety experts so that the employees do not feel that they are only in place to spy on them in their place of work. The minister has supported the idea of voice recorders on trains, as does the Department of Transport.
When this law is passed, it will be important to continue to move on rail safety to ensure every Canadian is protected. It will put more emphasis on safety management systems, or SMS. This is not a bad thing when we first look at it. SMS provides a nice check when it comes to ensuring that all the safety inspections are done. However, I do have a worry, not with the concept but with the implementation.
The bill's amendments have allowed for a discussion between employers and their union in the development and implementation of SMS. This is a good thing. I sit on the committee for transport, infrastructure and communities and I have the Dorval Airport in my riding. So I get to see many transport issues.
SMS has been implemented in the airline industry and, if they are working properly, they are a great thing. What has been happening, however, is that the safety management system takes over the job of real inspectors. The workers have alerted us that they have less access to planes since the takeover of safety management systems.
With the passage of this bill, we, as legislators, must always be aware of the problems with implementation. There is little sense in creating unnecessary regulations that only detract from rail safety.
As I will repeat several times for the benefit of my colleagues, the companies and the workers, this bill must be passed but we must remain vigilant to the problems that could arise. We cannot rely too much on the paper checks. Safety management systems cannot be used to take jobs away from workers. That would comprise safety and defeat the purpose.
The bill does not mandate research and development which could be helpful in creating new ways to make rail even safer. Although it is nice to see that the bill will encourage introduction and use of new technologies under the rules, it still comes down to implementing positive train control which all sides agree will be a good idea, employers and workers alike.
Railway companies can be forced to implement positive train control today under the act, so I trust that we will come together in this House and ensure that we improve the safety of our trains even more.
Finally, we will get to see punishment for those companies that break the law. The only possibility for punishment for these offending companies was prosecution. That method of punishment takes so much time and costs a lot of money to the taxpayers, which makes it basically ineffective for many violations. Civil aviation and varying modes of transportation already have monetary punishments for violators, which have given those industries extra tools to improve compliance.
Now we are bringing in punishment for offenders who violate the act. Punishment is not the only way to improve safety. We must ensure that the trains have all the safety features they need.
After many years and many passages through this House, it is time to do the right thing and pass this into law. My speech is to remind all of us that this is just a first step and not the end of the race. Rail safety is something serious and should be taken seriously. We must work together on protecting all Canadians. I look forward to the passage of the bill.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I did catch the beginning of the member's comments when she indicated that her party would support this. She would like to see the bill ultimately moved forward but thought that it could have been done at an earlier time.
I think most Canadians recognize and share the concerns that all parties have expressed in terms of seeing this particular bill passed because we recognize the importance of rail line safety.
Does the member anticipate that the bill will pass today or at what point in the future?
Isabelle Morin NDP Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, this bill must be passed today. As I said, we have been waiting for long enough. I should point out that there are still problems with this bill. It is important for us that the bill be passed as is, but we must not stop there. Improving the bill in 2012 is no reason to rest on our laurels and revisit the issue of railway safety in only five years' time.
Other things need improving right now. We must not wait too long to act.
Jean-François Fortin Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill S-4. This is no surprise, I agree. We have before us what I would call an apple pie bill, meaning that it is good and that everybody likes apple pie. Nobody is against motherhood and apple pie. So, obviously, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of rail safety.
Bill S–4 amends the Railway Safety Act in order to encourage rail companies to create and maintain a culture of safety, particularly—and I come back to the specific areas in the bill—by strengthening rail company safety; by protecting employees who raise safety concerns and by requiring that an executive from each rail company be legally accountable for safety.
The bill also enables the government to penalize offenders with tough new monetary penalties and enhanced legal penalties.
The amendments also seek to 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. The amendments also clarify the authority and responsibilities of the Minister of Transport with respect to railway matters.
Why would anyone be against that? Still, it is easy to tell rail companies to be safe, but if the government does not help them, if it just stands by watching important branch lines deteriorate over time and complaining about the resulting danger, then it is not part of the solution; it is part of the problem.
This government and its predecessors are to blame for the appalling state of our rail network—particularly in Quebec. For example, on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, there was an article by Radio-Canada—which will no longer be able to question the authority of the Cartman government if the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages's new code of conduct comes into force.
The title of the Radio-Canada article was “The Gaspé needs $95 million to save its railway”.
I will read this very short article:
Residents and elected officials are rallying to maintain the Gaspé's railway network, particularly the Matapédia-Gaspé line.
A series of actions, which will be put in motion over the coming weeks, were announced on Tuesday at a press conference in New Carlisle.
Members of the Société du chemin de fer de la Gaspésie or SCFG, which is owned by municipalities in the region, need an investment of $19 million a year to repair the rail line and improve safety.
A study conducted by the SCFG...that was released in December found that an investment of between $93 million and $100 million is needed to maintain and repair the 320 km of track between Matapédia and Gaspé.
During the protest that was held at the New Carlisle station...SCFG management gave [the governments in] Quebec City and Ottawa an ultimatum.
Without a commitment from the governments, the Matapédia-Gaspé line could be shut down completely by March 31 [2012]. Already, VIA Rail passenger trains have not been travelling on this line since December 21. For safety reasons, VIA Rail is transporting its passengers by bus to Gaspé.
The president of the SCFG and mayor of Gaspé, François Roussy, is aware that a request for $95 million in funding is significant; however, the funding is vital to the survival of the railway. “We must use every means available to us to mobilize our governments,” he told a group of residents and elected officials...
[Meetings have been held.] Members of the SCFG want to meet with Premier Jean Charest and with the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec as soon as possible...to let them know how difficult it will be to encourage private investment in the region without a railway that is in good repair.
[The minister], who is also the federal Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, responded to the needs of the SCFG on Tuesday. He indicated that he could not commit to granting the request at the moment, but he promised to look into the matter.
It took VIA Rail ending service to the people in the Gaspé to get even that wishy-washy answer from the minister.
How can the government justify the fact that it is dragging its feet when it comes to assuring the safety of VIA Rail passengers, yet it is threatening the workers at that company with special legislation, because a strike could hurt the economy?
The closure of a section, the dilapidated state of the network, believe me, that is what is really hurting the economy. It is easier for this government to abandon workers than to help railroad users.
We will vote in favour of the bill, because we believe that the rail network is essential to the Quebec economy. Furthermore, if the Conservatives were to propose bringing in a high-speed train between Quebec City and New York, the Bloc Québécois would support it.
However, the fact that we are voting in favour of this bill does not mean that we necessarily support the Conservatives' way of doing things, which involves forcing others to pick up the tab for its own failings. That is typical. They ignore rail safety for years and then threaten to fine any businesses that use these unsafe networks.
Thus, the federal government needs to follow through on its desire to tighten safety rules and make available the funds that railway companies so desperately need in order to maintain the railway network, particularly in the Gaspé.
I would like to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois will support the bill. Thank you for the time given to me here today.
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my Quebec colleague a question.
The premier of Quebec is a Liberal, as is the premier of Ontario. In Ontario, the Liberal provincial government is not doing anything to improve the state of railways in the rural regions of northern Ontario.
I would like to ask my colleague whether he believes that the same thing is happening in Quebec with that province’s Liberal premier.
Jean-François Fortin Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. speaker, the Quebec provincial government has already confirmed financial assistance, although of course it is not as much as is required. Approximately $17 million may be forthcoming. However, as you just heard, the total amount needed in the short term to maintain and repair the rail line to make it safe is approximately $95 million. By saying that it would make a financial contribution, the Quebec provincial government has shown where it stands.
Nevertheless, we are still waiting for answers from the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec. It is high time for the federal government to say something and to come to the assistance of railway networks, particularly in the Gaspé.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my Bloc colleague for his comments. I too support this safer railways bill, which is very important for Canada.
I make the point now only to say that I think the House is moving to a place where we may have wanted to be some time ago. Members are prepared to see the bill pass. I just wanted to add my words of support for the bill. I think the House is perhaps unanimous.
I turn to my friend in the Bloc and ask him if he has any additional points.
We do need to ensure that rail safety is a priority. This is a very important bill, even if it is a housekeeping bill. I hope that, once it is passed, we can move on to look at the other issues that have come up in debate about improving access to rail, passenger rail, improving the freight lines and potentially moving Canada into the 21st century of rail travel through high-speed rail. However those are all points that go beyond the legislation before us.
Jean-François Fortin Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her very apt comment.
We have indeed reached a point where all parties in this House agree on passing this bill. I believe that it is important to improve safety, as my colleague mentioned. There is no doubt about it. Earlier, I alluded to apple pie. Who can be against apple pie?
We need to move on to the next step. The bill must be passed. But I wish to reiterate that it is important for the government to have a clear policy that will provide the railways, no matter where in Canada they might be located, with funds to maintain costly infrastructure, because the railways are invaluable from the environmental, sustainable development and transportation standpoints, whether we are talking about transporting goods or passengers. What is needed is a clear investment policy for the railway network across Canada.
Some hon. members
Question.
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
I declare the motion carried.
(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)
Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON
Mr. Speaker, I ask that you see the clock at 5:30.