Bill C-52 (Historical)

Safe and Accountable Rail Act

An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act

This enactment amends the Canada Transportation Act to strengthen the liability and compensation regime for federally regulated railway companies by establishing minimum insurance levels for railway companies and a supplementary, shipper-financed compensation fund to cover damages resulting from railway accidents involving the transportation of certain dangerous goods.
Among other things, the amendments
(a) establish minimum insurance levels for freight railway operations based on the type and volume of goods that are transported;
(b) require the holder of a certificate of fitness to maintain the liability insurance coverage required by that Act, and to notify the Canadian Transportation Agency without delay if its insurance coverage is affected;
(c) establish that a railway company is liable, without proof of fault or negligence, subject to certain defences, for losses, damages, costs and expenses resulting from a railway accident involving crude oil or other designated goods, up to the level of the company’s minimum liability insurance coverage; and
(d) establish a compensation fund in the Accounts of Canada, financed by levies on shippers, to cover the losses, damages, costs and expenses resulting from a railway accident involving crude oil or other designated goods that exceed the minimum liability insurance coverage.
The enactment also amends the Railway Safety Act to, among other things,
(a) allow a province or municipality that incurs costs in responding to a fire that it is of the opinion was the result of a railway company’s railway operations to apply to the Canada Transportation Agency to have those costs reimbursed by the railway company;
(b) clarify the Governor in Council’s power to make regulations respecting the restriction and prevention of access to land on which a line of railway is situated, including by means of fences or signs on that land or on land adjoining it;
(c) authorize a railway safety inspector who is satisfied that there is an immediate threat to the safety or security of railway operations to order a person or company to take any measure that the inspector specifies to mitigate the threat;
(d) authorize the Minister to require, by order, a company, road authority or municipality to follow the procedures or take the corrective measures that the Minister specifies if the Minister considers it necessary in the interests of safe railway operations;
(e) provide the Governor in Council with a regulation-making power regarding the submission of information that is relevant to the safety of railway operations by any person, other than the Minister to any person;
(f) authorize the Minister to order a company that is implementing its safety management system in a manner that risks compromising railway safety to take the necessary corrective measures; and
(g) declare that certain regulations and orders that were made under the Railway Act are deemed to have had effect from the day on which they were made under that Act and that those regulations and orders continue to have effect from that day as if they were made under the Railway Safety Act.

Safe and Accountable Rail Act

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Mississauga—Brampton South.

The Liberals share Canadians' concern about rail safety in Canada. After the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, the government promised to take steps to ensure the safety and integrity of Canada's rail network. However, in the past two months, there have been three major derailments in Ontario alone. In March, one of those trains, which was transporting dangerous goods, burned for a whole weekend.

In my riding, Toronto Centre, two rail lines used to transport crude oil go through residential neighbourhoods. Residents and community organizations, such as Safe Rail Communities, are worried and want the government to introduce safety measures and regulations to protect them from potential dangers. However, Transport Canada's rail safety directorate lacks staff, funding and training.

Transport Canada has a lot of catching up to do, but its budget was cut by $202 million, or 11%, in the main estimates. These cuts followed a scathing report by the Auditor General, who pointed out that the government had conducted just 26% of the required audits and did not audit VIA Rail, even though the company transports 4 million passengers a year. The report also revealed that the government does not have enough inspectors and system auditors to audit critical safety functions. When the Liberal critic questioned the minister in committee in March 2015, the minister said that a single additional inspector had been hired, which brings the total number of inspectors to 117.

This latest bill is yet another example of the Conservatives' piecemeal approach to rail safety. The Transportation Safety Board said in February that the Conservatives' new rail standards do not go far enough, and the recent accidents support that assertion. The TSB clearly stated that the older, least safe tank cars should be removed from the rails immediately. The government's timeline for removing these cars is unrealistic, and the Conservatives know it.

Railways united Canada, and many of us still live close to those same railways that helped build our country. The government has a duty to ensure that Canadians who travel on these railways and who live close to them are safe, and it also has a duty to keep the employees of rail carriers safe.

I represent Toronto Centre, which is a riding where rail safety is an issue of intense community concern. Last fall, my colleagues the member for Trinity—Spadina, the member for St. Paul's, and I held a town hall. We held it on a cold autumn night. It was a Friday, and 200 people showed up to discuss this issue. For me, that was a real measure of how strongly the community feels about this issue.

This is not some remote technical question for my constituents, for the people I have the privilege of representing in this House. This is something that people are concerned about every day, that people worry in a very real, very present way affects the safety of their families, the safety of their children.

We are planning to hold another town hall meeting in April, in a few weeks, simply because there was such intense community concern about this issue. I cannot underscore too much for this House how central this issue is, and what priority we must accord it.

Something that we hear every day, and that we heard again today in question period, is one of the threads that runs through the government's philosophy, and that is a point of view which for me feels like warmed over 1990s U.S. Republicanism. It is a “starve the beast” philosophy, a philosophy that says the central responsibility of government is to cut taxes so that government services can be cut. That really is the central ideological idea of the government.

I personally, as a Liberal, strongly disagree with that philosophy and that point of view. I do not think it makes sense for our economy, and it does not make sense for our society.

I hope that in this House, regardless of the party to which we belong, this is one area where we can all agree that government plays an essential role. Government cannot be underfunded. Regulators must be given the authority they need. We cannot count on industry to regulate itself in this crucial matter of rail safety which touches on the personal safety of so many Canadian families.

My concern is that Transport Canada's rail safety division is understaffed, underfunded and undertrained. It is a division which has been a victim of the revolving door of Conservative ministers, with five ministers in nine years.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that another essential aspect of the rail safety issue to which one of the hon. members opposite has just alluded is the fact that we are seeing far more oil being transported by rail than in the past. That is a big part of the reason that rail safety has jumped so high up the agenda of the people whom I represent in Toronto Centre.

People know, even though the level of information given in a timely manner about what is being transported is low, and people appreciate that vastly increased amounts of crude oil are being shipped along our railway lines. That has increased both the perception and the reality of the potential danger that this poses.

I must say that reality did not happen by accident. The reality that so much oil is being transported by rail at great cost and posing a great potential public safety hazard is the fault of the Conservative government which has failed to get the pipelines built that Canada's natural resource producers need to get our resources to market.

That failure is partly a failure of a relationship with aboriginal people. It is partly a failure of relationships with the provinces. It is partly a failure of relationships with local communities. It is, above all, a failure of diplomacy and building an effective productive relationship with the United States, our most important neighbour, our most important trading partner.

This is a failure that is of tremendous concern to the people I represent in Toronto Centre, because they feel, quite rightly, that it has put their communities in greater danger. What is really astonishing to me is that it is a failure which, above all, has caused problems for the Canadian economy as a whole.

In closing, we do see some modest improvements in this bill, but we feel that it does not go far enough. What we would like to see above all is a comprehensive, effective strategy for transporting Canada's natural resources and getting them to market.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the main line of CN Rail also runs through my riding of Kingston and the Islands. I held a town hall meeting, and one of the things that we learned is that because of the underfunding in Transport Canada, the dangerous goods division has lost senior management and institutional memory. These sorts of things are very hard to replace simply by restoring funding and hiring new people.

It is also the case that there has been a revolving door of ministers in Transport Canada under the Conservative government. I was wondering if my colleague could comment on that.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely right. There are a couple of issues here. As my hon. colleague has pointed out and as I mentioned in my remarks, the revolving door of ministers has not helped this situation. Equally though, we have seen a real erosion of expertise in the division responsible for rail safety.

In Canada, we are very lucky to have some excellent, dedicated, devoted public servants who have tremendous experience and cultural experience in their institutions. One of the tragic legacies of the Conservative government is the hollowing out of those institutions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague. I have put this question to the government before. Legislation is one way that we can deal with the issue of rail safety, but another way is how we spend our resources. The government, for example, through investment in infrastructure could make a difference and make our rails safer.

I wonder if my colleague might want to comment on the fact that if the government really wanted to, it could demonstrate leadership by working with some of the stakeholders, such as our cities, municipalities and provinces, to see how we could better invest in the infrastructure which would improve our rail lines.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. Part of the answer here is better regulation, more regulators, and regulators who have the experience and authority to enforce the rules.

However, there is another part of the problem, which I have been hearing about from concerned people in my community. They are people who either have a past history of being involved in this industry, or in many cases, people who simply describe themselves as concerned mothers who have educated themselves about this issue and have become involved because they are worried about the safety of their kids. What they report to me is a tremendous decline in the infrastructure of the railways themselves.

One of the reasons that we will be putting forward a very ambitious infrastructure program is precisely to repair and rebuild these railways, which have been the backbone of Canada.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is also my understanding that a lot of freight lines go back and forth across the border between Canada and the United States. Therefore, there is a need to harmonize regulations, for example, having two engineers instead of one.

I was wondering if my colleague could comment on this additional fact, which makes the relationship between Canada and the United States important.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point from my colleague. One of the things that has been a real issue is the perception that I hear from our American counterparts that Canada is dragging its feet when it comes to rail safety. That, to me, as a Canadian legislator, is a real matter of concern.

We should not rely on the Americans to pass rules to keep our people safe. We should do it ourselves.

[Eve Adams, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians across the country rely on a safe, well-regulated rail system to get food from farm to fork, to get resources to employers and consumers, and to travel, whether it is to visit loved ones or to get to work. Canadians have a right to feel safe when travelling by rail. They should feel, when potentially dangerous goods are being shipped across the country and through their communities, that their families and homes are not at risk. It is the government's responsibility to ensure the safety of Canadians who travel on the rails or live near the rail lines, as well as the safety of the people who work on those rail lines.

Nearly two years ago, Canadians were stunned and saddened by the news of a derailment at Lac-Mégantic that took the lives of 47 people and demolished a portion of the town. This is the deadliest rail accident since Confederation in 1867. In the weeks following that tragedy, the Conservative government promised decisive action to ensure the safety and integrity of our rail system, but nearly two years later, we have no more guarantees than before, and the government is largely missing in action on this file.

The government's piecemeal approach to rail safety has done nothing to prevent the three derailments Ontario has seen over the course of February and March alone. This March, one of those trains, a train carrying dangerous goods, was on fire the entire weekend in Ontario. When asked recently about the derailments, the minister expressed her concern and stated, “There must be reasons behind it. It cannot just be a fluke of nature”.

I do not know if Canadians can be reassured from that type of answer from the minister, who is responsible for guaranteeing train safety. Perhaps the minister might look to the rail safety division in her department, which is understaffed, underfunded, and undertrained. It falls to the Minister of Transport to order railway companies to develop specific rules to ensure the safety of Canadians. It is also within the power of government to make regulations which apply to railway companies and then to audit and monitor to see if those regulations are actually being followed. It resolves itself by actual leadership.

Canadians look to their government to intervene when their safety is in question. It is one of the fundamental responsibilities of government. Yet at a time when it is very clear that Transport Canada has a lot of catching up to do, when safety should be its top priority, its budget was slashed by over $200 million in the main estimates. That 11% cut follows on an already scathing Auditor General's report, which noted, among other things, that the government only performed 26% of its planned audits and did not audit VIA Rail at all, despite the fact that VIA Rail carries four million passengers each year. Can anyone imagine carrying out only one-quarter of the planned audits? Three-quarters of the job was not done and the safety of Canadians is at stake on this file.

The report also revealed that the government does not have enough inspectors and system auditors to carry out critical safety functions. There is a capacity problem inside the Department of Transport. With the current workforce, the department has conducted too few audits. Only one-quarter of the planned audits that Transport Canada said were necessary to keep rail safe in Canada were actually done. With those staffing levels, how many years will it take before the department audits all key components of safety? When the minister was asked about this by my colleague the member for Ottawa South in committee this month, the minister reported hiring only one additional inspector. How is that good management or good leadership? How does that protect Canadians' safety?

An initial Transportation Safety Board report on the three most recent derailments points to track faults and yet the government refuses to make the necessary investments in inspectors and other key safety professionals. It has not been able to demonstrate improvement in its oversight for air and marine and the recent spate of incidents in rail does not give us any confidence that it will be any different.

This is troubling for the residents of greater Toronto. Many trains carrying hazardous materials move through our communities using the CN or CP rail lines. While the government has made some improvements by phasing out railcars that were involved in Lac-Mégantic and requiring more communication from railways on the frequency and volume of dangerous goods passing through communities, much is left undone.

For instance, I agree with my colleague from Trinity—Spadina, who was a very strong advocate for greater rail safety at Toronto City Hall and continues that advocacy here, that railways should inform municipalities and first responders that dangerous goods are being transported through their communities before they pass through, rather than telling them afterwards, and sometimes months afterwards.

As a Mississauga city councillor, I made the same request almost six years ago after the Goreway Drive derailment. Furthermore, phasing out one rail car was important in the wake of Lac-Mégantic, but the derailments in Ontario this year demonstrate that even more should be done. In fact, I will quote from the Transportation Safety Board report that says:

If older tank cars, including the CPC-1232 cars, are not phased out sooner, then the regulator and industry need to take more steps to reduce the risk of derailments or consequences following a derailment carrying flammable liquids.

Transport Canada needs to immediately put more robust tank standards in place now, not in 2025, when the provisions announced around those cars would be enacted.

There are a number of elements of the bill that Canadians have been calling for, but it is clear from how long it has taken for the Conservative government to act on them that it still does not feel that railway safety is enough of a priority. There are still serious problems at Transport Canada. Without the inspectors, who are needed to audit train and rail safety, we will find ourselves perpetually back here wondering how another train derailment occurred.

The bill also rightly allows inspectors and the minister to order a company to immediately correct safety problems. Legislation is important, but money is needed. There is nothing about increasing capacity so that there are enough inspectors to audit these safety management systems, so how will the minister know about the safety problems? Strong language sounds good but does not help Canadians today—action-oriented words with very little action behind them. Three-quarters of audits are not happening. When will that change?

As I mentioned earlier today, this Conservative government spends more money each and every year that it has been in power on advertising, more than on rail safety. It is spending $42 million on ads announcing an income-splitting plan that does not help most Canadians, while only spending $38 million on rail safety just two years after the Lac-Mégantic disaster and subsequent derailments, and while presiding over a 1,500% increase in the transportation of oil by rail in the last three years.

Should this bill pass, I sincerely hope the government takes another look at re-prioritizing its resources. It is clear that it will have to make changes to rail security, but now it must do more than piecemeal updates to rules and regulations here and there, and it must put its money on the table and adequately fund the department and the staff who work every day to protect Canadians across the country from spills, derailments, and other potentially devastating disasters

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, you know how generous I am. I had the chance to ask the member a question as though she were a Liberal or as though she were a Conservative. Being a generous person, I will ask her as though she were both at the same time.

I find it a little surprising that, as a Liberal, she has forgotten that it was the Liberal Party that reformed the rail transportation system, particularly with the privatization of CN. When CN was privatized, no regulatory obligations were imposed on it, and this has left us with a system that has massively deteriorated. CN says that it is not responsible. It is not contractually obligated to paint the Quebec Bridge or maintain tracks.

For their part, the Conservatives, who have increased deregulation, are not helping matters. There are more and more accidents. Thirty-five people died in Lac-Mégantic, and we must not wait for more deaths to occur. Unfortunately, from what all of the stakeholders—including the Transportation Safety Board, or TSB, and the Auditor General—have said, there will be more accidents.

We need to have another look at all of the policies, not only the Conservatives' policies, but also the Liberal policies before that.

[Eve Adams, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in fact it is incumbent on the Minister of Transport to set all safety regulations and standards relating to rail. It is then up to the department to check and audit to see whether or not the companies are actually adhering to that legislation or that set of regulations.

What is happening currently is that there have been far too few regulations and oversight when it comes to rail safety. More important, the budget at the department has been dramatically slashed. It is not able to keep up with any of the inspections and auditors. Three-quarters of its planned audits—not hypothetical work that staff had hoped one day to get to on a wish list or a bucket list, but the plant audits that they said needed to be done in the course of the year—were not undertaken and done. That imperils the safety of all Canadians.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I questioned the fire and rescue unit in Kingston, I found out that they have a list of the 25 top dangerous materials that could be passing through Kingston on freight trains and they practise dealing with those 25 types of dangerous cargo. What they do not have and what they wish they had is a faster way to access the dangerous cargo information on a particular train in case there is an incident.

I am wondering if my colleague could comment on that.

[Eve Adams, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I was a municipal councillor, we put this request many times to the rail companies. There was a derailment on Goreway Drive and, while our first responders are always top notch, whether it is firefighters or police responding initially, they do need to have access to that type of information and it seems rather simple to provide. There ought to be some sort of mechanism by which this information could be accessed either online or on the actual trains.

However, this is something that could easily have been put in place by the government. It is something that community after community has been requesting, yet the bill, which does provide some incremental assistance to the issues at hand, certainly has done nothing on this issue.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about our government's efforts to improve the safety of Canada's national railway system through the safe and accountable railway act, a bill to amend the Railway Safety Act. Today I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg South Centre.

I will begin by explaining to my hon. colleagues why these amendments are so important and why we should all support the bill. While Canada's railway system is one of the safest, we all recognize that, like other means of transportation, railways are not without risk. Rare devastating accidents like the tragic derailment that occurred at Lac-Mégantic give us pause and focus our attention on improving rail safety.

The amendments proposed in the bill build on the difficult lessons learned following Lac-Mégantic, address issues identified in the Auditor General's fall report of 2013, and also respond to issues raised in the Transportation Safety Board's final report on Lac-Mégantic.

My esteemed colleagues will remember that, in the immediate aftermath of Lac-Mégantic, our government quickly implemented a series of immediate and concrete actions to significantly improve the railway transport safety regime. We also made enhancing the regulatory framework a priority. Let me remind the House that the fundamental purpose of this already-robust regulatory framework is to protect people, property, and the environment from potential harm caused by railway operations.

The Railway Safety Act, which passed into law in 1988 and came into effect in January 1989, provided the legislative authority for the minister of transport to assume responsibility for the safety regulation of federally regulated railways in Canada. Following a mandatory review in 1994, the RSA was amended in 1999 to modernize the legislative and regulatory framework for railway safety. Included in the amendments were regulations for railway safety management systems, which formally integrate safety into the railway companies' day-to-day operations.

Following the tragic Lac-Mégantic derailment and to address recommendations in the Auditor General's fall 2013 report, the Minister of Transport committed to accelerating a regulatory development to enhance the framework and further strengthen oversight of federally regulated railways across Canada. As a result, the grade crossing regulations and the railway operating certificate regulations are now in force and the administrative monetary penalty regulations, new railway safety management systems regulations 2015, and amendments to the transportation information regulations will come into force on April 1, 2015.

Allow me to highlight why each of these regulations is equally important to enhancing the regulatory framework as well as strengthening oversight and enforcement of railway safety in Canada.

The first of the series of regulatory packages, the grade crossing regulations, came into effect on November 27, 2014, and improved safety by establishing comprehensive and enforceable safety standards for grade crossings, clarifying the roles and responsibilities of railway companies and road authorities, and ensuring the sharing of key safety information between railway companies and the road authority. I am certain members would agree that, whether we are pedestrians, drivers of cars, or passengers on a train, we all will benefit from safer grade crossings. These regulations do just that and will lead to reductions in collisions, fatalities, injuries, and property damage, as well as reducing the potential for environmental disasters resulting from a spill of dangerous goods.

The railway operating certificates for federally regulated railways came into force on January 1, 2015. These certificates, which will be issued to railways once they meet certain safety conditions, significantly strengthen Transport Canada's oversight capacity by giving the department the authority to stop a company from operating in the event of severe safety concerns.

New railway safety administrative monetary penalties regulations introduce a new tool to the rail safety program's enforcement regime that would be used to ensure compliance with the Railway Safety Act, as well as to put in place further regulations, rules, orders and emergency directives.

Amendments to the transportation information regulations would improve data reporting requirements to better identify and address safety risks before accidents happen. This would improve safety by supporting better planning and performance measurements, allowing for more focused audits and inspections, and targeted programs that address specific safety issues.

The new railway safety management systems regulations build on the progress and the lessons learned since the first regulations were introduced in 2001. As such, federally regulated railway companies and local companies operating on federal main track would have to appoint an executive to be accountable for SMS and responsible for the operations and activities of the company.

Railway companies must establish policies and procedures so that employees may report safety contraventions and hazards to the company without fear of reprisal. Railway companies must apply the principles of fatigue science to their employee scheduling processes.

All these regulations build upon the existing strong rail safety program and federal rail safety rules and regulations in place to ensure the safety and protection of the public. They provide Canadians with the safest railway system possible.

In addition to these regulations, in Bill C-52, the Minister of Transport has introduced amendments to the Railway Safety Act to further strengthen oversight of federally regulated railway companies and address issues raised by the Lac-Mégantic derailment and the Transportation Safety Board's recommendations, as well as the recommendations in the Auditor General of Canada's fall 2013 report. These amendments signify better safety for Canadians and Canadian communities, strengthened safety management systems, enhanced sharing of information, and a safer rail industry in a stronger national economy. These are priorities that we all share.

I encourage all members to support this bill. With the agreement of all members we can take a significant step forward to improve the safety of our railways for all Canadians and Canadian communities, and provide a stronger foundation for our national transport system and economy for years to come.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

However, he referred to documents from the Auditor General that we studied together and that were very critical of Transport Canada's inability to fulfill its mandates.

Furthermore, the TSB report, which deals with transportation accidents and did a very detailed analysis of the Lac-Mégantic incident, came down very hard on Transport Canada. Basically all of the stakeholders that studied and analyzed the problem have said that Transport Canada's philosophy of allowing companies to self-regulate is bad. It is not working. The companies are not doing what they should be doing.

Instead of simply amending the act, would it not be better to change the philosophy entirely and reconsider the sacrosanct but flawed principle of self-regulation?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do enjoy working with my colleague opposite on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We had the opportunity to review various reports through the course of the year provided by the Auditor General. Clearly this one report on railway safety was one of great concern to all of us. Certainly the issue of Lac-Mégantic was one that brought focus to our committee and functionally to all Canadians on the terrible tragedy that occurred in that environment.

When we studied the recommendations of the Auditor General's report, it is important to know first of all that Transport Canada, the minister and her officials accepted the recommendations of the Auditor General and moved very quickly to put many new safety regulations in place that would ensure that a situation such as the horror of Lac-Mégantic would not reoccur.

More importantly, I would like to point out to the member and I think he will agree with me, that the focus was taken off inspections. While inspectors are critical for day-to-day operations, there was a greater focus put on longer-term audit. Clearly, Transport Canada has increased the number of auditors within that organization by some 85% in very short order. The training is ongoing and is very substantial as they work to create a longer-term view of establishing safety operations within railways. The report that came out of that Auditor General's report by the committee truly acknowledged those changes.