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.

[James Beardsley, Chairman, Global Rail Practice, Marsh and McLennan Companies, Railway Association of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to all of you for allowing us to speak today.

My name is Jim Beardsley, and I am the chairman of Marsh’s Global Rail practice. I am here with Ms. Lois Gardiner, senior vice-president with Aon Global Risk Consulting. We represent the two largest rail insurance brokers in Canada.

We appreciate the opportunity to offer our collective view on some of the potential ramifications in the railway insurance market if Bill C-52 is passed into law in its current form. We believe these potential ramifications could hinder the railways in their effort to comply with the bill and perhaps create unintended and negative repercussions in the delivery of these essential services that the railways provide for the Canadian economy and in the wider economic benefits for all organizations in the supply chain.

The general insurance market today is one where the insurance buyers are enjoying an abundant supply of insurance. However, it is important to note that the railroad liability is not a general insurance market, but a global specialty market. Specialty markets are more limited than the general market when it comes to the number of insurers available and the amount of insurance or capacity. In addition, due to varying appetites for risk among those same specialty insurers capacity is not interchangeable throughout a program tower.

If you review the program tower graph that we had submitted, you can see that the insurers that write the risk at the top of the tower are usually different from those that write at the bottom or in the middle. The point is that if capacity is lost from one part of the placement, there is no guarantee their vacancies can be filled from the other existing insurers.

In 2008, for the first time in Canada, the railways were able to construct a liability tower to over $1 billion, suggesting now that market disruption might jeopardize the ability for the most active railways, through insurance, to meet the $1-billion minimum limit that the bill requires. For short lines, this level of coverage is theoretically available; however, it would not be financially viable, nor would it be likely to be self-insured.

Insurance underwriters manage their exposure through the use of familiar data that adds security to their underwriting process. A major concern is that in a fluid, cyclical market, some of the proposed wording in Bill C-52 and some of the coverage extensions could create enough uncertainty in the underwriting community to undermine the railways’ ability to comply with the bill.

Lois.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Minister.

As you know, proposed section 152.9 of Bill C-52 states:

If a railway company is liable, without proof of fault or negligence, under subsection 152.7(1) and under any other Act with respect to the same railway accident, the company is liable under that subsection up to the greater of the limit of liability for an amount that is referred to in that subsection and the limit up to which the company is liable under the other Act.

Could you please elaborate on the intent of this clause and whether it will expose the railways to any additional risk?

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are here to talk about Bill C-52, not last year's public accounts, and certainly not tank cars, which are not what's in Bill C-52, so I will direct my questions, Minister, to the actual legislation in front of the committee.

Proposed section 153.1 of Bill C-52 states:

A railway company is not liable under subsection 152.7(1) if it establishes that (a) the railway accident resulted from an act of war, hostilities, civil war or insurrection; or (b) any other defence set out in the regulations applies.

Minister, does this proposed subsection also establish terrorism, including, for example, a lone terrorist attack, as a defence to the railway company's liability?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to note that we're starting exactly one minute early, which is a good thing today.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable committee members.

I am very pleased to be here with you today to talk about Bill C-52, the safe and accountable rail act, which, as you well know, is unquestionably a very important piece of legislation that aims to amend both the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act.

I'm going to begin with the proposed amendments to the Canada Transportation Act, or CTA.

The tragic Lac-Mégantic derailment has shown us that our liability and compensation regime for rail must be strengthened. The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway carried only $25 million in third party liability insurance, which we now know is not nearly enough to cover the incredible magnitude of the resulting damage to and loss of both life and property that night.

In the 2013 Speech from the Throne, our government committed to holding railways and shippers more accountable. Bill C-52 does that by ensuring that sufficient compensation will be available to pay for damages and compensate victims in the event of a railway accident.

With this bill, railways will be required to hold a mandatory level of insurance based on the type and volume of dangerous goods that they carry. These levels will range from $25 million for short lines carrying limited or no dangerous goods to $1 billion for railways carrying significant amounts of dangerous goods, namely, CN and CP.

These mandatory insurance requirements have been set based on analyses of historical accident costs, taking into account the severity of past accidents involving certain goods. These requirements make certain that a railway's insurance directly reflects the risk associated with its operations. These insurance levels were determined to be adequate to cover the cost of the vast majority of potential accidents.

While a scenario of the magnitude of Lac-Mégantic is thankfully an extremely rare occurrence, we want to be certain that all costs in such a case would be covered. That is why a supplementary shipper-financed fund was created to provide compensation above the railway's insurance for accidents involving crude oil, and any other goods added through regulation.

In the event of a rail accident involving crude oil, railways will be held automatically liable, without the need to prove fault or negligence, up to their insurance level, and that will happen immediately. There will be certain defences to this strict liability. For example, a railway would not be held liable if the accident was a result of war, hostilities, or civil insurrection such as a terrorist act, as these occurrences are outside of the railway's control. If accident costs reach beyond the railway's mandatory insurance level, the supplementary fund covers the remaining damages.

For the supplementary fund, we have included a broad definition of crude oil in recognition of the serious damage that all crude can cause if released. Even a less volatile crude can have a grave impact on the environment and result in very high remediation costs. The fund will be financed through a levy on shippers of $1.65 per tonne of crude oil transported by federally regulated railways, indexed to inflation.

The aim is to capitalize the fund to $250 million. That amount would provide substantial additional coverage for crude oil accidents above the insurance levels. Based on a reasonable projection of oil-by-rail traffic growth in the coming years, we have determined that with a $1.65 per tonne levy, we would reach that target in approximately five years. That said, however, it is important to emphasize at this point that the $250-million capitalization is a target. It is not a cap.

The bill allows the Minister of Transport to discontinue or reimpose the levy as necessary. It could be put in place indefinitely or for any specified time period. This means that the levy could continue for longer than five years should oil-by-rail traffic grow at lower than expected rates. It also means that the fund could be capitalized to a different amount should that be considered appropriate.

Just to be clear, Mr. Chair, the fund will cover all costs above the railway's insurance and will not be capped. In the unlikely event that damages from an accident surpass both the railway's insurance level and the amount in the supplementary fund, the government's consolidated revenue fund will back up the fund but then be repaid through the levy.

By creating mandatory insurance levels for railways and providing an additional pool of available funds, Bill C-52 makes certain that, in the event of a rail accident, there will be sufficient resources to cover all damages.

Following the tragic Lac-Mégantic derailment, and to address the recommendations in the Auditor General of Canada's fall 2013 report, the proposed amendments to the RSA will further strengthen the oversight of federally regulated railways and Canada's railway safety regime in certain areas.

These include the following: a new power for the minister to order a company to take corrective measures should a company's implementation of its safety management system risk compromising safety; a new authority to regulate the sharing of information, records, and documents from one party to another, other than the department, and an example here, of course, is from a railway company to a municipality; broader railway safety inspectors' powers to intervene in a more effective way with any person or entity, including companies, road authorities, and municipalities, to mitigate threats to safety; a broader power for the minister to require a railway to stop any activity that might constitute a risk to safe railway operations, or to follow any procedures or to take any corrective measures specified; and, a cost reimbursement scheme for provinces and municipalities that respond to fires believed to be caused by a railway company's operation.

Part of Transport Canada's prevention strategy has been to ensure the department has an effective oversight regime. This means both ensuring that industry is in compliance with the various regulations that govern it and responding to changes in the risk environment. Transport Canada continuously examines and monitors its resource levels to adjust and reallocate as needed to address emerging issues, trends, and higher-risk issues.

I announced, as part of the department's response to the Transportation Safety Board report on Lac-Mégantic, increased resources dedicated to the rail safety program. Rail safety had approximately 100 inspectors at the time of the Lac-Mégantic accident. As of March 2015, Transport Canada employed 122 rail safety oversight personnel.

Furthermore, I do want to assure the committee that the safety management systems are not self-regulation—far from it. Safety management systems complement a robust railway safety regulatory regime that includes requirements of the Railway Safety Act and the associated regulations, rules, and engineering standards. The new railway safety management regulations of 2015, which came into force on April 1 of this year, are more prescriptive than the 2001 regulations and really will further strengthen railway safety operations across Canada.

Mr. Chair, I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

This concludes my remarks.

Safe and Accountable Rail Act

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and pleasure to speak today to Bill C-52, the safe and accountable rail act. In response to the previous question, we on this side agree that this is part of a three-part analysis or attempt to make rail traffic as safe as possible in this country. One pillar, which the parliamentary secretary talked about in his speech earlier today, is prevention. In the second pillar, we need to be ready for response in case there is an emergency. What we are dealing with in Bill C-52 is the part about accountability, making federally regulated rail companies accountable for what they are doing.

In the next few minutes I want to talk about some of the questions that have been asked of the government and of this legislation before it goes to committee so that more discussion can happen, and I know my opposition friends are eager to have witnesses at committee to discuss the bill in more detail.

Why is the government changing the liability and compensation regime for rail? I think it is relatively obvious to all of us in the House, and it was mentioned by every member who has spoken to it today, that the issue of having the government responsible for the safety of Canadians is a number one priority for our government, and it should be. Unfortunately, we have had some very tragic incidents in terms of rail safety issues in this country, such as Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, with the terrible tragedy that happened there in July 2013. I am from Burlington, Ontario, where we have had rail derailments. Unfortunately, the most recent one was a passenger rail issue and people died from that derailment also. However, this discussion is really about product that travels by rail, not people, so this is important to the people of Burlington to have the opportunity to make sure that there is accountability with rail lines and what they are shipping through our neighbourhoods across the country.

When would this new change come into effect? This is basically about changes to the insurance requirements of rail companies, and we are giving them about a year from when it comes into force to get ready for that, which means they will have to make sure their insurance coverage, the accountability aspects, are in place prior to one year from when the bill gets royal assent.

Did we consult stakeholders? Of course we consulted stakeholders. That is important because, whether it was municipalities or railway lines or others affected, there were a couple of rounds of stakeholder outreach in terms of getting feedback on what can be done as the accountability piece. I believe we received feedback from approximately 27 stakeholders on this, from railways, shippers, and local municipalities.

This is important because the issue of rail travel for products and goods is important. Let us face it: it was important in bringing Canada together as a country, and we need to make sure everyone is involved in that discussion of where we are headed in terms of accountability, of being proactive and prepared to respond, and of prevention. That is why the stakeholders played a big role in coming up with what is in the bill.

I think it would be naive to say that everyone agreed on exactly what to do and at what level, but that is why we have consultations. We think that the polluter pay principle should be put forward as the number one tenet of the accountability portion of this.

What does polluter pay mean for rail? It is an important principle that those who cause the damage as a result of their operations would pay for the damage. It is important that it is the company and, in this case, we are adding a fund from shippers. They need to take significant responsibility in terms of the levels of insurance coverage they need. It should not be the taxpayer. That is what the polluter pay principle is, that it is not the general taxpayers' responsibility. It is the government's responsibility to develop the safety standards, to make sure the rail system is safe, but if something does go wrong, it is not the taxpayers' responsibility to cover those costs but the polluter.

These measures of liability should not be new to companies. No company should say it is not its responsibility, it should be the taxpayers' responsibility. At the end of the day, based on the consultations with stakeholders, including the rail companies, we came to an agreement, which we see in Bill C-52, to deal with this.

Let me go over the proposed amendments. They would make all railways hold a minimum level of insurance, which we have heard many times today, based on the risk posed by the type and volume of dangerous goods being moved. It makes sense that if a company is moving non-dangerous goods, its liability should be less, but a company moving dangerous goods, including oil products and others that can cause significant damage, has to have higher liability. It has to have more insurance to cover the costs because if there is an accident, the damage that is done is much more significant with dangerous goods. We came up with a proposal that railways would have to carry higher amounts of insurance for dangerous goods. It is common sense and something that both the public and the railways clearly understand is the railways' responsibility.

There would be an initial requirement for them to hold either $50 million or $125 million in insurance, depending on the type and volume of the dangerous good being carried. That is an initial requirement. Then one year after that, those requirements would double to $100 million and $250 million, respectively. These are the carrying costs that would have to be built into the operational aspects of running a railway. It is important for the railways to have the coverage so that taxpayers would not be on the hook for the cleanup of any damage done from any unfortunate accident. When I say “damage”, it can obviously be both physical damage, property damage, damage to the environment, and, of course, to human life. There have been tragedies in this country where that has happened. We need to make sure that taxpayers are not going to be responsible for that, but the actual railway shipping the goods is responsible.

Another question was with regard to what we think the financial impact would be, particularly on short-line railways. People tend to think about CP and CN, the big railways in Canada, but we would also require the short-line railways to carry the same requirement. It would be part of railways doing business in this country. It would be part of the decision to carry goods and it would be included in this new regime. This would increase their operating costs, there is no doubt about it, but it is much-needed protection for taxpayers as we continue to implement the polluter pay principle, including short-line railways.

Is there insurance available at this level? We are assured that there is. We have had a number of insurance brokers say that it is possible for them to provide that level of insurance and are willing to take the risk. Therefore, they cannot use as an excuse that they cannot get the insurance, which was an issue we needed to resolve to make sure it was available.

I will conclude by saying we have had some tragic rail accidents in my own riding of Burlington in the last number of years. We have also seen across the country other very significant accidents in the railway system, mainly dealing with the shipping of dangerous product. We need to have assurance that the polluter needs to pay and we need to protect the taxpayers, and this is what Bill C-52 would do.

I look forward to the bill going to committee for discussion and back to this House quickly so that we can pass it and make it law, because it would not take effect until a year after it has royal assent. Therefore, we need to get royal assent as soon as possible.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert.

I am very pleased to speak to the issue of rail safety. It is a very important issue for my riding, which I will explain shortly.

We are debating second reading of Bill C-52, which would amend the Canada Transportation Act and Railway Safety Act. This is something that is closely watched by people in my community, in my riding of Parkdale—High Park.

The bill would require minimum insurance levels for railways transporting dangerous goods, based on the type and volume of goods being transported. It would establish a disaster relief fund to compensate victims of derailment paid for by levies on railway companies that are transporting crude oil. This would be on top of the minimum insurance levels. It would also implement other changes to increase the powers of inspectors.

In general, we support the bill. We think it is important to take immediate action and any improvement is certainly positive. We need to improve the liability and accountability regime for Canada's railways and we need to ensure that the government enforces the legislation, that the regulations are enforced and that the inspectors and auditors have the resources required for this effective oversight. We believe the bill should have gone much further, but I will come back to that in a couple of minutes.

What got everyone's attention in the country on the issue of rail safety was the terrible, tragic rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic in 2013. It is a situation we know well, where a freight train loaded with Bakken crude oil travelled down a hill unattended. It derailed and on impact exploded, caught fire and killed 47 people. The town centre was destroyed. Eight hundred people were evacuated. The land was contaminated. It was a traumatic situation not only for the people who were horribly affected by the devastation but for our entire country.

The subsequent reports made a number of findings and recommendations. They found that back in the 1990s, with the Liberal governments and continuing with subsequent Conservative governments, deregulation of the railway sector and a transferring of responsibility for safety from the government to the railway companies began. In this case, they found a series of problems with the company that was responsible in Lac-Mégantic, such as a very weak culture of safety, mechanical problems and a lack of staffing. With Transport Canada, they found inadequate oversight and inspection. What was highlighted was the weakness of the tank cars.

It is fair to say that people assumed the government was looking out for them and taking care of their safety, that this was surely one of the basic responsibilities of government, to ensure that public safety was respected.

I want to read into the record in the House an email I received from a constituent because this got the attention of people in our riding of Parkdale—High Park. One neighbourhood in our riding is called The Junction. The Junction is the crossing of the CN and CP lines. As one can imagine, there is quite a bit of rail traffic going through our neighbourhood. This was historically an industrial neighbourhood, which over the years has seen a greater number of people with their homes right by the tracks.

I want to read from a constituent's letter: “My partner and I currently own and live on...a street beside the tracks. Our property backs onto the rail yard. Our bedroom is less than 40 feet from the rails that transport tons and tons of goods, many of which are unknown to us. We see black oil tankers go by multiple times a day, cars with perforated holes in them. Since the Lac-Mégantic catastrophe as well as others across the country—they seem to be happening more and more frequently—we are deeply concerned for our safety as well as the safety of our neighbours and friends. Because of our home's proximity to the rail lines, if anything were ever to happen on the rail lines behind us, a derailment or an explosion, we would most likely lose our home and potentially our lives. The number of lives that could be at risk if such an accident occurred here is absolutely staggering.”

This is a concern that is very real in our neighbourhood. It goes well beyond the issue about liability, while liability is a key factor because we saw in Lac-Mégantic there was clearly a lack of responsibility and a lack of liability on the part of the shipper.

We have a number of questions from members of our community who have organized into an organization called Safe Rail Communities. They want to know why, while the technology to stabilize light crude oil by extraction of volatile gases exists and is mandated in the state of Texas, it is not required to be stabilized before it is transported by rail. Most of this is required to be stabilized before it is transported by pipeline. People want the substances that are being transported made as safe as possible.

They also want to know why Canadians must wait until 2025 for the new TC-117 tank cars, the safer tank cars. Why do people have to continue to see the DOT-111s or even the newer cars that crashed in northern Ontario roll past their bedroom windows when there are safer alternatives? Why do we have to wait 10 years for safer tank cars to roll on the Canadian lines? Why can people not know what is being transported through their communities? Why do people not have a right to know the hazards that are rolling right past their bedroom windows? These are fundamental questions that need to be answered.

They also want to know, when a catastrophic accident from a flammable train in a densely populated area could have costs going up to $6 billion, why the strictest requirement is only $1 billion. In fact, we have written to CN and it has told us that it already has more than $1 billion in liability insurance, so this would put no new higher standard on it. Why do we not require shippers and those responsible for the products that are being shipped to have insurance that would cover the complete liability? Why would we allow any exposure to liability in our communities?

When we think of the potential tragedy of a major rail accident in our largest city, the city of Toronto, where hundreds of these tank cars carrying Bakken oil or dilbit are transferred every day, surely we need to prevent as much as possible any potential accident from happening. People want to know that what is being shipped is as safe as possible, that it is being shipped at as slow speeds as possible, that wherever possible it is rerouted from their area to the less-populated neighbourhoods, but then should there be any tragedy that the community would not have to once again pick up the tab.

Protecting the public is a core responsibility of the government. New Democrats believe we need to do everything in our power to ensure that tragedies such as that which occurred in Lac-Mégantic never happen again. Fixing liability is just the beginning. We need stronger laws, stronger enforcement, penalties for those who break the laws, and much more serious oversight, inspections and audits by the government.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to the Safe and Accountable Rail Act, or the Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to the changes we are proposing to provide greater oversight of federally regulated railway companies.

We are indeed proposing to further strengthen oversight of federally regulated rail companies. The safe and accountable rail act is progressive and forward-looking. The amendments to the Railway Safety Act would mean 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.

All of these are priorities of the government, and I believe should be priorities of each and every member of this House of Commons. There is nothing more important than the safety and prosperity of Canadians. That is why my private member's bill is the complementary Bill C-627, which was inspired by my constituents of Winnipeg South Centre.

The Railway Safety Act provides the Minister of Transport with the authority to oversee the safety of federally regulated railways. Transport Canada's role is to monitor for threats to safe railway operations, as well as compliance to the Railway Safety Act and its rules, regulations and engineering standards through audits and inspections.

The amendments to the Railway Safety Act would further strengthen oversight 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.

By proposing these amendments, the federal government is reiterating its commitment to a safe and secure national railway system, and to the safety of communities right across this country. The government is focusing on four key areas that will have the most direct and positive impact: meeting the needs of communities; ensuring the people or companies responsible are accountable; strengthening safety management systems; and increasing authorities for our railway safety inspectors.

Collaboration between railways and communities is crucial to ensure the safety of Canadian citizens across our vast country. The Government of Canada is committed to enhancing confidence in railway safety, greater sharing of information and co-operation between railway companies and communities.

This is precisely why we are proposing new regulation-making powers, requiring companies to share information with municipalities. This would help address community railway safety concerns, and I know these changes, along with my private member's Bill C-627, would be extremely well received in my home riding of Winnipeg South Centre.

Too often it is the provinces and municipalities, also known as the taxpayers, that are left to pick up the pieces and pay the bills after a railway incident, especially one that requires the assistance of first responders for issues such as fire.

The Safe and Accountable Rail Act also proposes changes to allow a province or municipality that incurs costs in responding to a fire that would appear to be the result of a railway company’s railway operations to apply to the Canada Transportation Agency to have those costs reimbursed. These changes would give the Canada Transportation Agency the power to determine whether the fire was indeed the result of the railway operations of the railway company in question, and, if so, the Agency would have the authority to order the railway company to reimburse the province or municipality, thereby avoiding downloading the costs on to municipal taxpayers.

Under the auspices of the Railway Safety Act, Transport Canada is responsible for oversight, which includes monitoring for threats to rail safety operations, as well as compliance with the Railway Safety Act and its rules, regulations and engineering standards through audits and inspections. The proposed amendments in this bill include broadening authorities to allow inspectors to issue notices in the event of a threat to safety to any person or entity that has responsibility in relation to that threat, including companies, road authorities and municipalities.

Furthermore, in the event of an immediate threat, an inspector may issue a notice and order to any person or entity, again including companies but now also including road authorities and municipalities, and order them to take specific corrective actions to remove the immediate threat. These broadened authorities complement a broader new authority for the Minister of Transport.

Currently, the Railway Safety Act allows the minister to order only railways to take corrective action in cases of immediate threats to safety. The amendments propose adding an additional power to allow the minister to order a railway company, road authority or municipality to take corrective action following specific procedures or to stop any activity in the interest of rail safety operations.

These amendments are about oversight and advancing railway safety oversight and enforcement, together with furthering safety management system implementation by clarifying and broadening the authority and responsibilities of the minister and railway safety inspectors.

What is more, this act would fully align and complement my own private member's bill, Bill C-627, an act to amend the Railway Safety Act, which aims to provide greater protection to persons and property from risks inherent to railway operations. I introduced that bill on September 23, 2014, and I understand it is in committee as we speak. Furthermore, both bills align with the objectives of the Railway Safety Act to further strengthen railway safety in Canada.

The safe and accountable rail act and Bill C-627 are both about safety, they are both about protecting people, they are both about protecting communities.

It is hard to argue with these changes. The railway is an integral part of Canada's current infrastructure and will continue to be in the future. The railway has to be sound, reliable and safe.

This government believes these amendments to the Railway Safety Act are essential. They would modernize the Railway Safety Act to reflect the requirements of a growing and increasingly complex rail industry. I believe the important safety amendments contained in the bill are ones that we can all agree on, both quickly and unanimously.

This bill is a step forward. It is a step forward for Canadians and a step forward for rail safety. With the agreement of each and every member of the House, we can take these steps together toward a safer, more reliable and economically viable freight and passenger railway system for all Canadians.

[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.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to stand and speak in this great place. Today it is regarding Bill C-52, the safe and accountable rail act.

The bill would fulfill its title, in part, by strengthening the authorities of the Minister of Transport and the rail inspectors of Transport Canada in their efforts to maintain and improve the rail safety regime of Canada's rail transportation system. This is especially vital in the transportation of dangerous goods, including crude oil.

Canada has a good rail system. Some would argue that it is among the best in the world, both in terms of safety and in its ability to deliver transportation services that enable shippers to compete in a global economy. Under the current safety regime, 99.997% of dangerous goods transported by rail arrive safely. That is quite an impressive statistic, but we also know that we can never rest while there are still means available to increase that number even further.

Hon. members may recall that in May 2013, the Safer Railways Act introduced new safety provisions. It strengthened Transport Canada's oversight and enforcement capacity by giving it the authority to make regulations and by requiring all railways to meet regulatory requirements to obtain a safety-based Railway Operating Certificate. Transport Canada's enforcement powers were also strengthened at that time with the implementation of administrative monetary penalties. Existing judicial penalties were also increased.

Now, with the safe and accountable rail act before us, we go further. We would respond to issues raised by the 2007 review of the Railway Safety Act, the 2013 report of the Auditor General, and the recent report of the Transportation Safety Board on the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. Each has called attention to the need for Transport Canada to strengthen its oversight regime for rail.

The bill before us would provide the Minister of Transport and the railway inspectors with more oversight of railway safety and the ability to act when they believe that action is required to address threats to safety.

Bill C-52 would amend subsection 47.1(1) to enable information-sharing regulations that would require railways, for example, to prepare a summary of any risk assessment they have conducted. The summary would also include the mitigation measures identified and the plan to monitor the effectiveness of the mitigation plan itself.

Under future regulations, this summary would be shared with parties affected by any significant change to railway operations. In other words, local municipalities would be informed of changes to operations that would have an effect on safety in their communities. That was just addressed a few minutes ago.

Section 37 of the Railway Safety Act would be amended to permit the sharing of information related to safety. Detailed information on a risk assessment, for example, would be required to be provided to the minister under the terms of the Canada Transportation Act.

The bill would also require railway companies to comply with engineering standards, and failure to comply with these standards would then mean that they broke the law.

Under section 31, railway inspectors would be given broadened authority to issue notices and orders where there was a threat or an immediate threat to safety. Under the current regulatory regime, Transport Canada inspectors are limited in how they require railways to address safety concerns. The bill would broaden that authority so that in the case of an immediate threat, the inspector would have the power to order any appropriate corrective measures to be taken.

The Minister of Transport would be given new powers and authorities under this bill. When she believed that there was a particular threat to safety, she could order a company, road authority, or municipality to take corrective action, stop any action, follow any procedure, or suspend operation. This would give the Minister of Transport a powerful tool to oversee the safety of Canada's rail transportation system. Bill C-52 would also extend this new oversight authority to the safety management systems created by the railways.

I would like to clear up some misconceptions about the safety management systems, or the SMS. They do not represent an abdication of the government's responsibility to regulate and monitor railway safety by passing it off to the railways themselves. Rather, the SMS create an additional level of safety management to how the railways actually operate. An SMS includes, for example, safety goals and performance targets along with risk assessments.

In addition to following existing rules and regulations, the railways needs to identify hazards and mitigate risks to prevent accidents, often learning from minor incidents and trend analysis on day-to-day operations.

Transport Canada has created regulatory requirements around safety management systems, and oversees a railway's compliance to the SMS regulations. The department assesses the SMS documents developed by the railways and conducts periodic inspections and audits.

The role of safety management systems in all modes of transportation was studied by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, but in the meantime, our government has taken steps to increase the regulatory enforcement of an SMS in rail and has given the minister authority to apply it in an effort to promote a safer railway systems.

Under the bill before us, if the minister believes the manner in which the railway is implementing its safety management system in fact compromises safety, the Minister of Transport can use a ministerial order to direct a company to take specific necessary actions. In this way, the SMS truly becomes another level of safety prevention, adding to the measures already in place to ensure safe and secure transportation.

Another component of the changes to the Railway Safety Act gives new authorities to the Canada Transportation Agency. A new section 23 of the act would permit a province or municipality to apply to the Canada Transportation Agency to recoup costs it must pay as a result of putting out fires believed to be caused by railway operations. Previously, these costs were paid for by the province, the municipality and taxpayers.

The Canada Transportation Agency would then determine whether, in its view, the fire was indeed caused by a company's railway operations. Sometimes those are very difficult to determine on rolling stock. It would determine whether the fire was indeed caused by a company's railway operations, what the costs were and would require the railway to reimburse the provinces or municipality for those costs.

There are many ways in which the safe and accountable rail act would give new force to the regulatory authorities and promote the safety and security of our rail system. We are taking the transportation system and making it better.

Clearly, this is a significant endeavour that will improve rail safety and its protection. Therefore, supporting Bill C-52 is a reasonable and sensible thing to do.

[Rachel Heft, Legal Counsel, Department of Transport]

As it stands, the coordinating amendments for Bill C-52 make sure that any changes that are made to section 31 of the Railway Safety Act through Bill C-627 are dovetailed with those in Bill C-52. Any changes made with respect to this amendment would have to be later coordinated with Bill C-52 as well, so it would create some complexity there.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I have just a quick question. Obviously, we know that Bill C-52, which is the government's bill, touches on or tries to dovetail with, I would say, Bill C-627.

Would the addition of these amendments create any kind of complexity in how to deal with Bill C-52 and how the two fit together, if we were to accept an amendment like this?

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak to Bill C-52, the safe and accountable rail act.

Before I start, I would like to say that I appreciate the opportunity to share my time with the hard-working member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.

There are three points I want to make today. One is why Bill C-52 is important. I want to also talk a bit about the approach that we are using and how this compares to other liability legislation in recent times, and then about some basic provisions of the bill.

The first priority of Transport Canada, as we know, is safety and the prevention of accidents, but if an incident does occur, the liability and compensation regime must be able to respond to and support Canadians and their communities. We must take the steps necessary to ensure that in the event of a catastrophe, sufficient funds are available to compensate potential victims and pay for environmental cleanup and remediation.

We all know, as it has been commented on earlier in the House today, about the tragic accident in Lac-Mégantic with the Atlantic railway in 2013. The cleanup costs alone have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the railway company had third party liability insurance of only $25 million. The railway has subsequently gone bankrupt. The Minister of Transport has moved quickly following the tragedy to improve the safety regime that applies to railways, especially for the transportation of crude oil.

In January of 2014, there was an accident in my riding involving CN Rail just outside of Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, in a small community called Wapske. It was not a big thing like Lac-Mégantic by any stretch of the imagination, but there were a number of railcars carrying oil and propane.

It is important for us to represent our communities, especially rural communities with a lot of volunteer first responders and firefighters. Kudos to all the first responders who came to the scene during that accident and guaranteed community safety at that time, especially Tim Corbin, the fire chief at the Plaster Rock Fire Department, Mayor Fenner for Plaster Rock, as well as all the first responders and the hazardous materials people who attended the site.

Over the long term, though, we have to ensure that adequate resources are available to compensate third parties so that taxpayers are not responsible for paying. Indeed, the bill before us is based on generally accepted principles that polluters should be held accountable for covering the costs for which they are responsible. How is this principle incorporated into the liability and compensation regimes for other sectors, such as marine and pipeline? Let me share with the House a few observations on those.

I will begin with the marine sector. In the event of a marine oil spill, the financial burden of an incident is shared between those responsible for transporting the oil, the shipowner, and those who benefit from the movement, the receivers of the oil. In the marine sector, there are several sources of compensation for oil spills. This starts with the insurance carried by the shipowners themselves to cover their liabilities.

As well, Canada is a member of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds. This body administers two international funds to compensate oil pollution damage caused by persistent oil. In addition, Canada's ship-source oil pollution fund, which is financed by levies on oil shipped by marine, pays compensation for damages caused by spills of any type of oil from any ship. Taken together, this fund provides funding of approximately $1.4 billion per incident.

What if the extent of a marine spill damage exceeds that amount? Earlier this year, the government announced it would remove the per incident limit of liability to make the full amount of the ship-source oil pollution fund available as part of a world-class tanker safety system. If the costs of an oil spill go beyond the amounts available from the ship-source oil pollution fund and other sources, the government will ensure that the fund is temporarily topped up to cover damages and cleanup costs for the spill. These amounts will be recouped from the industry through a levy. In other words, the polluter will pay.

Another example is the liability and compensation regime for pipelines. In Canada, we are strengthening the regime to ensure that pipeline companies are responsible for damages resulting from an incident. The former minister of natural resources announced that the government will require oil pipeline operators to be able to pay for any damage caused by spills or incidents.

On December 8, 2014, the pipeline safety act was introduced in the House. The act would amend the National Energy Board Act and the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to, among other things, strengthen the liability and compensation regime for pipelines. Major oil pipeline companies would be required to demonstrate a minimum financial capability of $1 billion and would be liable for damages up to that amount, regardless of fault. Above that amount, the liability would be determined by who was at fault for the accident. If a pipeline company were to become insolvent as a result of an incident, the government would pay for the cleanup and compensation using the consolidated revenue fund as a backstop. However, the industry would be levied to recover those costs.

These are examples of approaches to liability and compensation in which the polluter must pay for the cost of cleanup and compensation.

The marine model is built around different tiers that enable the sharing of responsibility for those costs. For marine and pipeline modes, the taxpayers is protected when the government is able to levy industry to recoup any loan from the consolidated revenue fund.

The bill before us draws on those best examples from the liability and compensation regimes in these other modes and uses them to create a regime for rail transportation of dangerous goods. First, it would apply the polluter pays principle to rail freight transportation through mandatory minimum insurance levels. This insurance would cover third-party liabilities resulting from any type of rail incident. In addition, it would establish a fund to cover the cost of major accidents involving crude oil that exceeds a railway company's insurance level. The regime could later be expanded to include other designated goods.

Under the bill before us, mandatory minimum insurance requirements would be imposed on federally regulated railways, depending on the type and volume of crude oil and other dangerous goods they transport. Railways that carry small quantities of dangerous goods would be required to hold $25 million in insurance. For railways carrying higher amounts of dangerous goods, there would be an initial requirement to hold either $50 million or $125 million in insurance, depending on the volume. One year later, those requirements would rise to $100 million and $250 million respectively. This approach would provide short-line railways with sufficient time to adapt to these new requirements so that there would be a certain predictability for that business and for its customers.

Finally, railways carrying substantial amounts of specified dangerous goods, such as class one railways, would be required to hold $1 billion in insurance. The Canadian Transportation Agency would assign each railway an insurance level based on its traffic and would review insurance coverage to ensure that each railway carried the appropriate amount. Railway companies would be required to inform the agency of any changes that would affect their insurance coverage. The agency would be authorized to make inquiries as necessary for assessing compliance. If a railway company failed to comply with the insurance requirements or to notify the agency of an operational change that would affect its insurance, it would be subject to an administrative monetary penalty of up to $100,000 per violation.

One thing we should understand about this insurance, and I heard in some of the comments in the debate earlier today about insurance and what it does, is that it can also be preventative. Insurance will add a certain amount of rigour to this process, because to obtain coverage, the companies themselves will have to have proper safety management systems and will have to account for that as well. In my view, that will also ensure that they up their game when it comes to their safety management systems.

The second tier of funding would be provided by shippers of crude oil collectively. They would be required to pay a levy of $1.65 on each ton of crude oil carried by a federally regulated railway as a condition of its movement. These amounts would be held in a special account in the consolidated revenue fund called the “fund for railway accidents involving designated goods”. Should the cost of an accident involving crude oil exceed the mandated third-party insurance, this account would be used to compensate for remaining liabilities.

The bill before us would establish this new regime. It is consistent with other polluter pays regimes we are having in the marine and pipeline industries, and it is a regime we need in place in response to the tragedy we saw at Lac-Mégantic and to what we saw on a smaller scale outside my community of Wapske. Doing what we are doing demonstrates that we are determined to learn from these incidents to build a more comprehensive liability and compensation regime for the future.

I can tell from the debate that many of my colleagues in this House support this bill going to committee, and I look forward to their support as we send it to committee for further study.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill, which is strangely entitled “the safe and accountable rail act”. I would question the safe part of it, but it certainly is a way of making railroads more accountable for their actions.

The parliamentary secretary said a moment ago that the prime purpose of the bill is to make Canadians safer. I wonder how a bill that deals primarily with insurance and liability would actually make Canadians safer, unless of course, we are proposing to give over the regulation of the railroads to the insurance companies and make the insurance companies responsible for making sure the railroads are safe. Maybe that is what it is doing, but that is certainly not something I am in favour of.

It is a core responsibility of government to protect its citizens. That can come in any number of ways, but here we are talking about how to protect the citizenry of Canada from the actions of a federally regulated body, namely the railroads.

Protecting our citizens is not something the government should see as an expense on the expense line of the ledger, and yet that is all too often what we hear about. It is actually a duty and it is not something on which we should be looking to cut our expenses or cut taxes and make Canadians less safe. It is not something it should be seeming to do, but we have seen the Conservative government do it time and time again, in food safety, in airline safety, and now in rail safety, where we have a system that clearly did not protect the 47 residents of Lac-Mégantic nor the centre of that town which was destroyed by the rail system, which the current government and the Liberal government before it helped to create.

The bill is a step in the right direction. Clearly, the government seems to have adopted the NDP principle that the polluter should pay and that the person who is responsible for something like this should pay, but we think that this could go a whole lot further. There are flaws in the bill that need addressing, and we will discuss those in committee.

However, the bill would not really do what the government suggests it would do to make the rail system safer. It would make the rail system more financially reliant on the shippers and rail companies themselves and less so on the federal and provincial governments. It is a shifting of responsibilities. It is not a creation of safety per se, unless, as I said earlier, we are expecting the insurance companies to be the ones to manage the safety systems in Canada.

Why is there all this focus on rail safety suddenly in this country?

The focus is caused in part because of Lac-Mégantic. Lac-Mégantic opened our eyes to a number of other issues that face us in the rail safety world.

One was that there is a 500-fold increase in the amount of crude oil that is being transported across the country, and it's crude oil that we have also discovered is not particularly inert. In fact, it is very explosive. Once this oil reaches its containers, it catches fire almost immediately, in some cases with huge and explosive results, as was the case in Lac-Mégantic and a number of other places across this country.

As a result, we have witnessed, with that 500-fold increase in the transportation of these dangerous goods, an alarming increase in the number of incidents involving these dangerous goods. There were 11 in the past two years alone. They were major accidents involving rail and the transportation of crude oil.

Now, I will hear the Liberals yelling that if we are not going to have it in rail, we are going to have it in pipelines. Some of this oil, in fact most of this oil, cannot be transported in pipelines because it is too dangerous. It is too gaseous. It would create too high a pressure inside a pipe. It does the same thing in rail but in a much smaller container. As a result, while rail containers are apparently safe as long as they are standing still and not moving, those rail containers, once they are moving and break, have disastrous consequences.

We also have discovered that the containers the government has been using for some considerable period of time to transport water, milk, and inert substances, but only in the last few years have we been transporting enormous quantities of dangerous goods in these containers, were known in 1989 to be unsafe. That was over 25 years ago and yet the government did not do anything about this until last year.

Last year, the minister announced that 5,000 of the 80,000 of these railcars would be taken off the rail immediately and that the rest would be replaced over the course of three years. Then we discovered that the ones that are replacing them are not safe either. Now we have been told that we are going to replace the railcars over a period of 10 years because the DOT-111s and DOT-1232s are not safe for the transportation of oil.

What do we do in those 10 years? What kind of effective safety are we promoting for the people of Canada if the vehicles that are going by their homes, schools, churches and daycare centres are not safe? That is part of what we are hoping the government will actually consider.

We also discovered as a result of this incident, but also as a result of the good work by the Auditor General, that Transport Canada is not doing a good job in particular with regard to managing the safety management system, SMS, with which the Government of Canada has replaced the direct oversight of the rail system. In theory, where before we had random inspections by government inspectors, now we have a system where the government inspects a safety management system put in place by a railroad for compliance and that the inspection of that system is how the government inspects the railroads. The trouble is the inspection of the system did not happen. As the Auditor General discovered, it was not happening, and in something like only 20% of the cases where transport officials intended to audit a railroad did they actually do it.

The Transportation Safety Board also found that Transport Canada had not been doing a good job with regard to its inspections of the safety management systems of the very railroad that failed, MMA, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. We examined the results of the Transport Canada investigation. It found 18 separate causes for the incident, although the minister and the parliamentary secretary said it was just one individual. No, it was not one individual. The Transportation Safety Board said very clearly there were 18 separate causes, some of which were with Transport Canada. It did not audit MMA. Despite knowing that it had serious flaws since 2002, it did not audit it. It did not follow up on the safety deficiencies and did not oversee the organizational and operational changes which MMA made, including the one-man crews, which was part of the reason that this all happened.

We have a government that is responsible for Transport Canada, and in turn Transport Canada, with a 20% cut in rail safety over the past few years, does not have the wherewithal to do all of the inspections that it needs to do of the safety management system. We have a system that is falling apart all around us, caused at first by the Liberals and now continued by the Conservatives, a safety management system that is not keeping Canadians safe.

I come back to the title of the bill, the safe and accountable rail act. Yes, it does something about when there is an accident, but we should not be saying “when there is an accident”. We should be saying that there should be no accidents.

Last week at committee, CN admitted freely that there will be accidents, that there will be derailments. If we are going to admit that there are going to be derailments, how are we going to effectively protect Canadians? These railcars are not going to be replaced for 10 years. In the derailments that have taken place, such as in Lynchburg last year, the railcars carrying dangerous oil were the DOT-1232s, the newer more modern ones, and the train was going 24 miles an hour. In Gogama the train was going 38 and 43 miles and hour. In Mount Carbon, West Virginia, the train was going 33 miles an hour. In Galena, Illinois, the train was going 23 miles an hour. They all exploded. They all broke and exploded.

We have been told by the government that it is going to limit the speed of these vehicles in cities to 40 miles an hour. Clearly, even 23 miles an hour is too fast. If we are going to have derailments, we should at least make sure that the oil stays in the car when it derails. The only way to do that is to slow the trains right down, maybe to the speed that was in place after the Mississauga derailment, which was 15 miles an hour.

I welcome the fact that the government is paying attention to rail safety, but I wish the government would actually do something to make Canadians more safe.