Agriculture Committee on Dec. 5th, 2024

[Nathan Cato]

I would really underscore that this is a question of jurisdiction. We're federally regulated companies. Parliament has created a regulatory process under the Canada Transportation Act to resolve these kinds of disputes about utility crossings. That's what they are. You deal with drainage, water, needing to flow through the railway corridor. Typically, that's done by way of a culvert, so there's a process.

In the vast majority of cases, we reach agreements with adjacent landowners on this. We sign an agreement that defines terms and conditions and deals with costs, and there's no issue. In the very rare circumstances where there's a disagreement, the Parliament of Canada has created a regulatory process to resolve that dispute, and it's through the Canadian Transportation Agency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much.

I'll go to Mr. Louis. I know you might split a bit of your time with Mr. Longfield.

Just for the benefit of colleagues, we will come back to the Conservatives for about two and a half minutes, and then we'll probably have one more round on this side.

Go ahead, Tim.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you. Yes, I will be splitting my time with Mr. Longfield.

Thank you all for being here today.

Rail companies have looked after railroad farm crossings since 1894, as my colleague mentioned. When they severed farms, they were required to find a way to let farmers cross over the railways so they could get to the other parts of their farm.

In Waterloo region, I have 15 private and farm crossings on the CN line and 12 on the CPKC line. The farmers are justifiably nervous. They've been told that they have to pay $600,000 to up to $2 million in costs, and that's just unacceptable. Farmers cannot afford a bill like that.

It sounds to me like you are taking action, and I appreciate that, but it sounds like it was forced upon you. Can each of you tell me on what date your company decided to walk away from the agreement from 1894? What date did you say that you weren't going to pay? Can you also tell me when you changed your mind and said you were going to work with farmers and cover those costs?

Maybe I'll start with Mr. Cato.

[Nathan Cato]

I would say that nothing, really, has changed in the legal framework that governs cost apportionment at crossings. As I described it earlier, there are three types of crossings in the Canada Transportation Act. That hasn't changed.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Where's the change? Where is the disconnect? Farmers and farming associations are saying you're telling them they have to pay, and now you're saying you are paying for it and moving forward. It sounds like you're already done.

[Nathan Cato]

Yes, we've completed the crossing upgrades that were required by the regulatory change in 2014. Our team has worked for 10 years now, working across the network. We have approximately 7,000 crossings in our network in Canada. An enormous amount of work has gone into making sure that those crossings meet the new standards.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I can tell that to the 12 farmers in my region on the CPKC line.

Has anyone else reached out to them, to your knowledge? They're waiting to hear back because the deadline has passed.

[Nathan Cato]

I would have to check specifically with the 12 you're referring to—I'm not familiar with them—but we have worked across the network and are now in compliance with the regulations for our crossings.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Harvey, is it the same for you?

[Eric Harvey]

It's the same here. Essentially, we have only four left in our entire network. They're in Kingston. I think your group is okay.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Has anyone reached out? You must have a list of those farm crossings.

[Eric Harvey]

You mean in terms of—

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Have you reached out to say you're in compliance? What's changed? Nothing has changed on their farms. The regulation has changed.

[Eric Harvey]

I can check with our public affairs group to see if that has been done. If it hasn't, I will recommend that we do it.

The exemption decision from Transport Canada is a public document. It's available. We are committed to working with the last four to see how we can develop something there.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Longfield.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Longfield, you have two minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's great. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Louis.

Mr. Harvey, after the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster, there was a regulatory review under the previous government but no funding. In 2016, our budget had $143 million over three years. We subsequently worked on more funding for safety at level crossings. One of them is in Guelph on Alma Street.

In terms of government support for a rail line, could you comment on how important it is to have continued support for capital infrastructure projects so that we don't have another Lac-Mégantic?

[Eric Harvey]

Since the Lac-Mégantic incident, both our regulators and the rail industry have been taking this seriously. I can confirm that at CN, following this incident, we've spent considerable time working in collaboration with TC to develop sound regulations and implement them, even though CN was not involved in the incident. Now—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Right. Cutting regulations isn't the answer.

[Eric Harvey]

On the question of financing, the rail safety improvement program that has been administered at TC for many years is a very useful program because it provides proponents with opportunities to have access to public funds in the interest of safety. When I say “proponents”, I mean not only railways, but also public roads, municipalities and provinces, essentially. That program is a very effective one because grade crossings are the location where the traffic of roads and rail conflict. Therefore, the safer you make grade crossings, the safer you make operations for both modes of transportation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Harvey, we're going to leave it at that.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll go back to the issue of grade crossings and the regulations that came into force on November 28.

If I understood you correctly, Mr. Harvey, there are still seven or eight rail lines that are not fully compliant with the regulations.

Mr. Cato, you say that all level crossings are in good standing.

Mr. Harvey, on the subject of regulations and adaptations, you mentioned earlier reducing speeds at private level crossings with less traffic.

What is your interpretation of these new safety regulations that have been adopted? Don't you get the impression that it was applied more or less quickly everywhere?

[Eric Harvey]

People in the rail industry live in a world where safety and risk assessment are paramount. We always try to determine the risk that exists at a specific location and the measures needed to manage it.

If we pass a regulation that sets out a whole series of measures and we have 14,000 level crossings, sooner or later, we will consider that some of them need improvement, whereas in practice, that may not be the case.

Let's take the example of the 57 non-conforming level crossings for which we made requests. We're very pleased that we were able to reduce that to eight, with the help of Transport Canada, and then to four, because of the commitment I mentioned earlier.

The remaining four crossings are located in areas occupied by farms, and they are used very little. Nevertheless, we're talking about investing over $1 million in it. This winter, we will explore all existing opportunities for these level crossings, from closing them to fully protecting them. We would have to see if there are medium-term solutions to reduce costs, while ensuring an adequate level of safety based on an objective risk analysis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Unfortunately, the time is up. Thank you very much, Mr. Perron and Mr. Harvey.

Mr. Cannings, you have the floor for two and a half minutes, please.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Cato, I'll start with you again. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to pick on you, but hopefully if we have time and I can stop myself from talking, we might have time to move on to something else. I just want to tackle the labour issue we've heard about.

We always hear about labour disruptions. In many cases, or in most cases I've looked at with our railways or ports, it seems that they are just as often management issues. The rail strike this summer was two lockouts basically at the same time from CN and CPKC. It was seemingly done to put maximum pressure on the government to force arbitration on the unions. The Vancouver port strike was referenced. We hear a lot about Vancouver port labour disputes. That was the first strike in over 60 years in Vancouver. Everything else has been lockouts.

Your suggestion for this seems to be that we should change the labour laws in Canada to make it easier to force arbitration on unions in these situations. I'm just wondering if you have any suggestions that would involve more collaboration with unions to make them feel heard.

You talk about safety. The unions said that CPKC wanted to gut the collective agreement of all safety critical fatigue provisions. CN wanted to implement the forced relocation of workers to fill in labour shortages across the country, often for months at a time. Have you been thinking of ways to involve the unions to make sure they feel heard? Right now, it looks like you're trying to get away from their concerns.