Government Operations Committee on May 3rd, 2016

[Stephen Lucas]

The work to support the Prime Minister and the official Government of Canada website and digital presence is done on the basis of non-partisan support. We assess content to ensure that it meets that criterion. The government has underlined this commitment in Open and Accountable Government, which details the use of social media by ministers and the importance of using it in a non-partisan way that respects the policies of the Government of Canada.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I have a question for the Transportation Safety Board. My colleague, Mr. Blaney, asked about your assessment of Transport Canada's capacity to enforce regulations. I believe your answer was that in Lac-Mégantic the issue wasn't a lack of resources—it was how those resources were deployed. I'd challenge that a little bit. In any inspection regime, you'll never have enough resources to inspect every train, but even so, the probability of getting caught depends on the number of inspectors out there. At some point, doesn't it depend on the number of inspectors out in the field?

[Kathy Fox]

The whole purpose of safety management systems was to enable companies to manage their safety risks, which they must do because you could never have an inspector watching everything that's going on. When we conduct our investigations, we always look at whether there were practices in effect that were non-compliant with regulations or unsafe. In cases of non-compliance, we look at why they weren't picked up by the regulator.

To date, what we've identified is more about the way Transport Canada was conducting oversight than it was about the number of inspectors that were available. In other words, there were situations—in rail, air, and marine—in which Transport simply didn't pick up on unsafe practices, even though they were doing inspections.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

So the idea was that the railway in question had been inspected and the inspectors missed it?

[Kathy Fox]

Well, again, if I speak to Lac-Mégantic, Transport Canada was aware of weaknesses in MMA's ability to manage risk, but they were unable to change how that company was operating, and so those unsafe operating practices persisted.

We've seen in other modes cases in which the regulator has not identified instances of non-compliance or unsafe operating practices. That's one of the reasons we put this on our watch list in 2014, the notion that companies should be responsible to manage their safety risks and that the regulator has to make sure that their SMSs are effective and find ways to ensure that companies are able to effectively manage risk so that unsafe operating practices don't continue.

We haven't identified, in our investigations, specific instances in which that didn't happen because of a lack of resources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll go to our last seven-minute intervener. Then we'll excuse our witnesses and wait for the room to disperse, then go in camera for committee business.

We have a new member of the committee, Madame Shanahan.

Welcome to our committee. You have seven minutes, please.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you for what has been a very informative testimony from all the witnesses here gathered. Let me just say that I am very impressed by the professionalism of the work you are doing. You are each three very different organizations, but the professionalism and indeed the non-partisan nature of your work does you credit.

I have the privilege of sitting on the public accounts committee, so it could be that we'll be seeing each other in a different venue and a different way when we're looking at outcomes, when we're looking at past projects and the Auditor General's report.

In that vein, in this morning's Auditor General's report Mr Ferguson spoke to an overall theme. I think this theme would apply here today. It is the quality of data collection within organizations, agencies, departments in the public service and the difficulty the agencies would then have in using that data, either because of the quality of the data, because of its accuracy, or because of legacy systems that just weren't providing accurate data to allow organizations to then make solid, evidence-based recommendations and policy decisions, which would, I would think, affect you in your work in developing your estimates. That's really what we're talking about here today, so that you can continue your good work.

Maybe a little bit of time for each one of the organizations would be appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Lucas.

[Stephen Lucas]

Indeed, that is an important area of focus and part of the focus of the government, as I said in response to a previous member's question, on outcomes for Canadians and really focusing on the implementation of initiatives. Critical to knowing whether you are actually on the path towards achieving the results or outcomes you've committed to for Canadians is having the data to tell you whether you are on track, whether in a case pertaining to greenhouse gas emissions, the number of refugees, or the number of innovative companies in the economy.

Indeed it is a priority of the government and a focus to identify data sources for those key indicators that can be reflected in reports on plans and priorities, with the results then reflected in reporting to Parliament. This will take effort from across government, working with provinces and territories and other partners as well, working with Statistics Canada in terms of its data collection and indeed in some areas with international partners.

Mr. Chair, if I may, as an aside I want to correct the record concerning the support through the Privy Council Office of the process for the independent advisory board on Senate appointments. The secretariat will have five people in it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Ms. Fox.

[Kathy Fox]

Clearly, the data that the Transportation Safety Board collects for all of our occurrences, whether or not we conduct a full investigation with a public report, is very important. We've taken steps over the previous years to modernize our databases. Recently, about a year and a half or two years ago, we updated our regulations to make sure that we modernize the type of data we are collecting and harmonize with government departments where required. We've also recognized, as a vulnerable point, that we carefully have to guard how that information is retained, and we have steps in our strategic plan, which is looking at that, to make sure that, for example when employees leave, we are able to preserve any TSB data that is crucial from a business and continuity perspective going forward.

[Jean Laporte]

I'll just add that in each one of our individual investigations, we ensure that we're very thorough in collecting data, analyzing it, and being fact-based in our reporting and findings. That is essential to our credibility and the work that we do.

Our challenge is more at the big picture level once we collect all this information. There is more and more information available from all kinds of sources with technology nowadays. How do we manage this mass of information? How do we dig through it to look for trends to identify proactively some items that would require closer study and analysis? That's where our challenge lies primarily.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

The final comment will be from Mr. McArdle.

[André McArdle]

Being a one program process-oriented agency, obviously with regard to data it's maybe a lot simpler than what my colleagues have been saying. We are serving 14 jurisdictions and the aspect of client satisfaction is very important. We regularly survey our clients and have a satisfaction rate of over 90%.

We are very oriented toward analyzing conference costs in order to see where we could have savings that we can pass on to our clients. We are also in the process of digitizing a lot of the data we have, so that we're more able to extrapolate the information that is required.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

I thank all the witnesses for being here today and providing valuable information to our committee members. I would remind some of our witnesses that in response to a question or two, I believe you suggested that you would be providing updated information to the committee. You can, of course, get that directly to our clerk.

Thank you once again. I appreciate your attendance, and you are dismissed.

We will suspend for a few minutes and come back in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]