Government Operations Committee on May 1st, 2018

[Kathleen Fox]

I know that the railway industry is under the safety management system regulations and that they can be, under any regulations, subject to enforcement action by Transport Canada. Transport Canada is in a better position than we are to answer you on what they're doing specifically in terms of issuing fines or notices to the railways.

In addition to our own investigations, we do receive confidential safety reports from operators on fatigue issues related to the railway. We transmit those to Transport Canada, and usually they do follow up with us in terms of what action they've taken.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

On the question of voice and video recording on trains—this is an item in Bill C-49—the government is proposing to treat the railway industry differently from the aviation industry. My understanding is that on planes, while you have recording devices, the information is made available to the Transportation Safety Board in the event they're investigating, but the information is not made available willy-nilly, if you will, to the companies.

In your view, is there a reason for treating rail differently from the aviation industry with respect to access to the recorded data that's granted to companies?

[Kathleen Fox]

First of all, we've been long-standing vocal about requiring recorders on board all modes of transportation to help us in our investigations, but we also believe firmly that those recordings can be very useful to operators in order to investigate incidents and accidents that we don't investigate and also for proactive safety management purposes—provided they remain protected, which they will, under our act, and provided the appropriate safeguards are embedded in regulations.

It's part of Bill C-49 because it's part of the overall requirement for voice and video recorders. It helps provide a greater safety benefit to the operators if they can have access to this information. In the long term, it remains to be seen whether that will be expanded to other modes. It's certainly something that the International Civil Aviation Organization is looking at for recorders on airplanes, about potentially expanding that use to operators.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

For the moment, then, what's conceived for the rail industry in Bill C-49 is different from what obtains...in the airline industry.

[Kathleen Fox]

It would be in terms of...if it's passed. Depending on what provisions are passed, it could expand the use to railway companies under Transport Canada. Again, the voice recordings would remain privileged under our act, and would be subject to very strict use under the regulations as well as the provision for enforcement if they are misused.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Madam Mendès, you have seven minutes, please.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I have one question for TSB. It's on Lac-Mégantic. You might have guessed it would be of interest to me, coming from Quebec.

When you came to the committee in November 2017, you told the committee that you had made five recommendations as a result of the Lac-Mégantic investigation. Apparently, only one of those had been addressed fully by the time you came here in November 2017.

I don't know if it's possible, but could you give us an update on the progress of those recommendations since and on where we're at, in May of 2018, with the recommendations on Lac-Mégantic?

[Kathleen Fox]

Every year we conduct an annual reassessment where we ask Transport Canada to provide us with an update on what actions they've taken.

In the case of the five Lac-Mégantic recommendations, one had gone fully satisfactory very early, within months after the accident.

Recently, the one relating to route planning and risk analysis was assessed as fully satisfactory. That information is hot off the press. It hasn't been released publicly yet.

The other recommendations are at various stages of implementation. The one relating to tank cars is definitely progressing. The minister last year announced a faster withdrawal of some of the older legacy tank cars that were involved in Lac-Mégantic. That is progressing.

With respect to Transport Canada's oversight of safety management systems, we've definitely seen some good progress there in terms of how they're overseeing the railway industry. We still have one, with respect to the prevention of runaway equipment, that is only satisfactory in part. We recently issued a concern about that. More physical defences need to be put in place to prevent uncontrolled movements on railways tracks.

Overall, some progress has been made since November, and we will be able to close one additional one of the Lac-Mégantic recommendations.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you very much.

Why hasn't the runaway equipment been addressed more vigorously? It seems to me it's quite pressing.

[Kathleen Fox]

Transport Canada has implemented a number of new rules since Lac-Mégantic to require better securement of trains and rolling stock on track but we did see an increase in the number of uncontrolled movements so we believe that while those rules are a good step in the right direction, they're not enough to reduce the risk of an uncontrolled movement.

Most of them take place in yards where the risk is very low, but we still are concerned that the risk is there, particularly if these cars or trains get out on the main track.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

And particularly if staff and employees are around. That could be extremely dangerous for them in going about their workplace. It seems to be a very urgent thing to address.

[Kathleen Fox]

Again, steps have been taken but because we have seen an increase in the last year in the number of uncontrolled movements, we have a concern that the steps that have been taken so far may not be adequate and more needs to be done, particularly with respect to physical defences to prevent cars from uncontrolled moving.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you. I don't want to take too much longer.

Another issue caught my attention in the report prepared by our analysts, and it's the recruitment and development of new investigators, as a significant portion of your staff is retiring. How do you plan to replace them as they retire, and what kind of training is offered to them once they are hired?

[Kathleen Fox]

I'll ask Mr. Laporte to answer the question.

[Jean Laporte, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board]

We typically hire people who are very experienced in the industry. It's normal to have a high turnover rate because we don't hire new recruits out of university, we hire people with 25, 30 years of experience so they stay with us for five, 10 years, and then they retire. That's normal.

We are using some of the different flexibilities available to us in staffing to create pools of pre-qualified candidates to ensure timely replacement. We're also looking at using some of the flexibilities to recruit people from within the various employment equity groups. We have different ways to bring in people, and we've been successful in filling our positions recently. We haven't had too much difficulty competing with other employers for quality talent.

In terms of training, we are revamping our own in-house developmental programs. Essentially we bring in experienced people who have knowledge of aviation, marine, pipelines, railways, and we train them to become investigators. We are currently making major investments in modernizing, revamping our training programs. Typically people go through a two-year training period, classroom training, on-the-job training, until they become fully qualified investigators.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

I imagine they're accompanying other inspectors while they're being trained.

[Jean Laporte]

That's right. There's on-the-job coaching, and so on.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

I imagine that part of your full budget is planned for this, for the training of new staff. I'm a bit curious to see the decrease in appropriations that you've asked for in these main estimates. Do you have an explanation?

[Jean Laporte]

There is no decrease in our appropriations. Essentially our appropriations have been stable for the last few years. As Madam Fox indicated in her opening remarks, we are receiving $800,000 more in salary dollars for this year to cover collective bargaining costs. Our budget has been stable although we have acknowledged in our departmental plan that we are facing some resource pressures, some challenges.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

If I may interrupt you for two seconds, that's my concern. You do identify challenges but there is a $2.6 million decrease compared to 2017-18.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

If you can give a very brief answer, then we'll have to move on.

[Jean Laporte]

If you look at the main estimates, the perceived decrease you see there is that the numbers for the previous year include supplementary estimates so extra money was provided in the year for the carry-forward of the previous year's lapse as well, as we requested in supplementary estimates a one-time adjustment to cover retroactive costs of salaries last year.

If you subtract that from the previous year's numbers, the budget has been relatively flat for quite a few years. We are having discussions with central agencies about incremental funding and those discussions are positive at this point and we're hoping to get some answers, some decisions, from the government shortly.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

We'll be seeing you for the supplementaries. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We'll have to cut it off there. Thank you very much, all of you, for being here. Once again, unfortunately, because of the fire alarms, we had an abbreviated question and answer period. I do thank you for your participation. Your input has been very helpful.

We will suspend, colleagues, for just a couple of minutes while we ask the French delegation to approach the table, and we'll have a brief opportunity to have an informal discussion with them.

[Proceedings continue in camera]