Evidence of meeting #162 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pco.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
As I'm fond of saying to committee members on occasion, the two minutes allocated for questions and answers are for both the question and the answer. Unfortunately we don't have time for the answer. I know that's a legitimate question, and I'm not trying to make light of it.
I would suggest to Madam Fox that, for the answer, you could provide it to the clerk in written form, and we'd be able to provide it to all committee members.
Thank you.
We're going to Mr. McCauley now for five minutes.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Ms. Fox, Mr. Blaikie brought up rail being an issue. I'm looking at the departmental reports and the 10-year safety pattern. It shows marinas met, pipelines met, but not met on rail; number of fatal accidents, aviation targets met, marine targets met, pipelines targets met, but not rail; and the percentage of responses to recommendations assessed was fully satisfactory, but rail not met.
Throughout the entire thing, rail has not met your targets, not a single one. I realize it's not yours specifically, but the question is this. We've had questions on rail safety brought up in the House repeatedly, and the Minister of Transport has repeatedly stood and said, “Don't worry, all is fine. Rail safety is my number on priority”. I've seen him stand repeatedly, again and again, and blow off every question with the response, “Rail safety is my number one priority”.
I'm looking at your departmental results, and we're failing at rail safety on every single metric. Is this an issue that Transport is just ignoring? Is this bad luck that they've failed on every single metric? What is going on when we're improving marine safety and aviation safety, yet in the House we've got the minister standing, pounding his desk, and saying that rail safety is his number on priority, but it's getting worse.
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
To put the results in context, as you mentioned, Mr. Chair, we can't control the accident rate—
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
—or the number of fatal accidents. We have seen an upward trend in the last few years in a number of areas. At the end of the day, it's up to Transport Canada to look, with the railway companies and the rail industry, at what's going on.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
That's my concern. You produce information showing that it's getting worse—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
—but we have the Minister of Transport standing repeatedly and saying, “Everything's great. It's my number one priority. Don't worry.”
The facts don't match the propaganda from the government on this. Deaths are up, and accidents are up.
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
I think some of these are complex—
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
I think some of these are complex issues.
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
I think some of these are complex issues. As I mentioned in response to an earlier question, there's a lot that's been done, particularly since 2013, but there's still a lot that could be done.
We've made a number of recommendations to the department, in particular, for example, to look at training of railway crews involved in safety-critical positions, because the rules have not been updated for a number of years. Whether we're talking about derailments or crossing accidents, they have different causal factors, and so each has to be looked at as issues on their own.
We're certainly continuing to pay attention to things like training and maintenance and inspection practices of the railways as we do our investigations, and there's the safety and oversight provided by Transport Canada.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is it about getting the attention that the numbers say it needs?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
On the other side of things, if we look at the response to our recommendations—and the TSB has issued of over 600 recommendations since we were created in 1990—rail, aside from pipelines, has the highest percentage of responses that have been assessed by the board as fully satisfactory, although, admittedly, we've issued fewer recommendations in rail than in air.
It's a mixed bag. There has been progress, but there's still more that can be done to improve safety in the rail industry, no doubt.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Friday, I have one last question for you. I saw your comment about departmental results, about the difficulty without legislative changes. Do you think we will take the steps we need? Will we get proper whistle-blower protection without the legislative items suggested in the report issued by this committee? Will we see ourselves joining the ranks of better performing countries without action?
Commissioner, Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner
There are many components in the current act that were very forward thinking and have been reflected in other pieces of legislation that have been enacted in other countries since the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act , but after 11 years in this very fast developing world of whistle-blowing, the time to do it as quickly as possible, in terms of the law, social awareness and social expectation. I'd hoped that was 2017, but it wasn't.
February 25th, 2019 / 5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Ms. Fox.
In your report, you point out that the goal is to reduce the investigation time from 569 to 503 days. How can we, as parliamentarians, reassure Canadians that, by reducing our response and investigation time, the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board will not compromise the quality of investigations?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
I can assure you that when the board conducts an investigation, it takes the time it needs to examine all the issues in order to clearly identify the factors that caused or contributed to the accident.
Let me point out that our goal is not to publish investigations within 500 days. In fact, each category of investigation takes a certain number of days. For category 4, it is 200 days, for category 3, it is 450 days. The more thorough the examination, the longer it takes.
We made some fine progress in 2018-19. When we release our report on departmental results for 2018-19, the committee will be able to see that we have made significant progress in this regard.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
You have reduced the investigation time from 569 to 503 days. Why not reduce it to 500 or 495 days? How did you come up with an investigation time of 503 days?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
First of all, those are last year's results, from 2017-18. This year's results are not yet finalized, but they are much better.
We do a number of investigations. We look at the time required for each investigation and average it out. That is how we obtained 503 days for 2017-18, but the results will be very different for 2018-19.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
My other question is on rail transportation.
This year, are most of the rail accidents you identified in your report related to passenger transportation, such as VIA Rail, or to things like oil or grain?
Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
In our statistics, we do not record the products transported. However, I can tell you that, overall, in 2018, 123 accidents involving hazardous materials were reported. This is slightly higher than last year's number of 115, but lower than the average of 126 over the last 10 years.
Most of the events identified during the year were derailments on secondary tracks, such as marshalling yards. That's where the largest number of reported events occur. There are also a significant number of collisions at level crossings. Given the high number of collisions at those locations, we are conducting a study to determine the factors involved. Many fatalities and serious injuries are associated with level crossing accidents. We are therefore conducting a detailed analysis on that to better understand the issues.