Evidence of meeting #28 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was recommendations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
James Clarkin Director General, Corporate Services, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
I can take that.
Under CER, we advanced a number of initiatives that we feel are just working smarter. That's basically using new AI on our operational side to become more efficient and so on.
Right now, we feel that we'll be able to improve our service and make our inspections and investigations more efficient; however, we don't see that we'll have to lose any technical capacity in the future.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Are you guys not going to be receiving any cuts to funding or staff at this point in time?
Director General, Corporate Services, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
We are receiving cuts. Potentially in the future, we may reduce administratively on internal services, but right now we don't foresee it. We think we can manage with attrition.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK
Are there any potential concerns, though, about maintaining transportation safety as it pertains to that?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
Our mandate, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is really to conduct investigations, identify safety deficiencies and make recommendations. We are able to fulfill our mandate without any issues.
As James mentioned, we are faced with some cuts as part of the CER exercise. They do not compromise our mandate. We will still be able to fulfill it with these cuts.
Right now, we're really focusing on finding efficiencies, as well as managing vacant positions and potentially attrition. That's what we're focusing on to meet these cuts as part of CER.
Liberal
Tom Osborne Liberal Cape Spear, NL
Thank you.
You answered one of my questions around finding efficiency, so I won't go down that avenue.
I want to start by recognizing the good work the Transportation Safety Board does and the reputation you've gained on an international basis. While some of my questions may seem challenging, they are not meant to be offensive to your positive reputation and the good work you do.
In your opening remarks you talked about advancements, and it almost seems contradictory. I need to get my mind around it. With these advancements come new risks, with greater potential for accidents. I would think that with advancements, there would be less potential for accidents.
Can you elaborate on your comment?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
I was talking about emerging technologies and new things that are appearing on the radar.
I can give you a few examples, to clarify. Drones, space flight and composite materials are all things that we have had to deal with more and more in our investigations. We have to develop our own internal capacity to be able to meet these new areas that we now have to investigate. This requires ongoing work for us to stay up to date and current on how we conduct these investigations. This is what I was referring to.
Liberal
Tom Osborne Liberal Cape Spear, NL
You talk about the risk profile shifting and Canada's transportation landscape changing dramatically.
Can you elaborate a little on that?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
The public expectations for fast and accessible information have grown. It's something we definitely noticed in the occurrence that happened in Toronto in February 2025, when the interest in our investigation was so high that it made our website crash.
How we communicate information and how we conduct these investigations is shifting. Our mandate is not shifting, of course. It's really how we address these investigations that can shift, based on public expectations and new technologies that we are seeing.
Liberal
Tom Osborne Liberal Cape Spear, NL
The other question is this: After years of recommendations from the board and supposedly better technology, shouldn't we be seeing a reduction in the number of occurrences that you have to investigate? Why is it that we're not seeing a reduction?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
Over the years, as I mentioned, we have issued 630 recommendations, and out of those, about 84% have been addressed as fully satisfactory. We are closing recommendations as fully satisfactory every year, which shows that we are having a concrete impact.
The way people travel is also changing regularly. There can be higher volumes in some sectors, and higher volumes mean more accidents, which means that we have to investigate more. There can be a shift in volumes, but we don't have a lot of control over that, so we focus on flagging the safety deficiencies that come out of our investigations for them to be addressed.
Liberal
Tom Osborne Liberal Cape Spear, NL
You mentioned that you continue to support hundreds of investigations led by international counterparts. Are we seeing a reciprocal number of investigations in which international counterparts are helping us?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
Under International Civil Aviation Organization annex 13, which is basically the convention that governs international investigations on the air side—I'm talking mostly about air investigations—there are some agreements between the countries. For instance, there are a lot of manufacturers and operators that are based out of Canada, so if a Canadian-made aircraft has an issue in another country, that country would lead the investigation, and Canada, as the state of the manufacturer, for example, would support the investigation. This is what I'm talking about.
Yes, it's absolutely reciprocal. If something happens in Canada and it's an American manufacturer, we'll be working with the NTSB on these types of issues, for sure.
Liberal
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
Yes. That's exactly why we were involved in that one, and we were working with the NTSB.
Liberal
Tom Osborne Liberal Cape Spear, NL
Regarding the 84% of responses and the 16% that you haven't received, can you elaborate on how old some of that 16% is and what sectors stand out in that 16%? What can be done to get a more timely response?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
The 16% is a total of 81 recommendations. I can give you some numbers. There are 44 recommendations in air, 23 in marine and 14 in rail that are still outstanding. They can be outstanding for various reasons.
Some of them are very recent, and there hasn't been time to address them yet. Some of them are much older, and they are still outstanding because our assessment of the risks is not the same as that of the regulator, and there is essentially a disagreement on how to address the issue, which means that the regulator does not address the issue and the recommendation remains outstanding. There can be many reasons for that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thanks very much.
We'll go to Mr. Barsalou-Duval.
Welcome to OGGO, sir. The floor is yours for six minutes.
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Transportation Safety Board for being with us today.
I'm going to start by asking you about the accident that occurred on January 12 in Saint‑Alexandre‑de‑Kamouraska. I imagine you know the one I'm talking about. A Via Rail train struck two trucks that were parked very close to the track. I think the truck drivers were even sleeping in their trucks at the time of the accident.
First, how soon can we expect the Transportation Safety Board's accident report to be made public? How far along are you in the process?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
The accident was in the assessment phase for a few weeks and was classified fairly recently. I would have to check that to give you the most up-to-date information. I can provide the details to the committee later on.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
I know that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, or TSB, went to the site. It was made public. I also know that a kind of preliminary investigation is done at the site. However, if I'm not mistaken, the decision to conduct a detailed investigation was subsequently made. Is that correct? Did you decide whether or not you were going to conduct a detailed investigation? Have I properly understood your process?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
That's correct.
We will deploy investigators to the accident site so they can assess the circumstances of the accident. It will be a preliminary assessment, if you will. They will use that information to classify the accident.
Our investigation classification ranges from a class 2 accident to a class 5 accident.
A class 2 investigation is for a very serious accident that needs a complex investigation. The accident in Toronto, when the plane flipped over, is an example of a class 2 investigation. This type of investigation takes a long time and involves a very lengthy report. It will often come with recommendations.
A class 3 investigation is a regular one, let's say. It takes a year and a half and involves a report of about 30 pages.
A class 4 investigation involves a more basic report, usually about 10 pages. The report focuses on factual information about the accident.
A class 5 investigation involves simply collecting data for statistical purposes.
The investigators deploy to the accident scene and classify the accident, and then they determine the next steps based on the classification.
Your question was about classification, but unfortunately, I don't have that information at the moment. I can provide an answer to the committee.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Okay. We would indeed appreciate it if you could provide us with that information. We want to know what the classification is and how soon we can expect results. Depending on the classification level, I imagine there's a varying level of detail.
The question I had about this, whether we like it or not, concerns Driver Inc., meaning truck drivers who are often poorly trained, are exploited and work gruelling hours. In many cases, they do not comply with the number of driving hours set out in the legislation. This is a very public and high-profile issue in Quebec. I don't know what the situation is in Canada, but it's still a concern because of the many accidents that have occurred.
You have rail and air expertise, and maybe some marine expertise. When there is a crossover between rail and road, to what extent do you have the expertise to get to the bottom of it? Do you have help, for example, from other experts who specialize in the area to do your work?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
You're right: We don't have a mandate to conduct investigations into road transportation.
Our mandate to investigate road transportation comes up periodically over the years.
We have a mandate to investigate when rail transportation is involved. In this case, the accident involved a train and a truck. As a result, we were given a mandate to conduct an investigation.
Of course, the rail aspect will always be the focus of our investigation, because that's our mandate. However, there can still be a road component when a truck is involved.
A few years ago, there was a collision between a bus and a train in Ottawa. We conducted an investigation and made recommendations concerning bus transportation, precisely because we felt that the issues overlapped.