Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, committee members.
We appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. We will provide you with a brief overview of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and the work we do, with a particular emphasis on pipeline statistics, investigations, and their findings.
I have with my today two colleagues who have a great deal of experience. Mr. Jean Laporte is the chief operating officer of the TSB. He's been with the TSB since its inception in 1990 and has a broad understanding of our mandate and the processes we follow. Mr. Kirby Jang is our director for rail and pipeline investigations. He is well-placed to discuss particular pipeline investigations, the responses to our recommendations, and the statistics we hold on pipeline accidents and incidents.
So let me begin by briefly talking about our mandate. The TSB was created by Parliament in 1990 and our sole purpose is to advance transportation safety. We do this by investigating no matter whether the accident occurred on our waterways, along our pipelines, or railways, or in our skies. In the course of our work we also gather statistics on accidents and incidents and we use these statistics to determine if there's a systemic issue that may warrant further investigation. The TSB does not keep a constant scan on industry to ensure the safety of pipelines. That is the role of the regulator, the National Energy Board.
We at the TSB speak through our investigations. The investigations, if you will, are our lens. And when our investigations are complete, we inform the public about what happened and why, and we make suggestions about what needs to be done to help ensure it will not happen again. With proposals for new pipelines and news of spills south of the border, pipeline safety is on the radar. So what have we found through our lens? In 2013, 129 pipeline occurrences were reported in accordance with TSB's mandatory reporting requirements. They ranged from minor releases to the kinds of things you hear about in the news, like the pipe rupture near the town of the Otterburne, Manitoba, in January 2014 resulting in a fireball from ignition of sweet natural gas. Fortunately most pipeline occurrences are incidents involving minor releases. Only 11 of the reported occurrences in 2013 were accidents.
When we are notified of an occurrence, we collect the initial data and decide if a full investigation is warranted. Generally speaking we investigate only those occurrences where we have the very most to learn. In making this determination we follow an occurrence classification policy, a policy that's in place for all of our investigations. The policy guides the decision, which hinges on whether there is a significant potential for reducing future risk and, consequently, whether there is a high probability that transportation safety will be advanced.
When we do investigate we take a systemic approach to all of our investigations. We run the gamut of issues from the immediate causes of the accident to the risks Canadians may encounter. And we do all of this to learn lessons to make the system safer. Along the way if we find unsafe conditions, we do not wait for our final report to make them known. We act immediately, communicating with those who can make the transportation system safer.
There are a number of tools we use to communicate risk. We may send out safety advisories, safety information letters, or issue safety recommendations. This being said, when we make recommendations, we do not impose changes on the transportation industry or on regulators. Solutions to safety are a shared responsibility among many players and our job is to make a convincing case for change.
In comparison with the other modes we investigate, the number of pipeline occurrences is relatively low and, therefore, so are the number of investigations. Of the 50 to 60 investigations we undertake every year, only 1 or 2 are pipeline investigations. To give you a snapshot, over a 23-year period, since our inception in 1990, the TSB has investigated 45 pipeline occurrences. There were 42 of those that were completed, and three are still under investigation.
Since 1990, we've issued 20 pipeline safety recommendations. All have led to concrete actions by industry and regulators to mitigate the risks and thereby improve safety. All of the responses, 100%, have received our highest rating of fully satisfactory. This means that the action taken has substantially reduced or eliminated the safety deficiency we found. This compares with about 74% for the whole body of our recommendations.
I think you can see that the pipeline sector's response has been very impressive. The positive response rate by industry and regulators to our recommendations speaks to a proactive pipeline industry with a generally strong safety culture and ongoing investments in inspection and maintenance of infrastructure.
However, our recommendations are only part of the picture. Another thing we look at through our lens are statistical data and incident data. As I mentioned previously, 11 pipeline accidents were reported to the TSB in 2013. This compares with an average of eight accidents per year for the period 2004 to 2013, and an average of 21 accidents per year for the period 1990 to 2003. Since 2003, the number of accidents has come down significantly, and it has remained fairly stable year over year.
We also note that approximately two-thirds of the accidents involve the transportation of gas, which means that only two or three accidents per year involve the transportation of oil. A total of 118 incidents were also reported in 2013. These are the minor events. This compares with 173, in 2012, and an average of 137 incidents per year for the period 2008 to 2012. Our analysis of the data revealed that the vast majority of these incidents involved the release of less than one cubic metre of product, primarily at facilities and not from transmission pipes.
This is what we know today based on 20 plus years of work. But what can we say about the future? If pipelines in Canada have by and large been safe in the past 20 years, will they be safe in the future? Will new pipelines meet the highest standards? Will older pipelines withstand the rigours of nature and continue to hold their products?
I can't tell you with absolute certainty. That's where the limitations of our lens come in because the Transportation Safety Board, by its very nature, looks back. We analyze what has happened, and we try to ensure that the problems we find are fixed. If new problems emerge, the TSB will pick them up on subsequent investigations. That is our role.
I can tell you that we will continue to investigate, that we will continue to find the causes and contributing factors of pipeline accidents, and that we will not hesitate to make recommendations when we think improvements need to be made.
I hope the information we've provided will be helpful in defining the scope of your study, and we look forward to answering your questions.