Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 7th, 2009

[Paul Côté]

No, the Peterborough-Toronto train is not in VIA's mandate at all. We haven't been asked to deal with that issue at all. It's a GO Transit thing, I believe.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Oh, it was a GO train.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Madame Faille, pour sept minutes.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I will be splitting my time with my colleague Mr. Nadeau.

It's not that the issue isn't complex. VIA Rail officials know just how complicated it is to run through Vaudreuil-Soulanges. Almost all rail traffic runs through my riding. Therefore, I'm quite familiar with VIA's concerns. However, my colleague has a few questions for you, and I will comment more later.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Ms. Fraser, you noted the efficiency of the security management system. This is one indication that things are going well.

On a somewhat different subject, last summer, an incident involving a passenger train occurred between Toronto and Ottawa. The passengers had to disembark from the train. I'm not sure if you are aware of that incident.

[Paul Côté]

I'm aware of it.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

There was a problem in that VIA Rail was not able to—at least according to the newspaper reports—to provide instructions to passengers in French along a supposedly bilingual corridor. From a security standpoint, this is a major problem.

How is it, first of all, that VIA does not have staff on board capable of providing instructions in French at all times, particularly in an emergency when the extent of the problem is unknown? And secondly, what have you done, or what do you intend to do, to remedy the problem?

[Paul Côté]

Let me set the record straight, Mr. Nadeau. All of the employees on board the train were bilingual. The initial announcements were made to passengers in both official languages.

There are two issues here. First of all, the initial announcement was made, passengers left the train and staff began working with the first responders and emergency crews that arrived on the scene. These included firemen, ambulance attendants and police officers from the surrounding communities. These persons, who did not speak French, helped passengers to evacuate the train and proceed to a collecting point. These persons were not VIA Rail employees.

The VIA Rail workers on board the train were bilingual. I have been with VIA since the corporation's inception in 1978. I have been working in the rail industry since 1972 and I was on hand when the decision was made in 1985 to hire only bilingual persons for positions that involve dealing directly with passengers. Staff on board this train were indeed bilingual.

So then, the initial incident has to do with the fact that passengers were indeed in contact with persons from organizations other than VIA Rail and unfortunately, were not able to receive service in French.

There was a second incident. Tomorrow, I am scheduled to testify before the Standing Committee on Official Languages to explain why the person speaking to the media on behalf of VIA Rail made a totally unacceptable comment. We apologized for the comment, and I plan to make another more formal apology to the committee tomorrow. The spokesperson said that the train was travelling in Ontario and that Ontario was an English province. That is unacceptable!

You can rest assured that we followed up on this incident. You can also rest assured that we are committed and that our performance and record in terms of compliance with the Official Languages Act is very good, according to the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you for that clarification. In any case, I will be seeing you tomorrow at the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

[Paul Côté]

Fine. I'll have the chance to explain matters.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

And I'll have the pleasure of hearing your explanation once more.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I heard it first today! What a scoop!

I am a native of Hawkesbury and I represent the riding of Gatineau. I take the train on occasion, but not very often. There is one thing that surprises me and its ties in with one of the points raised, namely ridership.

I read in the document that one of the goals was to increase ridership by 30%. The corporation has managed to increase it by 5%. Yet, train travel is quite comfortable. Perhaps cost is a factor. I don't know.

In your opinion, what steps need to be taken so that train travel does in fact...Everyone talks about the greening of society and train travel could be a possible solution to achieving this objective...Does it boil down to the government's will to act, or is it a question of promoting this mode of transportation?

[Paul Côté]

It starts with the government's willingness to act, since it owns the company. The key to success lies with the approach that we are slowly implementing, namely increasing the frequency of train service in order to offer more relevant service to the public.

We compete with other modes of transportation, whether automobiles, planes or other modes. Our greatest competition comes from the automobile. Eighty per cent of all trips along the corridor are taken by automobile. Bus and train travel account for the difference. Added frequencies would allow us to offer more choice and a more relevant product. That is the first point.

The second area that we are working on is train speed. Trains must observe certain speed limits. We are working on laying tracks and on having enough side tracks and third tracks so that trains can maintain a higher average speed and travel at 160 kilometres an hour over longer stretches. That is the theory behind our investment program that will take us several years to implement fully. Everything should be in place by the end of 2012.

We conducted an experiment and increased train speed along certain segments of the Ottawa-Toronto corridor. We also increased train speed and frequencies on the Montreal-Ottawa route. The results were conclusive: it is possible to increase train speed, provided the other components of the strategy work properly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

There are 40 seconds left.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

An intermodal station is currently being developed in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region. Have you any concerns with respect to your objectives for the Quebec City-Windsor corridor?

[Paul Côté]

We will have concerns as long as the plans on the table are not yet finalized and approved by all parties. The plans can always change. Until such time has they have been finalized and approved by everyone, we will harbour some concerns.

We are pleased with what is currently taking place at the Dorval station. This is an acceptable solution, in our view.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

It would appear that in the municipality of des Cèdres, freight train traffic will increase.

[Paul Côté]

The plan calls for increased freight train traffic. In order for that to happen, changes are required to the infrastructure. We are trying to proceed in such a way as not to upset the communities that you represent.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I see.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Ms. Faille and Mr. Côté.

Mr. Christopherson, for seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, all of you, for being here today.

The Auditor General's report mentioned the challenges in your corporate plan for 2007-2011, as a result of revenue problems and your on-time issue. And you, Mr. Côté, said that you're going to have difficulty meeting your targets.

What I'm interested in is, what part of the corporate plan will now be compromised as a result of these challenges?

[Paul Côté]

We have just come out of a meeting with our board of directors on Monday and Tuesday, where we discussed the corporate plan and the need to readjust the revenue forecast for the coming years in view of the current year we're going through. So we have to be realistic.

We experienced, sir, exactly the same thing in 2003-04 with SARS and forest fires in B.C. and hurricanes in the east, with the revenue base being significantly and negatively impacted by those events. So we had to readjust the following corporate plans with that different revenue base.

The difficulty we have, as I mentioned in my remarks, is that in order to balance our corporate plan and minimize the impact of additional funding, we're attempting to find ways to control expenses, but with the mandate we have and the network we operate, there's a huge base of fixed costs that we need to work with.

So this is the challenge, and—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate that and I hear what you're saying. I have no problem with that, but I'm still looking to know what kinds of things you were hoping to do that you now won't be able to do in real terms.

[Paul Côté]

I don't think we are compromising on an issue we wanted to deal with. We flagged the issue raised by the Auditor General that the additional frequencies drive a lot of the percentage increase we are forecasting.

So we are on our plans. We are doing our equipment modifications, we are doing our station investments, we are doing our infrastructure investments. Once the deal with CN is concluded, and if it is concluded, we are confident we can reach the objectives and the percentage increases—although from a different base, because the revenue base is not the same as when we initially put this program together, if you understand my point.