Thank you.
I'd like to follow up on the question that Mr. Allen was asking, because I think it's really important to get clarification. Maybe I could ask the Auditor General to respond to this question because it was, as was stated in his report, under paragraph 7.40. It says that
The Department has a methodology for planning its oversight activities of federal railways. However, we found that Transport Canada’s methodology does not require the use of uniform risk and performance indicators to help staff identify areas of railway operations that might be more likely not to comply with the regulatory safety framework.
That's the issue that my colleague and the committee was raising. If you go back to paragraph 7.36, when you talked about the fact that
...the Department was missing other important risk and performance data to supplement inspectors’ knowledge gained from previous inspections. Missing were: the federal railways’ risks assessments, information on the sections of track used in transporting dangerous goods, information on the condition of railway bridges, and
There are others as well.
I'd like to ask the Auditor General to explain to us what he was indicating when he was writing this in the report. And is this one of the pieces that the department is taking seriously and taking responsibility for at this particular stage? Has the fact that these reports have not been done and this information has not been reported on appropriately, impacted on any of the accidents that we have seen with regard to railway operations in the country?