Public Accounts Committee on June 16th, 2016

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

Thank you.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I want to come back to the issue of—

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

Is there a “but” coming?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No. You've watched before, or you've been briefed. No, it's stand alone.

I want to return now to my earlier line of questioning around enabling legislation.

Mr. Desjardins-Siciliano, it sounded like you were in favour of it. The Auditor General said it would be an improvement. Is that a recommendation you would actually make to help us hold the government to account in terms of their providing timely funding announcements?

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

Enabling legislation would be a great addition for management

. I'll let Ms. Mowat speak for the board, but as I said, as I take over as CEO of this company, it is left to me and my management team to develop a strategy that we believe to be in the best interest of the corporation. We are officers of the company. Therefore, as a crown corporation, by law we have to do what's in the best interest of the stakeholders, which include shareholders, suppliers, employees, and passengers. We define that, and that's a bit unusual. Therefore, that clarity would be welcome from a management point of view and—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's great. We'll leave it at that, sir.

If I may, I'll go over to Mr. Laplante.

I think you said you would see it as an improvement from your point of view. Is that correct? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

[Maurice Laplante]

Yes, that is correct.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Great, so there's something for us to consider.

Also, in this business of freight being a priority over people on the tracks that you share, could somebody provide me with the underlying rationale, even if you don't agree with it? Why are things more important than people?

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

I don't think it's a matter of things being more important than people. It's a matter of who owns the infrastructure and who controls it.

As an owner, you make operating decisions as to which trains go first based on your operating imperatives and commercial operatives. That's the first thing.

The reality is that Canada's economy depends on freight railway traffic, as $300 billion a year of freight is moved on these railways. We are an exporting country, so we need to make sure they are efficient. That's why decoupling the two—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's your answer, moving to that separate—

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

That would be good for both of us.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's where I want to go now, for as long as I can.

How do you go about that? I was surprised that you could do that on your own. Do you have to buy...? There is land to be acquired.

I was on a municipal council and I know what it takes just to do roadways. Now we're talking about a railway. Can you help me with that?

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

What we are proposing to do, which is somewhat cheap and quite fast to deploy, is acquire existing freight railway beds and repurpose them for passenger rail. They are currently abandoned or of very little use, so we would operate them. For the freight traffic that runs on those tracks, which is usually a train a day or two trains a week, we would control when they run. Obviously we would make them run when we are not running passenger trains.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Then we'd flip it around since it is the Canadian people's. People would come first and then the freight. That's something else—

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

Exactly. That's why this can be done so quickly.

On the issue of the enabling legislation, if I could just complete my response, Mr. Chair, in the past there have been ideas of enabling legislation, but they were getting into the weeds of running the railway. That's not the approach we would propose.

The approach we would propose is an approach that enables the company to run itself. Give it a specific mandate, whether it be the environment, car traffic competition, or remote areas, and then let the company run itself like any corporation should. Therefore, it would eliminate the need for a government subsidy, first and foremost, and second, where there is competition—and some are concerned about competing—it would be on a level playing field with no government funding. That would be the objective of enabling legislation, not mandating that you have a station at this place or that place, or that you run the train at 9:05 versus 9:25.

The other fallacy is that law would give priority to passenger trains over freight trains, like it does in the U.S. The U.S. legislation makes that statement, but if you talk to my colleague, the CEO of Amtrak, he'll tell you that's worth nothing, because you're on a network. It doesn't matter that you're the first to go. If you're going at 100 miles per hour and there's a freight train 200 miles ahead of you going at 30 miles per hour, how fast will you meet it? You don't have to answer that question.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's good.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

If you're the CEO of Amtrak or VIA Rail you're going to meet it too fast, too often. That's the reality. Giving priority to trains that are on a network is a bit of a red herring. It's not a solution.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, a catch-22, it doesn't work for you.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I think we're going to have to end it there.

Mrs. Mendès.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

I have very quick question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very short.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

I want to make a comment on Transport Canada.

Mr. Desjardins-Siciliano, let's go back to the start of your presentation. When conducting a safety check of the entire railway system, doesn't Transport Canada also need to reassure users like you, who have no control over the system, that it complies with the standards and is safe?

Is that also Transport Canada's role?

[Yves Desjardins-Siciliano]

Absolutely.

Safety inspections are usually conducted together with Transport Canada employees. If we conduct the inspections ourselves and find defects, we always involve Transport Canada. The assessment is always done with Transport Canada.