Public Accounts Committee on May 6th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Ms. Yip for five minutes.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Hogan and your team, for doing a follow-up report. Follow-ups are so important to ensure that we do not have further or future tragedies occur, hopefully.

My first question is to Mr. Keenan. It was touched upon, but I'd like to hear a bit of a clearer answer.

Why was there too large a focus on regulatory compliance rather than the effectiveness of the safety management system?

[Michael Keenan]

The question really relates to a strategy of systemically strengthening the regulatory and the oversight system.

The first step we took was to overhaul the rules for SMS in 2015, and then the second step was to ensure and put in place more standards for what had to be in a safety management system that is more likely to relate to better outcomes. The second step was ensuring compliance to these higher standards by auditing all of them.

The third step is using the data from the SMS audits and the data from other sources to begin to get a better sense of which particular elements relate and what effect they have on safety outcomes.

We've done the first two, and we're now working on the third. The follow-up report from the Auditor General has given us some good guidance, and in the process of that report, there have been some very robust discussions between Transport officials and AG officials in terms of how to take that next step, recognizing it's a very difficult one to do, and even around the world, I would classify it as an emerging practice.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Hogan, are you satisfied by the response given by the department to your report, or do you feel that we will be seeing more reports, hopefully not in another eight years.

[Karen Hogan]

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I am very concerned about the length of time that's lapsed since our first audit, but I do acknowledge that some action was taken. It's just that Transport now needs to go that step further.

Measuring effectiveness, as I also mentioned in my opening remarks, is something that is being done, but the deputy minister of Transport is correct that it's an emerging thing. It is a commitment, however, that was made by Transport Canada over many years. I am always concerned when we have these long-standing issues that aren't addressed, and they seem to be a lot of what we're finding lately. That long-term thinking is not always valued as much as it needs to be, but the action plan that has been put forward appears reasonable within its time frame.

I know that both the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development and I will be watching what Transport Canada does, because we have had two audits now in the the span of a year that cover safety in Transport and we're going to want to make sure that action is taken.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That's good to hear.

Mr. Keenan, in the OAG recommendations, it is mentioned that Transport Canada should improve data management for its safety management system audits by adhering to its documentation standards.

In your action plan, there was a review of sample audit files from across headquarters and the regions for compliance with documentation standards. It was completed in April 2021. What was the result of the audit of these sample files?

[Michael Keenan]

I would say—I'm going to give a quick general response and then turn it to Michael—that the kinds of issues the AG found with respect to the data and the documentation are core issues we need to resolve, and we're working as quickly as we can to resolve them in order to make sure that we can fully leverage the data and put digital analysis tools on it. If it's not properly formatted, if it's not consistent, then our attempts to bring in advanced analytics to identify safety risks is frustrated, so we're highly motivated to fix these issues.

In terms of the steps we're taking, I'll turn to Michael to elaborate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Again I'm sorry. Make it a very brief answer.

[Michael DeJong]

Thanks for the question.

Essentially, the sample showed that we are collecting a wealth of information from railway companies, including information on operating characteristics, traffic patterns, tonnage and previous incidents. As the deputy minister mentioned, however, to use all of this data to drive our risk-based approach, we need it to be formatted in a way that allows Transport Canada to collate and analyze it quickly so that it can help support our risk-based planning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move on to our next round of questioning. It's a two-and-a-half-minute round, starting with Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions are for the Transport Canada officials.

I've reviewed the recommendation in paragraph 5.45. The audit revealed that Transport Canada's current oversight planning process does not necessarily take into account the findings of departmental audits of railways' safety management systems.

Mr. Keenan, if there's a breach in the railway safety management system, what will you do? Will you verify that steps have been taken to remedy it? Will the company be held accountable? Will it be reprimanded?

[Michael Keenan]

Thank you for a very insightful question.

I think the Auditor General's assessment of our challenge here is fair. We were not systematically pulling information from our SMS audits to shape our risk-based oversight. We were doing it in some cases, but not all, and most importantly, we didn't have a documented system that the AG could find to show that we were doing it. We are building this in, and we believe that it will be a significant improvement towards having a more robust risk-based oversight system. We're taking the steps now to build it in.

I would add, if I may go back to the Auditor General's remark about the time, that sometimes in the past we may have taken a bit longer than we should have to execute some recommendations. We are really trying to time-bind our follow-up actions. There are a series of material improvements, which we shall have done by the end of 2021, to respond to the recommendations coming from this audit, and this is one of them.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you for clarifying things, Mr. Keenan.

You mentioned earlier that in 2001, changes to the Railway Safety Act put the onus on railway companies to develop their own safety management systems and to balance their financial interests with the risks to public safety.

Are you currently satisfied with the Railway Safety Act?

We can see that there are some things that we are missing, as far as safety is concerned.

[Michael Keenan]

I think I'll answer that in two parts, if I may.

I think the law creating this stronger responsibility for safety management systems is essential to having better safety outcomes, because it creates the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you.

I'm sorry. We are well over time for this questioner. Perhaps you can address this matter in your next round of questioning, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

We will now move on to Mr. Bachrach for two and a half minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to pick up where I left off with Mr. DeJong.

We were talking about specific types of events involving multiple railcars. I was somewhat surprised to hear from CN that they rely so heavily on local first responders and that in providing training for local first responders—these are volunteer fire departments—they only train them for incidents involving single cars of liquid propane.

In the view of Transport Canada, is that adequate preparedness for an event? Should they be preparing local first responders for an event involving multiple railcars?

[Michael DeJong]

Thank you for the question.

I'll answer it in a couple of parts. One is with respect to the support that Transport Canada provides, and second is the requirements of the “key train and key routes” that CN must fulfill in this corridor because it is identified as a key route.

Transport Canada supports first responders, for example, with around-the-clock support through our operation centre, referred to as CANUTECH. There are also a series of guidelines and training that we provide to first responders.

With respect to the key trains and key routes rule, under that rule, for routes that are designated key routes, such as the one in this context, CN is responsible for conducting a risk assessment that accounts for the training of local fire departments as part of their risk assessments as well as for implementing remedial measures to address potential risks identified through that process.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

But right now, they're only training first responders for single-railcar events. Is that adequate?

[Michael DeJong]

Again, I would fall back on the requirements of the key trains and key risk rule.

In order to determine whether it's adequate, CN is responsible for conducting a risk assessment to determine whether or not their current training measures are appropriate to the level of risk on that corridor, and then adapting their training regime to match the level of risk.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

To get this straight, the rail company determines the level of risk and what the training and response requirements are in case they have a major incident. In this case, they've decided that the risk of a multi-car incident is low, so they only train first responders on events involving single railcars.

Given what we saw at Lac-Mégantic—I'm not an expert—I think if a car of liquid propane explodes and it's connected to a train of other cars of liquid propane, the chance of a multi-car event isn't zero.

My question is, at what point does Transport Canada step in to say that what we're doing to ensure the safety of communities is inadequate and we need better?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

I'm sorry; we don't have time for an answer to that question, given that it's a very short round.

I will now move on to Mr. Berthold for five minutes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I'd be happy to hear the answer to the question from Mr. Bachrach.

[Michael Keenan]

I'll say one thing on that, because it's a really good question.

What I think Mr. DeJong was saying a minute ago was that under the new stronger regulations on key trains and key routes, CN is legally obliged to perform a new risk assessment and submit it to Transport Canada. They are performing that risk assessment now, and it is through that risk assessment, and our review of that risk assessment, that we get to the underlying facts that drive the answer to your question.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Keenan, I looked at the number of accidents recorded in the Auditor General's report. Of course, it talks about the ones that happened in 2019, and there have been improvements since then. Regardless, you can see the numbers: the number of collisions, derailments and crossing accidents, for example.

Is there any way to know the magnitude or significance of these collisions? Is Transport Canada able to determine whether these were serious or minor accidents?

How can we determine where the real risks are in rail transportation? There may be minor accidents, but they are still accounted for. An accident is considered serious once the damage caused is more than $10,000. However, that amount is quickly reached. A train that derails in the middle of a field will cause damage in excess of $10,000, but the safety risks will not be the same as in other situations.

Do you have access to this data?

[Michael Keenan]

In answer to that very good question—and it's one that we spend a lot of time drilling down on—it features in the current work we're doing establishing indicators of effectiveness of SMS systems.

There are a couple of principles that guide us in that, and the first is that we look at incidents in terms of how grave they are. The number one indicator is the risk to the health and safety of Canadians, not the economic cost of the accident. That's very much secondary, if not hardly even considered. It's the risk to the health and safety of Canadians, the risk of disrupting communities and the risk to the environment. Those are the factors that we consider.

I'll give you an example. With regard to uncontrolled movements, we have put in a significant number of stronger regulations on uncontrolled movements. We analyze them carefully. It's a key factor in our risk-based oversight.

I would say that we are not satisfied. There are still too many uncontrolled movements, and we are continuing to drive on the SMS and on the regulatory standards. We've made changes within the last year. We—