Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 5th, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Give a very short answer, please, Mr. Keenan.

[Michael Keenan]

I think the administrative monetary penalty was for one railcar, and it was a $33,000 penalty.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

We will now move to Mr. Blois.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony and presentations today.

The stat that really stood out to me today was that 99.998% of our transportation of dangerous goods obviously resulted in the right outcome that we're looking for. It's clear that there's more work for Transport Canada to complete, and I think Mr. Keenan has recognized that. Not to take away from any of the events that have happened, but I think we certainly have a great standard.

Mr. Keenan, I want to go back to you to talk about the regional capacity element. Can I let you quickly address that?

[Michael Keenan]

Sure. That's a great question.

As we expanded our inspectorate and brought more folks online to carry out the oversight program, we went from 30 inspectors to about 130 inspectors. All but 99% of them we put in the regions, because that's where the activity is. They're in the Skeena subdivision, in Smithers; they're in the Sherbrooke subdivision, around Sherbrooke and Lac-Mégantic, and all across the country.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Webber talked about penalties or fines that might be under the regulations.

Is that something that's administered directly by the department, or is that through the Canadian Transportation Agency? Is there a separate agency that actually adjudicates those matters?

[Michael Keenan]

Any fines related to safety and safety violations are administered by delegated officials in Transport Canada. One of the areas we've taken to strengthen our enforcement is that we've created a dedicated enforcement unit that has specialized skills to carry out investigations that are necessary for the bigger fines and the bigger violations.

That's all done by delegated officials in the department. The inspectors and the enforcement agents have the authority to make the decisions to issue violations and penalties when they see violations.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It's not that we necessarily want to penalize our companies that we have to trust are trying to do good work and keep safety as top of mind, but as those inspections have increased and you've put more boots on the ground, so to speak, has there been an increase in the number of fines or compliance issues that have been adjudicated through those procedures?

[Michael Keenan]

Over a number of years, there has been an increase in the number of fines. At the same time, in general, we see a decrease in the risk and an improvement in the safety performance.

The reason for that is that we brought in systems. We don't have them in TDG yet. In rail safety and other areas, we brought in systems whereby we can do administrative monetary penalties. We can issue fines immediately when we see small problems, so they don't develop into big problems that we then have to go to court on.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Again, I don't think anyone is suggesting we should just be fining every company, but it's good that the measures are leading to better compliance.

Ms. De Silva, quickly, because I want to leave time for Mr. Longfield, you mentioned global competitiveness. I want to go back to that.

What are our companies and industries saying about the things they're looking for that are important? Is there any jurisdiction that we look to globally, one of our leading comparators, as a gold standard?

[Gitane De Silva]

We engage with industry regularly to get their feedback on what they feel is working and where they see room for improvement.

Transparency is one thing that they're focused on. Certainty and understanding our processes are always key. They're pleased to comply and submit the right information; they just want to be sure they're clear on what that information is.

We're always looking to improve that process. As I said before, one of the things we're doing at the moment is looking at our onshore pipeline regulations and seeking feedback there on what could be improved.

As you pointed out, we are always looking to other jurisdictions. We want to make sure that we have the best possible systems in place, so we're involved with a number of fora, both within Canada and internationally. One example is the Western Regulators Forum, where we work with western provinces to see what they're doing and how we can better collaborate. We're involved in avenues such as the OECD, and we consult with our American colleagues.

Really, I wouldn't say there's any one system, but we're always looking for opportunities. Often it's very incident specific and geographically specific. There are a whole variety of factors there. We look for those opportunities to share that information on what we can.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I'm sorry, Lloyd, I've left you with about 25 seconds, so I'm not being a very good colleague today. Do you want to quickly ask it?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I have a very quick question for Mr. Keenan.

Is the file left open until the work resulting from an inspection has been completed? Guelph Junction Railway had a lot of track that was out of gauge at higher temperatures, and then they had to do maintenance and it then had to be reinspected. At what point does the file close?

[Michael Keenan]

That's a great question.

That would have been under the Railway Safety Act and rail safety, but it's exactly that. When we see a violation, we issue an order and usually they have to tell us how they're going to fix it, then fix it, and then we inspect the fix. That goes back to the point that other members have raised about improving our follow-up. The 30% we were missing at the time of the audit is now down to 8% and we're on our way to having it at 0% in the new year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Keenan.

That brings us to the end of our questioning. Before I thank our witnesses and ask them to leave, I do have one question I would like to ask them.

Do you have or plan to submit action plans to the environment committee for this audit? If yes, could you please provide a copy to us.

[Michael Keenan]

Madam Chair, I'll start. We have an action plan to respond to the audits, but it's the plan that is actually published in the CESD's audit itself. We're working diligently to deliver on the commitments described in that plan.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Chair, can I raise a quick point of order?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Sure.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I'm not too sure if this is in the realm of a point of order.

I know we've run out of time at 12:30 here. I am fortunate to represent a riding that has both CP's main line and CN's main line, and CN's busiest facility in the entire country and CP's busiest intermodal facility in the entire country. Is there a process whereby I can either independently, or through you, Chair, forward questions on to the department? If that's the process, could you please let me know. We've run out of time. It's unfortunate. It's very important to my community, as you can quite understand. Can you give some guidance.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sorbara.

I will just ask Madam De Silva to answer the question I asked, and then I will refer your question to the clerk, Mr. Sorbara.

[Gitane De Silva]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We do have an action plan and we would be pleased to share it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, can you quickly answer the question that Mr. Sorbara posed?

[The Clerk]

I apologize. With all of the technology, I was texting with someone about something else and I missed your question, sir. Would you mind repeating it.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Chair, to quickly summarize again for the clerk, I'd like to know if there's a process whereby I can either submit questions independently or through the chair and yourself, clerk, to the department about some of the references within the speaking notes to Deputy Minister Keenan. My riding, again, has both CP and CN's main lines going through it. The city of Vaughan is home to CN's busiest facility and my riding is home to CP's busiest intermodal facility in the country. I would like to follow up with some questions.

Thank you.