Public Safety Committee on May 9th, 2013

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Okay.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have five seconds. We'll just maybe credit you with that until the next meeting.

We'll go to Mr. Rafferty, please.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I do appreciate Mr. Leef's point of order because we've already heard in this committee previously from the RCMP that their cuts to 2015 of $195.2 million are not going to impact public safety, and also from CSIS that a $24.5 million cut is not going to affect public safety. We don't need to talk about budget cuts anymore. Thank you, Mr. Leef, for that point of order.

I guess it's good because you were just wasting that money before.

Let me ask a question about who's in charge. You talk about building resilience against terrorism, about the 15-plus members of the security network, and about shared responsibilities. We've heard that a couple of times. Where does the buck stop? Who is actually coordinating that? Is there a pyramid there, or is everybody sort of acting independently and helping each other whenever they need some help?

Yes, Mr. Davies, please.

[John Davies]

The Prime Minister, I think, is where the buck stops. Under him is the Minister of Public Safety, and obviously the counterterrorism strategy is something that he released, but it was done in cooperation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Transport, and so on.

In terms of the kind of binding leadership role, the Minister of Public Safety plays a big part in that, given his portfolio includes CSIS, the RCMP, and CBSA, and those are three core members of the security intelligence community.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Is there a coordinating body that sort of keeps an eye on all those agencies, that sort of gives direction?

[John Davies]

Certainly there's a series of deputy-level committees that meet frequently, almost weekly, to talk about emerging issues, whether those are threat issues or new policy or legislation. Those committees advise ministers, right up to the Cabinet Committee on National Security, which is a new creation of the Prime Minister. I believe it's two years old now.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of the relationship between the agencies and then maybe the Prime Minister, who, as you say, is the boss.

This is a question for VIA Rail. Let's say you call in a police service and the incident is resolved. Do you get billed for that? How does that work? Let's say you're using the RCMP services, or in Ontario, the OPP. Do they send you a bill later for the help they gave you?

[Marc Beaulieu]

No. We don't get billed for such incidents. If the police are called in for dangerous situations that threaten security or safety and take whatever action is necessary according to their experience, they do not invoice us for that.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay. That doesn't happen anywhere in the system, right? There's no cost recovery there anywhere. Everybody just sort of helps when they're called upon.

This is also a question for VIA Rail. As you know, you have kilometres and kilometres of track that is unsupervised—

[Marc Beaulieu]

It's 46,000.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

It's 46,000? Really, no one can police that; it's so huge. I know that in northern Ontario, where VIA Rail is not, but CN and CP are, just stopping people from trespassing is almost an impossible task. How does VIA Rail monitor that, to the best of your ability? How does that happen?

[Marc Beaulieu]

We rely heavily on the experience of our locomotive engineers and on-train employees, who are well trained in identifying any areas of concern. They immediately report any incidents to the rail traffic controllers, who then in turn immediately contact police for intervention. They are of course very skilled individuals who operate over this territory for a living, and they know every turn and switch along the way. They are very good at immediately reporting any incident or behaviour that needs to be reported.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to Mr. Gill, please, for five minutes.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank all the witnesses for their time. I know that it was short notice, so we appreciate you appearing before the committee.

My question is first for VIA Rail. Obviously, this is basically related to your clients, your customers, who take the rail on a regular basis. What sort of cooperation do you get from them in terms of any concerns or any issues they may have or may be concerned about? Do you regularly get any sort of reporting from individuals, just your customers, such as, “Hey, we're concerned about a certain individual”, or a package, say, or just on general safety concerns?

[Marc Beaulieu]

Yes, we certainly receive such information, and we act upon it quickly. We regularly call upon local law enforcement, or whatever enforcement we need, to further those investigations. They're acted upon very promptly and effectively whenever they're brought to our attention by a customer or one of our employees using our “keep an eye open” approach.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

How would they normally contact you? What's the method used most often?

[Marc Beaulieu]

Usually through contact with our employees, or I suppose they would call 911. All the police forces can get a hold of us very quickly. The network works extremely well. We rely heavily on our infrastructure owners as well, who do an extremely good job of having track forces out there and signaling any incidents to us. Our primary contact is our employees, our operations control centre, or simply by calling the local police.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Are there any educational components available to your passengers, to the general public, any sort of signage—be it on the rail itself, or in the waiting areas, and so on—of what to look for if they feel unsafe, or if there's any sort of suspicious activity or a suspicious person? Are there telephone numbers of a law enforcement agency posted, or is it just 911?

[Marc Beaulieu]

My understanding is that the best way to alert somebody of a dangerous or suspicious situation quickly is to dial 911. We rely heavily on our partnerships with all the police forces, and CN and CP police forces, and our operating partners, to respond quickly and effectively.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

But is there actual signage available or an educational component of what to look for and who to call in case?

[Marc Beaulieu]

We have “travelling better together” programs to inform passengers of behaviours that are and are not tolerated. Again, we don't have a public awareness campaign with the number to reach us if there's a security threat. They're to use the quickest means to alert the proper authorities.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

The other question I have is, when it comes to railway security, how well equipped would you say we are here in Canada in comparison to some of the other countries that have a similar railway system in place?

How would you rate us, as a country, in being prepared to tackle any of these threats—safety, security?

[Gerard McDonald]

I'll try to answer that.

Obviously, it's very different. Probably the biggest similarity to the rail structure we have in Canada is that of the States. With Europe and the Asian countries, their systems operate in a highly urbanized environment, which is much different from how we operate in Canada. Given the threats we have in the system, we feel we have adequate response plans prepared to address the risks we perceive to be there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Gill.

It's still another government-round question. I'll ask one quick question and then we'll go to Mr. Leef.

After asking all of you not to give away any operational type of issues that might hinder security, I guess I would ask this. How often do you meet with the RCMP? For example, in the last event, I take it that you didn't just wake up one morning and see that VIA Rail was in the news. You obviously must have been aware of some ongoing investigation.

Is this a natural thing, where you meet with them once a week or they’ll give you a heads-up that there may be an investigation under way and to tighten up some of your security? Does that type of thing happen, Mr. Tessier or Mr. Beaulieu?

Mr. Tessier, go ahead.

[Marc Tessier]

Yes, thank you.

We have regular contacts with the RCMP. As far as the recent event, yes, we had received previous notification. As I said, we have ongoing communication between VIA Rail security and the RCMP, as well as other law enforcement agencies, and Transport Canada.