All right, I'll paraphrase it, then.
Last year, in 2005, particularly at the time of the Cheakamus spill in August, there were a number of things ordered by Minister Lapierre and the transport department, in the previous government, and there was a series of targeted inspections as a result of that. Following that, there were some other incidents. There was a specific order from the minister in September or October, I think it was, for a four-week audit of CN safety management systems, which occurred between November and December last year. The commitment was that this audit would be made public when it was received.
At that time, there was an order from the minister, as well, limiting the length of trains as one of the issues of the difference in the management systems between CN and BC Rail, as well as perhaps the unfamiliarity with the unique B.C. conditions--the curvature of the track, the difference in elevations. That report was to be made public, and I gather it was received by the new government somewhere in the spring, in April or May, and I note that there were meetings. Minister Cannon apparently met with the railways, CN in particular, in May of this year. The audit was not made public.
Subsequent to that, there was a unique, first time ever, section 32 order by the minister in July, after the railway deaths on the locomotive. And that order was not made public. We discussed that. It was raised at this committee in terms of the fact that we wanted to know what the detail of the audit was and what the order was, why there was this unique section 32 order to address the deficiencies and the safety management program.
I understand that CN had appealed the Transport order, and I now understand that CN has submitted a plan, as recently as a week ago, to come into compliance with that order, the minister's order. I congratulate the minister on having taken the action to bring this order in, except that I don't know what the order is. But if it's going to result in safer rail, that's the purpose.
I understand that CN retains the right, once the department determines if CN has in fact complied with the order, to appeal. My concern is that we need to know what the audit said, and it should be a public record, because we're dealing with public safety. We should know what the order was and why and how they've complied. Generally--not to pick on CN, but CN is the particular railway that's in question here now--there were other derailments by other railroads, and we need to look into that issue of rail safety.
We said at the beginning of this term that this was going to be a priority of this committee. I would like to have an action motion on file indicating that we're going to do this and do this as soon as it fits appropriately into our time schedule.
Therefore, the motion I submitted was that this committee conduct an in-depth inquiry into rail safety, and in particular, the recent CN accidents in British Columbia and western Canada, including a derailment that caused an environmental catastrophe in the Cheakamus River and a locomotive accident that resulted in the deaths of two rail workers in June 2006.