Certainly. Understood. Thank you, sir.
Another problem with the railroad is post-traumatic stress syndrome. I can give you some examples, but maybe we can get into those later.
I have to tell you that I'm from the former BC Rail. Since CN has taken over the operations of the former BC Rail, we've experienced a greatly reduced standard of safety, from operating standards to maintenance standards on the track, as well as in the maintenance of equipment. On the railway, we're entitled to have—and required to have, by law—proper supervision. We're not getting that at CN. You can phone a supervisor, leave a message, and hope to get a call back, but nine times out of ten you will not get a return call.
In my opinion, there's no proper training for new hires. Traditionally, railways have killed a lot of people, often to fatten up the bottom line. This is neither libellous nor scandalous. It is a fact dating back to the days of construction. You can read in textbooks how the CPR murdered groups of Chinese labourers in the Fraser Canyon. They say that for every mile of track on the CPR, there's a body buried. Fatalities are budgeted into any large construction project. I can tell you that when BCR built the Tumbler Ridge branch line, they budgeted for three deaths. Fortunately there were no fatalities.
Recently, on May 14, 2003, two men died when a bridge collapsed at McBride. It went to court, CN pleaded guilty, and they paid the fine. It's the cost of doing business.
Two more men died on June 29, 2006, near Lillooet, on a runaway train disaster. A third was badly injured. All three of the men were friends of mine. The engine involved should have been at a junkyard, not on a main line, let alone on a main line with a steep mountain grade.
My focus is on railway workers. However, since the deregulation of the railway, airline, and trucking industries, some common denominators have been developing. For example, Air Canada is preparing to maintain and repair aircraft in Guatemala. I'm not sure that the maintenance standard in South America is the same as it is in Canada.
I have no axe to grind with CN. I do not begrudge them to make a profit. However, I would like to reiterate that BCR had a higher safety operating standard. It had a higher equipment and track maintenance standard. BCR was proactive rather than reactive. We had a full-time union safety adviser. We had a derailment task force. We had a locomotive cab committee addressing issues of fatigue in the workplace. There have been some very good studies done by NASA and Boeing, and there was a lot of research done in these cab committees.
We had windshield wipers that worked. We joke in CN that the only reason they bring the locomotives to Vancouver is to get the windows washed. And I'm not kidding. The windows are filthy. When the sun shines on you, you can't see out the windows. It's important to see out the windows of a locomotive, and it's important for the windshield wipers to work. I could elaborate on that, but I'm not going to.
At the former BC Rail, we had things called headsets with boom mikes, so that you could talk to your conductor or engineer over the radio.
There were lots of things, and I have some submissions. I apologize that they're not in French, but I didn't understand. Hopefully we can get them translated.
Another thing we had was corner lights on locomotives. Those came as a result of a coroner's inquest in 1981, when we had a train that hit a rock slide just south of Lillooet and the engine plunged into Seton Lake. The body of the brakeman was never found, never recovered.
Since CN took over, we've found more problems with equipment, like unsecured and unstable ladders on the side of railcars. We call them grab irons, and the bottom step is called a stirrup. We find shaky stirrups and shaky grab irons. They're important for safety. When you climb on a moving boxcar, you don't want those stirrups or grab irons to break. You don't want to fall under the railcar.
At the former BC Rail, we feel that proper legislation and regulations are required for railways, airplanes, and trucks, in order to protect workers and the general public, and also the environment.
Thank you.