Transport Committee on April 30th, 2007

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I have to interject here because for the last few minutes we've seen Mr. Julian, and certainly Mr. Chudnovsky, start to get into matters that are truly before the courts, and when matters are before the courts, this committee generally does not comment on them. The whole issue of res judicata, which we've had reviewed at this table at least twice since I became a member, clearly indicates that matters that are before the courts shouldn't be the subject of discussions at this table.

I notice that Mr. Julian keeps pushing it into a debate over provincial politics in British Columbia. I understood this was about safety, and I really would like to get back to safety rather than all the political machinations that Mr. Julian and Mr. Chudnovsky want to concoct.

So I'd ask your ruling on that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian, on the same point of order.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Fast is well aware that this is part of the dynamic and discussion around safety. So I would ask you, Mr. Chair, to please calm him down so he doesn't intervene and try to stop what this committee should be doing, which is looking into safety aspects. This is an issue of the public domain and safety and it's very important--and he knows that, coming from British Columbia.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

It is not a point of order, and I would ask the questioning and answering to continue, please, Mr. Chudnovsky.

[David Chudnovsky]

Thank you, Chair.

The provincial minister has, on many occasions, chosen—which is his right, of course—not to speak out on the problems that CN has faced over the last number of years in B.C. It's my view that that's an ideological choice he's made; others may see it differently.

With respect to CN and credibility, I think it's a very, very important question, and one that we need to take seriously and I would encourage CN to take seriously. It is the case, I believe, that CN has very little credibility in British Columbia with respect to safety. That's because, as the derailments have continued and as the tragedies have struck Wabamun, Cheakamus, Lillooet, and others, the response of CN has continued to be that it isn't a big problem; we're getting better; just wait, everything is going to be okay; you're exaggerating; it's accidents, not incidents. You've heard it all, chapter and verse.

So it seems to me that a major entity like CN is in a position now where there is very little faith in their credibility as they explain and engage with lawmakers and with the public about their decisions. It is a problem, and I think one would want to encourage CN to make other choices with respect to their participation in the discussion and in the debate.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you for that.

I'd like to read a quote from Mr. Gordon Rhodes, who appeared before our committee about two weeks ago. He said, “...there's a lack of proper enforcement going on. I think that Transport Canada has dropped the ball. And I'm not pointing fingers at individuals; it's the system.”

We have this safety management system in place within the railway industry. The government is trying to push the same thing within the airline industry. I guess our concern is that the SMS is a contributory factor to the whole issue of railway safety.

Is this not, as you've pointed out, Mr. Cotie, a way of rewarding CEOs for bad behaviour, to put in place an SMS system where they can essentially balance off safety to increase their profits?

I'd like to ask all three of you that question around SMS and safety.

[Todd Cotie]

And SMS is...?

[A voice]

It's self-regulation.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Yes.

[Todd Cotie]

Is the bonus they're receiving being...? Okay, here's how I can put it regarding the issue of the slowing down of trains.

I was just at the policy committee. This is a joint effort between unions and management to table issues. The company has been balking at my bringing this issue to the table, saying it hasn't been properly escalated. The reason it hasn't been properly escalated is that it's been ignored. It's been brought up at the grassroots level through the workers. The mud in the middle that Hunter Harrison likes to talk about is where it's getting lost, and that's the front-line supervisor being under enormous pressure to produce. Safety becomes secondary. The issue at the grassroots level does not get escalated.

A similar thing happened with a defibrillator. We've had a couple of employees die of heart attacks in isolated areas in northern Ontario. We thought it made sense to have a defibrillator on the gang in these isolated places where they're two hours away from a hospital. They told us we had to have 300 people in an area to justify having a defibrillator. We have 20 or 30 people in the middle of absolutely nowhere who have no access and would be dead before they got to the hospital, and they wouldn't put a defibrillator there because it hadn't gone through that escalation process.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So when you don't have Transport Canada oversight when you cut back on the number of inspectors and simply tell the company to take care of safety, do you see that as a dangerous development?

[Todd Cotie]

Absolutely, because they have ulterior motives in every regard. Even the field supervisors have a bonus system that may or may not be based on injuries, accidents, and what not. Their focus, you can tell—you could ask anybody I represent—is always about production, and safety issues get pushed aside as much as possible.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Kosinski.

[George Kosinski]

Some people here may be aware of a recent RCMP investigation into police brutality regarding the Vancouver Police Department. The RCMP concluded that there have been a number of serious incidents of police brutality. Jamie Graham, the chief constable of the Vancouver Police Department, decided to conduct his own internal review, which absolved everyone involved in the incidents specified by the RCMP investigation. So I think that's just one good example of the effectiveness of self-regulation.

At the risk of appearing to be cynical, I suspect that probably the essential policy controlling this self-regulation of safety procedures is uphill slow, downhill fast; tonnage first, and safety last.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all three of you for attending.

I'd like to focus my discussion on Mr. Cotie's comments.

Mr. Jean, you had a quick comment you wanted to make. My apologies.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I wanted to confirm, for the committee, that I have had an opportunity to speak, directly and indirectly, with the minister from B.C. and many other MLAs from B.C., including Mr. Thorpe of Kelowna, over the summer, and I've had discussions with him about rail and other safety issues. So I just wanted to clarify that particular comment made by Mr. Julian, to let the committee know we have been in discussions with them, and they are concerned with rail safety and other issues.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Well, thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to focus my remarks. I'm trying to be constructive here. I'm sensing there are some political axes being ground at this table, and I'm not sure that serves the issue of safety well. I think we're trying to all work together to improve safety in our rail transportation system, and I believe every member at this table has articulated serious concerns about the state of railway safety in Canada.

Again, Mr. Cotie, thank you for attending. You made the comment in your introductory remarks, and just reiterated it again, that the CN culture values productivity over safety. What I'd like to do is read to you the counterpoint that we heard from CN itself. There are two quotes, and this is out of their CN submission to the Railway Safety Act Review Panel.

The statement was that “...we view safety as every employee's responsibility, and work diligently to create and improve a culture of safety awareness and safe practices.” Then it goes on to say that “...CN has always placed the highest priority on safety. Safety is one of the five Core Values of the company.”

Of course, that stands in contrast with what you've said, and quite frankly, I wasn't satisfied with the response we had from CN. In fact, let me quote you something else that Mr. Creel, who was representing CN, stated, and this comes right out of a transcript of our last meeting. This is quoting Mr. Creel. He said, “So at CN we've applied the most stringent of the standards. In many processes, it's not the lesser of the standard; we take the greater of the standard because we have to operate our trains cross-border.”

That was in response to a question I had asked him. I had asked him whether there were different standards in the United States and Canada, and perhaps in British Columbia. He seemed to indicate, in response, that wherever the standard was greater, they applied that standard.

I specifically asked him about this whole issue of taking bad-ordered cars and putting this notice on the car, and then afterwards supervisors would come along, take those notices off, and the cars would actually be repaired to the lower standard. I don't believe he had an adequate response to that. He simply claimed that they had the highest safety standards.

I'd like you to go a bit into this whole issue. Did you experience this whole issue of the bad-ordered cars having labels removed that would have required them to be repaired to a higher standard? Is that something you're familiar with?

[Todd Cotie]

No, I'm a maintenance worker. I don't deal with transportation per se.

I can speak to that issue a little bit, whereas they take the higher standard.... The reason we pushed for the 30 miles an hour by those sleep cars is that CP had a higher standard, and it took two or three years.... And they've had that forever. It's just that it came to our attention that CP had this standard of 30 miles an hour. We were requesting that there be slower trains by these boarding cars, where people sleep on track, and finally that's what got us that 30 miles an hour, but it took a lot of convincing. Another railway had it.

It's not a regulation; it was a voluntary thing by CP. I don't know why it was introduced, but I'm sure there was some sort of incident that brought it to that. It took two or three years of our committee's fighting for that to get that done.

As for the bad orders, I don't know that.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Kosinski, can you shed any further light on that? Was that happening back when you were a train engineer?

[George Kosinski]

It may very well have been happening, but running trades employees wouldn't be privy to that kind of information. They're just sitting on...what used to be the caboose, waiting to leave the yard, and they aren't really aware of the activity taking place with the carmen regarding bad-ordering cars and so on.

So it may very well have been occurring on a regular basis, but we would not have been aware of it. But who knows? Maybe that was the cause of some derailments--bad-ordered cars that never should have been on the road.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

All three of you have focused your comments on CN. Is it safe to say that CP and some of the other private operators in Canada have a better safety standard or a better safety record, or apply SMS in a more appropriate way?

[George Kosinski]

My impression, just from what comes out in the papers, is there seems to be a lot more CN derailments than CP derailments. But again, I believe Mr. Rhodes was a CP engineer. Is that correct?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

He was CN.