Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing.
Where to begin here? Of course, we did have CN before the committee last week. I didn't find their testimony particularly helpful.
Mr. Cotie, you said CN thinks that accidents are the fault of bad individual workers. The union's perspective is that the change needs to be made at the top in safety culture. I'm inclined to believe you after CN's testimony here last week.
They performed what they said was an efficiency audit. I was rather alarmed that they don't call it a safety audit. I think that's probably some indicator into the culture at CN. I hope we're all alarmed that they call it an efficiency audit rather than a safety audit.
They said there was massive failure among workers to comply. They were alarmed at how widespread it was. I had contended with them that if there was that much failure to comply by workers, that's a systems problem, that's higher up--those who actually have oversight of the workers.
I don't know whether any of you can lend some insight into this. Perhaps the union would have some understanding of it. If I have the wrong union, maybe it's a union out west.
I asked the question, how many workers have been disciplined for safety problems? As well, I asked, how many middle or upper management have been disciplined over safety problems? They didn't provide that kind of information to this committee. Can you shed some light on that? I'd be interested to know who in fact is paying for the problem with the safety culture at CN.