Transport Committee on April 1st, 2008

[The Chair (Mr. Mervin Tweed (Brandon—Souris, CPC)), Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to meeting number 18 of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, resuming, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the study on rail safety in Canada.

Joining us today from the Department of Transport is Mr. Marc Grégoire, the assistant deputy minister for safety and security, and Luc Bourdon, director general of rail safety.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I think you know the routine. We'll expect a brief presentation and then we'll go to questions.

Monsieur Grégoire.

[Marc Grégoire, Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport]

Mr. Chair, we'll keep it short this time.

I'm pleased to be here today to discuss Transport Canada's action relating to the Railway Safety Act review report. I am joined by Luc Bourdon, our director general of rail safety.

Transport Canada is supportive in general of the recommendations contained in the Railway Safety Act review report. We are taking the report seriously and are taking decisive actions, based on the report's recommendations, to advance rail safety in Canada.

A key recommendation from the report was to revitalize the railway safety consultative process. The minister has already taken the first step in implementing this key deliverable by giving a mandate to the newly created advisory council on railway safety.

The group will be vital to maintaining a solid and productive relationship between Transport Canada and its stakeholders to address future directions in rail safety, rule making, regulation, policy, and other strategic issues. The terms of reference for the advisory council have already been drafted, and we have shared a copy of these with you today.

The group's membership is currently being finalized and will include representatives from Transport Canada, the industry, the shippers, the suppliers, other levels of government, labour, and the public. The advisory council will hold its first meeting on May 2, 2008, in Ottawa.

The minister has also tasked a joint Transport Canada and industry steering committee to develop an action plan to address the panel's recommendations. The steering committee, which has already met three times, is led jointly by me and Mr. Cliff Mackay, president and CEO of the Railway Association of Canada. The other members include Luc Bourdon and Mike Lowenger, vice-president of operations and regulatory affairs, Railway Association of Canada. Secretariat services are provided by Transport Canada.

Since many of the Panel's recommendations are general and do not lay out specific strategies, the steering committee will task working groups to analyse the recommendations and determine the best way to implement them. Some of the recommendations relate specifically to Transport Canada, others relate to the industry, while still others pertain jointly to both Transport Canada and the industry. The development of the action plan will be a priority for us in the coming months.

A number of the recommendations also require that legislative amendments be implemented. We are committed to moving quickly the necessary proposed legislative amendments for consideration by the Cabinet this year. For this reason, we look forward to receiving your own report and any recommendations that you may wish to suggest before summer. We would then be able to consider these in the development of the proposed legislative amendments.

I would like to mention briefly two particular issues of interest from the panel's report: the safety management system and Transport Canada's regulatory oversight program.

Safety management system requirements were added to the Railway Safety Act in 1999, and the safety management system regulations for rail came into force on March 31, 2001, exactly seven years ago. The safety management system program was developed by Transport Canada's headquarters, with each of the five departmental regions being provided with two additional persons to assume responsibility for program delivery in their respective regions.

The implementation of safety management system regulations complements Transport Canada's existing regulatory oversight program. Furthermore, a risk-based integrated rail safety oversight model is being implemented at this point in time and offers considerable promise for establishing regulatory priorities and coordinating safety oversight activities.

Since we started implementing the Safety Management System, Transport Canada has continued to improve is Safety Management System oversight. We continue to move from global audits to more focused audits of companies. Audits of national railways are fully integrated across all Transport Canada regions and we use a risk-based business planning approach to determine our priorities. As well, Transport Canada continues to work with rail operators to improve compliance with the Railway Safety Management System Regulations.

Transport Canada is supportive of the Panel's recommendation to develop additional tools to help railway companies measure their progress in the Safety Management System implementation.

It is important to point out that the panel's recommendations do not negate Transport Canada's regulatory oversight program. For instance, the department has a robust monitoring program to inspect railway infrastructure, equipment, and operations to determine compliance with established rules and regulations.

Inspections continue to be an important component of Transport Canada's regulatory oversight and work hand in hand with the audits required under the safety management system. Audit results, for instance, can help us determine where best to focus our inspection efforts.

As well, Transport Canada inspectors can issue Notices and Orders that prescribe a specific action a railway must take to address an immediate threat to safety. Transport Canada also has a range of enforcement tools, including prosecution, and takes immediate enforcement action when non-compliance with existing rules and regulations is found.

Thank you. It will now be our pleasure to answer your questions, if you have any.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you. I'm sure there will be a few.

Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Grégoire.

A couple of the questions I have relate to the presentation from Mr. Lewis. He and his panel made five recommendations on governance issues, and the common thread within them is regional inconsistencies. In particular, he made reference to the Atlantic region as having “the best 'on the ground in the region' approach and sense of safety cultures and safety management systems”. I'm wondering whether you have noted similar inconsistencies across Canada and how you will you address those recommendations with respect to dealing with those inconsistencies.

[Marc Grégoire]

I will let Luc answer that one.

We have a quality assurance program to ensure that we have consistency between regions, but human beings being human beings, that brings some differences.

I will let Luc answer on the details.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Luc, maybe I can just throw a second one in that you can incorporate.

When we looked at the reports we had before us, we noted—and it was part of the reason for us, as a committee, to get started on this—the number of derailments and rail incidents occurring in British Columbia in particular. They are across Canada, but B.C. saw a particular spike after the takeover by CN of B.C. Rail. In the report, there were references suggesting that it appeared they had “not applied themselves”, I think was the phrase Mr. Lewis used, to the difficulties of operating a railroad in mountainous conditions. I had heard reference to their using what they call “water grade” GOIs to B.C., therefore again raising a regional inconsistency question.

Could you address that?

[Luc Bourdon, Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport]

I'll first answer your first question.

Unfortunately, the report doesn't talk about the strategic plan that was developed by Transport Canada's rail safety directorate in 2005. I don't know why, because it was presented to the panel.

We did some work prior to doing that strategic plan in 2005, and one of the things we did with the industry and with the union was an environmental scan to try to find out where our deficiencies were, trying to focus our plan not only on rail safety but as well on being able to address our internal problems.

The thing that came number one on the list of everyone was inconsistency between all the regions. Another thing that came up at that time was the lack of integration of our program. Another one was the absence of data that we lacked at the time, and another was the resistance to change that we had from our own people.

So we put our plan together. Our plan—before I get into some of the details of the plan—was presented to the railways. We were invited by the Railway Association of Canada to present our plan to all of their members, so we presented it there. After that, some of the railways called us to make presentations to their own management teams, and every year since—I believe it was on October 2, 2006, and May 14, 2007—I have been invited to the Railway Association of Canada to bring everybody up to speed on our plan.

Within that plan, what we've done to improve consistency is implement a quality safety management system as part of rail safety. In that system, there's a series of procedures that we're developing within business processes, in order to standardize everything we do.

We created a safety council wherein all the regions and headquarters are represented. We approve each of those business processes so that everybody understands them clearly, and they become the procedures that everybody will have to follow. We have over 70 of them to do; we are probably one-third done by now. That was one of the tools we've developed to address our inconsistency, to standardize our practice.

We've also done an integration of all our programs into SMS. We don't even call these safety management system audits any more; we call them integrated audits. SMS has really become, since 2005, the cornerstone of our program. Although the report makes it a suggestion that we should do this, it has been done, and we are working on it right now.

There's no doubt that with the implementation of SMS, we have resistance to change within our own organization, and we're the first to admit it; the railway will probably admit it as well. A lot of our people who were used to do inspection audits are a lot more rigorous; they take a lot more time. It takes a while to convert all our people to doing audits, but it's getting better.

To give you an example, last year we did 131 comprehensive audits, seven high-level audits, and well over 2,000 inspections.

So there's an improvement. I don't know whether that answers your question with respect to consistency, but we're really working on it.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

That refers back, I presume, then, to the problems that related to British Columbia.

[Luc Bourdon]

In British Columbia, we added three more inspectors to cover the B.C. Rail territory when CN took it over.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

During their testimony to us, rail workers talked about the problems with fatigue management. Clearly, there seems to have been an attitudinal approach by the railways that was not cooperative in recognizing it.

The accidents in the States, the head-on collision as a result of fatigue management—I think the most serious one, Hinton, was fatigue management.... Can you tell me what you're recommending by way of changes? How would you address that issue?

[Luc Bourdon]

We reviewed the work-rest rule with the industry in 2003-04 to have a new work-rest rule in place in 2005. It's far better than the one they had before, but there are still some improvements that probably need to be made with respect to crew calling. The problem is not really while they're on the train; it's what happens before—the rest, and rest after—that has probably to be addressed.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

That affects what happens while they're on the train.

[Luc Bourdon]

Yes; then unfortunately things happen while they're out there. But I know that TSB is also looking into it, so definitely we'll have to review the work-rest rules again.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You have half a minute.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

The third area that I can recall from the discussions concerned the comparisons, in the testimony we had and in references in the report, and the accuracy or the base of data that was being used in comparisons between the U.S. system and the Canadian system.

I am wondering what it is you're going to do to improve that system so that there is consistency not only across Canada but across the U.S. and Canada where we have the railways going both ways.

My suggestion to you—and I'd like you to comment on it—is to wonder whether we can take the best of both. Rather than our saying we should adopt the U.S. system because it makes it easier, where we have a higher standard we should try to get the highest standard from both, and where our system previously wasn't the highest, we should be improving it to the U.S. standard, if that was higher.

Would you agree with that?

[Luc Bourdon]

I think the panel was clear in the report that more data are better than less data. As you've probably seen in the report, when you look at the FRA reportable accident, there are about 8% to 9% of all TSB reportables. I think the system we have right now provides a lot more information than the U.S. one. So I think that trying to get the best of both.... I think we may have the best of both right now. However, that doesn't mean it can't be improved, and as part of the consultative process we've put in place to address the recommendation of the panel's report, there will be a team focusing on data collection with industry members and the government and TSB to look at whether we can improve, whether we can expand. So that will be addressed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Grégoire.

[Marc Grégoire]

Perhaps I may just add something on that one.

Luc mentioned a team. This is a working group that will be working under the steering committee that I described. Since most of the safety data that we gather here in Canada is done by TSB, the Transportation Safety Board, of course we have to sit and talk with them to see if they want to gather more, and if not, who should gather it. Clearly we don't want to duplicate the gathering of data between the Transportation Safety Board and Transport Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm worried, Mr. Grégoire. As it was, I wasn't sold on the idea of a safety management system for the aviation industry...

[Marc Grégoire]

You supported the proposal.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Yes, because you managed to convince us that the system would work for the railway industry. Now I just have to trust Mr. Lewis. You appointed him. Everyone believed that he was an expert, or at least the Conservatives did.

Mr. Lewis had this to say about safety management systems when he appeared before the committee:

Nobody has done a perfect job of: Explaining how SMS are supposed to work to employees; Making SMS work for those involved. Similarly, TC has failed to maximize this new approach due to inconsistent implementation across the various TC regions and insufficient resources.

These words amount more or less to an admission that SMS is a failure. Regardless, according to the TSB findings, more main track derailments occurred in 2007 than in 2006. According to the report, main track derailments are the most serious and cause the greatest amount of damage.

I would like to agree with you, but you're telling me today that the Advisory Council on Railway Safety will resolve the problem.

[Marc Grégoire]

The Advisory Council on Railway Safety will not resolve SMS issues. It was set up to provide a communications link between all stakeholders. The SMS concept represents a profound cultural shift within the industry and requires...

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

But safety management systems have been in place since 2001.