Transport Committee on April 1st, 2008

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

So not only is it an incentive, for instance, for companies to comply on the basis of their own safety record, and of course for public perception, but it is probably far more cost-effective for them to comply up front on an ongoing basis, because they don't have to worry about the paperwork with Transport Canada and ongoing safety problems.

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes.

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

Did the department see any dramatic increase in the safety culture, for instance, after the 76 enforcement orders or after some of the other steps that have been taken by this government since February 2006? Has there been an assimilated change over time to a positive degree?

[Luc Bourdon]

I think, over time, yes, things are getting better, if you consider the increase in traffic. There are more and more trains. The accidents so far this year look very good. The year 2007 wasn't a bad year at all. So I think things are improving.

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

Now you're talking about general accidents, all-inclusive, not main track derailments—

[Luc Bourdon]

Yes.

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

—because of course they went up by five or six over the total of a year.

You said, as well, in response to one of my colleague's questions, that the department was between a three and a four out of, in essence, five or six on the scale. How do we fast-track that? How can we fast-track that through the use of this committee, and in fact through the use of the department and in cooperation with the railways?

[Marc Grégoire]

Just to clarify Luc's answer, Luc is an expert, and he has been all his life in the railway safety environment, but this is a gut feeling. This is his own intuitive assessment. We have not yet determined a scientific tool to specifically measure it, which would require a survey of a large number of people, as we did, as I explained, with the implementation of our diversity strategy.

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

I understand that. I guess I'm relying on the gut feeling at this stage. I think safety and security, in essence, are an ongoing process that we have to continuously work at. To ever get a 100% grade I think is, quite frankly, impossible.

How can we work towards doing so? Would you see more enforcement orders? Do you see more cooperation with the rails? How do you see that working?

[Luc Bourdon]

The report makes reference to cooperation. One of the things we're going to do is create a working group that will deal specifically with safety management systems, which will involve the companies, the regulator, and the unions. So that will provide a forum for all of us to work together to get to better implementation of SMS. That has not really been done in the past in that kind of forum. So we could see some improvements.

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

You're referring specifically to recommendation 55, and in fact to the entire chapter 12 on building relationships.

[Luc Bourdon]

Yes.

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

This is more or less something that I seem to find over the time that we've studied this, which is over a year now. Certainly geographic regions such as mountains, the age of the rail, etc., come into the issue of safety dramatically, do they not? Or do they?

[Luc Bourdon]

As far as I'm concerned, we have rules and regulations in place, and those have been specifically created to address safety of train operations. Usually if you're in compliance and you have a good track, you have good equipment, people who are well trained, then regardless of the terrain you're operating on, you should be safe.

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

Do the requirements under SMS change on the basis of geographic area the trains are operating in?

[Luc Bourdon]

It will change in the way that SMS requires formal risk assessment for all new operations, whereas before it wasn't the case. If they want to operate in a new area or operate a new line or a new commuter service, we will request a full risk assessment.

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

In fact, is it possible that it will be a requirement for some of the rail companies that have not had the safety culture that's necessary in the past to have a more intense and robust SMS requirement in those areas?

[Luc Bourdon]

Absolutely, yes.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

I'm going to open the floor up now for short questions if you want.

Mr. Bell, a couple of minutes.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I won't be long. I just want to get the answer to my question on recommendation 35, which was the one relating to the shared funding. We didn't have time on that one.

[Luc Bourdon]

For the grade crossing improvement program?

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Yes, generally the support from municipalities, which was identified from some of the mayors who spoke to us and from our own committee when we took the phone calls in on the work that we were doing.... We had a telephone consultation from Richmond, from Langley. We had mayors from Quebec show up here and speak as well. The concern that was there for the lack of support in funding under the existing system.... They felt that for railway crossings, for the shared funding for those programs, which are mentioned in recommendation 35.... And I was curious whether more money was needed. I'm wondering what your thoughts are.

[Luc Bourdon]

There is no doubt that the report tested that, and our statistics show that the grade crossing improvement program has been highly successful. When we look at the decrease in terms of crossing accidents and we look at the crossings that were funded, this is where most of our improvements are coming from. The report also makes it clear that they do not recommend that we start to fund provincially regulated crossings.

As far as your question concerning the sharing of money among municipalities, railways, and Transport Canada, this is currently right now under the CTA, the Canadian Transportation Agency. If I understood your question, you were also referring at one point to perhaps our access control regulation, whereas when they're going to build new lines or new crossings, they have to get the municipality involved. We're currently working on a new regulation to address that, which in light of the report we may go a bit further on now than where we were planning.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I would just point out, Mr. Chairman, through you, as a former municipal mayor and council member, that the problems that have been identified by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.... I forget, but it was a significant figure for the shortfall in infrastructure. I can refer to one situation in North Vancouver, where there was a rail crossing improvement needed. It was a substantial amount of money because it happened to be in a yard area in which there was private land beyond the yard that needed to be accessed. It meant there were regular crossings of up to five or six tracks. That gets to be expensive. So the need for safety needs to be a priority. It needs to be recognized that municipalities don't have the ability. They're already short-funded on their infrastructure needs.