Transport Committee on April 1st, 2008

[Luc Bourdon]

We didn't see much difference in what we do, though.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Volpe, in the spirit of generosity, has deferred to Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I did my homework.

Thank you, Mr. Grégoire and Mr. Bourdon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I should say you have five minutes.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to go to a few recommendations. And I'll give you all my questions now, just in case I run beyond my time.

First, recommendation 19--I had asked this question before, only you didn't get to it--has to do with the effectiveness of local health and safety committees, which was raised as a concern. Recommendation 24, in the seventh bullet, talks about “a means of involving railway employees at all levels and, where possible, through health and safety committees and representatives”. That was identified as a weakness during the testimony we heard. Recommendation 24 also mentions that “Transport Canada and industry should work together to develop the tools”. There's a reference, in the third bullet, to a “measurement of safety culture”. We heard that there was a safety culture, but it varied from railway to railway.

I'll jump philosophically to recommendation 39, which deals with transport and follows through the safety culture, if you want to call it that, relating to dangerous goods, hazardous goods, very dangerous goods. In recommendation 38 the panel is recommending that this protocol be developed for hazardous goods not designated as dangerous goods. In recommendation 39, again, it's the same: to establish a standard of emergency response for the rail industry for dangerous goods and environmentally hazardous goods. In light of Lake Wabamun, in light of Cheakamus River, these seem to be particularly important. I'd like your comment on that.

Finally, recommendation 35 addresses the issue that I know was raised by my colleagues from the Bloc and by others--in fact, by both the NDP and the Conservatives--about the relationship with municipalities and the conflict that can occur between railways and municipal planning and development. More particularly, though, the import of that involves crossings, where the existing tracks are, and the recommendation for a five-year action plan. The recommendation here is that a five-year action plan should be developed and should include a provision for shared funding for the improvement of private crossings and for grade crossing improvements. We know that a high percentage of the reported accidents are in fact grade crossing accidents, so I would appreciate your comments on that.

[Marc Grégoire]

I can start, but I guess Luc can--

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Did I speak slowly enough for you to note the questions?

[Marc Grégoire]

Oh, yes.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

[Marc Grégoire]

I'll start with number 19. We have sat down already with our colleagues from RAC to see how we would assess and implement the various recommendations. We have basically grouped the recommendations into three clusters. The first cluster includes recommendations that will be jointly implemented or overseen by TC, RAC, and a variety of committees. The second cluster is composed of recommendations that deal with industry only, so we'll let them tell you how they will go about implementing them.

Your recommendation 19 is one of those. It states that the industry must take every measure to ensure effectiveness of the health and safety committee. That's a recommendation to the industry. I gather they are coming here later this week, so if you don't mind, I'll let them answer that question.

The third cluster contains the recommendations that will be dealt with by Transport Canada alone or lead by Transport Canada. It doesn't mean we won't talk to people. We will consult, as we usually do, but we will lead this work.

To recommendation 24, which was your second one, you added recommendation 24-7: “a means of involving railway employees at all levels and, where possible, through health and safety committees and representatives”. This one I would link with recommendation 19, if you want, so you may want to ask the railway how they will do that, but we from transport certainly encourage that. We do encourage employee involvement in safety.

Your next recommendation was 24-3, which is the third bullet: “measurement of safety culture”. We don't have an index, but we are now redrafting our program activity architecture in the department, and as part of that we have to define a performance framework for everything we do. I guess we're going to come to the same conclusion in that respect, but there is no worldwide recognized safety index, if you want, that would be recognized by everybody.

If I can compare it with what we did in diversity, for instance, we wanted to become a very representative department in transport. We have developed a diversity strategy, but in diversity there is a recognized index, one to five, and we can specify targets of where we want to be by when. Everybody understands that, and many organizations are using the same index. So here the only thing I can tell you of what we do now is that to measure the safety culture we have and we will interview people. The only way you can measure or have a sense of the culture within a company is to interview its employees, so in a big company we can interview hundreds of employees and we can find out from those interviews if the culture is positive or negative, if the information sharing is done, and if there are reprisal actions or not. We can find that out.

But there's no tool that will give you an exact number. To go back to the previous discussions about the one, two, three, four, five, the safety culture index, if you want, this is what we may adopt in the future, but we have not at this point in time.

Next was recommendation 39, and I'll let Luc take over from here.

[Luc Bourdon]

As Marc has mentioned, as part of the steering committee and the working group we have put together, there's going to be a working group tasked to look into that, to see if we need a protocol and develop what we need in order to address that recommendation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

There was a suggestion earlier here at the committee that the report proves that SMS doesn't work. But my reading of the report brings me to quite a different conclusion. The report actually says that SMS is highly desirable. In fact, recommendation 17 specifically states the high desirability of maintaining SMS and making sure it's implemented properly. That brings me to the question.

Implementation appears to be a big part of the problem here. The report actually distinguishes between organizations such as VIA Rail, CP, and CN. It speaks in glowing terms about VIA. It also speaks favourably about CP, and refers to it making great strides. But when it comes to CN it's highly critical. In fact, it refers to there being a culture of fear within CN, and that employees are afraid to report.

If we're going to get to a point where employees are reporting more often about some of the concerns they have, do we not have to address that culture of fear? I ask that because the report touches briefly on the issue of immunity, and Air Transat has adopted a provision for immunity for its employees when they report incidents. Under former Bill C-6, now Bill C-7, we're legislating that for the aviation industry.

I asked Mr. Lewis that question and didn't get a satisfactory response. So do you see imposing a legislative requirement for immunity as being helpful in moving forward? If not, why not?

[Marc Grégoire]

These are certainly things we will consider in the development of our recommendations in the coming months. But you have to look at all of this as a package. If we were to go the route recommended by the panel and establish an operating certificate scheme like we have in aviation, for instance, I would certainly want to push it further. I have the idea of the accountable executive, which has the same protection for employees as the one we've proposed for aviation.

SMS will only function if the culture of safety is implemented in the company, including encouraging employees to report problems without fear of reprisal. So somebody who sees something wrong, even if it's his mistake, has to be able to report this, because at the end of the day safety will be improved. But if the person reports something and is fired on the same day or the day after, what will that do? That will prevent other employees from making any other reports. That will basically shut down the communication channels.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

The evidence we heard when we were discussing Bill C-7 was that the rate of reporting safety issues increased by 400% to 500% once immunity was in place. In fact, virtually all the witnesses we had, whether they were from industry itself or the unions, spoke favourably of immunity. The only other thing the unions wanted was to go one step further and turn it into true whistle-blower protection.

Am I assuming correctly that immunity is something you would seriously consider as part of the SMS regime, and perhaps as part of legislative amendments that will come forward from your department?

[Marc Grégoire]

This is something we are discussing now, but the committee may want to make specific recommendations. Hopefully we will get these recommendations before the summer recess so we can include them in our proposal to the government.

[Luc Bourdon]

You can rest assured that every single complaint we get from employees is investigated, and we do not tell the railway who called us or who sent us a letter.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's understood.

[Luc Bourdon]

I know you want to go further than that.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

But I think the concern is that if there is a culture of fear within CN, you're not going to get the kind of reporting we're trying to elicit from the very employees who are on the front lines.

I have one further question. Bill C-7 could be used as a model for further legislative amendments within the rail sector. Is that something you're looking at?

[Marc Grégoire]

Absolutely. There are things we would like to copy by replacing “aviation” with “rail”. The whole portion on monetary penalties, for instance, we can just duplicate. There are many things about SMS, too.

Of course, if adopted, the Aeronautics Act would be the most recent safety act to be passed in the House. We want to use every advancement and every recent thing Parliament has done. We want to implement in other modes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

We have one last person, and then we'll open the floor for other questions. We'll have Mr. Jean.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for coming today.

I read a lot of the report. I was having problems sleeping, so it was excellent material for the time.

I would like to say that I thought it came up with some great recommendations. My understanding is that the department actually supports, in principle, all the recommendations of the report.

In relation to the enforcement itself, there's usually a stick and a carrot, a penalty and an incentive. Are there any incentives? Are there any rewards the department can offer? Are there any that they offer currently, instead of strictly penalties? We know of 76 enforcement orders. A minister's order was placed against CN, for instance. Are there any types of carrots that can be offered to these rails so they comply with the department?

[Marc Grégoire]

If a company is very safe when we audit the company, and it's an example of the culture of safety--it's perfect everywhere--what do we do? We just back off. So I guess the carrot is that you will see less of us if you have a really good safety record.

On the opposite side, if you're not good, well, you'll see more of us, and you will see monetary penalties. The monetary penalties should go, if adopted, again, through legislative change. The scheme is that they increase. You're bad once, you get something. You're bad twice, it's bigger. Then it's bigger, bigger, and bigger, until eventually, the worst thing that can happen to you is a suspension of your operating certificate.