Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I would like to thank all of you for appearing before our committee. I will give you my general opinion on the report. I feel it has one positive feature: it deals with probably all of the issues, or at least a great majority of them.
The problem is in the perception of the stakeholders. I would like you to help me with this. Transport Canada does not necessarily accept the blame that is dished out. Myself, I dream of a balanced security management system with a field inspection system that is maintained in order to ensure that the company does not commit any excesses. You may have read the testimony of Mr. Miller, the head of security at Canadian National. He thinks it is a good report but he does not agree that CN has a culture the report described as a “culture of fear and discipline“. Mr. Miller was appointed in April, 2007 and right off the bat he said that he did not accept this description because he did not see that. When the chief of security does not see one of the big problems, CN has a major problem. This culture must be changed.
Canadian Pacific told us that the culture was fine and that they had new equipment. You, Mr. Brehl, you mentioned the accidents that recently occurred at Canadian Pacific.
All of this raises a problem for me. My question will be to each of you because I would like you to help me understand. VIA Rail did not appear, because everybody says that things are fine at VIA Rail, that security there is good. Things are going rather well at CP and are somewhat worse at CN. You have employees in each of those companies.
How come the security management systems or SMS culture was unable to penetrate all of the industry, when those systems have been in place since 2001? Why is security better at VIA Rail? Why is it rather good at CP and less so at CN? Is this real? If not, there is a major problem everywhere.
I would ask Mr. Wilson, Mr. Brehl and each of you to answer this question.