First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for having us here this morning to hear our views.
I'd like to make an apology for our president, Mr. Dan Shewchuk, who wanted to be here, but it was impossible.
In the interests of saving time, I'm simply going to summarize our brief, which I'm told committee members already have a copy of. Our brief covered two topics only: scheduling train crews, and the improvement and replacement of outdated railway rest facilities.
Crews today are generally called on a first-in, first-out basis. For a time at CN, crews were called in during “time windows,” that is to say, they only had to protect a certain period of time, for example, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., three days per week, or perhaps every second day. This was when they were called out of their home terminals. For its own reasons, CN abolished this system. Crews are now being called under the old first-in, first-out system, which is very difficult for crews to work under. CP has some crews that are presently being called in time windows, but not that many.
We would also like to discuss the company's rest facilities, many of which must be replaced for safety's sake. These facilities are old, do not have noise abatement at all, and are totally inadequate as measured by the CANALERT standards. It is impossible for crews laying over in these facilities to get restorative rest.
It is entirely possible to make changes to crew scheduling and railway rest facilities. It is our opinion that doing so would eliminate many of the factors that lead to fatigue among train crews in Canada.
Thank you.