Transport Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

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

Good.

I have another brief question. How many railway companies do you monitor? Do they include smaller ones? We know about CN and CP, but are there others?

[Luc Bourdon]

If you include all the companies which have a certificate of competence issued to them by the Canadian Transportation Agency, there are 36 in total. Ontario has adopted the federal regulations, and it passed legislation whereby we manage its railroads. So that's 13 more. It's part of our everyday work. Further, as Mr. Grégoire said, we have signed memorandums of understanding with some provinces, including Quebec. Most provinces call on our expertise for all kind of things such as inspecting sections of track, or new tracks or equipment they have purchased.

[Marc Grégoire]

In Quebec, it is the Ministry of Transport of Quebec.

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

So your 86 inspectors have to monitor 36 companies, plus another 13, plus any others?

[Luc Bourdon]

In total, CN and CP represent about 72 per cent of all railway traffic. They are responsible for most of the transportation by rail.

[Marc Grégoire]

Let's not forget VIA Rail.

[Luc Bourdon]

Indeed, there is also VIA Rail.

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

Surely you also do monitoring and audit activities. Do you do this once a year?

[Luc Bourdon]

We take a risk-based approach in our audits. We concentrate on railway companies which we believe represent the highest risk of accidents. Of course, there are smaller railway companies with only two or three employees. These companies switch wagons from point A to point B. They are responsible for only a couple of kilometres of track. We inspect them once in a while; they rarely have any accidents and there is not much happening in that regard. Trains travel at very low speed on those tracks.

Most of our work is focused on CN, CP and VIA Rail.

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

So basically you react.

[Luc Bourdon]

That is not true.

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

You are not proactive, but reactive.

[Luc Bourdon]

We in fact look at all railway companies. If it has been one or two years since we have inspected a company, even if nothing has really happened, we figure it's time to drop by to see how things are and to make sure the system is as good as it was during the last inspection. We will do that even if there is no indication of anything specifically wrong with the track.

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

That's fine, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was interested when you noted the difficulty with the amount of percentages of railcars that had different regulations and efficiencies. You're right, a fire extinguisher wouldn't lead to derailment, but it could be a serious problem if there was a work-related incident or fire and so forth.

You mentioned you have 86 inspectors right now. How many inspectors did you have, say, for example, five or 10 years ago? Has there been a change in the inspector pool?

[Luc Bourdon]

There has been an increase of 12 in the last year, so there were less than that. But to say the least, it has been an extremely stable environment in the number of inspectors. So prior to 2001 we had a total, I believe, of 78 or 79 inspectors across the country, including Ottawa. Since then, we've added 12 more, so we have 101, and 86 are in the regions, but it hasn't moved at all since then.

Now, some regions have added, and we support that. I believe we put three additional inspectors in the British Columbia region, when CN made the acquisition of BC Rail.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's basically one per province or territory since 2001.

[Marc Grégoire]

With the 12, it was two each.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

But there are 12 in total, right? So in the last several years you've only had 12 additional inspectors added to the system, when rail operations have gone up significantly, including profits--and the usage and the accidents.

Has there ever been an analysis in terms of what would be the optimum number of inspectors that would be appropriate, especially if the usage of the track is increasing, and there's a new mandate, say, for example, from U.S. security, which is one I gave an example on? Has there been that type of analysis?

[Marc Grégoire]

We always have discussion and debate about how many resources we should put into which modes. Should we put more people into road safety, where we kill close to 3,000 people a year, or should we put more people into aviation? It's a matter of choice. We make recommendations, and decisions are made as to the best way to appropriate the resources. What I can tell you now is that we make the most efficient use of the resources we have.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I just find it ridiculous, given the extent of the rail increases we have, the geography we cover, the types of incidents we've had, and since 2001 only 12 new inspectors.... I just find that's not appropriate, given the increase in usage.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Maloney.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Most provinces have adopted your federal regulations vis-à-vis the lines and operations. I assume this is a fee for service. But what percentage of your global inspection force is in fact assigned to short lines, or in fact does this vary from year to year? I appreciate that short lines perhaps don't have the financial resources that the larger operators have. Although they may operate at lower speeds, is there still a risk factor because they don't have the resources to do perhaps the necessary repairs to the road beds, the line beds?

Could you respond to that?

[Luc Bourdon]

The provincially regulated one, the last time we calculated how many resources are used on a yearly basis, was less than two FTEs. Those are the ones done through a memorandum of understanding. It depends on the requests we get, but it's less than two full-time employees a year dedicated to that.