Transport Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Requests that you get.... So you are only called in—

[Luc Bourdon]

If they're provincially regulated, as I said, it's done through an MOU. For others it's a contractual agreement we may get at the beginning of the year, as they may ask us to do a certain part of their.... But we work for them. We don't provide any real oversight to the railway in those cases. We work on behalf of the province. So in Quebec, if we find that the track is defective, usually we'll talk to the provincial government and say, “This is what we found.” They will deal with the railway.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Are the enforcement supervisions similar to—

[Luc Bourdon]

In Ontario, we have enforcement powers. In other provinces, these may vary depending on what the MOU says.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Welland, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Dwelling again on the issue of the inspectors, the audit report from CN in particular indicates that these numbers or problems with non-compliance and the percentages we talked about have grown, the numbers of the rolling stock, the engines, and then the issues of track inspection, for example.

I'm wondering if you could provide us with the powers the inspectors currently have. Regarding the issue we've talked about of providing additional strength, one of the things we'll be looking at as a committee is the recommendations to provide some teeth to the act. It seems to me that we need to empower the inspectors to be more like traffic cops and to be able to hand out fines—or parking tickets, if you want to call them that—right on the spot and to ensure we get quick action so that it's efficient.

My understanding from some of the information we heard—and I spoke with rail workers on this as well when I visited the Prince George site after the derailment there—is there seems to be an issue with bad orders and notices that are ignored or go missing or that are not acted on. I'm just wondering whether we have provided, in whatever legislative framework we have, adequate strength for those inspectors to act quickly and not to have to.... I don't know if they have to check with your office before they do things or if they have the power to act on the spot, because it seems that's very important.

We want to keep the rails rolling, but we also want them to roll safe. I'm very concerned about maintaining the economic strength of the railways, and by economic strength I'm talking about the economic backbone of Canada moving goods. But we also need to be able to deal with those deficiencies as quickly as we can.

The other aspect is the difference between Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board. I know we go back and forth. One, I gather, investigates accidents and the other deals with potential accidents.

Could you comment on that?

[Marc Grégoire]

I will comment. First of all, the present act does provide for inspectors' powers. They are described in section 28 of the act. Each of the inspectors, when we consider them ready to exercise their authority after they've been hired and trained, receives a delegation of authority. It's a formal paper that is actually given to them by Luc, who has the authority to give that to them.

But when we talked earlier about lack of teeth and lack of tools, we certainly were not looking to give our inspectors the power to give tickets. This is not the case in aviation; this is not the case in marine safety either. We would rather have monetary penalties. There's a big difference, especially in the recourse mechanism. The recourse mechanism that's being used now to allow the deviation for the recipients of penalties is the TATC, the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada. Anybody who receives an enforcement action from Transport Canada or from a Transport Canada inspector can appeal this action to the tribunal. The tribunal can either change the decision made by the inspector or it can ask the minister to reconsider its decision.

This is where we would like to continue. It is relatively new for railway safety. It was only started five years ago, when the Civil Aviation Tribunal was transformed into the TATC, which now hears railway issues, and will start to hear marine safety issues next year.

The plan, or what we would like to have in the new act, is to have similar powers to what we have in the Aeronautics Act, and that is the authority to give monetary penalties. These are not normally decided on the spot. The inspector would make an inspection report and he would make a recommendation as to the amount, and then, as established in the Aeronautics Act, the company would be advised that they will receive a fine. There would be an informal hearing, if you want, with the company, and the fine could change after that hearing, depending on what additional information was provided. Then the fine would be given, and the company would have the opportunity to challenge that through the tribunal.

This is where we would prefer to go. If you want, we can provide you now with the delegation of authority paper and an example of what an inspector receives, if that would be useful to you.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

On section 28. Okay, I'd appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Jean.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back a little bit to what I was talking about earlier, the machines versus the inspector—not “versus”; I guess they would be complementary to each other. These machines, I understand, detect cars, check the level of surface, check elevation, check whether there's any consistency or inconsistency in the track. Do they also have memory of going over certain tracks, to see whether the track has changed dramatically from the previous inspection four months before? Or is that not part of the deal?

[Luc Bourdon]

I'll have to check. I assume they would probably keep records of all of that. You probably want to know whether, on the spot, it will flag right away when there's a difference. I'll have to check on that.

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

I'd really appreciate it. I know you have a lot of homework here, but if you could provide us with information on those two types of machines, I would be very appreciative.

[Luc Bourdon]

Yes, we'll get that to you.

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

Obviously—in my mind, anyway—the machines would do a much more accurate job than a visual inspection by humans, at least from my perspective; my eyes aren't that good.

Is that fair to say, Mr. Grégoire?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes.

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

Is there an increase in the number of inspections—over, let's say, the number 10 years ago—that these machines do for our tracks across Canada?

[Luc Bourdon]

Yes.

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

Have you information or evidence first-hand that these machines actually are successful in what they're doing when compared with a visual inspection by an inspector?

[Luc Bourdon]

There's no doubt that the technology provides a better level of inspection. The submission CN has done with the panel for the review of the Railway Safety Act, which is a public document available on their website, provided a very good document on all the technology they are using. They call that their “technology toolkit”, or something like that. It is available; it describes everything you're looking for. It describes what a Sperry car is, what a track geometry car is, and every new technology—hot box detector, dragging equipment. It's a full document. It is very well done. It explains the concepts.

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

Is this the CN submission to the Railway Safety Act review panel, the opening submission?

[Luc Bourdon]

No, it's not the opening one.

[Marc Grégoire]

They made many submissions.

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

Is it possible to get a copy? My goodness, you have a lot of work to do.

[Luc Bourdon]

I can send you that, no problem. I think it's a very good document for everyone who wants to compare technologies.