Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thanks to the members for having us here today again.
The minister, on Tuesday, touched on some of the key issues in the bill, and I'd like to take about four or five minutes to let you know what we've done with all the recommendations that were generated by the Railway Safety Act review panel—the 56 of them—and the 14 that were generated by SCOTIC.
We acted on them as soon as we got them, and the first thing that Rail Safety did was create an advisory council on railway safety with the companies, Transport Canada, and the Canadian Labour Congress. That was a recommendation of the Railway Safety Act review panel. So far we have had six meetings since that committee was put together, and that has proven to be very effective to communicate with all of our stakeholders. On the committee we have Transport Canada, the unions, the companies, the shippers, the suppliers, the provinces, the municipalities, as well as some observers.
We also created a Railway Safety Act review steering committee with the industry, Transport Canada, again, and the Canadian Labour Congress. The first thing we did was look at all the recommendations that did not require legislative amendments. They were divided among six working groups. All the working groups were also composed of union members from each of the railway unions, management, and the railway.
Just to give you an idea of what these committees have been able to achieve, one of the first committees we put together was on a safety management system. There have been several recommendations in the Railway Safety Act review and some recommendations as well done by SCOTIC. One of the recommendations that was provided by SCOTIC was to create a better tool to assist our stakeholders and Transport Canada to better manage rail safety. Carla has a copy of what has been published, which has been given to all our stakeholders. So we did publish some guidelines that are being used right now by all our stakeholders to help us with the implementation of a safety management system.
There were also some recommendations by SCOTIC for a non-punitive provision, which is in Bill C-33, as well as better employee involvement, which is also covered in the bill.
There is also one chapter dealing with information collection, analysis, and dissemination. We put together a working group, again, with unions, the railway, and Transport Canada, and it came up with some indicators that from now on will be shared between industry and the regulator through a data portal. We were fortunate to get about $2.3 million to enable the technology to get that done for us.
We also created a third working group—operation and proximity—that deals, among other topics, with fatigue, which was also a recommendation of SCOTIC . We recently published some fatigue guidelines to help train crews deal with fatigue-related issues. That was done, again, in cooperation with unions and management as well as with Dr. Patrick Sherry from the University of Denver, who helped us with this.
Also, a recommendation from SCOTIC was to enhance training. The industry has filed new rules with us for enhanced training for safety-sensitive positions.
Terms of closing crossings was also in the recommendations. We're dealing with industry to come up with a list of crossings that can be closed.
Regarding Operation Lifesaver, two of the members have raised some issues with respect to crossings and trespassing. We've added five engineers to deal with crossings, and $28 million was added to enhance crossings. We also added five outreach coordinators to assist us with education and awareness with respect to crossings and trespassing.
As for innovation and technology, there were a series of recommendations. Some came from the committee, others, from the panel. We created a new structure for managing these recommendations.
The working group, made up of transport company unions, has generated 25 new recommendations that have been scheduled to be carried out over the next few years. We were lucky to receive an additional $5.3 million to invest in technology. We also formed alliances with some universities and some other countries that share the same concerns as we do.
The fifth working group looked at environmental protection. Among other things, it focused on the best emergency measures for products that are not considered dangerous goods, but that may be dangerous for the environment. And the group made suggestions to us. Also, there are provisions in Bill C-33 that require railways to provide Transport Canada with environmental plans that will be checked.
The last working group focused on the process for establishing rules. Once again, these are the same stakeholders who are at the table, and they worked on creating a better methodology for establishing rules, a better participation of unions and better existing rules.
I came before this committee about three years ago and talked about some new technology we had acquired, the track assessment vehicle, that would help us enhance our capacity to do track inspection. We got two more of those vehicles. Right now we have up to five vehicles. So we're better equipped than we've ever been in the past to perform track inspection.
I just want to make sure you fully understand that all the recommendations in these two reports were not left on the shelf to collect dust. Most of the recommendations have been addressed.
In closing, I'd like to emphasize, on behalf of everybody in Rail Safety at Transport Canada, that we firmly believe that although we've received many tools to do a better job, Bill C-33 is probably the last one we would need in order to have a full tool kit.
On that, I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Chair.
