Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our minister and the Transport Canada officials for being here today.
Obviously, rail safety in Canada is a very important issue. Bill S-4 has had previous iterations before previous Parliaments, itself arising from two reviews that themselves were the result, if we're going back far enough, of a series of major high-profile train derailments in Canada that incurred both loss of life and significant environmental costs. Transport Canada, for its part, appointed an expert panel, which led a comprehensive review and produced a major report—I believe it's about 240 pages and 56 recommendations.
At the same time, I was part of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, which was part of a concurrent study here into rail safety as well. We produced a report with 14 additional recommendations, 70 in total. If I remember some of the substance of the expert report, the ratings on safety performance of rail companies on a scale of one to five, five meaning the highest integration of safety within the company's culture...VIA Rail ranked four out of five, CP about three out of five, and CN two out of five.
Looking at ways of improving rail safety, or the culture of rail safety, in our companies—those 70 recommendations in total—can we have an indication now, four years later, of the progress in implementing both the expert review panel recommendations and the standing committee on transport's recommendations? Where are we on that?