Evidence of meeting #32 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was s-4.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Luc Bourdon  Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Alexandre Roger

9 a.m.

Conservative

Denis Lebel Conservative Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which represents all municipal unions in the country, participates in this process. It has participated since the beginning and will continue to participate in what is coming up.

Thank you very much.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC

Thank you, Minister.

9 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed

Thank you.

Monsieur Poilievre.

9 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

Thank you for being here.

Ms. Chow has cited the Transportation Safety Board, correctly, as a reliable source for questions related to rail safety. She has also advocated the positive train control system.

Doing these two things does create a certain contradiction, because the Transportation Safety Board has not recommended that Transport Canada implement the positive train control system.

Minister, you correctly point out that the United States is facing serious implementation problems with this system. The costs appear to be between $10 billion and $13 billion. The railways are asking for a delay of five years in implementation. Originally it was scheduled for December of 2015. They now seek to have it delayed an additional five years, to 2020.

All of this demonstrates the enormous complexity and cost associated with this system.

Can you comment, Minister, on our approach with respect to this system here in Canada?

9 a.m.

Conservative

Denis Lebel Conservative Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC

As I said before, we're monitoring what's going on in the U.S.A. and all around the world. It depends on the kind of rail system you have. Many U.S. railways at the moment have a lot of problems, extreme cost related to positive train control system implementation, and therefore we're not sure of the result. Transport Canada.... We hope that will go as well, and that in the end we'll reach the goal they have and we have—to have safer railway services. But for the moment we're still monitoring that, and we are very close in this process.

I will ask Mr. Bourdon to give you more details on where we are now on that.

9 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

As you know, that was mandated by the U.S. Congress with the Rail Safety Improvement Act passed on October 16, 2008. All the class 1 railways that transport more than five million gross tonnes, as well as transporting what they call poison-by-inhalation and toxic-by-inhalation material, as well as commuter rail and inter-passenger rail, had to implement PTC by December 30, 2015.

However, PTC is a very good system if you have a captive service with one company on your own network. It becomes an issue when you have to be interoperable with other railways. PTC in the States will cover about 41 railways and 60,000 miles of track. As we speak right now, there are several systems that have been developed and they're not talking to each other; therefore, the U.S. railways feel they're not going to be ready by that date and they're asking for an extension of five years.

Since many railways are trying to get PTC in the States right now, there's a lack of resources in terms of people available to work on the technology. The cost is extremely high. The cost-benefit ratio is 21:1, so $1 saved for $21 invested in PTC.

We're following it very closely. We have people on the committees out there. I'm on committees as well. We also met the technology provider, Wabtec, which provides ETCS to the five class 1 railways out there. Their recommendation to us is to wait until it's fully implemented in the States and they've worked out all the bugs. Then we may have something like a turnkey operation if we ever want to implement that technology in Canada.

It's the same thing in Europe. They have a system called ETCS that has been in place for about 30 years. Twenty years ago they launched—

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

You listed the acronym for the European system. Can you just state that?

9:05 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

ETCS is European train control system, which is a form of PTC that works with transponders on the track, a bit like what Amtrak has developed, which is not compatible with the electronic train management system adopted by other systems in the States. However, 20 years ago they decided in Europe that the 30 countries have to become interoperable, so they created something called the European rail traffic management system.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

How has that worked?

9:05 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

It's not working right now. That's the issue. In the Railway Gazette of last month they published an article in which they say that after 20 years they do not have any locomotives from different railways that are compatible with others. So there are issues. The technology is wonderful. We just have to work the bugs out of it. Then eventually, once the United States has figured everything out, it's something we could seriously look at in Canada and do a more cost-efficient implementation of it.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

Sir, you said it is something we could do in Canada. Is “it” the European system?

9:05 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

It would be whatever system we'd like to adopt, but it has to be one system so that it's fully compatible.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

All right.

On the issue of cost, the PTC system in the United States will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $13 billion.

9:05 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

That's what we think, yes.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

There is a finite amount of resources available to rail transportation in the United States, as in all countries. Presumably, if you take $13 billion—which is the most expensive federal mandate in rail transportation history in that country—out of the rail transportation pot, that means less money for other aspects of rail transport, does it not?

9:05 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

Yes, absolutely.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON

If you take $13 billion out of rail transportation to dedicate it to a system that won't be implemented for another eight years, is it possible that some of that $13 billion will subtract from other, more effective safety systems that could have been implemented more quickly?

9:05 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

According to information we got from the FRA and the AAR, without the Chatsworth accident, the one that triggered PTC in the States, they figured there have been two accidents in 20 years where there have been multiple fatalities that would have been PTC preventable. The argument they're making is that if you used that $13 billion and put it into improving crossings, you would save many lives every year. But would they do it? That's a different thing.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed

Thank you.

Mr. Watson.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

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?

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

Denis Lebel Conservative Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC

Once Bill S-4 is passed, we will have implemented 83% of the recommendations.

Luc, where are we now?

9:10 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

Out of the 56 generated by the panel, we have addressed 47. Some of them will never be addressed because either we don't have constitutional authority to address them or we feel they have no value added. The 14 generated by SCOTIC were all addressed, except the ones where we were asked to appear before the committee, because there was an election after that and the committee disappeared. But for the most part, as the minister mentioned, over 80% have been addressed.

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

The consultation process has been very extensive, related to the proposed amendments to the Railway Safety Act. How would you characterize the relationships among the companies, the union, and the government in terms of consultation? How advanced is that? How mature, if you will, are those relationships? Can you give us some indication?

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

Denis Lebel Conservative Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC

You go ahead.

9:10 a.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

I think it was excellent. Many of the recommendations were considered joint recommendations; we created joint working groups with unions, Transport, and the rail industry, and they were addressed by these joint working groups. For example, in terms of safety management systems, we achieved some guidelines that are now being endorsed by the union, management, and the NTC, which I had the opportunity to present at an international conference last year. I think we may be one of the only countries that has been able to achieve something like that, that level of maturity with the unions and companies. It's been excellent.