Transport Committee on April 16th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We'll call the meeting to order.

I'd like to welcome back our witnesses again today. With your indulgence, I'd like to move into orders of the day and on into clause-by-clause. If everybody remembers, clause 1 is postponed until the end of the proceedings. How far we get today will be up to all of you.

With that, could we move to clause 2?

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Are we not going to have any more discussions with the witnesses?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I thought we had a pretty good discussion.

[An hon. member]

I was going to ask one more question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Make it very brief then.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

We can tie it into one of the clauses, if you like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

If it's connected to a clause.

(Clauses 2 to 7 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 8)

We do have amendment LIB-1 on clause 8. The note says it's nearly identical to amendment NDP-1. The analyst notes that although the content is similar, the changes sought in a different part of the bill should be considered as different enough to proceed with both.

Mr. Goodale.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Could I speak to this for a moment, Mr. Chair?

A number of witnesses appeared before us, particularly from the shippers. They indicated their desire for more detail in the legislation to describe some of the parameters around what the service obligations would cover. That's what this amendment is attempting to do. The distinction between this proposal from my colleague Mr. Coderre and a proposal later on from the NDP is the location in the legislation where it would be more appropriate to consider this amendment.

In our view, it fits better in clause 8 than in clause 11, which is the other proposal from the NDP. The positioning of this has indeed been discussed with a number of the witnesses, and the consensus was that it would be better to provide this detail in the context of clause 8. Accordingly, I would move this on behalf of Mr. Coderre.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is there any further discussion?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clauses 8 to 10 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 11)

Clause 11 is the big one. We have quite a number of amendments in it. The first one is NDP-1. Is there any discussion?

Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Basically, our amendment is much like the one made by the Liberals. First, we might wonder whether its proposed additions deserve to be passed. Clearly, we will no longer have any choice about our position because the amendment to clause 8 has just been negatived. Nevertheless, I feel that the amendments proposed by the Liberals and the New Democrats make perfect sense. They improve the bill considerably.

If we want to grant Minister Lebel one of the wishes he made when he met us, it would be to establish an arbitration panel. It would not be called on a lot, because a way would be found to arrange for the parties to mutually resolve their differences, both past and future. However, I feel that the provisions we are adding, namely paragraphs (a), (b), (c), ( d) and (e), would go a long way to solving the problem of bottlenecks at the arbitration panel because a good number of the conditions would be already specifically written into the bill and would mean that everyone, whatever side they were on, would know what the issues were. When agreements are signed, everyone will know exactly what everything means and, if they have to go to arbitration, it will also make the arbitrator's work a lot easier. The arbitrator will know exactly what he has to decide on and which elements have been met and which have not. There will be no need to reinvent the wheel each time. By adding these provisions, precedents will be set in advance, as it were. There will already be conditions that will frame the rulings the arbitrator must make.

I will not reread these five conditions, because I assume you have them in writing. But I feel that they will improve the bill substantially, because they will allow the parties to collaborate in a healthier way. That is why we are proposing the five additions to clause 11.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Sullivan.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

This is one of the places I wanted to ask our witnesses about.

We talked a little in the meeting before the break about what Transport Canada understands are service obligations. Transport Canada already has a definition, if you will, of what service obligations are, and I would like some more specifics from them as to what this would do relative to what Transport Canada understands our service obligations to be already. Are they defined somewhere? Are they redefined by this? What is the effect of trying to be more specific here with regard to how Transport Canada already deals with the notion of service obligations exactly?

[Annette Gibbons, Director General, Surface Transportation Policy, Department of Transport]

The understanding is that service obligations are terms related to the receiving, loading, carrying, unloading, and delivering of the traffic, which, as we explained at a previous meeting of the committee, is what is defined in section 113 of the act. The definition of service obligations is different case by case, depending on the specific situation of an individual shipper.

In terms of a mechanism for having a sense of the full scope of what it might encompass, there's lots of jurisprudence, through the courts, but in particular through the Canadian Transportation Agency decisions on section 113 through the complaint mechanism that shippers currently have under section 116 of the act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

So would any of these that are defined in the proposal from the NDP be unreasonable to be included in a definition of service obligations?

I guess the purpose of the amendment is to make it very clear what it is, and from your answer just now...because it's on a case-by-case basis, the shippers have advised us that they have difficulty getting past the railway assumption that nothing is a service obligation.

Would these amendments make it more clear what an arbitrator would be dealing with in terms of what the railroad's service obligations would be?

[Annette Gibbons]

Because the agency currently administers the act, and with the current obligation on railways to provide adequate and suitable accommodation for the receiving, loading, and unloading, using those terms that are currently in the act, the agency has experience in determining what service obligations would apply case by case when a shipper complains under the current Canada Transportation Act.

There is that knowledge of what different service obligations may be in a particular case, established through all those cases done over the years. It would be the expectation that when a shipper comes forward for arbitration, the knowledge of what the specific service obligation should be in a case will be very much in line with earlier decisions of the agency. Based on the vast gamut of things that you outlined here, if they apply in a particular case, it would be expected that the arbitrator would be able to impose any of those obligations.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

How would that knowledge be transferred from Transport Canada's knowledge bank, if you will, to an arbitrator?

[Annette Gibbons]

It's through the agency's knowledge bank.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Sorry, the agency's knowledge bank.

[Annette Gibbons]

The agency will be supporting the arbitrator. The agency will be providing expert advice to the arbitrator as that person makes decisions.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

And that's clear in the act itself?

[Annette Gibbons]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Goodale.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chairman, I have just one follow-up question. I won't ask the same question seven different times.

To illustrate the point, can you give us an example of in what circumstances it would be inappropriate for a service agreement to deal with the quantity, condition, and types of rolling stock to be provided by the railway company?

[Annette Gibbons]

I would say that without taking any specific one of those items, there's a very long list of various types of service obligations here.