Yes.
Mr. Chairman, honourable members, I want to thank you for inviting the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to appear here today.
I bring with me three colleagues who offer a wealth of experience. Mr. Jean Laporte is our chief operating officer. He has been with us since our inception in 1990 and possesses a deep understanding of the mandate and the processes we follow. Kathy Fox has been a member of the board since 2007. She has over four decades of aviation experience and is an expert in safety management systems. Mr. Kirby Jang is our director for rail and pipeline investigations. He's well placed to provide greater context and information on TSB rail investigations, as well as the statistics we hold and why we hold them.
We are here today because you're conducting a review on the transportation of dangerous goods in Canada and the role of safety management systems.
A number of high-profile accidents here and south of the border have shone a spotlight on rail safety and the transportation of crude oil. They have forced us to re-examine whether our operations are safe enough, and if not, what needs to be done to improve matters.
Today there is a heightened fear. There has been, and there is no other way to put this, an erosion of public trust. Five years ago, the amount of oil moved by rail across Canada filled 500 cars, maybe five or six long trains. but last year, that figure rose to 160,000, and it is projected to go higher in the coming years. Canadians know that much of this oil is volatile.
No accident speaks more profoundly to the risks than that in Lac-Mégantic, where last July a train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire, killing 47 people. In this investigation, we still have months ahead of us, months in which we will complete our investigation and report to Canadians.
That being said, early on in this investigation we identified important safety issues and communicated them to regulators. Then in late January, in an unprecedented move, the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, and the TSB made parallel recommendations aimed at making the transportation of crude oil safer across North America.
In Canada, we called for tougher standards for class 111 tank cars. That's because in Lac-Mégantic the entire train was made up of older unprotected tank cars, and almost every tank car was breached, fuelling the fire.
I want to show you an animation. This car was in the middle of the train, and you can see how very badly damaged it was. As you can see from this photo, even the cars at the end of the train, which are the cars on the right of the photo, these are the cars that were moving relatively slowly when they derailed. Even those cars were very badly damaged. That has taught us something.
Today, the rail industry is moving toward a new standard for general service class 111 tank cars, and that's a good thing. But a long and gradual phase-out of older model cars simply isn't good enough. It leaves too much risk in the system. That's why we were crystal clear that commodities posing significant risk must be shipped in containers that are safe, and the sooner, the better.
Our second recommendation dealt with the way railways plan their transportation, how they choose the routes on which oil and other dangerous goods are carried, and how they ensure train operations over those routes are safe. This involves a comprehensive system-wide review of many variables. It's about looking at what lies ahead along each route, identifying alternative routes, and choosing the ones with the least risk. It means, for example, ensuring that the track is maintained to the highest standard, that speeds are appropriate, and that wayside detection systems are in all the right places. This needs to be followed up with risk assessments in order to ensure the steps being taken will keep our communities safe.
Our final recommendation to emerge early from the Lac-Mégantic investigation was about making sure that when something does go wrong even in the face of advance planning, that the right resources are in place to reduce the severity and impact of a spill. We therefore called for emergency response assistance plans where large volumes of liquid hydrocarbons, like oil, are being shipped.
An answer to our recommendations is due later this month. We are encouraged by the minister's response to our early communications on Lac-Mégantic. It signals an understanding of the risks of carrying more and more oil by rail, what is at stake, and the need to address the risks that the TSB finds. In responding to our recommendations, it is my hope that the minister will lead with initiatives to squarely deal with these three important safety issues.
Now l'd like to discuss one of the other ways of ensuring our transportation network is as safe as it can be. That's the second topic you have been tasked with addressing: safety management systems, or SMS. As my colleague Kathy Fox so aptly put it, safety management systems help companies find trouble before trouble finds them. Let's be clear: an SMS is not a panacea, nor should it be mistaken for one. However, it is a very good tool, one that helps to find the biggest risks so that mitigating steps can be taken.
At the Transportation Safety Board, we think SMS is so important that we put it on our inaugural safety watch list in 2010. To be fair, Canada's major railways and a number of short lines have been working to implement SMS, and they've taken significant steps. However, 12 years later, many of the systems they've implemented are not yet mature. That means they are not netting all the safety benefits that they should. l'm talking about the need for audits and for strong regulatory oversight. l'm talking about risk-based inspections and, where appropriate, enforcement to ensure compliance. The Auditor General's report reaffirms the importance of all these things, and we strongly agree.
Before I close, I would like to note that we've recently updated our own regulations, modernizing reporting requirements, and harmonizing thresholds for dangerous goods with the TDG, transportation of dangerous goods, regulations. That will mean more notifications about trains that go off the rails. For example, all one- and two-wheel derailments must now be reported to the TSB. It will also mean that when a release of dangerous goods leads to consequences, such as death, injury, collision, derailment, fire or explosion, or any other threat to the safety of Canadians, railways must report these spills, no matter how small.
That's where we are today. None of the safety issues are about to disappear anytime soon. This committee has an enormous task ahead, not just to examine the issues of SMS and the transportation of dangerous goods, not just to hold hearings and find out ways to ensure that our railways, our waterways, our pipelines, and our skies are as safe as they can be, but also to make recommendations that will lead to real action, concrete measures to shore up and restore shaken public confidence. In all of this, we at the TSB share your goals. Advancement of transportation safety is our mandate. We've spent more than two decades working at it, and you will find us committed, informed, dedicated, and very cooperative.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.