Evidence of meeting #20 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was goods.
A video is available from Parliament.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
No.
Conservative
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today on what is an important study by this committee. We are looking at safety management systems and the transportation of dangerous goods. At the request of the Minister of Transport, we are looking to see if there are any additional ways that we can improve that regime. Our goal is to present interim findings by the summer and a full report with recommendations by the end of this year. Your testimony today helps us in that regard.
I want to ask a question right off the top. There has been a lot of talk about Lac-Mégantic. The Transportation Safety Board was here earlier this week with some very gripping images. Of course, the tragedy has left quite an indelible image on not only the railway companies but on the general public. With such an indelible image, has Lac-Mégantic become informative to our understanding of railway safety, prejudicial to Canadians' understanding of railway safety, or both? What is your opinion on that?
We can start with CN or CP.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
I apologize, and maybe my hearing is going, but I missed the question. Could you repeat it, please?
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Has Lac-Mégantic as an image become informative to Canadians' understanding of railway safety, has it become prejudicial to our understanding of it, or both?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Why don't I start with that.
Let me back up—
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
And if you don't mind being as brief as you can, because I have a series of questions.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
I'll be quick. If you're telling me that I was too long on the last answer, I apologize.
When somebody has been railroading as long as I have, you've seen all sorts of things. You can go back to February 8, 1986 when there was a tragic accident in Alberta where a passenger train and a freight train came together.
Even though Lac-Mégantic did not happen on our railroad, we woke up with absolute distress and we wanted to learn everything we could. We sent some of our own; in fact, our vice-president Michael Farkouh went out there to learn what happened and what we could do differently.
It's the last thing we want, and absolutely it's going to be in the public's mind. We have to reassure that we operate a safe railroad and we will do everything we can to learn. We learned and put all those new steps in place to satisfy ourselves and the public that we operate a safe railroad.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Maybe I should rephrase. Does it help us understand the situation of rail safety in Canada, particularly the transportation of dangerous goods, or is it prejudicial in the sense that it obscures what the reality is with respect to the transportation of dangerous goods?
I'll move on to another question.
Mr. Vena, you said earlier that you have the capability, both you and your competitor or your partner in the rail industry, to know exactly what's on each train and in each car at any moment in North America. Under the protective direction on information sharing, the information is provided to a designated emergency planning official with the following caveats, that the information is only for planning an emergency response, that information in the hands of the emergency planning official would be disclosed only to persons who need to know for the purposes of emergency planning and response, and that the information is confidential.
Why not provide proactive disclosure if you know where everything is on a day-to-day basis under the same terms, that it would be entirely confidential with an emergency planning official in a community? Why can or can't you do that?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Our feedback is because it doesn't change every day. The emergency responders want to know what type, the volume, and how much so that they can respond properly, and that's the information we give them. It just does not change what you would do by knowing that second or that minute. It's more important to know what it is, and that's what we found. That's the communication we've had with the fire chiefs in all the communities.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
As a follow-up to that, the second provision, of course, is that there has to be notice, as soon as practicable, about a significant change in the quarterly information.
If you're transporting something new, why not tell that proactively as opposed to in historical data?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
If it's something new, then absolutely. We sit down and tell them that we have a new product on line, and if there's a different handling for the product, then we need to let the communities know, and we'll let them know.
Conservative
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
As long as we don't get surprised with the product, absolutely. That's why I can't sit here and say I'm not going to move a new product that has slightly different configuration. But if we know about it, absolutely, we want to be able to tell the people.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Safety management systems, obviously, are an important tool, building on the operating rules and regulations, sort of an additional layout to promote a safety culture. You have safety objectives every year that are part of your safety management systems.
Mr. Creel, maybe I'll start with you, and Mr. Vena afterwards.
What are your detailed safety objectives for 2014?
President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Pacific Railway
As for safety, reduction in accidents, we have standards or measures in place for reduced injuries and for reduced accidents. We have investment standards. We have objectives as far as how we invest our money, why we're investing our money, and what specifically we're investing the money in.
Conservative
President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Pacific Railway
What is the exact standard that we submitted? Was it a 15% reduction...?
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
More to the point, would you object to publicly disclosing those at the beginning of the year as opposed to measuring them after the fact in an annual report?
President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Pacific Railway
As far as what our stated objectives are?
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Yes. What your safety plan is for the upcoming year, your objectives.
President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Pacific Railway
Before I spoke on the company's behalf, I'd have to consult with the company, but personally, I would not have any objection to people knowing that, no.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
There's a long list of items that we have on objectives and safety. It's communication with our employees, communication with the communities that we operate through, making sure that we're advocates putting our position forward, showing leadership in tank cars, removal of the DOT-111s of our own. We have specific numbers that are—
