Let me just remind Mr. Dias, before he steps in, and I quote, “work plans are vague in terms of timelines for monitoring progress on important safety issues”.
Critical information is missing. We don't have the federal railways’ risks assessments. We don't have information on the sections of track used in transporting dangerous goods. We don't have information on the condition of railway bridges. We don't have the financial information of privately owned federal railways not publicly available.
There is a three-year cycle for auditing the SMS of each federal railway. They did 14 audits in three fiscal years; 26% of what they actually required themselves. VIA Rail was not audited in three years. The audit scope is very limited.
In conclusion, these findings indicate that Transport Canada does not have the assurance it needs that federal railways have implemented adequate and effective safety management systems. The report says that even the methodology used to determine the inspections is flawed.
It goes on and on. What are we to make of this? How can Canadians trust what you're saying when this is the definitive objective assessment of what's going on?