Transport Committee on April 10th, 2014

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

How would you come to some kind of formula as to who is going to do what? You are fairly large, and there are all these moving components in terms of who has pieces of shipping oil and gas and propane.

[Bob Bleaney]

Regarding oil and gas, I'll again turn that question back to Greg, because I think he would be most familiar with the specifics of the intent of the modelling, but I would assume it's going to be volume based.

[Greg Stringham]

I can add to that, Ms. Young.

As we look at this, we're really trying to take the best of the operations, of what's happening in the marine model. It's already well established. Again, it is a dollar-per-volume measure, so a dollar per barrel, or a dollar per gallon, whatever it is, that is put into that fund, which is established by those who are moving that product. That's what it would be doing. It's taking what's really working on the marine side up to the level that needs to be collected, as it was. It's been sitting there now collected on the marine side for many, many years. That's the kind of model we're proposing.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Now it makes a lot more sense. Thank you for clarifying that. That was very helpful.

Basically you're saying there will be a formula in place for everyone who is moving this product, and that will be based on the amount of product being moved. Therefore everyone is going to contribute to this fund, which will then build in a very similar way to how the marine fund builds. Is that correct?

[Bob Bleaney]

Yes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Great. Fabulous. That clarifies that.

I want to go back to the recommendations and ask you a question about them. They appear to be very similar, in fact the same, in all of your presentations. On the one hand, I think that's admirable. Obviously you've done a tremendous amount of work in working together to come up with these recommendations. However, I want to talk about the gaps within the liability framework. Do you believe this pooled fund, then, will address all the gaps you have identified, or are there other gaps you've identified that you would like to speak to today?

[Bob Bleaney]

From my perspective, I believe the approach we're taking is intended to cover those gaps. That's exactly why it's being set up.

The gap we witnessed with the Lac-Mégantic incident was one where there wasn't sufficient funding available for a small rail carrier. That's why this particular model is being proposed. It's explicitly to deal with that.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

So there are no other gaps that you've identified in all of your good work over all these past months that you feel need to be identified and/or need a solution for today.

[Bob Bleaney]

I'm not aware of any more, but I'll consult again with Greg and Dave to see if there's anything else they'd be aware of.

[David Pryce]

Perhaps it's not truly in the definition of liability, but Mr. Boag and Mr. Bleaney have talked about us working together with the Railway Association to come up with a national scope emergency response mechanism. That will certainly need to have a funding mechanism associated with it.

We see that it would be a jointly designed, jointly funded, mechanism. We think the Railway Association will know...if there's an incident it's best in place to call down any response. But we believe there's a joint initiative required to close the gap around how everybody works together in a response.

It was evident I think in Lac-Mégantic that there was, as a result of that, a need for better coordination around that. Our industry's east coast response organization actually was responding to that, and it was clear that there needed to be some better governance in how everybody worked together in that space.

We've made recommendations around that. I think the working group the minister set in place made similar recommendations, and we are in discussions, as the three associations, about how best to pursue that going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

Mr. Mai, for five minutes.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank Mr. Komarnicki for actually correcting, not me directly, but yes, what I said. I agree that it's more than $80 million, as I was saying. We're talking more in the billions.

If we had done that 20 years ago—again, I talk about the DOT-111—when we first knew there was a problem.... If you amortize it, it's worth saving lives.

We were talking about the compensation fund you suggested. Was the idea of a pooled fund the result of a government directive, or was it an idea that the industry came up with as a reaction to the disaster at Lac-Mégantic and as a way to protect Canadian taxpayers? Did the proposal come from the industry or the government?

[Bob Bleaney]

The question you've asked—so my colleagues can hear it in English—is as to whether this was being government driven or whether it was being industry proposed. The proposal we're building for the hybrid model and for the handling of small rail is an industry proposal.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

That is what happens with deregulation.

A lot of Liberals are saying that establishing rules for rail transportation is the responsibility of the rail companies and the industry. We see the Liberals and the Conservatives with the same attitude: letting the industry regulate itself and come up with its own regulations that are even better than the present ones. This is a specific example.

With the DOT-111 tank cars, railway companies are showing a lot more leadership in terms of regulations and public protection than the very government that is supposed to be protecting Canadians. I congratulate you.

I would like to know if there is a proposal, a plan. If so, is it possible to provide it to the committee clerk, to help us in our understanding? What you are proposing is interesting, in my opinion. I would like to have more information about it.

[Bob Bleaney]

The question Mr. Mai has proposed is whether we're in a position to table our plan with the committee. That's work that's in progress with the working groups at this point in time. My understanding of that is it will come forward into the public domain in due course. Again, I'll defer to my experts in Calgary on the specifics of that, if I may.

[Greg Stringham]

Chair, as we've been looking at this plan again, we want to be very clear, to answer your question, that this is something we're proposing would become part of the regulation overall, so it applies to everyone. From that perspective, we will be putting the details of that plan down, but you've seen the details here and we are now working with Transport Canada and with our colleagues in the other associations to make sure we flesh out the details of the plan so that it can be fully presented.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Great.

[David Pryce]

I think the other point I would make is, the government has been talking to industry on a broad range of transportation, so they have been looking to establish the regulatory requirements within marine and within pipeline. Our engagement in those discussions has enabled us to give some thought to, and evidently bring forward, the notion of a hybrid model.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have a question for the representatives from the Canadian Propane Association.

I know we are not talking about the same kind of car, but I would like to know if there has been a significant increase in the number of cars designed to transport propane and if any major accidents have happened as a result? For crude oil, we have gone from 500 cars in 2009 to 160,000 cars in 2013. For propane, has the number of cars changed or not?

[Guy Marchand]

No.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

So nothing related to safety rules has changed very much and things seem to be fine.

I know that CAPP, the Canadian Propane Association, and the Canadian Fuels Association, were all part of the emergency response assistance plan working group that submitted a report and recommendations to the Minister of Transport on January 31, 2014. But the report cited a lack of available data on dangerous goods movement and emergency response resources as a serious constraint in developing its recommendations.

Can you tell us what type of data was missing in terms of dangerous goods movement, in order to make sure that we have an ERAP?

[Peter Boag]

I would actually defer to those who participated directly in the working group. We have some of those by video conference from Calgary right now.

[Brian Ahearn, Vice-President, Western Division, Canadian Fuels Association]

It's Brian Ahearn with the Canadian Fuels Association.

I was part of the working group, at least on the fuel side. In the short time period we had on the working group side, we were trying to collect the data on movement, particularly around municipalities, etc. It was recognized before the January 31 deadline that we weren't able to pull together that data. Part of the working group report was a follow-up to collect that data to get a more robust view of the numbers on the TDG railcar movements for fuels and crudes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Does anyone else want to add to that?

Mr. Pryce.

[David Pryce]

I believe one of the constituents, the fire chief, was looking to see some more precise data in terms of volumes of product or different products that would be moving through municipalities. I don't think the committee had that knowledge, so it was accepting the fire chief's desire to get that information and make that recommendation.