Transport Committee on May 13th, 2014

[Michel Leclerc]

Under the new agreements, Canada and the United States will be working on very specific items that are advantageous for Canadian stakeholders and consumers—

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Would the automatic braking system—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Ms. Morin, I'm sorry, but you're out of time.

You may finish your answer, Mr. Leclerc.

[Michel Leclerc]

I was going to say that the draft regulations both countries will be working on will deal specifically with initiatives that are highly likely to lead to positive outcomes from an economic and a safety perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Komarnicki is next.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you, witnesses, for enlightening us on some of the legislation.

I noted the basic issue relating to the notice period of up to 90 days. I think I heard you say that the proposed changes are at the discretion of cabinet but only if they are deemed very significant, so there are some pre-conditions.

Before a matter gets to cabinet, are there processes in place that would allow not only for consultation with the various stakeholders, but are there also processes within the different departments that look at all the various options that eventually bring the matter before cabinet with recommendations or what should or shouldn't be done?

[Michel Leclerc]

Under the federal regulatory process, departments, at the outset, when they're getting ready to do a regulation, go through what's called a triage of the proposal. During that process they examine the environmental, economic, and social impacts. On the basis of pre-established criteria, that indicates to the regulatory department the extent to which the cost benefit should be done. For example, it identifies the major areas of risk.

It also determines the level of significance of the regulations. If you had a very low-impact regulation, and the example we heard before is if, for example, the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations identified an inconsistency between the English and the French, if that kind of amendment comes forward, there's little point in prepublishing it for 90 days for a mandatory prepublication period since it's really corrective in nature. Whereas, we talked about the example of the DOT-111 cars; that is definitely a significant regulation and one that would be prepublished.

The length of time it would be prepublished in the future, under the cabinet directive, would be determined by the significance of the proposal. In fact, cabinet could elect to prepublish something for more than 90 days. They could say that they want this out there for six months, and they want people to really have a good look at this.

But not all regulations are equal. Many of them are merely administrative in nature. People wouldn't even look at them twice in the Canada Gazette , part I, but there are criteria to determine that in the regulatory process.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

There really are two sides to this equation. There are ones that are more housekeeping and perfunctory, where it would be obvious that you want to proceed with the change and there's consensus generally in that area and you wouldn't want to go through this whole process. On the other end of the extreme, there may be safety concerns, emergency-type concerns that are pre-established, I would say, through several independent routes that would recommend to cabinet to say, in this instance, they may want to modify that and deal with it because it is significant, it does have safety concerns, it does have impact, not only on public safety but on some emergency situations.

[Michel Leclerc]

Correct.

Mr. Chair, one of the things that we don't see when we remove this provision is that the Minister of Transport, for example, can recommend one of two things to the Governor in Council. She can recommend that something be exempted from prepublication, but at the same time, she can recommend that it be prepublished. If she deems it significant from a safety and security standpoint or for any other reason, she has the option of recommending that, but in the end, it's at cabinet's discretion whether something is prepublished. The greater the significance, the more likely it is that something will be prepublished.

I just wanted to add something else, Mr. Chair. The vast majority of enabling federal legislation does not have mandatory prepublication as part of its provision. We still have prepublication when the case is appropriate.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It seems to me that even if it's not prepublished it's not a question of whether there hasn't been some extensive consultation. I would expect that before it gets to the cabinet stage, there actually is due diligence that it is done in terms of communication with the pertinent stakeholders, the people who are involved directly with the issue, and I suppose to some extent, the general public's reaction, to come forward with some basis for the recommendation that is made or some conditional points that are met. Would you agree?

[Michel Leclerc]

There are.

There are, in fact, the standing consultation committees on both sides of the border, where we're often dealing with the same issues. The department will put out notices sometimes in newspapers, sometimes in the Canada Gazette , part I, that it is launching a process to study regulations. There are formal consultations that have to occur. They have to be documented. Our Treasury Board Secretariat analysts are very stringent when they screen the material we send them for approval by the Governor in Council.

It's very important for ministers to understand what the pros and cons of each regulatory initiative are. They want to know who's for it, who's against it. We would not succeed in getting a regulation enacted by the Governor in Council if we didn't pass all these tests beforehand. The regulatory process is intrinsically very challenging.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're out of time now, Mr. Komarnicki.

We'll move to Mr. Dubé, five minutes.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Obviously I am going to speak about the Champlain Bridge because my riding borders highway 10. It is a main artery. Given the increase in population and urban sprawl in the Greater Montreal area, traffic problems are not going to lessen over the coming years. This is a serious problem that needs attending to.

We were told that the opposition members are not being very optimistic. Unfortunately it is the people, the public, who are not feeling very optimistic. In fact, Minister Lebel and the federal government go into their areas and impose a project that they do not feel they have been adequately consulted on. I am thinking here of elected municipal members, the Government of Quebec and the business sector.

In terms of consultation with the Quebec government, both for the new one and the previous one, the situation does not appear to have improved. It is apparently very problematic. A study published last week referred to effects on traffic in the region, on other bridges that do not all fall under federal responsibility. These will be quite serious impacts, especially if you take into account the factors I mentioned earlier. One of those factors is the increase in the population in our area, in the Chambly basin.

The report is quite practical; it provides real numbers. In response to a question from one of my colleagues, you said you still only had preliminary results, of a kind.

Have you seen this report from the Quebec government? If not, have you had discussions with the people concerned about the best way to manage the situation at the regional level?

Bridge-related issues should not be dealt with in a vacuum, but rather within a regional context. Unfortunately it does not appear that the latter is being considered at this point.

[Thao Pham]

There are two parts to your question.

In terms of the first part, I would like to point out that to date there have been 200 meetings with various partners, including representatives of the Quebec government, the municipalities, the cities of Brossard, Longueuil and Montreal, as well as with private partners such as the chambers of commerce. We continue to hold these meetings on a weekly basis. With respect to the Government of Quebec, we have had about one hundred meetings that our colleagues from the Quebec Ministry of Transport, the Agence métropolitaine de transport and the Société québécoise des infrastructures participated in. So there has been an exchange of information from the very beginning and we will continue in that fashion.

In terms of your question about the study that was published in newspapers this week, we were never made aware of an official report about this having been published by the Quebec Ministry of Transport. I can, however, assure you that we are working closely with the Quebec Ministry of Transport and the Agence métropolitaine de transport on the exchange of data for the purposes of projections.

As I indicated earlier, according to the data at the time, it was estimated that traffic on the Champlain Bridge would vary from 40,000 to 60,000 vehicles per day. However, these are not exact data. What we did was based on that data. We installed counters and stations in order to truly assess the current state of traffic on the bridge. That means we can refine projections about regional traffic with our partners—

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I apologize for interrupting you but my time is limited.

It is all very well to assess current traffic on the Champlain Bridge, however what is important is to understand regional effects. That is what people are concerned about. Some of my constituents work in Montreal. If the federal government comes into our riding and upsets regional dynamics, given how this will affect other bridges, there is going to be a serious traffic problem.

Besides assessing traffic on the Champlain Bridge, do you intend on determining how tolls will affect other bridges that are not necessarily under your authority? Has that been a part of your discussions?

I have heard a lot about meetings that have taken place. Of course, I believe what you are telling us but if there have been so many meetings, how do you explain the degree of dissatisfaction amongst the stakeholders? Neither the business sector nor elected officials appear to be satisfied with your department's receptiveness, unfortunately.

[Thao Pham]

In terms of traffic projections, we are collecting more specific data on the Champlain Bridge, but we are also going to be dealing with regional planning with all our partners.

In terms of collaboration with the stakeholders, I can give you facts such as the number of meetings we have held and the way in which the discussions have evolved. We also have several agreements with the cities and the province. There has been progress in that regard. We also held open houses on environmental assessment approximately a year and a half ago, which provided citizens with an opportunity to see how the project was progressing. Furthermore, our website contains a considerable amount of information. Several public presentations have taken place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Ms. Young, for five minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much for being here today.

This is for the sake of the general public, and I don't want to be going on about it, but there still seems to be some question out there because of the questions that we had earlier around this whole change in the regulatory process and dealing with the regulatory cooperation. Again, if you could go back to the average person on the street, should they be concerned that these regulatory changes are going to adversely impact in any way the safety of Canadians?

[Donald Roussel]

Mr. Chairman, I will ask both Mr. Kash on the motor vehicle side and Mr. Leclerc on the TDG and rail side to give a short answer on this matter.

[Kash Ram]

The Regulatory Cooperation Council was set up by the two heads of state, Mr. Harper and Mr. Obama, as you know, in early 2011. It has borne a lot of fruit. It has been reported on in budget 2014, specifically with regard to the alignment of auto standards between Canada and the U.S. That was a good endorsement, I think, of the work we've done in concert with our U.S. colleagues.

The idea is to work on sharing projects where it makes sense, where there's mutual intent, to jointly develop new standards and take them through to fruition. In other areas where each side looks at the other and sees something that it would like to pursue, then that side can unilaterally try to align with the other side.

A good example would be the auto theft immobilization systems, which has been an existing standard in Canada since 2007. The U.S. examined our standard, found that they would like to emulate us, and about a year ago they in fact proposed a regulation to harmonize with the Canadian standard. They have also indicated an interest in the Canadian rear underride standard for the trailers that are drawn by tractor units. They have indicated a significant interest in looking at our due diligence and potentially aligning with us. They have mentioned a few other areas as well.

I would say that there's no impact on safety. Each country has its sovereign ability under the RCC, as announced by the Prime Minister and the President a few years ago, to align where it makes sense. But in areas where there are unique domestic requirements, each country will continue to pursue standards and develop those standards for the domestic needs.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

So you're saying, in your professional capacity, that in fact you think the safety standards are moving upwards; things are becoming more safe and that's why we are doing these regulatory changes, to increase safety and align that to better cooperation.

[Kash Ram]

Yes, that's very well put.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Have you ever seen instances where the alignment or the cooperation has decreased safety?

[Kash Ram]

I've never seen that. The reality is the expectations of the public continue to increase. The public wishes to have safer and safer vehicles, child seats, tires, and so on.

As an example, the number of fatalities on Canadian roads in recent years has been about 2,000 fatalities a year. That's a lot, and we'd like to get that down further, but the reality is the number of fatalities going back 40 years was three times that and the population of Canada was half what it is today. What has contributed to that in large part is that cars are safer. Cars are required to meet more and more standards. Yes, it's harder to build cars. It's a challenge to be an auto manufacturer, but what the auto manufacturers want first and foremost is alignment, simplification of their lives, to be able to build the same vehicles for both countries.