Evidence of meeting #3 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 company.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay. I let you go over time quite a bit.
Mr. McGuinty, for three minutes.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, sir.
Mr. McDonald, I'd like to go back to a comment you made in response to an NDP colleague.
If I understood, you said that given the budgetary cuts at Transport Canada over the last several years, you assured this committee that there are no effects on safety.
In your deck, you put forward that there are 2,900 safety employees across Canada. You give them responsibilities. Then you said there are 1,512 inspectors that are monitoring and enforcing legal requirements, and you break it down by sector.
Can you prepare for this committee, from 2006 forward, a detailed breakdown, with numbers, of the safety employees, inspectors, across Canada, and on a year-by-year basis show this committee, backstop your assertion, in other words, that there will be no effects on security and safety?
Can you provide that for the committee?
5:20 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Certainly, Mr. Chair.
If that's the wish of the committee, we can provide that information.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
That would be year by year, from 2006 forward, sector by sector, the numbers, up, down, the same, etc. That would be very much appreciated.
I also referred earlier to a trend towards carrying much more oil by rail. This has a direct bearing on the question of SMS and capacity.
Rail shipments of oil in Canada have gone from about 6,000 train carloads in 2009, to an estimated 14,500 this year.
I want to read from a main story that was published on the front page of Saturday's Globe and Mail:
...The Globe and Mail has uncovered evidence that oil shippers are exploiting the wording of a recent federal order by Transport Canada and sending most of their crude over the rails without checking first how explosive it is, and whether it is suitable for transporting on trains.
They then go on to say that “industry insiders in North Dakota”, in the Bakken oil field, from whence that oil which was ignited and blew up in Lac-Mégantic came, are saying that “very little oil is being tested, and that operating procedures remain mostly unchanged...”.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Again, those are other aspects of the regulatory environment. That's not the safety management system itself.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Well, Mr. Chair, this has a direct bearing on the SMS for this particular company.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Absolutely. Given the SMS that is in place between the regulator and the company that's carrying this oil right now, and the fact that there has been a protective direction issued by Ottawa, this should have been caught. This should have been enforced. What we're finding out is that, in fact, it is not enforced. This has a direct bearing on the SMS.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I read the very same article, Mr. McGuinty. What that article says is that it is up to interpretation, to a degree. At the companies that are shipping the oil, nobody is lying; they're putting it in class 1. I guess it's all in how you want to read it, but I have read the same thing.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Chair, that relates to the new protective order, not necessarily to safety management systems. Whether or not this will be captured in future safety management systems may be a particular issue, but he's asking about the interpretation of a new regulatory measure.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Yes, I think Mr. Watson is right on that. You're not really on SMS. It is related to rail safety, which you will get to talk to in depth, but—
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Well, let me ask the witness, Mr. Chair, if I may, is the new protective direction around this question of identifying oil part of the safety management systems that are in place?
5:25 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
It relates to the transportation of dangerous goods, but obviously any company, within their SMS, if there is a regulatory requirement, must have a methodology for ensuring that the regulatory requirement is met. Protective directions carry the same weight of law as any regulation, so a transportation company that has an SMS would have to ensure that those are being complied with, yes.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you.
Transport Canada inspectors can look at that issue.
I want to quote very briefly from page 67 of the rail advisory panel report before passing to Mr. Komarnicki.
Under “Implementation of Safety Management Systems”, the panel said:
It has been nearly seven years since railways have been required to implement SMS. While progress has certainly been made, in the Panel’s opinion, the implementation of SMS across the rail transportation system and by the regulator —that is, Transport Canada— has been inconsistent. The Panel expected that, after so many years, both the regulator and the industry would have made more progress.
Forget the opinion of the committee, whether they be government members or opposition members. Would any other credible independent third party give a similar assessment today of the railway companies with respect to the implementation of SMS, now that we're six years down the road from this report, or for that matter of Transport Canada? Would they hold the same opinion, that here we are again, six years down the road, and the implementation has been inconsistent?
5:25 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I guess it's in the eye of the person you're talking about, Mr. Chair. I'm sure there are some who would think we haven't gone far enough on safety management systems and that we haven't implemented them as thoroughly as we should.
We note that progress is incremental and we're constantly trying to improve our systems on a day-by-day basis, but we're more than willing to listen to criticisms of our system and improve the system as we find problems with it.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
November 25th, 2013 / 5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
All right, then maybe I'll offer a comment.
It has certainly been interesting to listen to you.
The SMS is not like a regulation addressing a specific thing. It's more of a living type of document that expands and goes forward, but within that SMS, you have some consistency throughout by having the 12 elements you spoke of, and those stand as a threshold or a bar that everyone has to meet.
5:25 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
That's correct.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Within those 12 elements, are there safety issues embedded as well, or not?
5:25 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Well, there's the regulatory construct within it. An SMS is in essence a way for us to measure that the company on a day-to-day basis is monitoring their performance against the required operating regulations that we have.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Rather than being a deregulation of safety, it actually builds on the safety regulation and adds more to it, ensuring that they're dealing with it on an ongoing basis.