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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Gerard McDonald  Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Martin Eley  Director General, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
Donald Roussel  Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Luc Bourdon  Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
Marie-France Dagenais  Director General, Transportation of Dangerous Goods, Department of Transport

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

Thirty-two thousand.

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

I think it's 31,625 or something like that.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Larry Miller

You can finish that thought, Mr. Bourdon, before I move on.

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

That's the number of inspections we conducted.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Larry Miller

Okay.

You're out of time, Mr. Watson, but I understand you're taking the next seven minutes. Go ahead.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

Thank you very much.

Is that 30,000 a rough average over, let's say, the last few years?

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

I think we've increased from year to year.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

Okay.

Moving to system audits, the next phase on top of traditional inspection, how many audits would you conduct in a typical year?

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

It varies from year to year, depending on how many components of the SMS regulation we want to verify. We may not do a full-blown audit of the 12 components. We may just be risk-based and do only a certain amount of these components.

It could vary, nine or twelve; I could bring to the committee the exact number.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

Okay.

In terms of a safety management system, just for a visual, perhaps, there are obviously a number of components in a safety management system. It wouldn't fit neatly into a binder, right?

How large would a safety management system be, just for the public's understanding here?

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

For a company the size of our class 1 railway, if you tried to gather all the information and all the documentation, it could fill a room.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

It could fill a room. That would require a number of auditors and a considerable amount of time.

How many federal railway companies have been audited for SMS?

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

Since the beginning? I would say pretty much all of them, several times.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

Would that be for components of SMS, or for a full understanding of their safety management system?

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

I think at the onset we started with full-blown audits with the 12 components, but after a while we tried to be more risk-based and focus on the key components.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

How does Transport Canada plan its audits, what risks to focus on, which companies to do? Is there a planning exercise related to that? Is that done annually? How does Transport Canada tackle that issue?

4:25 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

Annually we gather our employees from the region. We get together, and we do what we call a risk-based business planning session. We look at the results of our inspection, the complaints we may have received, and TSB's report, and try to focus on where we see the risks are greater.

We can focus on an individual railway or on a component throughout all the railways. If we feel there may be some issues with training, let's say, then we'll look at training across different railways.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

The rail advisory panel review recommended, if I understood it correctly, that Transport Canada have the understanding of how components of an individual company's SMS interact with each other.

Does Transport Canada have that understanding for railway companies, that is, a full overall understanding of how their SMS systems work, or do they simply have an understanding of whether they have fulfilled the requirements of different components of an SMS?

4:30 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

I think with the amount of time we spend on the ground with each railway, we have a good understanding of how their SMS works.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

Every company is required to submit their performance objectives. Do they do that annually?

4:30 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

Yes, annually.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

How do we know they've achieved them?

4:30 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

Usually when they file their update to their SMS, let's say for 2014, they will tell us what they achieved in 2013.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON

You'll know that, but we won't know that.

November 25th, 2013 / 4:30 p.m.

Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport

Luc Bourdon

We'll know that because we know exactly what they told us at the end of 2012 what they were hoping to achieve in 2013.