Transport Committee on June 12th, 2014

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

If I understand correctly, Transport Canada has been working to establish a hub, if you will, for that information, to pull in the various spokes. I don't know if this is an appropriate analogy, but it would be like using Google, a search engine of some sort, in order for an inspector who needs, say, information on a particular company, their safety performance or other information, to pull that from all of these databases into a single location. That's an effort of some magnitude. I can understand why there may still be yet a little bit of work to be done, but eight out of the nine are fully complete according to you.

In chapter 1, on the transportation of dangerous product, of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's 2011 report—I don't know, Ms. Kinney, whether you're prepared to answer this—they had recommendations for the National Energy Board, which is not the purview of Transport Canada, obviously, but they did have one recommendation, with several sub-recommendations to it. There were some very specific timelines; that work was to have been fully completed, it looks, by the spring of 2013.

Can you give the committee an update on how many of the recommendations in that report have been completed by Transport Canada officials?

[Laureen Kinney]

Again, all of the recommendations in the report, except for one element of one recommendation, have been completed and are closed. The one element remaining is the clarification of roles and responsibilities between the different modes that do transportation of dangerous goods inspections. The final element of that is an agreement between marine safety and security to clarify those issues. That will be done this month, and then the complete audit will be closed.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'll note, Ms. Kinney, that the response given to the Auditor General is that those memoranda of understanding would have been completed by June 2012. I appreciate that there is progress, but is there a reason it has not been done on time?

[Laureen Kinney]

Yes, the original recommendation was to clarify roles and responsibilities. That was looked at as requiring an update of MOUs and wouldn't take an awful lot of time. As we looked more closely at the way the system was being managed and the way we were using our transportation of dangerous goods inspectors, it was clear that it would be more effective to combine the transportation of dangerous goods group in one group and have better coordination of their connections with the UN regulations and the evolving priorities.

The decision was made to delay to allow us to integrate the groups. Then, of course, an MOU is still required to look at how civil aviation interacts with transportation of dangerous goods. That has been completed now.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

In the 2012 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada, chapter 5, “Oversight of Civil Aviation—Transport Canada”, it looks as if there are 10 recommendations, if I've counted correctly. How many of those have been completed by Transport Canada officials?

[Laureen Kinney]

All recommendations in the 2012 audit have been completed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Watson, you're out of time.

Mr. Braid, you have seven minutes.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you to our officials for being here this morning.

Thank you, Ms. Kinney, for your presentation and for giving our committee an update. I have a few questions for you that flow from your presentation to us.

You mentioned the regulations with respect to AMPs, administrative monetary penalties. Could you give the committee an update on the status of those regulations?

[Laureen Kinney]

In general we've accelerated work on the suite of recommendations that were enabled by the new provisions in the Railway Safety Act, which came into force in 2013. That work is well under way. The regulations I mentioned have already gone to the Gazette.

The safety management system updates and enhancements to make them robust and rigorous have been well advanced. We've consulted on details with the industry, and they're currently in the process for approvals and consideration by the minister and the Treasury Board. We hope those will be completed for Gazette part I in the near future, but that's in other hands.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Just to clarify, are the administrative monetary penalties in place today or not?

[Laureen Kinney]

Sorry, no. The administrative monetary penalties have been published in the Gazette , part I. They will come into force if the decision is made by the Treasury Board to put them in, one would anticipate in the fall, based on the comment period, the input that's provided, and then going to the Gazette , part II through the normal processes.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Great, thank you very much for that update.

I think those will be an important aspect of our new regulatory regime, and we'll have significant penalties for appropriate situations.

With respect to SMS, you said, “Safety management systems are not deregulation or self-regulation”. Could you elaborate on that statement, please?

[Laureen Kinney]

In general, across our modes where safety management systems are applied, they are an additional set of distinct regulations that apply to the particular topic of how a company manages itself and requires certain provisions on how documents are kept and how training is done and a whole series of requirements that are very similar between the modes.

Those, as I said, are regulations. They're applied to that area, and we assess against those regulations in terms of compliance and their effectiveness.

In addition, we have a whole suite in all the modes of other regulations which have been there for some length of time and have been modified over time. They are directed at particular safety issues that have arisen through various factors in the past. Those regulations continue to be enforced, monitored and surveilled by Transport Canada.

There are multiple sets of regulations, but safety management systems are a different set of regulations and those regulations are applied in the same way as others.

Within the safety management system and the requirements that are regulated for a company, the company must put a plan together to carry out those regulatory requirements, and because they are how you do your business, how you document, flexibility is provided to the company in how they do that. That's where people sometimes have some confusion over whether this is self-regulation. The regulation is clearly laid out. They're required to follow the regulation, and how they do their operational plan or their management plan to carry out some of these things is left with some latitude. Inspectors look at that, and if there is a problem we have different ways to deal with that.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

With respect to the evolution of safety management systems, are we taking a continuous improvement approach? Is this a process that's constantly evolving and improving, and how is that the case?

[Laureen Kinney]

I think that's a very good way to phrase it.

Basically the same thing has happened with most of our regulatory regime over the years. You learn lessons; you find areas; technology changes; we learn more; we update the regulatory regimes.

Safety management systems, while they've been in place for a number of years, are actually relatively young, if you will, in terms of regulatory processes in the transportation safety system. The international bodies have all adopted this and are applying these as well. As we get guidance from those international bodies and as experience is gained around the world, the regulations are made more stringent and more effective in certain areas. As we learn lessons from our domestic experience with the compliance issues, and companies are able to articulate things in the way they are written in the regulations, those things are addressed in a feedback loop, and we modify and strengthen them. Exactly as happened with the Railway Safety Act review and the SCOTIC, Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, recommendations with regard to legislative amendments that were necessary to make the rail safety SMS system more stringent, more clear, and more robust, those are now in the process of being implemented.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

One of the other important changes that Transport Canada has already implemented to enhance rail safety, specifically with respect to the transportation of dangerous goods, has to do with the testing and classification of crude oil. Could you give us an update on how that new process is going?

[Laureen Kinney]

In general, the issue arose in the fall. We brought together two different types of actions. One was a protective direction that was put in place. The other was to require shippers to do up-to-date testing of their goods, their crude oil products. If they do not have an immediate test result available, then they must ship it as the highest classification of dangerous goods flammable liquid, and in the meantime, they have to do the testing and give us the results. Those test results are informing our understanding of what the requirements should be. We are also working very closely with the U.S. regulators who have been carrying out studies and tests of the products in the U.S. Information is shared with them and it also informs our knowledge.

The working group which was created under our policy advisory council has given advice and recommendations and has brought together work on a series of scientific areas like vapour testing of the products and how to do more accurate testing in the field. Studies are under way in that regard. All of those are accumulating next actions to be proposed.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

How does Transport Canada verify that the classification information is indeed correct?

[Laureen Kinney]

There is an inspection program, which was actually started in 2011. It focused on increased inspection at transloading facilities. The basic concept of the program for transporting dangerous goods is that if you classify your goods correctly and put them into the right container and they travel safely to their destination, they will likely get there in a safe manner. That has been proven over the history of the system.

In terms of doing inspections, the inspectors go in and do test to some degree at the transloading sites, but really the shippers and the importers are required to carry out those tests, because it takes some time to get the lab results back, and they can vary from shipment to shipment. We require the companies to provide us with data on this information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Morin, go ahead for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Welcome to the witnesses.

I'd like to discuss two topics today.

First, I'd like to talk about the ratio of flight attendants to passengers. I have here a press release the Canadian Union of Public Employees issued yesterday. It contains a letter from National President Paul Moist to the minister calling for a study.

I am going to quote a part of that letter:

We continue to take the position, historically upheld by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, that any changes to flight attendant ratios must be subject to highest level of oversight and should not occur without a parliamentary study.

I agree with him.

A single day of public consultation was held on May 22; that's it. I want to know what possible objections anyone could have to the committee's doing this study. A single day of consultation isn't the same as a parliamentary study done by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. What they are calling for is a real study—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Do you have a point of order, Mr. Watson?

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Yes. Mr. Chair, that's not a question for departmental officials, who are independent public servants, to answer. It's a question for politicians around the committee table to answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

On the point of order, Mr. Mai.

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

The officials are well qualified and I think they can answer their own questions. It's not necessarily a political question. As my colleague probably knows, Transport Canada is actually looking...and responsible for that study.

So they can answer.