Evidence of meeting #49 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 crossing.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Well, they had to repair that rail crossing, so I'm sure that the rail company in question reorganized their trains. That particular line that was closed for four days last fall gets about 40 trains a day and it didn't for those four days, so I suspect that they reorganized their schedule.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Is there some kind of standard the minister would use to determine that a rail crossing should be closed? I say “closed” as opposed to putting a bridge or a tunnel around it.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Right now the City of Toronto uses 200,000 as the number. If the number of trains times the number of cars is 200,000 or greater, that's a dangerous crossing.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
They multiple the number of trains by the number of cars.
Conservative
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Yes. If that number is more than 200,000, the city starts asking the federal government for help, because in Toronto you can't close all the roads around the rails or the city will grind to a halt.
The one in my riding is costing the provincial government $400 million to put in rail-to-road separations. Who has that money? Is the federal government prepared to come up with the kind of money that's required to do this kind of thing?
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
I think your question is a little bit beyond the scope of my bill, although not necessarily beyond the scope of what we should be talking about on this committee.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
But if your bill says that the minister can just arbitrarily say they're closing this crossing....
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
My bill does not say that the minister can arbitrarily close any crossing.
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
My bill says that if people or property are at serious risk as defined by the minister, or as defined by the railway inspectors and provided to the minister, the minister will then have the authority to close it in terms of preventing a potential accident.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
In terms of the number of inspectors, we learned not too long ago that there were actually 117 rail inspectors in Canada. That number went up by one after Lac-Mégantic. Clearly your bill would require a considerably greater number than that of rail inspectors—
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
—if they're to be inspecting all of the literally thousands upon thousands of road-rail crossings that exist across this land. There are probably something close to 10,000 or 20,000 of those crossings. To have inspectors inspecting all of those is a full-time job for a lot of people. How are we going to manage that if we have only 117 inspectors to keep the whole rail system safe?
Conservative
Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB
The focus of my bill is to make sure that the rail inspectors who are currently on the payroll, every 117 of them—I defer to your number on that—actually are able to take action if they identify an issue where issues of safety to the community are involved. I don't think that takes more people. I think that gives teeth to the people we have, and that's the intent of this bill.
This bill does not require money for.... I mean, we're already paying those people. We're just giving them the tools to be more effective and efficient.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you.
I think your question, Mr. Sullivan, is one for department staff as well.
Mr. Komarnicki.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you.
This is more of a comment, and you can tell me if I'm on the right track or not. As I read your legislation, it refers to amendments to the Railway Safety Act. In fairness, this is the way the act reads, “If a railway safety inspector is of the opinion that the standard of construction or maintenance of a line work or railway equipment of a company poses a threat to safe railway operations”. You've added the words “or to the safety of persons or property”.
It would seem that the first definition is pretty general. It's hard to say what it exactly includes, but you've specified it particularly to be sure that it does include the safety of persons or property. It really is a clarification. It has a specificity to it so that we all know what it means and can take action if that is in question.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.
Ms. Bateman, thank you very much for appearing today.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I'm sure the committee is enlightened on your bill.
We'll suspend for a few minutes until our next witnesses come in.