Transport Committee on Dec. 4th, 2013

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

If they were to do the analysis, obviously there would be a reasonable timeline and timeframe to implement how many people were needed, what competency they should have, and how long it would take to train them. You would expect this analysis to be done and then followed in some reasonable fashion.

[Michael Ferguson]

That's right.

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

Did you have any suggestions or recommendations with respect to any of that, or is it simply a matter of requesting that they make that analysis?

[Michael Ferguson]

We have a number of recommendations in the chapter. As I recall, one of the recommendations was related to the fact that they needed to do that analysis so that they would understand their resourcing requirements.

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

I understand that Canada is one of the first countries to implement an SMS system. Do you think this is a factor in the implementation? It's slower because it's new. Many people are getting on.... Is that part of what you saw might be a factor in Transport Canada's readiness or its meeting of some objective criteria that you expect of them?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, we didn't assess why it has taken as long as it has to get to where they are. I can't speak to any one factor. What we simply saw was this identification that the change needed to be made. We're looking at it 13 years after the fact to see how much of it has been implemented.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Now we'll move to Mr. Sullivan for five minutes.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you to you three for being here.

It was a pretty bold statement that you made at the beginning, as well as last week, about the fact that 26% was the grade for how many actual assessments or audits of the safety management systems had been carried out. You conclude at the very end of the report that “the Department may not have the assurance it needs that federal railways are operating on a day-to-day basis in compliance with the regulatory framework for rail safety in Canada, or that they continuously improve their safety management systems.”

As you've already indicated, you're not analyzing whether safety management is a good or bad system. It's more a matter of asking, now that it's here, is Transport Canada actually managing it effectively? Am I correct?

[Michael Ferguson]

That's correct.

There's a requirement for the companies to have safety management systems, and it's Transport Canada's responsibility to make sure they have enough information to know whether those safety management systems are doing what they're supposed to do. That's what our audit was about.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Essentially it's been about 14 years, or since 1999, since this concept was first floated. Here we are in 2013, and Transport Canada is now telling you that it will take until 2016 to get to the point where they can be reasonably certain they'll be managing the system effectively—maybe. Because they've made these promises before about how long it's going to take, with response to the 2007 panel and the rest.

Are you reasonably certain that Transport Canada is going to meet these deadlines?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'm not going to try to judge whether they will or will not meet the deadlines.

I think what's important is that they have a clear action plan, with clear deliverables and timelines, and that there is a process to oversee that so we're not waiting until 2016 to find out whether they're meeting their timelines and milestones.

There needs to be some process in place so it's identified whether they're meeting individual milestones to see whether they will meet their 2016 deadline.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Have they given you those milestones, and who is it who is going to oversee the meeting of those milestones?

[Michael Ferguson]

Well, again, I think that's what I would like to put in front of the committee really: to consider that question.

As I said, we recently received their action plan. We haven't had a chance to go through it. But what's important is that they have an action plan that is detailed enough that it has deliverables, milestones, and there is a process in place to oversee that.

That's something we are proposing to the committee to consider in its deliberations: what type of oversight for meeting that timeframe needs to be put in place.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Canadians are wondering—and part of our job as parliamentarians is to bring their thoughts forward—whether or not the system is working effectively.

You may or may not have seen the news reports in the last couple of days about runaway trains that don't get reported. Nobody knows about them because they don't get reported. It's not surprising to Canadians, given that Transport Canada doesn't audit the safety systems enough to know whether they're actually working. It wouldn't surprise Canadians to know, and maybe it doesn't surprise you, that railways are apparently repeatedly not reporting safety infractions of transportation of dangerous goods, as an example.

Therefore, I think there's some urgency to get at this lack of oversight of the safety management systems. Wouldn't you agree?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, I can't speak to anything that we didn't audit.

When I look at what we found in the audit and what we concluded, again, I said in my opening statement that it's taking them too long to put the oversight system in place. It's important to have the oversight. They've recognized it's important. I think, regardless of any particular incident that one might want to point to, this is important.

This oversight is important. It needs to be put in place, and it needs to be put in place properly.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have 10 to 15 seconds left.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I have one quick question then.

Given that the number of railroads whose safety management systems the Department of Transport is having to oversee is increasing by 125%, is that an unimaginable hurdle for this group to manage, given that they haven't managed the 31 railroads they now are looking after?

I'm very concerned, as I think we all are, that we parliamentarians have just given them a more than doubling of their workload when they've only just done 26% of their first workload.

Do you have some recommendations as to how they should manage that bigger workload?

[Michael Ferguson]

It's something that we have raised as a risk moving forward—them being able to complete the audits they need to do. I think it is an additional component of the challenge of meeting the deadline they put in place for 2016.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We'll now move to Mr. Braid for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ferguson and your team, for being here and for your very important work in this chapter of your report on rail safety.

If I may, I'd like to begin by sharing an impression I'm left with after reading your report. I'd like your thoughts on my impression.

My impression is that there's a culture of safety in Transport Canada and that SMS is an adequate system. There is a gap on the part of Transport Canada auditors and inspectors in following up on findings and holding railway companies accountable for those findings.

Could you comment on that impression?

[Michael Ferguson]

I would start by saying that Transport Canada has certainly identified that safety and security are focuses of the organization. We made no comment on whether safety management systems are or are not adequate, because, again, that's simply the policy. We audit the policy; we don't question the policy.

In terms of the gap, I think the gap in how they are doing the work goes beyond just gaps in follow-up. We identified gaps in all aspects of how they conduct the work, from planning to documentation to execution—in the follow-up, as you mentioned—to risk assessment. So the gaps, I think, were probably a little broader than you characterized.

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

What about holding those responsible accountable?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, we found a couple of things. For example, when inspectors identified an issue doing inspections rather than audits, they didn't take that information and say, “Well, does the problem we've identified in this inspection translate into a broader system-wide problem?” So that's one thing they needed to do.

Again, we found they were not always following up when they did find issues within the audits of the safety management systems. So if they're not following up to make sure the organizations are putting the improvements in place, then again there's room for them to improve on the accountability side as well.

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

Thank you.

I note in your report, as well, that you speak to the issues of objectivity and independence of auditors and inspectors. Could you elaborate a little bit on that and underscore why those are important, what you found, and what you recommend?