Transport Committee on Dec. 4th, 2013

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

You conclude, “These findings indicate that Transport Canada does not have the assurance it needs that federal railways have implemented adequate and effective safety management systems”.

Basically it's concluding this isn't working.

[Michael Ferguson]

As you said, because you've read it directly out of the report, we concluded that they need to have more information, better information, about the level of operations of safety management systems.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

You said that even the methodology used by this department to determine the inspections is flawed, that it's out of date.

[Michael Ferguson]

We said they're still relying heavily on inspections and the inspections they're doing are still based on how they were doing inspections in the mid-1990s, even though much of their environment has changed since then.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So they do one-quarter of the inspections they promised or planned to do and the way in which those inspections are done is flawed? They're not up to date.

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, be careful not to mix up the audits versus the inspections.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Fair enough.

[Michael Ferguson]

It was in terms of their not doing all of their planned audits. On the inspection side, I can't speak to whether the inspections met the plan or not. We didn't talk about that. But what we identified from how they do inspections was that it's still based on how they did inspections in the mid nineties.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

In 2009 the government—not Transport Canada, we're not going to lay this at the feet of the officials—estimated they would need 20 system auditors to audit each railway once every three years. Correct?

[Michael Ferguson]

As I recollect, that was what they said they needed, although even that was not based on a detailed analysis of the actual audits they were going to conduct.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So we have no idea how they arrived at that number, but they said 20?

[Michael Ferguson]

They said 20.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Now they have 10 qualified inspectors, is that right?

[Michael Ferguson]

At the time of the audit, they had 10.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So they have half of what they said they needed, and there's no analysis to backstop for why they needed 20.

[Michael Ferguson]

That would be right.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

And now they have to oversee 30 million additional non-federal railways.

[Michael Ferguson]

I don't know the exact number, but they have to oversee additional railways.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

That's what your audit says.

Transport Canada doesn't know “whether its current staff of inspectors has the required skills and competencies” to do their jobs.

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, they did not have that analysis done.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

“Inspectors and managers were not trained on a timely basis.”

[Michael Ferguson]

And I think we indicate the percentage of each who had completed the training on a timely basis.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

The government can't even warrant that the inspectors are objective, arm's length, and independent because they come mainly from federal railways, and the ethics codes and so on are not applied in such a way as to to know for sure whether the folks doing these minimal inspections are objective and independent.

[Michael Ferguson]

They need to have a process in place to help them ensure that the people doing the work are independent.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Ferguson, did you examine in any way, shape, or form the fact the Government of Canada, the Conservative government, has had five ministers of transport in less than eight years?