Transport Committee on May 16th, 2016

[Brigitte Diogo]

It is used very often.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Hardie, you have a minute and a half.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

As we heard from the chair of the Transportation Safety Board, they've made a number of recommendations to improve safety, directed specifically at Transport Canada. Some of them have been around for a long time. I'm wondering why Transport Canada hasn't acted more quickly to implement them. The watch-list goes back quite a long time.

[Laureen Kinney]

I think it would be something that is case-specific, so it probably would be more useful to comment on specific recommendations, but in general, where there is a safety issue that has been raised and there is an evident step forward that can be taken to rapidly address that, we do have tools to make some changes to those. We do consult with industry and with other affected parties to find out what those unintended consequences might be, as the TSB chair mentioned earlier, and we go through a process of looking at how they could be implemented and what kind of regulation you would make to do that.

In some cases, in addition to those steps, we need to do some research on what that would look like. On some of the recent recommendations on OC Transpo, for example, in terms of distracted driver guidelines, to follow up on that recommendation is going to need some research. It's going to need some collaboration with the provinces. Some of those types of things can take a little longer.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Very quickly, this is the same question I've asked the other two witnesses. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone this afternoon. It's been very rich in information.

In terms of the balance, the complement, if you like, between regulation and safety management systems, are you comfortable with where that's at? Or do we need a rebalance, perhaps, a new association between what the companies are doing and what government reasonably should be expected to do?

[Laureen Kinney]

I would say initially—and Ms. Diogo may want to add a comment—that one of the most critical elements for us to look at is the fact that we have a very new, very much more robust, more demanding, and more prescriptive safety management system that was established slightly over a year ago now. We're still in the process of full implementing it and then analyzing some of the elements that were added to the requirements. For example, there is the need for the company to look at the effectiveness of their own processes, etc.

For an assessment of how well the safety management system is working, we will be doing full audits, and we will be looking at those kinds of measures, comparing them, and then looking at the balance between prescriptive and/or performance-based regulations that set specific requirements, as well as these more general requirements that the company do things under their safety management system regulations.

There is probably going to be an ongoing balancing act to be done, because part of it goes to, as you said, what are the responsibilities that the railway company should do and, as has been pointed out by other committee members, certainly the responsibility of the department is to look at how well the railways are doing that.

From the safety management system audits that we do, we will likely see areas where most railway companies may be a little bit weak, and either it may be an area that needs amendment to the safety management system regulation if we find that, or it may be that there is a prescriptive type of “you must do X or you must do Y” that is needed from that.

Those are things that are in a continuing evolution, I believe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much for that long answer.

I've taken that minute and a half off Mr. Badawey's time.

I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Badawey. You now have four minutes. It was critically important information.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

It's one of those situations of asking for forgiveness versus asking for permission.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here this afternoon, folks.

I have two quick questions. One is with respect to emergency planning in response, especially at the municipal level. As a former mayor for close to 14 years, I know we've had a few instances and therefore run-ins with Transport Canada with respect to our emergency planning process. By the way, they were always positive.

In this instance, especially with railway training, railway protocols, and things of that nature, has Transport Canada reached out to first responders at the local level, municipalities, etc, to be an integral part of their team? Have they shared their protocols with respect to emergency response, ongoing training, and being proactive throughout time so that it's happening before the fact versus reacting after the fact?

[Laureen Kinney]

I would answer in a slightly different manner, if I may, in terms of the work that's been done in the emergency response task force that was established. It was led primarily on the transportation of dangerous goods, looking at some of those issues of the types of flammable liquids, the training first responders need, the kind of information they need, the kind of incident command centres needed, and the kind of instant command protocols, communication protocols, and what may be useful in these rather specialized subsets of emergency response.

That task force was set up with, I would venture to say, everyone who we could think of that had a role to play, who had an impact: railways, the emergency responders who are hired by shippers and others, the municipalities certainly, the firefighters, fire chief associations, aboriginal volunteer firefighter communities, and a raft of others. They worked for a year and a half on a set of recommendations to look very fulsomely at how the response system could be improved.

A number of those recommendations, about 12 or more, have already been implemented. There were about 33, and I think they'll end up at 40. We're taking a very serious look at trying to move those as quickly as we can.

I think there's a tremendous amount of work there that is bringing all the players in the response continuum together to really look at how this can be improved. I can give you a number of examples.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

You are at this point in time injecting Transport Canada into those individual protocols?

[Laureen Kinney]

Yes, that's right.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's great news.

My second question is with respect to Bill C-52. Has Transport Canada taken one of the recommendations to take further action relating to its powers under the bill to develop regulations to expand the supplementary fund levy to other dangerous goods that are deemed appropriate?

[Laureen Kinney]

Yes, there is work going on in the policy side of our house that's responsible for implementing that element. I don't have the details with me, but we could provide further information on that. That is well advanced, in my understanding.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I'm assuming from that answer that you are implementing the CTA review panel's recommendations to study and expand on that levy?

[Laureen Kinney]

My apologies; that wasn't how I understood the question. The CTA review is still being discussed, and there are a number of round tables that the minister is holding to talk about the elements that were raised there. It would be too early to say how that will fall out.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That was three and a half minutes; you did well.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have a point of order. We requested quite some time ago that Transport Canada provide their enforcement compliance policy and we have yet to receive that. We would like to receive that before we begin doing the report, which will happen almost immediately.

[Laureen Kinney]

I believe some documents were provided to our parliamentary affairs group to provide to the committee, so you should be seeing them very shortly. I apologize for the delay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

How long is “very shortly”? I ask you that because the analyst will be working on the report.

[Laureen Kinney]

My understanding is within the next day or two, very soon, but it goes through another process so I'm hesitant to say for sure. I can certainly take that back and make sure that we move it very quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Given the fact the committee has been waiting for some time, if you could get them to us in the next 24 hours, it would be very much appreciated by the clerk.

We're almost at 5:30, and this is the last group that we have here. I just want to ask the committee if there are any other outstanding questions that you need to quickly get out there.

Ms. Watts, did you have a short comment or question?

Then maybe we'll have Ms. Duncan, if she wants.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Yes, just a quick question.

We had talked before about the list of 500 high-risk crossings that had been identified. I understand that the grade crossing improvement program is in place now.

Is Transport Canada taking any proactive measures to mitigate some of the risks?

[Brigitte Diogo]

Yes, we do inspections. As I mentioned earlier, there are new regulations and we've been sharing information with municipalities, road authorities, and even some of the smaller companies in terms of what the requirements are under the rules.

We monitor the information that comes out of accidents to take proactive actions.