Transport Committee on March 9th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I have to deal here with the adoption of the main estimates. I need the committee's attention, please.

The chair will call the votes.

CANADIAN AIR TRANSPORT SECURITY AUTHORITY

Vote 1—Payments to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority for operating and capital expenditures..........$624,005,722

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

CANADIAN TRANSPORTATION AGENCY

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$24,290,330

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

MARINE ATLANTIC INC.

Vote 1—Payments to Marine Atlantic Inc...........$140,122,000

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

OFFICE OF INFRASTRUCTURE OF CANADA

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$110,040,788

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$68,690,586

Vote 10—Contributions..........$1,612,886,500

(Votes 1, 5, and 10 agreed to on division)

THE FEDERAL BRIDGE CORPORATION LIMITED

Vote 1—Payments to The Federal Bridge Corporation Limited..........$31,414,312

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

THE JACQUES-CARTIER AND CHAMPLAIN BRIDGES INC.

Vote 1—Payments to the Jacques-Cartier and Champlain Bridges Inc...........$351,919,000

(Vote 1 agreed to)

TRANSPORT

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$480,702,203

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$119,226,521

Vote 10—Contributions—Gateways and corridors..........$258,354,429

Vote 15—Grants and contributions — Transportation infrastructure..........$103,219,554

Vote 20—Grants and contributions — Other..........$38,062,477

(Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 agreed to on division)

VIA RAIL CANADA INC.

Vote 1—Payments to VIA Rail Canada Inc...........$382,830,000

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

WINDSOR-DETROIT BRIDGE AUTHORITY

Vote 1—Payments to the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority..........$215,989,827

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall the chair report vote 1 under the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority; vote 1 under Canadian Transportation Agency; vote 1 under Marine Atlantic; votes 1, 5, and 10 under Office of Infrastructure of Canada; vote 1 under The Federal Bridge Corporation; vote 1 under The Jacques-Cartier and Champlain Bridges; votes 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 under Transport; vote 1 under VIA Rail Canada; and vote 1 under Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Minister Garneau and your departmental staff, for being here with us today and staying a whole two hours. That's a lot of time, I know. We really appreciate your taking that time and staying with us.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It was a pleasure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Would members please return to the table.

Is it the wish of the committee to go in camera to deal with committee business?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We will continue the meeting, then.

We're here to discuss our work plan for the next little while.

Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Chair. I think that you would find that we've reached unanimous consent to put forward the motion that I have in front of me, if you'll indulge me. Further to the motions already accepted by this committee, it is further moved, as subject to our duty:

That, further to the motions already adopted by the Committee on Monday, February 22, 2016, the Committee prioritize any legislation, financial commitments or regulatory changes related to transport, infrastructure and communities in Budget 2016, and ministerial announcements in its future businesses, as subject to our duty; That the Committee begin a study on rail safety on March 21, 2016 and consider: (A) the implementation of recommendations made in the report "Review of the Canadian Transportation Safety Regime: Transportation of Goods and Safety Management System", (B) the section of the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway) line that runs between the U.S. border through the Semiahmoo First Nation land, the City of White Rock and the City of Surrey (Crescent Beach/Ocean Park) British Columbia, (C) potential safety issues related to use by rail companies of remote control devices to move locomotives and to assemble trains, (D) measures taken or identified as necessary to address the outstanding concerns with fatigue management with implications for rail safety, including hearing from the Transportation Safety Board analysts on the impact of train engineer fatigue on railway safety in Canada, and (E) And other items found to be appropriate by the Committee; and That the Committee dedicate at least three meetings to consider the Canada Transportation Act review before Thursday, June 23, 2016.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Is there unanimous consent?

Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I want clarification on the last recommendation, number three. Did I hear “that the committee dedicate three meetings” or “at least three meetings”? If we can, add “at least”.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Where is that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

That the committee dedicate at least three meetings.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I thought I said “at least”.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I was just clarifying. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes. I am agreeable to it, except there was one amendment that I recommended, which was agreed to but isn't here.

That's under (D), it reads, “measures taken or identified as necessary to address outstanding concerns with fatigue management with implications for rail safety, including hearing from the Transportation Safety Board”. It was supposed to read “and other relevant parties”, because there are other relevant parties.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Is everybody in agreement with that?

There's unanimous support.

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I do have to ask the analyst, though, before we adjourn the meeting, when she would like to have the names of some witnesses, so that she could have some work ready for us at our March 21 meeting.

[Allison Padova, Committee Researcher]

I would probably defer to the clerk as to what the recommendation is for the minimum amount of time to invite witnesses and have them prepared. If the committee were to agree to start with Transport Canada, though, then we could be ready to go on the 21st, and you could have until the 17th to get your suggested witnesses together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Duncan.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm now left confused with what we're doing. On day one, my concern about rail safety was that we not try to deal with everything all in one bundle, so I'm left not understanding how the heck we're doing this review.

It makes sense to me if we have one day to talk about remote control devices, one day to talk about fatigue management, and maybe one on the broader review, because otherwise, we're going to have witnesses all over the place answering questions about all kinds of things, and it's not going to be a very orderly review.

I think we can come up with discrete witnesses who are useful for each of those separate ones, but I don't want them here all at once, because we won't even have a chance to ask them the appropriate questions.

If we can agree on how to divide up the pie, I think that would be helpful. Then we would know which witnesses we need first.

[Allison Padova]

For each one of those topics, remote control devices, fatigue, etc., there are so many witnesses who could speak to those that it would be difficult to organize meetings by subject. I would suggest organizing meetings by witnesses, and yes, asking them questions on all of the subjects before the committee.

I do recognize that the work looks very broad with the four topics, but two of them are really only for Transport Canada: checking up on their progress on their commitments to the committee's last study, as well as the 2007 Railway Safety Act review, and that's a pretty limited topic that could be dealt with in one meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Duncan, in the work plan that was sent out this morning, in this motion of Ms. Block's, it elaborates a bit more, but the same four areas that we've all talked about, and that are in the motions from you, from Ms. Block, and from Mr. Hardie and so on, are all in that work plan that we just adopted here.

The witnesses, as the analyst said, will come in according to various parts of the study that we're moving forward on.

Mr. Hardie.

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

In deference to Ms. Duncan, I'd need to know what kind of crossover the witnesses would bring in terms of their ability to speak to remote-controlled devices versus fatigue management, which seem to be two quite different areas. I share the concern that if we tried to handle both those issues at once, we wouldn't end up handling either of them very well.