There is no training in rail safety or the culture of safety.
The national railway companies, the CN and CP, provide training on safety, specifically to operators, but that training is not recognized from company to company. In other words, a CN employee who is going to work at CP has to redo the training.
Shortlines provide no training. CN or CP retirees are often the ones providing the training.
There is no common training whatsoever, whether in terms of operations or the culture of safety. We have been talking about the culture of rail safety since the 2013 accident, but that did not use to be the case in the industry in general. That said, I think that's a very important point.
The bill talks about voice and video recorders only. It is a useful type of technology, but the fact remains that it is used after a tragedy happens. But what is being done to ensure tragedies no longer happen? We want to make sure that no one ever has to go through a disaster like the one we experienced in Lac-Mégantic.
We want to work with Transport Canada and the Canadian government to improve this aspect of training, which is very important.
The second aspect that we are addressing is the training of first responders. In eastern Canada, they receive no training on rail safety. Not all the cities can afford to send their first responders to the training courses in Vancouver or Pueblo, in the United States. So a centre for francophones, a bilingual centre, needs to be established in eastern Canada. In my view, that's very important. The bill is silent on training like that. It only talks about voice and video recorders.