Transport Committee on Sept. 12th, 2017

[Roland Hackl]

I would agree that people may expect that. The reality is that if I'm on a cellphone today, without LVVR, I'm fired. If I'm involved in a crossing accident and I'm on the cellphone, not only am I fired and never getting my job back, as the arbitral jurisprudence has upheld time and time again, but I'm also probably going to get charged with a criminal offence. The other thing that's going to happen is that I'm going to be charged civilly, so while I'm in jail my family is going to get booted out of their house.

There are extreme ramifications.

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

All this does is just put the nail in, in other words. If there's a record of this having happened, really nothing changes. The punishment would fit the crime, basically.

[Roland Hackl]

The record is not the issue. If the data is used responsibly by the TSB for the purposes of investigation, and cellphones are shown to be the problem....

We know that cellphones are a problem. If a guy's on a cellphone, that's an issue. The concern is not necessarily cellphones. Nobody wants that. We tell people, point-blank, “No cellphones. You are fired. Don't do it.” The concern is around the other things. For 12 hours I am being recorded, to be reviewed at my employer's leisure. This technology is live-streamed to my manager at his house at four o'clock in the morning, if he so desires. I don't think that is a situation that any employee should be subject to in this country.

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

I understand that.

What happened in the collision in Toronto? What was the cause of it?

[Roland Hackl]

The report just came out. I can't quote it verbatim. It was human error. I understand that fatigue may have been a factor, a piece of equipment.... There are a lot of other factors going on too. A light engine, which is a three-locomotive consist, crossed over into a freight train, as I recall.

What a lot of people didn't hear about, what didn't make the headlines, was that the crew was called immediately before and told to be on the lookout because there were trespassers in the yard. So they were watching for people running around and paying attention to a whole bunch of things. They hit a crossover, which is a very short piece of track that crosses them from one track into another, and they struck another movement.

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

I see.

Would there be some learning out of that, that perhaps a video record would provide to the company and to the employees alike, suggesting other ways of handling a situation like that, because it's bound to recur, right?

[Roland Hackl]

I don't know if it's bound to recur, but I would suggest that current legislation and what we are advocating TSB use in the event of an incident or accident would provide exactly what you're asking for. After that incident, the TSB would say, ”We have a problem; send us the footage, and let's have a look at it”. The TSB investigates and we go forward from there.

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

I think, and I'll comment, that your crews are operating multi-tonne units that are very difficult to stop, very difficult to adjust. I think there is a reasonable expectation among the public that things happen the right way, and I think obviously given the safety record, most of the time they do.

When something goes haywire, though, there is also a reasonable expectation that mechanisms should be in place to find out what happened, to remedy the situation on an operational basis; and if somebody has done the wrong thing, if the evidence is there of that, the public will expect some kind of punishment for that. That's just a comment of mine.

[Phil Benson]

I think Madame Fox of the TSB addressed that. The TSB, in its review, is to find out what and how, but what goes forward as to criminal and civil liability is something that happens after the TSB does a review. She was quite clear about that: privacy will not get you around violation of the Criminal Code.

There's a difference. When people make the statement, “If somebody violated the law, nothing saves you against a violation of law”, but what it does do is it brings that record into a court where a judge will review to decide whether or not it is probative, whether or not it will be public, whether or not it will be seen.

We personally do not want pictures of our membership eventually ending up in the press, because once the privilege and protection is broken from the TSB and it goes to third parties, it is going to get out. I really don't think it's appropriate to have, as in America, sort of a live streaming of what happened in the last 30 seconds of your loved one's life, over and over again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr. Benson.

Go ahead, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to continue with the theme that I've been sticking to for these past many hours. I'm going to direct my questions to Mr. Graham.

I'm very much interested in the overall vision. Let's face it: this is all about business. This is about business practice and, with that, trying to establish a balance based on value return on your investments, ultimately giving us, as you stated earlier, a better performance by your company and those you represent. Fertilizer Canada's members provide 12,000 jobs and contribute $12 billion annually in economic activity in Canada alone; 12% of the world's fertilizer supply comes from Canada, making a heavy contribution to GDP that we're counting on; and Canada exports fertilizer to 80-plus countries, with 95% of Canada's potash production being exported; and finally, fertilizer is the third biggest volume commodity shipped by Canadian railways. So with all of that, there is in fact something to be said about that.

What interests me most in this process this week of listening is ensuring that we inject the attributes of Bill C-49 into the overall bigger vision as it relates to proper business practice. It becomes an enabler for you, so that the vision of Minister Garneau with respect to ensuring that future infrastructure investment is aligned with a national transportation strategy commences, and that we don't find ourselves with the same problems and challenges we had going back to the early part of the century when we started building these pieces of infrastructure in silos, unfortunately.

How do we integrate our data, our distribution, our logistics systems? How do we ensure that we integrate not only our national transportation infrastructure but also our international transportation system, so that once again our GDP performs at a better rate well into the future, for 30 to 50 years? My question for you is this. How do we get better at that to become more of an enabler for you to do business?

[Clyde Graham]

I'm just a fertilizer guy.

The economy works together best when businesses collaborate, and there are a lot of players in the whole supply chain that moves products in and out of Canada. Obviously, having forecasts of what we're going to be doing with our business and where we're going is important, and we hope that the railways react to that. I think sometimes the railways have delayed making investments in infrastructure until the volume is there.

Our industy in potash, in particular in the province of Saskatchewan, has invested about $18 billion in increasing its capacity. That's an important signal to the marketplace, to the ports, to ocean freight, to the railways that our industry is growing and that we need more capacity in the system. We hope the railways would respond to that.

There are constraints in the system because of geography. We understand that. We know that there's an aggressive program of infrastructure improvements at the Port of Vancouver that's being proposed. We'd like to see the government get behind that, for example. I don't think there's a simple answer to that.

I'd just like to ask if the chair would allow Mr. MacKay to respond briefly regarding the North American network.

[Ian MacKay, Legal Counsel, Fertilizer Canada]

Just to address the member's question, one of the great things about this bill is it recognizes that rail-to-rail competition is important for shippers. In the absence of real rail-to-rail competition, we heard Mr. Johnston from Teck talking about running rights today. That's one version or possibility. But the measures that are proposed in Bill C-49 are crucial in substituting legislative prohibitions for real competition. To meet the goals that you've talked about, we want to make sure that those measures are effective in actually creating an appropriate substitute for competition.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

How much time do I have left? Two minutes.

I'll go to Pulse Canada, Mr. Northey.

Can you add your two cents' worth to that question?

[Greg Northey]

I'll just build on what Ian said. We have the building blocks right now in Bill C-49. We've had a lot of shippers here today. There's been pretty strong unity on some key points. Bill C-49 adds a building block to your vision, and that's the intention. I think everyone can see that potential in this bill. It gets very close to what we want, and competition is a big part and long haul is a big part of that as well as the data.

Ultimately, if we're going to achieve those objectives, we need to be able to measure. We need to be able to measure it to see whether the policy is actually working. We have to be able to measure whether people are having success within the system we have.

Bill C-49 brings those data, this idea of data and evidence, into scope for one of the first times. It's just those really minor tweaks to make sure that we actually unlock that and allow it to become a platform to work towards. As well, Transport Canada is also in parallel doing their data and transportation systems. I think everything is there. We just need to bring it together.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I appreciate your being here this evening. I have just a few questions. I haven't touched on this one: soybeans and pulse. Some people say soybeans are a pulse, and some say they aren't, but I believe they are. Are you working on that because it's not in here?

[Greg Northey]

Yes, our members also represent soybean growers in the west, the Manitoba group and the Saskatchewan group. Our initial position when Mr. Emerson's review was happening was that soybeans and chickpeas in fact should be in schedule II. Absolutely, and the cases made today make a lot of sense for including it. We're in a situation, though, as I mentioned in my opening statement, that we're getting all containerized grain removed from the MRE.

So we have both the desire to put those crops into it, but then we're also grappling with the situation of having a huge portion of our movement pulled out of the MRE.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's where I was going next. You've gotten there.

In the sense of regulatory, you didn't have any amendment in the sense of changing the regulatory to.... As more niche crops, I believe, will move into that, and some that are less are still in it, I think that's a piece that would be very important, the sense of how those ones that are in there....

Have you had any direction or information that says what the rationale is for excluding...which I believe is going to be growing more as intermodal container shipping.... Why? Have you been given any rationale?

[Greg Northey]

We've asked a lot about what the rationale is, and we've done our own study on what the impact of that would be. We haven't had been given a reason. One of the things that makes it complicated.... We love the outcome, the intent of it of more capacity, more service, and more innovation in containerized movement. That's great. There is not a shipper in Canada that wouldn't want that.

The issue with containerized movement is that the ocean containers are owned by the shipping lines, and so the railways don't necessarily control the capacity or where they're going, and a lot of decisions are made about those containers that are not in the railways' control. Just moving containerized grain from the MRE basically just gives the railways the ability to change rates because you don't have the MRE protection of the rates.

If rates increase, it will be great if it goes into the supply chain, if it goes into innovation, and if it goes into all these things that the goal is. We want to see that monitored. We want to see evidence that the policy decision, which is a big one, is going to work because we want to see those results. We want to be able to measure that and to be able to make sure it's happening. We will do everything we can to try to make that happen, if that's a policy decision, but we need to see it happen because otherwise there's no point.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

With those being built, we can go to the railway that you go to with the fertilizer. We see your railway going through our communities. They're your cars, you built them, you label them, and we see car after car. How many cars will you stack on a railway line these days?

[Clyde Graham]

There are around 200 in some trains of the Teamsters. There are unit trains in that magnitude.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

[Inaudible--Editor] cars, which is, with the containers that are already built, you don't want to have to move to that because you have a lot of small producers, and you referred to that earlier. You're in large where you can put 220 cars. You can't do that, so it penalizes those small producers for products that are in demand in the world for what you might believe you're saying is a profit because it can't control it.

[Greg Northey]

Yes.

It's already difficult now to get ocean containers in the country. Some of the larger shippers can control them because they will have an agreement with the shipping line that controls the containers. Shipping lines don't want to see containers languish and not be used, because they want to get them back to China as quickly as possible to bring them back with consumer goods, because that's where they make their money. They don't necessarily make it back hauling grain to Vancouver. There is a lot of complication in that supply chain.

Removing the MREs is a small piece of how to unlock the potential of that supply chain. If this is a policy decision that's going to be made, we want to use it as a platform to have a discussion and make that happen. Those small shippers need those containers. We want those containers.