Evidence of meeting #8 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employees.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jim Vena  Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Sean Finn  Executive Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Legal Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Keith Shearer  General Manager, Regulatory and Operating Practices, Canadian Pacific Railway
Peter Edwards  Vice-President, Human Resources and Labour Relations, Canadian Pacific Railway
Jim Kozey  Director, Hazardous Materials Programs, Canadian Pacific Railway
Frank Butzelaar  President, Southern Railway of British Columbia
Perry Pellerin  Chairman, Saskatchewan Shortline Railway Association
Ryan Ratledge  Chief Operating Officer, Central Maine and Quebec Railway

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)) Liberal Judy Sgro

Welcome. This is meeting number eight of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. I welcome all of you on the panel and sincerely appreciate your taking the time to come to speak to the committee as we deal with the issue of railway safety. It's certainly an issue that's top of mind for many people for a variety of reasons, and I'm sure it's top of yours as panel members about to speak to us.

From the Canadian National Railway Company, we have Jim Vena, executive vice-president and chief operating officer; Sean Finn, executive vice-president, corporate services, and chief legal officer; Michael Farkouh, vice-president, eastern region; and Sam Berrada, vice-president, safety and sustainability.

We're starting a bit late, so please keep that in mind. If there are a few comments that you feel have already been made that you would just like to reinforce, we certainly would appreciate that from a time perspective.

Who would like to go first?

Mr. Vena.

3:40 p.m.

Jim Vena Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Madam Chair, I'd like about nine or 10 minutes to go through a quick statement. I hit the key points that were asked of us to come here and discuss. I'm sure there are probably some others and we'll be here to answer whatever questions.

Safety is an important subject to CN. I got it. We're tight for time, but if you could let me go through this as quickly as possible, I will go quickly and if anybody has any questions, please ask me. But I'm going to go as quickly as possible because I want to cover off a number of points.

The introductions have been made. I did not bring Sean Finn because I was worried about having a lawyer here, but he deals with public and government affairs and that's what he's here for more than anything. Two important people, one is Michael Farkouh, who is responsible for, basically, the operation of the railroad from east of Winnipeg or so to Halifax. To my right is Sam Berrada, who is responsible for safety and sustainability for the company, for the whole of CN, which goes from New Orleans, Halifax, and all the way to Prince Rupert and Vancouver.

I really appreciate having the opportunity to come here and talk about a very important subject, which is safety for the railroads.

From the outset, I want to make it clear that nothing is more important at CN than safety. Our commitment to safety is unwavering and drives everything we do. Our focus on safety begins with our senior executives and extends to every employee at CN, even those not directly involved in operations. Running a safe railway is, of course, the right thing to do and the responsible thing to do, but frankly, it also makes good business sense and enables CN to fulfill its role as a backbone of the economy.

Accidents are extremely damaging to our business on every level. Canadians rely on us to get their goods to destination in a timely manner. This is why we choose to exceed regulatory requirements in many areas and continuously search for and implement new lines of defence, focusing on people, process, technology, and investment. You'll hear me repeat those four segments.

The truth is, Canadian railroads have never been safer. Our accident rates have decreased significantly over the past 10 years. At CN, our main track accidents are down almost 60% over the same period. The advances in technology have been dramatic and enable us to spot problems early and make repairs before accidents happen.

In addition, the focus on safety and the training of our employees is at a level far beyond where it was, even a few years ago. CN operates state-of-the-art training facilities in Winnipeg and Chicago where all of our employees are trained and our long-term employees upgrade their skills. Some 15,000 employees have completed training at these two facilities since they opened in 2014, so 15,000 out of a total workforce of just over 22,000. Building and operating these campuses was an expensive undertaking, but we believe that the benefits they provide in ensuring our employees are trained in a consistent manner with a focus on staying safe and looking out for their employees is well worth the cost.

Crossing safety is a high priority for CN. CN, along with Operation Lifesaver, works on an ongoing basis to prevent collisions at grade crossings and accidents linked to trespassing. We conduct monthly enforcement initiatives at crossings, including joint operations with local police forces.

We strategically deploy equipment and technology to reduce risk at high-risk crossings and we deliver safety presentations to high-risk groups in communities across our network. CN also engages with municipal, provincial, and federal officials in identifying and eliminating crossing hazards.

Quickly, I would like to move over and say a few words about our safety management system. I've heard a lot of people talk about safety management in the last year. First, I want to assure you that SMS is most certainly not self-regulation. SMS was developed in Canada and is a system whereby regulations are added on top of the many rules and regulations that govern operations, track, and rolling stock.

Railways are still heavily regulated by Transport Canada. The regulations remain in place and their inspectors are active on our property ensuring that the rules and regulations are properly followed.

SMS is an additional platform that complements government regulations. It puts the responsibility on us to ensure that a culture of safety pervades our entire operation. It enables us to do more than the regulations require, not less. At CN, our safety management system focuses on a variety of initiatives in the areas of people, process, technology, and investments.

With our people, it involves the training I just mentioned. It also includes CN's “looking out for each other” program, a program through which our employees are taught and encouraged to integrate a safety culture into their daily practices. The goal, of course, is to ensure everyone goes home safely at the end of the day.

Process refers to such things as risk assessments and mitigation and safety audits. It also involves ongoing engagement with the communities we serve. We meet with our first responders, providing them with training and information to ensure they are able to deal with any situation that could arise. To date we have met with over 300 municipalities and have engaged with information with another 1,200 across our system and our network.

In 2015 CN invested $2.7 billion in our capital spending program. This year the plan is to spend $2.9 billion, in spite of soft economic conditions. Of that program, $1.5 billion of the $2.9 billion is attached to maintaining and upgrading our track infrastructure. CN is investing for the long term and we are maintaining a capital program to support a safe and fluid railway network and to raise the bar on efficiency and customer service.

We are also constantly investing in new technologies. CN employs a wide range of technologies to monitor the conditions of our track and rolling stock to proactively minimize risks. CN has the densest network of wayside detection technology in North America, having increased the number of detectors on our network by more than 30% in the past decade. In that period we have also increased the number of wheel impact load detectors by 60% and doubled the frequency of ultrasound, which tests rail flaw detection. This is an example of where, using our safety management system, we go well beyond what is required by the regulations. We employ more detectors and inspections than required and have also invested in new technologies not covered by the regulations. Again, we do this because it is the right thing to do and because it makes good business sense.

With regard to the movement of dangerous goods, CN moved ahead of the regulators to implement new rules for key trains. We encouraged the minister to move quickly to upgrade tank car standards. Our operating procedures treat dangerous goods differently from other products, including operating trains at lower speeds. CN has dangerous goods officers strategically situated across our network. We also have additional employees trained as dangerous goods responders. We have specialized equipment located at key locations on our network and work closely with our customers' emergency response teams, specialized emergency response contractors, and local first responders.

CN has worked hard to engage municipalities to train their emergency responders and to provide real-time information on dangerous goods. CN led the way with a systematic approach to engaging municipalities, and many of our initiatives ultimately formed the basis for new regulations.

Together with CP and other railroads we developed AskRail, an app available to fire departments and first responders that provides them with real-time information and enables them to determine, live, the content of any railcar, and by extension, of all the cars in any train.

I know your committee has a particular focus on the area of fatigue management. This is a vital issue for CN and the unions and our individual employees. The regulations provide a solid foundation, and working with our employees beyond that we have a layered approach to ensure our personnel are able to get the rest they need. This includes fatigue management plans, consisting of education and numerous opportunities for employees to take rest beyond the requirements of work-rest rules. As well, a sizeable proportion of our employees work on set schedules, which provide consistency.

We continue to engage with our unions to reach agreements on additional measures that could be implemented to improve scheduling. Railroads operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We take one day off, and that's Christmas Day, so Christmas Eve to Christmas Day is the only time we get off. We understand that. This does present a challenge, but we have the measures in place to ensure our employees have the right to refuse work or stop work if they believe they are not well enough rested to work safely.

One proposal, which we believe has great potential to assist in this area, would be the use of inward-facing cameras. The use of this technology for safety monitoring and training would be a powerful tool for mitigating risk, including fatigue, when used within a safety management system. We'd love to have the processes put forward as we move ahead so we can use this technology properly. CN has worked with specialists who are developing visual recognition algorithms, which can be used with cameras to identify signs of fatigue.

You are also focusing on the use of locomotive remote control technology, commonly referred to as belt packs. First, I want to stress this is not a recent development. The technology was developed in Canada and is widely used across North America. At CN we have over 25 years' experience in using these devices safely. In fact, studies have shown—and this is fact, not people anecdotally giving you evidence—that for the sorts of movements where this technology is used, it is safer than conventional operations.

This is both because the positioning of the two conductors outside the locomotive provides them with better vision in all directions and also because it removes one step in communication between the employees, which reduces the potential for error. The technology includes numerous built-in safety features designed to further reduce the potential for error. These include regulated speeds and tilt detection. If an employee dropped for some reason or slipped and fell, the system automatically sends an alarm and tells you. If you're not wearing a belt pack it will not do it, so they regulate speeds and there's tilt detection, which immediately stops the movement of the locomotive.

The final area I want to touch on is risk assessment. CN has a robust system for preparing risk assessments for the corridors in which we operate. These assessments help us to identify what technologies and processes could be used to mitigate risk. We also work closely with communities to better ascertain the risks. Our processes are constantly being updated and have been reviewed by the University of Alberta’s Canadian rail research laboratory, who have helped us to further strengthen our methodology.

As you can tell, I'm very proud of all that we have done at CN to ensure the safety of our employees, our operations, and the communities we serve. I don’t, however, suggest that we are satisfied. While our accident numbers are down dramatically, I am convinced that they can and should be lower. We remain focused on this goal, and while it is not realistic to suggest that we can eliminate accidents, it won’t keep us from trying.

I'll end with that.

Hopefully I didn't go too fast. I went as quickly as possible, Chair, but hopefully I hit the high points of what I was trying to present. I probably saved all the questions, so if I'm all done I can just head off and head back towards Edmonton.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

You might think that's a good idea, except I am pretty sure we have some questions on all sides of the table here.

Thank you.

Mr. Berthold, you have six minutes, please.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Vena, thank you very much for being here.

The members of the committee greatly appreciate the fact that four vice-presidents have come to talk about rail safety. This shows how important rail safety is for you.

You are the first speaker who didn’t talk about Lac-Mégantic in your presentation. However, that event has marked the rail industry over the last few years. This is not criticism, it’s absolutely fine. The Lac-Mégantic accident happened and we can’t ignore it, but the rail industry all across Canada is concerned by rail safety.

Could you tell me what has changed in the rail industry since the Lac-Mégantic tragedy in terms of safety measures being implemented. CN is a large company and it does not use short-line railways for its activities like the one used by MMA when the tragedy happened. What has changed? Has that raised more awareness and concerns for the leaders of big companies such as yours?

3:50 p.m.

Sean Finn Executive Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Legal Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

I will answer while my friend Jim can listen to the interpretation.

We did not mention Lac-Mégantic, but it is a tragedy for us all in Canada. We have been very aware of it. Every single railway worker at CN or in North America has been affected by the tragic accident in Lac-Mégantic that took the lives of 47 Canadians and wiped out the downtown area.

I would like to point out that, on the morning of the accident, Saturday, July 6, my colleague Mike Farkouh went to Lac-Mégantic. He was part of a team tasked to do three things. First, they had to determine whether a similar accident could happen at CN; we don’t think so. Second, they had to work with stakeholders to learn how to take action in the event of an accident of that magnitude. Third, they had to support the first responders from Sherbrooke and Lac-Mégantic.

The biggest change as a result of that tragedy is that rail companies have recognized that they have to do a better job of informing communities of what goes on in their areas. They have to understand that we are an integral part of their community and of their daily lives.

As Mr. Vena said, the CN has launched an engagement program in over 1,200 communities across Canada where it operates the network. We have met with people from more than 300 municipalities to talk about the transportation of hazardous materials, rail safety and level crosses. We have told them above all that the mayor, the municipal council and the people must be well aware of who the railway going through their municipalities belongs to, and who Jim Vena and Mike Farkouh are. The work has not stopped. Not one single day passes by without us being conscious of our duty to ensure that communities are aware of what do.

A number of measures are in place for the transportation of hazardous materials. A great deal of training is also provided to first responders in municipalities and to our employees. Incidents may occur, but a tragedy like the one in Lac-Mégantic is exceptional. However, we must keep in mind that communities expect CN to be there when something like that happens but also beforehand in order to train responders.

Mr. Berthold, that was a wake-up call for everyone in the industry. We have all been woken up by it. Without tooting our own horn, I think CN has played a leadership role in the field. As a result, the industry sees itself as a whole; the Railway Association of Canada, CP and short-line railways have become aware of the commitment they must make. They are true participants in the process.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Since the tragic accident in Lac–Mégantic, I have become much more interested in rail safety. That is also the case for many Canadians.

The fact that the industry has been allowed to self-regulate is often subject to criticism. However, Mr. Vena, in your presentation, you said that safety management systems were not self-regulated.

Could you explain that in a few words?

Transport Canada has subsequently withdrawn from inspections.

Could you elaborate on those issues, which are raising questions?

3:55 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Jim Vena

It sounds like Sean answered you pretty well. It came up to 1,200 communities and everything....

Listen, I think it's a great question. Let's put the facts down on the SMS system and the regulations we have. To start off, none of the regulations in Canada were removed. There's the Railway Safety Act. There's a number of ways in which the minister, the government, and Transport Canada, Labour, and other federal regulations are put in place and operate in the railroad. Those were not removed with SMS.

SMS was a system. Really, if you truly understand what SMS does, it forces the railroad.... Those plans are reviewed by Transport Canada and by the different regulators. It allows us to build on what the regulations are.

Take, for example, ultrasound testing. What is ultrasound testing? We have some internally of our own and some from outside that comes in and tests the rail to make sure the rail doesn't have any defects. The regulations tell us how many times a year we have to do that. We exceed that by five and six times because, through the SMS system that we've developed, we want to understand what's happening in the rail and what the defects are that we're finding. We look at it on a risk basis. In some places, we do it up to 10 times more often. That's what SMS is all about.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much for explaining that, Mr. Vena.

Mr. Sikand, please, for six minutes.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here and taking our questions.

I'm under the impression that employees in the railway don't have the most predictable work schedules. How would it impact your bottom line or your operating costs to give them more predictable working schedules?

3:55 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Jim Vena

It has nothing to do with the amount of money. What it has to do with is that you operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You're around the clock. You go across Canada from one end to the other. You deal with weather. You deal with customers that are giving you products. You deal with many influences from outside in.

We've worked hard over the years to have schedules in place, in fact, as recently as six months ago. We've implemented more of a scheduled railroad for a very non-scheduled environment, as much as we possibly can. We have a number of employees. We all look at it only as the people that are operating the trains. Sometimes people miss that. We have rail traffic controllers who are like airline traffic controllers and give the instructions to the trains. They work 24-7. In fact, they don't get Christmas off because we always have some VIA trains that are operating at Christmastime. They're there every day.

We look at it holistically. We've taken a lot of steps to make sure.... At the top, we're worried about making sure that we have fatigue plans. We review with employees. We work with the unions to be able to implement them. At the bottom end, the employees have the right to say that they can't go on, that they're done, or that they've set themselves up or are in a situation where it just doesn't work.

But in between that, we've been working on this for a long time. There's not an easy answer. We've implemented technology to make sure that if something happens.... On every locomotive that CN uses on the main line, if there were any reason that a locomotive engineer or conductor were incapacitated, the alerter system would bring the train to a stop, and very quickly.

There are systems that we've put in place. We've worked with the unions. We will continue to work, and there are some things we do that are above and beyond the regulations. The regulations allow people to book rest—or people are even forced to book rest—after a certain amount of hours on duty. We allow people, through contract and other means, to have even more time off in between. I think that if you really sit down and look at it.... I'd love to spend about eight hours with all of you in the room and explain everything we've done, because it's a complicated subject.

But the last thing you want as a railroad is to have people out there who have absolutely no idea and are unsafe. That's the last thing we want. We would never have it happen, and it has nothing to do with the amount of money that we're spending on it.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Go ahead, Mr. Sikand. You still have two minutes.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

As a follow-up question, how willing would you be to adopt a work rule schedule similar to other modes of transportation? I think you mentioned airlines or marine trucking, for example.

4 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Jim Vena

We always try to learn from other industries, but there is a difference between us and the airline industry. We truly are 24-7.

Somebody might say, “Listen, planes run all the time”, but a lot of planes, and people, reset in the evening or late at night. With the railroad, it doesn't matter whether it's two o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the afternoon, it's the same thing.

Do we analyze what other groups are doing? Absolutely. I think our record also shows how safe the railroad industry is and how much better we're getting all the time. If there's something we're missing, we'd love to try anything that makes sense in the operating environment we're in. We don't look exclusively at just what the railroads are doing.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON

How do we compare with other countries—the United States, for example?

4 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Jim Vena

In fact Canada has a framework for what employees can do on the job, specifically the people on the trains, that is much more helpful in being able to give people, those who come in and operate, options for being able to book rest. In the U.S. system—we have a railroad on both sides—it's a different set of regulations and a different set of rules with regard to what the employer and the employees and the union have.

I think Canada has a better system. Employees in Canada are allowed to take 48 hours off on our railroad after they've worked the equivalent of a workweek. They can book rest for 48 hours. They're allowed to book up to 24 hours' rest after they come in from a round trip. Those are things you can't do in other places. I think Canada has a regulatory framework and a fatigue framework, that is further advanced than anybody else's.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you, Mr. Sikand.

Ms. Duncan.

4 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Vena, you spoke of the interest of CN in providing information, so I have two related questions.

First, Canadian municipalities, including through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and first responders have been calling for increased action on rail safety, including greater transparency and real-time notification of dangerous cargo. I have to share with you my experience. I have property at Lake Wabamun, and your response and information provision was nothing but disastrous.

Of course, there was a provincial review triggered, not a federal open public review, although the TSB did a very good review. You had failed to disclose carcinogenic pole oil that had spilled. As a result, the responders were having the contaminant, bunker C, sink to the bottom of the lake.

What is your response to this call by the municipalities and the first responders to having real-time notification of what dangerous cargo is travelling through their cities?

4 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Jim Vena

I'll get Sean to jump in here in a minute.

You're talking about an accident that happened just over 10 years ago. I got it. We learned some things, like we do from every accident. We learned and it taught us some things that we needed to do differently. If you fast-forward to today, that's what I was talking about with AskRail. AskRail was developed as a system that's in place and available to all the first responders. They can look at any railcar, put the car number down, and it tells them exactly what's in the car and what's attached to the product that's in the car. I think that's a big step forward.

Sean, maybe you can go over how we go through this with the communities.

4:05 p.m.

Executive Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Legal Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Sean Finn

I was at Lake Wabamun for eight weeks when this happened. I spent a lot of time there.

I must say that in the last 10 years, the industry has evolved enormously. I think the Lac-Mégantic incident brought our game to even newer levels. In the past, the railroads would get information about the types of commodities but not information about the volumes. Protective direction 32 was added as a regulation almost three or four years ago now. It requires railways to provide first responders and municipalities, including the mayor of a town who is in charge of first responding, information on dangerous commodities, by quarter, by volume, in their towns. That's first.

Second, in the last two and a half years of working with towns, I appreciated, as a former mayor myself—we have the former mayor of Surrey here as well—that when the requests came in, towns were saying that they didn't have access to real-time information. We said, okay, and we developed the AskRail app. Every first responder who registers in Canada has on his BlackBerry the capability to call up a railcar, anywhere in our system, and know what's in the car, if it's empty or loaded, and what's on the whole train.

Third, when a train leaves a station or a yard, the locomotive engineer or conductor must have the content of every car behind the train. In the case of an incident, if the first responder arrives at the incident and says to the locomotive conductor or engineer, “Can I please see the content of railcar 42?”, he will get the information.

That was still not enough. More recently, as you probably know, there have been new rules on risk assessments. Towns can register with us and have a discussion with the railway about risk assessments in their town. If tomorrow morning, in Lake Wabamun, the mayor or the chief of police or the chief of the fire department said they wanted to talk to CN about a risk assessment on a sensitive waterway and about what CN was doing, we would sit down and do so.

I must say to you that since I was at Wabamun 10 years ago, it has changed quite a bit. We have made an effort to address the concern of first responders and mayors about real-time information. I co-chair the proximity committee with Jenelle Saskiw.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Yes, I have spoken with the mayor.

4:05 p.m.

Executive Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Legal Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Sean Finn

At the same time, the rail safety committee is very focused on that, and we have tried to raise the level. We're sympathetic to the fact that towns want that information to prepare their first responder intervention.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Thank you.

You have raised the issue of risk reports. Two meetings back, I requested of Transport Canada to provide me and the committee the risk reports that Transport Canada required. To date they have not been forthcoming. In particular, I asked for the risk reports for all rail lines that go through Alberta. I have not received those, and I would appreciate it if you would provide those so that all the committee could see them.

Today it has been revealed that warnings have not been issued to the communities in the 500 highest-risk rail crossings. The top 10 include Spruce Grove, just west of our city, and then after that is Wabamun. My city has had to use two-thirds of the infrastructure money that will be forthcoming to them to deal with dangerous rail crossings.

Will the rail companies testifying here today provide those risk assessments? How can the mayors be reassured when they have not even been told which of the crossings in their municipalities are at highest risk, so that they can make the demand that those be made safer?

4:05 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company

Jim Vena

I'll say two things. Let's be clear; I have no issue providing risk assessments to the municipalities and people who need to see them. If there's some misunderstanding on this....

One thing I cannot do is put them out publicly. We provide them to the government through Transport Canada. What the government does with them is up to them. For us, we have some information in there from customers that we need to make sure stays within there. If somebody wants to see the risk assessment at Spruce Grove or at Wabamun, they can get hold of us and we will sit down and take them through the risk assessment we've done. It's no problem at all. Let's clear that up once and for all.

The second piece is on the crossings. We have over 15,000 rail crossings at CN. We know that's an issue. That is one area where the government, CN, and local municipalities have to work together. We think there are ways to improve crossing safety, and make sure we understand and make it even safer for the people who come across our crossings.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro

Thank you very much.

Mr. Hardie, you have six minutes.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It occurs to me in reading the history of Canada that, next to hockey and lacrosse, being critical of big railways is a national pastime. You guys have a lot of moving parts. I appreciate that, like the airlines, by and large, every day, everything goes well. Of course, our job here is to look at the exceptions and to see what may need to happen in order to prevent them.

When it comes to the area of fatigue management, we had a long discussion with some of the bargaining units. After some pressing, they found the way to tell us that they were concerned about the collective bargaining process for determining work schedules, where people were allowed to front-end load shifts in order to get extra time off at the end of the cycle.

Would it surprise you, and what would your reaction be, if this were taken out of SMS, out of collective bargaining, and put back into regulation?