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.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Well, first of all, I don't agree. When you look at the pattern of employees in depth, you might have an exception, an employee here, an employee there—
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
—but it is not anywhere near the norm. Most employees we have come in and take a rest upon arrival. I mean, they go for a tour of duty—
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'm sorry, sir. I'll ask you to keep your answers short because I have a number of questions.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
I apologize, but listen, the facts are just not there with that statement you gave me, based on what you heard from them yesterday.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
I'd love to sit down and go through more detail, but that's not what we see from our employees.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
We heard you say in your preamble that movement on things like cameras and voice recorders in the cabs is something you would like to see go forward. My guess is that you're running into opposition from the bargaining units because of what they say is their experience with whistle-blowers being reprimanded, and they would be concerned that this kind of technology, as opposed to being a safety measure, would be used in disciplinary processes. How do you respond to that?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Our employees have a number of protections. They have an internal ombudsman. They have external.... They can go to the TSB. They can work through the union. There are lots of ways to handle it if a company were ever to go over and above what they need to do to correct behaviour for the employees. That's not our philosophy. Our philosophy is to change people's behaviour using the minimum amount of discipline, and it's important for us to stay there.
The second reason we want to use the cameras inward is that it gives us a view of the cab. We're talking about fatigue. We can study it. We don't want the cameras on all the time. We want to do it in a SMS system. We want to be able to take a look at what's happening in the cab. We want to be able to study it properly.
Liberal
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
Absolutely. You have to—
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
If you give me a chance to answer, I'll answer it.
Liberal
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
The answer is not black and white. If you find employees and people who are breaking the rules or the law of Canada, like blowing the whistle, it is hard for you not to be able to deal with that in the appropriate manner. It could be a mistake; it could be whatever. It's a silly question to say, “Are we going to stop and have technology in place?” What it does is it makes us safer. It allows us to analyze what's happening in the cab. It's proven that if we can view what's happening in the cab or even outside with other systems we have in place, we're able to operate a safer railroad. That's what we want.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay.
Moving on from that to the safety management system, I was led to believe—and I could be wrong so you can straighten me out on this one—that you can provide the government with your safety management system, which is basically your best practices for dealing with the safe operation of the railroad, but you can also apply for variances that allow you to basically step outside the parameters or terms that you've set up. Is that true?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
We can apply for changes to what we have for work practices, and they're always reviewed by Transport Canada. They have the right to come over and...whether they agree with them or not. Not normally would we go to apply for changes in our own rules and regulations. We'd put them in there, we'd notify them that we'd like to change something, and we'd move ahead that way. That's how it's done.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Fair enough, okay.
We've detected in some of our conversations that there's quite a variance, obviously, between the mainline railroads like you and the short-line railways that may be much smaller and certainly less well provisioned in terms of staff and maybe even expertise. Most of the short-line railroads started off as part of mainline railroads. Can you tell me how many short lines CN has spun off in its history?
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
There have been a number of them, and we've returned some in places across Canada such as northern Alberta and northern New Brunswick. We had sold them off and then we brought them back on. I'd be guessing on the number.
Liberal
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
The old NAR, that's correct. We used to own CP.
Liberal
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Canadian National Railway Company
I've been around for too long when we both know the NAR.
Liberal
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you very much. I appreciate your being here.
One of the questions that I have is on dangerous goods. We had a lengthy conversation at our last meeting, because as a former mayor, I was under the understanding that my first responders would have the information as to the dangerous goods that would be travelling and that they would know what was in the cars. I was told that this was incorrect, that it is not in real time, and it is not disclosed, so I need to understand where the reality lies.
