Evidence of meeting #9 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 bnsf.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
With respect to slide 7 on your deck, Mr. Percy, you make two points. You mentioned the fact that “Metrolinx's trains must operate over some track owned by federally-regulated commercial railways”. Then, “If and when these tracks are found in disrepair, host railways may impose interim safety measures such as 'slow orders' before investing in major repairs or upgrades”.
How much stress does that place on your system?
President, GO Transit
Putting slow orders on is an industry reaction to a risk-of-track issue. That's the right thing to do. The next measure is how quickly one recovers from that and gets the track back up to track speed. That's important, not just for safety, but also for our customers and on-time performance.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
What has the record been on that with respect to them reacting? When I say “them”, I mean the hosts to those tracks. How fast are they responding to that?
President, GO Transit
I actually believe they respond as quickly as they can. We do not have a specific issue with the two class 1 railways.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
My second question is with respect to Metrolinx, AMT, and TransLink, which jointly recommended regulatory changes to Mr. Emerson's review of the Canada Transportation Act to address this issue. What recommendations were those?
President, GO Transit
We had a lot of recommendations to the panel with respect to ensuring that the railways take it as seriously as we do, as VIA does and as the others do, such as AMT and TransLink. It's that they respond quickly and professionally to any kind of slow orders.
I don't have an issue with that because my exposure is fairly limited; it's 20% of our business. We own 80% and we have our own protocols, which are very rigorous. I think others—perhaps VIA—might have a comment. Most of their system runs on class I lines, and I think they have a different view than we do, because our exposure is fairly limited.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for kindly answering our questions. Their input is important to us. This exercise gives us a better understanding of passenger rail safety, so it's helpful for us to hear your views on the subject.
I have two short questions for you and I would ask that you keep your answers fairly brief.
First, since our study began, we've been looking at the issue of engineer fatigue. Could you tell me, in each of your cases, how many accidents you have identified over the last five years as being directly tied to fatigue? The information can be from your own statistics. I'd like you to give us a number quickly, just to help the committee get a handle on the situation and determine the scope of the problem.
Perhaps a VIA Rail representative could answer first.
Chief, Transportation and Safety Office, VIA Rail Canada Inc.
To my knowledge, we examined one accident that may have been tied to fatigue. It involved train No. 15, in Saint-Charles-de-Bellechasse, Quebec. That's the only accident for which fatigue was cited as a contributing factor.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Over what period of time did you identify just one such accident?
Chief, Transportation and Safety Office, VIA Rail Canada Inc.
The accident occurred in 2010.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Thank you very much.
Mr. Percy, what about on your end?
President, GO Transit
I've been with Metrolinx and GO Transit for about 15 years, and I cannot remember a single incident related to fatigue.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
The information you provide to us matters. I wish I would've thought to ask the representatives of the other rail companies who appeared before the committee that same question.
My next question is for Mr. Percy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said that you had cameras equipped with audio in your locomotives. Is that correct?
President, GO Transit
I'll give you a quick summary. We've had externally facing cameras for probably 15 years. We have just started installing inward-facing cameras, with audio, in the last few months. We have a fleet of, say, 75 locomotives, and we have probably about 10% done. We've chosen to turn those on as soon as each locomotive is completed.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
One of the things the committee has heard is that conductors may be uncomfortable doing their job knowing that they are on camera. We even heard that it could lead to more problems.
How did workers and unions react to that? Did you experience any problems in cases where cameras had been installed and were in use?
President, GO Transit
We provide our rail service through a third party called Bombardier. They do both the operations and the maintenance. We ensured that they did speak to their union so they would understand what our intentions were.
We have yet to use them to manage the crews. That's not a method that we would choose to use. What we have them there for is to understand how incidents happen and to identify the role of the operating crew should an incident happen where we suspect their behaviour may have some cause in the accident.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
How did the unions react? Did they accept the situation, or was it a battle to get them to accept it?
President, GO Transit
Bombardier would negotiate with them, but they had reservations, for sure. That would be fair to say. They did not say that they would react strongly to it. I think their biggest concern was about how we would use it, and it has yet to be used in a way that would cause some concern.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Very well.
GO Transit is, after all, the one in charge of train operation. So it is you, not Bombardier, that passengers rely on to keep them safe. Yours is the name of the transit system and you are the ones they have a contract with when they get on your trains.
As far as you know, has the installation of cameras affected the attitude of conductors driving the Bombardier trains?
President, GO Transit
Not at all. They know what we're doing. We've told them what we're doing, the schedule for doing it, and our intentions as to why we're doing it. By being open with that, we have not had a strong pushback from them.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Thank you.
My next question is for the VIA Rail representatives.
Earlier, I thought I heard that you planned to install these kinds of cameras over the next few weeks or months
How have your workers reacted?
Chief, Transportation and Safety Office, VIA Rail Canada Inc.
We haven't installed any cameras so far. Only voice recordings are made, and we've informed workers of that. The union representative is involved in the project we are working on with the Transportation Safety Board. We are trying to figure out how we are going to proceed.
Some workers say it doesn't bother them in the least, while others have made it clear that it does. It's fairly typical for people to have mixed views in a working environment.
We are going to participate fully in the Transportation Safety Board's study and use the findings as our basis going forward. Then we will determine what the next steps should be.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Now I'd like to come back to the GO Transit representative.
You talked about your partnering with ConnexOntario to put up signs at all level crossings.
Could you give us a sense of how much that cost your organization? How much did it cost to put up signs at every level crossing? If such a measure were applied nationwide, it could really be expensive.
President, GO Transit
If I may say, there are two separate things. Our partnership with ConnexOntario was targeting mental health illness and the impacts of people coming on the right-of-way. Putting up that type of sign in the GTHA did not even cost $25,000. In terms of saving one person's life, you have a very good return on investment there, and we actually know that we did. We felt very proud of that and we hope that carries throughout all of Canada and, frankly, North America.
