Transport Committee on April 13th, 2021

[Karen Hogan]

I think I would refer you to the report of the interim commissioner of the environment and sustainable development on the transportation of dangerous goods.

In that report, he looked at the transportation of dangerous goods through many modes, including through pipeline. All modes have inherent risks. The findings in that report were very similar to the findings in ours, in that Transport Canada had taken some corrective action but had not gone far enough in addressing all of the findings.

In fact, I believe the main finding, or one of the most serious findings in the commissioner's report, was about a standard about flammable goods that had not yet been finalized. When you put his report together with the follow-up on rail safety report, it really underscores the importance of Transport Canada taking action and not waiting for a very long time to address our concerns.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

In 2013, there was a major rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in which railcars full of oil derailed and blew up, and 47 people lost their lives.

When it comes to the movement of oil in Canada over the past 10 years, is the Auditor General's office aware of any similar disasters, with similar loss of life, from moving oil by pipelines?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to look to my colleagues to nod yes or no for me, but personally, I'm not aware of any accidents, and I can see from my colleagues that they aren't either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Kram, do you have a quick question?

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

My next question would take quite a bit more than the five seconds I have left.

Thank you very much to the witnesses and to the chair. I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Kram. Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

We're now going to move on to the Liberals for five minutes.

Ms. Martinez Ferrada, you have the floor.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us this evening, Ms. Hogan.

Earlier, Ms. Campbell gave us examples of other countries' systems for evaluating safety measures and how they're evaluated. I'd be curious to know what countries you think Canada could learn from in terms of taking steps to evaluate the system that's already in place and its provisions.

Could you give us some examples of these countries?

[Karen Hogan]

I'll ask Ms. Campbell to expand on my answer if I don't go far enough or if my answer is incorrect.

During our audit, we talked to the United Kingdom about the system they had in place. As we mentioned in our opening remarks, the Canada Energy Regulator is starting to look at effectiveness components. We're seeing that in the United States, as well. This is the direction the industry is going in. This discussion about how to measure effectiveness needs to begin.

Ms. Campbell or Ms. Marsolais, would you like to add anything?

[Dawn Campbell]

I would add that the Canada Energy Regulator has introduced measures to address the components of effectiveness, as has the United Kingdom, as the Auditor General mentioned.

There are also examples in civil aviation, including a Transport Canada program. Perhaps best practices could be identified and lessons learned from them that we could use to measure rail safety effectiveness.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

Would you agree that it seems difficult to find a metric that, over time, will measure the overall effectiveness of the system, beyond the volume of traffic and the products transported?

You mentioned a couple of measures earlier. I'd like to hear you talk about them. What measures do you think should be considered to measure the effectiveness of the provisions taken?

[Karen Hogan]

I think that's a great question that you should also ask Transport Canada. They're the transportation experts. They should try to find a way to properly measure the system's effectiveness.

I certainly agree with you that it's probably not a single metric that would measure the overall effectiveness of safety oversight activities. We mentioned earlier that we could look at compliance rates for certain acts or regulations and compare them to the number of accidents. We could then see if the compliance rate is increasing while the number of accidents is decreasing. We could see if there is a direct link between the number of accidents and the increase in the compliance rate.

This is really an area that all companies are interested in, as well as all departments and governments. They're all trying to measure its effectiveness. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it. We must measure the results of our interventions.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

I'd like to know if I understand the purpose of the report you tabled.

In your 2017 report, you mentioned that all of the recommendations made in the 2013 report had been followed, the vast majority at least. Now, it's a question of whether the measures put in place are working.

Am I getting this right?

[Karen Hogan]

The vast majority of recommendations have begun to be implemented.

I would say that a few of them have been well implemented, such as increasing the number of inspections and subsequent follow-up. There would still be gaps in terms of how to use the data collected to inform future decisions. There is also a gap in measuring the effectiveness of railway companies' safety management systems.

The proposed new recommendation is to measure the effectiveness of all its activities. Of course, progress has been made, but there is still some way to go to address our recommendations. The important step would be to measure overall effectiveness.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Even if everything is never perfect, have the measures that have been put in place helped transportation safety?

[Karen Hogan]

That's where Transport Canada doesn't measure its effectiveness, so it's impossible for us to answer that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan, and thank you, Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

We're now going to move on to the Bloc for two and a half minutes.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Exhibit 5.5 on page 19 of your report contains a table that explains that the Office of the Auditor General has been asking Transport Canada to evaluate the effectiveness of railway companies' safety management systems for 14 years.

What was the response to each of these reports in 2001, 2007, 2008, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018?

It seems like it comes up all the time.

Were you promised each time that this was going to be done? Why is it that after 14 years, this isn't happening?

[Karen Hogan]

I'd like to make a clarification. Exhibit 5.5, which is on page 19 of the French version of the report, doesn't include all of our office's recommendations, but the recommendations of several groups.

Your committee has made recommendations, and my office conducted an audit in 2013. This shows that Transport Canada made a commitment to measure the effectiveness of railway companies' safety management systems a long time ago, but hasn't yet done so. It also shows that it's important to take action to address known deficiencies.

This isn't the first time we've seen this in an audit, but I must admit that some situations are more discouraging than others. With respect to rail safety, I'm discouraged that Transport Canada hasn't acted on our recommendations from eight years ago.

In addition, the department was also committed to measuring the effectiveness of railway companies' safety management systems as a result of your committee's recommendations.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

People often say that it's difficult to obtain information from the government, which is said to be too opaque at times, particularly when it comes to access-to-information requests.

In preparing this report, did you have any difficulty obtaining information from the department?

[Karen Hogan]

No, we haven't had any access-to-information issues. We received all the information we had requested and needed to meet the objective of our audit.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval. Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

We're now going to move on to the NDP.

Mr. Bachrach, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Hogan, one of the findings in your report was that Transport Canada's risk assessments were not consistent across Canada's different regions. This is an aspect that's of particular interest to folks in northwest B.C. As I mentioned at the outset, this is an area that has seen a marked increase in rail traffic. We have more trains. We have longer trains. We have quite an increase in the transport of dangerous goods, as well as a number of terminal projects that, if approved, are going to dramatically increase the volumes of dangerous goods through communities in northwest B.C.

There are community groups that are pushing the minister to initiate a specific regional risk assessment. I'm wondering whether you feel that, given those factors, given the increase in the transport of dangerous goods and the increase in rail traffic, that would be an effective way to assess and ensure the safety of communities in our region.

[Karen Hogan]

I think a risk assessment is one of those data points that any organization should use to inform where it takes its activities, and so having risk assessments done regionally makes a lot of sense. However, you need to have some standard procedures on how to do a risk assessment. Everyone needs to at least follow the same guiding principles so that you can then sit back and look at the results of all your risk assessments and know that you're comparing apples to apples.

A risk assessment should be tailored, I believe, to the region it's in, to consider the uniqueness. As I mentioned earlier, the vastness of Canada shows that there are different geographies, different temperatures, and all of that will have an impact on rail safety, whether there are larger stretches of tracks that run through communities versus in areas that are less populated.

All those kinds of things should be factored into your risk assessment. That's why it's really important that Transport Canada knew that they had some weaknesses here and hadn't addressed them. They do need to address them because a big part of their inspection is focused on risk-based assessment, so you need a well-functioning risk assessment tool to inform those decisions.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Chair, I have one more quick question.