Transport Committee on April 13th, 2021

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

When you answered a question earlier, you made comparisons between what's being done in Canada and what's being done elsewhere in the world. Overall, does Canada rank better or worse than most G7 countries when it comes to railway safety?

[Karen Hogan]

Perhaps Ms. Campbell or Ms. Marsolais can answer your question. I haven't compared the statistics, so I can't give you a fact-based answer.

Would one of my colleagues like to answer the question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Ms. Campbell or Ms. Marsolais.

[Karen Hogan]

If you'd like, we could make these comparisons for you. That said, these comparisons would be based on statistics taken out of context and might not allow for proper analysis.

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

That might be an idea for a future report.

[Karen Hogan]

Duly noted. Thank you.

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

You noted, and rightfully so, that Transport Canada had been unable to show whether its oversight activities had contributed to improved rail safety. So we do tests, but we ultimately don't know whether they are effective and whether they're useful. Did I understand you correctly? Why is it important to follow up on these tests to ensure that they're effective?

[Karen Hogan]

Your summary is correct. We found two gaps in the oversight. First, Transport Canada didn't assess the effectiveness of the safety management systems. Second, it didn't assess whether all of its additional oversight activities had improved overall safety.

Why is this important? It's a matter of common sense. When you spend time and human resources on something, you want to know if that investment is working. We also want to know whether we're inspecting and checking the right things, verifying compliance with the appropriate requirements or whether we should adjust the approach.

Self-assessment is therefore always very important, but the effectiveness of all monitoring activities must first be assessed before determining if corrective action is required.

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

What I understand is that the government doesn't know whether it's wrong or whether it's checking the right things, because it doesn't know if its work is effective.

I have another question for you. Since there's been an increase in rail traffic, but there hasn't been as great an increase in the number of accidents, someone suggested earlier that there might have been an improvement in safety. I put myself in the shoes of people who lives near a railroad. They're told on the one hand that there is more traffic, but fewer accidents proportionally, and on the other, that there are still statistically more accidents. It seems to me that what they're interested in is the number of accidents because, unless I'm mistaken, the number of kilometres of track doesn't increase significantly over time.

Could you elaborate on that?

[Karen Hogan]

When looking at the statistics on the number of accidents, it's important to consider where each accident occurred. In some cases, accidents don't happen on public rails. So I would recommend not just looking at one piece of data, because you have to understand the whole context around it.

Furthermore, our country is very large, and the safety issues and implications differ from one region to the next. It's also important to take into account the climate and where accidents occur. There are places in the country where accidents are more likely to occur.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

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

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

Mr. Bachrach, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Ms. Hogan and her team for being with us today.

Rail safety is an issue of great concern for communities in northwest B.C. Many of our communities have the railroad going through them. We've seen a marked increase in both rail traffic in general and in the transport of dangerous goods.

I read your report with great interest. Ms. Hogan, I wanted to start with a quote from the environment commissioner, whose office I understand is a part of the Office of the Auditor General. Back in October, the environment commissioner told reporters, “the window for a recurrence of a Lac-Mégantic-type disaster is still open.”

Is that an assertion that you agree with and if so, why?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes, you are correct.

The commissioner of the environment and sustainable development is an assistant auditor general within my office. I regularly engage with the commissioner as he selects audits and tables them.

The audit you refer to was the follow-up audit on the transportation of dangerous goods which the interim commissioner of the environment and sustainable development tabled back in November 2020.

We did talk through some of his messages at that time. I absolutely agree with him. All modes of transportation are inherently dangerous, including transportation on railways. When you transport dangerous goods, there is even more of an inherent risk there.

That's why it's really important that Transport Canada and the federal government do everything in their power to ensure that they have taken the right measures to improve rail safety. Rail safety requires many partners to be involved as well, such as the railway companies, the municipalities where the tracks are and the federal government with its oversight responsibility. All of that should really be measured for its effectiveness, and not just happening; we should be doing it for a reason.

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

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

We've talked a little bit already at this meeting about safety management systems. Obviously, one of the key findings of your report is the deficiency of Transport Canada's approach to safety management systems. You've called the safety management systems—quote—“a big loophole”.

I wonder if you could expand on that. For whom are safety management systems or is the treatment of safety management systems a loophole, and how do we close that loophole and ensure that they're actually living up to the expectations of not only the Government of Canada but also the Canadian public?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure I know that quote, but I'll answer a question about safety management systems and the importance that I think they play.

As I mentioned earlier, a safety management system really is a way of mainstreaming day-to-day safety within a railway company. It's a framework that lists goals and targets, but it's a framework for safety thinking.

It really is about thinking about safety in every action that's taken within a railway company, but it also has a preventative component, in that it needs to identify issues before accidents happen. It's thus very important that a safety management system be effective at enhancing the overall culture of safety, but also at taking a preventative approach to what it's meant to do.

The audits that Transport Canada does on the safety management system should be looking at whether or not they are effective within each railway company at improving safety. This is a really important aspect of the overall safety culture.

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

Ms. Hogan, to my understanding, when safety management systems were brought in, in 2001, they were meant as an additional layer of oversight, in addition to the inspection-based activities of Transport Canada.

I am wondering whether, since safety management systems have come into use, the number or the rate of random inspections has increased or decreased.

[Karen Hogan]

I think it's important to start by differentiating between the safety management system and an inspection. An inspection looks at the equipment, the tracks, the equipment, the crossings, and whether they're operating as intended or are defective or need to be repaired. The safety management system, as I said, is about the culture, that big framework within an organization.

We recommended in 2013 that a more risk-based approach was needed for inspections. What we found in our follow-up audit was that they were absolutely doing more inspections and that they were now doing risk-based inspections. In fact, they were doing risk-based inspections, random inspections as well as reactive inspections.

All of that is great. It feeds into the safety management culture that you should have in an organization. But then the audits, when they identify weaknesses, should also feed into determining where an inspection should go.

We definitely saw an increase in inspections, but there is still an opportunity to make sure that those inspections, when they are risk-based, are targeting the right companies and the right risks.

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

Okay.

Can I fit in one more question, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Not really. You have about 10 seconds left. I'm sorry, Taylor.

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach, and thank you, Ms. Hogan.

We're now going to move on to our second round.

Starting us off for the Conservatives, for five minutes, is Mr. Kram.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses from the Auditor General's office for joining us today and for all of their recent work on the report on rail safety.

I'd like to quote from paragraph 5.4 of the report. It reads:

Rail traffic has been increasing. Freight tonnage increased to more than 328 million tonnes in 2018, up from 312 million tonnes in 2017. In terms of goods transported, fuel oils and crude petroleum recorded a significant increase by weight from 2017 to 2018 of more than 45%. This surge in train traffic means more wear and tear on tracks, which can pose additional safety risks.

Could the witnesses please expand on paragraph 5.4 about what particular safety risks one can anticipate with a 45% increase in the movement of oil by rail?

[Karen Hogan]

I might ask Dawn to join in on the answer. I'm not sure I'm an expert on the movement of oil across rail. However, what I can at least offer you, before we let Dawn take the answer, is that the more wear and tear you have on rail, the more they might need to be replaced. That's just the common-sense answer.

You can think about that even in terms of where the rail is moving, right? Railway tracks react to extreme changes in temperature or long times when it's really cold. All of those play into the wear and tear and the safety and need to be monitored and watched.

With that, I'll ask Dawn to expand more specifically on that paragraph, if she has more insight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

Ms. Campbell.

[Dawn Campbell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think the Auditor General has covered that well. It's essentially that there's greater wear on the tracks and that it would necessitate upgrade or repair, etc. There should be some consequent assessment of increased risk for those areas where there's a higher traffic volume.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Campbell.

Mr. Kram.

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

The next section of the report, section 5.5, reads, “Safety risks are greater as more land is developed close to railway operations and as rail tracks expand into urban areas with road and pedestrian traffic.”

Now I didn't see this anywhere in the report, but I was wondering if the Auditor General could comment on the safety risks to urban residents from moving oil by rail versus moving oil by pipeline.