Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, our deepest sympathies to the family.
This is the business we're in, trying to prevent these kinds of deaths.
The member highlights a particularly challenging area for us in railway safety. Last year there were 59 rail-related fatalities, and 39 of them, the majority of them, involved what I'll describe as “trespassing”. I don't want to suggest that in this instance it was trespassing, but that's where the vast majority of the deaths are taking place.
One of the challenges we have, from a regulatory point of view, is that it's very hard to regulate that. The success story that I can point to is Operation Lifesaver. In 2020 we gave $2 million in funding to Operation Lifesaver, which is an organization that does a lot of community outreach—safety promotion efforts with community groups, with schools, for example. It's a long-standing success story in the rail safety program. I think it's these efforts, which are very much about educating people about the perils and dangers of being around trains, being around railway tracks, and addressing individuals when they're young, so that we create a culture of safety from the get-go.