Evidence of meeting #38 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agency.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I believe 39 individuals passed away as a result of trespassing, being on, in or around the railway tracks.
Liberal
Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
We cannot fully prevent trespassing, but have measures been taken to at least reduce those kinds of suicides?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Again, if you look at where fatalities are taking place, the two biggest problems we have are trespassing and grade crossing accidents. We're taking action in both areas.
In particular, when it comes to trespassing, it's hard to regulate that. You can't regulate that kind of behaviour, so it's really about using other tools like education and awareness. That's where we provide funding to Operation Lifesaver, which has been a very successful organization over the years in developing educational programs for youth. They have now started to focus on suicide prevention. It's very much one of our top concerns, and we're doing our best to address that.
If I could squeeze in one other little point going back to an earlier question about information for communities, one of the biggest challenges we found with PD-36 is that communities just aren't aware of their ability to get information, so anything that can be done to promote awareness of that would be very helpful for us.
Liberal
Liberal
Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
Yes.
What percentage of accidents can be attributed to railway maintenance issues? Maintenance and repairs are very important in that area.
Can you expand on that please?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
If I may, I will defer to my colleague Mike DeJong.
Director General, Rail Safety, Department of Transport
With respect to quality of track, 17% of accidents can be attributed to track quality. This also shows significant improvement. For example, accidents that could be attributed to track quality or track issues are now significantly below the peak of 25% in 2014.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you, Mr. DeJong, and Mr. McCrorie.
We're now at the end of our first round.
I want to get clarification from Mr. Oommen on one of the questions that I believe was asked by one of the opposition members of him.
Mr. Oommen, you answered the fact of—
Go ahead, Mr. Bachrach.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
It's just a clarification, Mr. Oommen.
You mentioned that, on noise, odour and vibration complaints, you have a protocol that you abide by, but you never mentioned in response to the question that was asked what, in fact, those recommendations would be by the CTA to impose upon CN or CP based on those complaints.
It's a simple question: What do you do about vibration, noise and odour complaints? What will you actually recommend that railway operators do to rectify those situations for the neighbouring properties?
Chief Compliance Officer, Canadian Transportation Agency
Perhaps an example would be most enlightening. There was a case, for example, where there was a rail yard that was doing loading and switching operations late at night. The agency heard the complaint. The order of the agency was that no further such operations would be done at nighttime. These were only to be conducted during the day. That is an enforceable order by the agency.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you, Mr. Oommen. I appreciate the answer.
Mr. Bachrach, go ahead.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I just want to clarify that we're going to get a full hour with our additional witnesses. I know we're somewhat past the one-hour mark.
Could you clarify that?
Liberal
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Sorry. The question was: Could you clarify that we're going to get the full second hour with the other round of witnesses, the other panel?
I just note that we're past the one-hour mark. It's 7:48 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Yes, we will.
Thank you, members.
To the witnesses, I want to thank you for your time today. This is a very important study for all members, me included, as I have a railway operation in my riding that's very negatively impacted by the CN operation in the shunting yard and, of course, there are impacts on the neighbouring communities, so I appreciate your time here today. Don't be surprised if you get a second invitation to come back as we embark on the report moving forward.
With that said, I again express my appreciation to members as well.
We're going to suspend for a few minutes so we can do some sound checks for the next panel.
Mr. Clerk, I will leave that to you.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
With that, we're going to start with this afternoon's witnesses.
Once again, I apologize to the witnesses—
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
I have a point of order.
Sorry, Chair. I'm not clear how this works. I believe you said that we could do the full hour tonight. Then we would do an additional hour, so that would be an additional hour to the study. I apologize, and I know you're going on the fly here as well, but maybe for some clarity, how long can we expect to go this evening? If we are able to bring the witnesses who could not testify tonight back on Thursday, what would that look like? Will we still get the two hours on Thursday with the witnesses who are currently scheduled?
I apologize for putting you on the spot like this, but—
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
—it's so that we can get some clarity.
Thank you so much, Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
No problem. Thank you, Mrs. Kusie.
I have two answers to that question. The first is that my intent was to take the full hour. That was about 20 minutes ago, if not longer. Now here we are, that much further away. We started late, and that would have brought us to about 8:40, so that's as far as I'll go with respect to how we started. That brings me to my second point, which is our upcoming meeting on Thursday. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the intent would be to speak with the whips to see if we can get that extra hour, as well as have a question posed to the House to see if the resources would be available.
Mike, did you have any clarification on that?
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Michael MacPherson
No, we only have four witness groups on Thursday, so we could bring back the Railway Association of Canada if they are available that day. I expect we would have a regular two-hour meeting. If we can add some time, we will. Otherwise, we can add about 10 to 15 minutes to tonight's meeting. It depends.