Transport Committee on June 15th, 2021

[Michael DeJong]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Aaron has described a comprehensive—

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you. I will ask my next question, as I don't have much time left.

Some people have said that DOT‑111 tank cars are still being used and pose a danger, as they transport dangerous goods.

Can you comment on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. McCrorie.

[Aaron McCrorie]

We're going to ask our DG of dangerous goods, Ben Turcotte, to address that question.

[Benoit Turcotte, Director General, Transportation of Dangerous Goods, Department of Transport]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the major actions we took after the Lac-Mégantic tragedy was to develop a new, more robust, crash-resistant tanker standard for the transport of flammable liquids. Part of that standard also included requirements for the gradual phase-out of DOT-111 tank cars, which were proven to be less crash resistant.

As of 2016, there are no longer any tank cars of crude oil using DOT-111s; they have been completely phased out. Understanding, of course, that the phase-out schedule was risk-based, based on the volumes of dangerous goods such as crude oil and ethanol, we prioritized the phase-out of DOT-111s first, but eventually that phase-out will see the complete elimination of DOT-111s by 2025 for all flammable liquids.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left, given that we started over earlier?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

You have just under a minute.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Okay. So, quickly....

Is it accurate to say that Transport Canada has delegated safety management to the private sector?

What has the Transportation Safety Board recommended in terms of safety management systems?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Turcotte, do you want to tackle that one, or do you want punt it over to Mr. McCrorie?

[Benoit Turcotte]

I believe—

[Michael DeJong]

Mr. Chair, if it's okay, I'll answer that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. DeJong, go ahead.

[Michael DeJong]

Thank you for your question.

The Transportation Safety Board recommended specifically that Transport Canada proceed with conducting audits of safety management systems and their effectiveness. We've done quite a bit of work in that area, including, as of 2020, completing audits of every federally regulated railway company operating in Canada in terms of their SMS, and, in preparation to implement the follow-up Auditor General's recommendations in this area, we have created a framework to support effectiveness audits that we're now on track to launch in September 2021.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. DeJong.

Thank you, Mr. Turcotte and Mr. McCrorie, as well as Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

We're on to our next set of questions from the Bloc Québécois, with Mr. Barsalou-Duval for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to begin by thanking the witnesses for joining us today. It is always interesting. Our topic of study is especially important for many people who live near railways. Your answers are even more important and relevant to the questions we have for you.

My first question is for Mr. McCrorie.

In his 2013 report, the Auditor General recommended to Transport Canada that it improve its oversight activities of railway companies when it comes to safety.

In her latest report on railway safety, the Auditor General notes that Transport Canada has been unable to show that the new oversight measures implemented by the department have been effective or that they have improved railway companies' compliance with the regulations implemented to ensure enhanced safety.

Why has that will to remedy the situation been lacking? It's easy to say that new standards are being implemented and that oversight is being increased, but it is important to know whether the work being done is effective.

Do you have that will to remedy the situation?

If so, why has that not already been done?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I think I got most of the question. The translation was a little bit broken up. I apologize; I had a call come in to talk about my computer.

I think it's important to recognize that our surveillance program post-Lac-Mégantic, we increased the number of our inspectors on the rail safety side from 107 to 155, and then, on the transportation of dangerous goods side, from 30 to 90. As a result of that, we've increased the number of inspections that we do to about an average of 35,000 per year on the rail safety side, and on the [Technical difficulty—Editor] and on top of that, we've greatly increased the number of SMS audits that we've done, going from three to 25. As a result, last year we inspected 13,000 kilometres of track using our inspectors as well as 10 track assessment vehicles.

The challenge—and it's a good challenge—is how we measure the effectiveness of that oversight program. We pointed to our safety statistics, where there's been a decline in the number of accidents and fatalities, so we think that things are going in the right direction. That said, it is a challenge for any regulatory program to draw a direct line between the oversight that we do, the regulations that we put in place, and the ultimate outcome of improved safety. There are many other factors that are at play here, including company operations, weather, etc.

We're reasonably confident that, if you look at the safety stats, they're going in the right direction. We believe that it's in part due to the efforts of our professional inspectors who are dedicated to safety and are conducting those 35,000 rail safety inspections every year.

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

Thank you for your answer.

I hope [Technical difficulty—Editor] that the work done by the inspectors is producing results. At the end of the day, we want to know whether they are inspecting the right thing and whether resources are being allocated to the right place. I am looking forward to hearing about the results achieved and corrective measures taken by Transport Canada.

In her latest report, published in February 2021, the Auditor General mentions that, over the past 14 years, a lot of reports have asked Transport Canada to assess the effectiveness of railway companies' safety management systems. For instance, there was a report by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, as well as oversight audits, reports on the Lac‑Mégantic disaster and auditors general reports.

In light of all those reports tabled over the past 14 years, why hasn't a railway safety management system assessment worthy of the name been implemented?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Perhaps I'll start and then ask my colleague Mike DeJong to elaborate.

It's a great question. For us, the starting point was the decision to strengthen our safety management system regulations in 2015. With a new set of regulations, a new set of requirements, our first order of business was to make sure that those were properly implemented by railway companies. That has been our focus over the last several years. As I noted, we're now turning our attention to developing the tools. We have developed tools to do an effectiveness audit of safety management systems. We plan on launching that in September of this year.

There was also a mention of risk-based inspections. I think the honourable member is absolutely correct in terms of using data to better focus our inspection efforts.

Mike DeJong could speak a little bit about that as well.

[Michael DeJong]

As Aaron mentioned, after the 2015 safety management systems regulations came into place, quite a bit of our efforts were focused on training and outreach with railway companies to raise awareness of these new regulations and new requirements as well as on ensuring that we completed audits of every federally regulated railway company in Canada. What we do—

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

I will ask one last question, as we don't have much time left. It will once again be for Mr. McCrorie—

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Actually, Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you are out of time. My apologies.

Thank you, Mr. McCrorie and Mr. DeJong.

We'll move now to the last of the questions in the first round.

Mr. Bachrach, representing the New Democratic Party, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today and answering our questions.

I'd like to start off by briefly responding to Ms. Martinez Ferrada's line of questioning around whether the issues raised by the Auditor General in 2013 had been adequately followed up on by Transport Canada. I'll just read a passage from the transcript from the Auditor General's visit to our committee on April 13. This was regarding her follow-up audit in February of this year. She said:In this audit we examined whether Transport Canada implemented selected recommendations from our 2013 audit on the oversight of rail safety. Overall, we found that eight years later, the department had yet to fully address our recommendations and that, in fact, there was still much to do to improve the oversight of rail safety in Canada.

I think that makes fairly clear the point that was raised at the public meeting that the honourable member referenced. There's a real concern that this hasn't been adequately followed [Technical difficulty—Editor].

The interim commissioner of the environment stated that, based on his assessment, the window for a Lac-Mégantic-type disaster is very much still open.

First, Mr. McCrorie, do you agree with that statement? If not, why not?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'd like to highlight the approach we take to safety at Transport Canada. We've built multiple layers of defence against any rail accidents, especially those involving dangerous goods. For example, we have measures in place to help prevent accidents from taking place. We've talked about some of those, including train securement rules, track inspection rules, key trains and key route rules, all of which were put in place post Lac-Mégantic to help prevent accidents from taking place.

It's not enough just to put the rules in place. We also need to oversee them. Again, we have a very robust oversight program that goes out to make sure that railways are following the rules. I've mentioned the fact that we do about 35,000 inspections per year on the rail side and 4,000 on the TDG side. That's all about making sure that companies are operating safely.

Above that is an additional layer of safety. We have new, enhanced safety management system regulations in place. These are requirements that go above and beyond the basic regulatory requirements. They require operators to have systems in place to identify, assess and mitigate hazards above and beyond what we require from a pure regulatory point of view. We oversee those as well.

In addition, we have in place measures to help first responders mitigate or limit the impact of accidents when they do occur. These include stronger tank cars to protect them, as well as information for first responders and communities through which dangerous goods are brought.

We're always striving to improve and we're not going to stop striving to improve, but we do think we have very robust layers of safety in place.

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

Thank you for that response, Mr. McCrorie.

I think everyone on this committee is now familiar with the tragic and fatal rail incident that occurred in February 2019 near Field, B.C., in which three workers, Andy Dockrell, Dylan Paradis, Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer.... I read their names each time because I think we need to remember who these men were and to remember the circumstances in which they died. Canadian Pacific left a train parked on a hill without the handbrake set and it became unsecured. I raise this because you just mentioned train securement in your previous comments.

Two years later, CP parked another train in the same area without the handbrake secured. Transport Canada reported that there was an imminent risk of another fatal accident. We had Mr. Keenan, the deputy minister of transport, at the public accounts committee, where he suggested that there was some ambiguity or misinterpretation by CP as to Transport Canada's order following the 2019 incident. After the 2019 incident, Transport Canada put forward an order around unsecured, unattended trains. CP seems to have misunderstood what the agency was saying. Could you explain in greater detail how such a misunderstanding, which nearly resulted in another fatal accident, could have taken place?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I remember that incident well. It was a tragedy. In its immediate aftermath, as the member indicated, we issued some ministerial orders to enhance train securement. This was in direct response to what we saw there. A couple of years later, we did discover another train that we felt was unsecured. I think it provides a very good example of our oversight program and the tools we have in place to take immediate action. As a result of these, our inspector on the spot was able to act and react accordingly.

I'll ask Mike to elaborate on what we're doing from a rules perspective to even further enhance safety.