Transport Committee on June 15th, 2021

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mrs. Kusie, and thank you to all of you for your patience.

With that, I'll go to my list here to see who's going to be available to speak. I'll start with Ms. Bleau.

Ms. Bleau, I'm going to give you the floor for five minutes.

[Isabelle Bleau, City Councillor, City of Boucherville, Comité ferroviaire de Boucherville]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening. My name is Isabelle Bleau, and I am a city councillor and president of the Comité ferroviaire de Boucherville. The City of Boucherville is crossed by the railway segment that is part of CN's Sorel subdivision dedicated to the transportation of goods, mainly to supply metropolitan area industries. Although the rail line mainly traverses farm land, it also goes through the heart of the urban perimeters of the cities of Boucherville, Varennes and Verchères, including a large residential area of more than 5.5 kilometres in Boucherville.

Railway transportation of dangerous goods and substances in urban areas causes numerous nuisances and is a concern for citizens. Among the issues, we note traffic, crossings, emergency service maintenance, noise pollution and vibration, safety, air quality and urban planning. Those issues are even more important since the container terminal project in Contrecœur will considerably increase the frequency and length of trains on that line.

To that end, the City of Boucherville has contracted a company to carry out a prefeasibility study on relocating CN's rail line from Boucherville to Sorel-Tracy. That company concluded that the project was possible and that there were a number of potential routes. A more thorough feasibility study will now need to be carried out to establish which of the proposed routes could be selected and how that relocation could materialize in the other affected cities that are part of the line. CN and CP could also benefit from this.

The objectives of the Comité ferroviaire are to make the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities aware of the relevance of reviewing railway relocation projects where dangerous goods are being transported through densely populated areas and to facilitate citizens' access to information on dangerous goods travelling on those railways.

The issue of railway transportation safety has been relevant for several decades in cities traversed by CN's railway, especially in Boucherville and in Varennes. Initially focused on nuisances caused by trains passing through urban areas, citizens' concerns have extended to risks of hazardous material spills and on their impact on safety and the environment. Those concerns have intensified since a crude oil shipment was derailed in Lac-Mégantic. Fears about seeing that kind of a catastrophe occur in Boucherville have also intensified since the appearance, in November 2013, of large trains transporting crude oil for export from Alberta to be loaded onto supertankers at the Kildair Service ULC terminal, in Tracy.

According to the International Energy Agency, the global demand in oil should surpass pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022. It is also clear that the low level of social acceptability and the abandoned major pipeline projects indicate that oil transportation, especially from Alberta, will continue to be done by train for several years.

In addition, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada's quarterly review, the number of accidents involving dangerous goods on major rail lines has increased in recent years, going from 10 in 2017 to 17 in 2018, six of which led to hazardous materials being spilled.

On July 24, 2016, Marc Garneau, then federal minister of transport, announced his intention to advance by six months the phasing out of DOT‑111 tank cars, which were involved in the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, transporting crude oil. However, those cars could continue to transport refined oil or any other dangerous goods through our cities. But the previously set deadline has rather been pushed back to 2025. So we can deduce that, over the next four years, transportation of heavy oil and dangerous goods through our densely populated urban areas will continue to pose risks.

Protective Direction 36 issued under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, requires railway companies to provide municipalities with data on the goods transported by trains passing through their territory. However, since the transportation of crude oil has resumed in earnest on the Saint‑Lambert-Sorel‑Tracy rail line, it has been very difficult, in practice, for citizens and for our committee to obtain information about those trains, under the pretext that the data is confidential owing to antiterrorist precaution measures.

We think that the process lacks transparency and that people living in cities affected by the transportation of oil and dangerous goods should have access to more information provided by the appropriate authorities and by CN.

In closing, we think that the project for relocating CN's Boucherville-Sorel‑Tracy rail line is in line with the commitments made under the Trois-Rivières declaration, and we want the Government of Canada to support its participation in a feasibility study on that project.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Bleau.

Are you speaking on behalf of the organization, or does Mr. Beaulne want to speak as well?

[Isabelle Bleau]

I was speaking on behalf of both the City of Boucherville and the Comité ferroviaire de Boucherville, but Mr. Beaulne will answer many questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Wonderful. Thank you for that.

I'm now going to go on to Mr. Thiessen for five minutes.

[Gerry Thiessen, Chair, Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako]

Thank you.

My name is Gerry Thiessen. I am the mayor of the District of Vanderhoof, and also the chair of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako. I am speaking from the traditional territory of the Saik'uz First Nation.

In our regional district, we have six communities like Vanderhoof. Each of these communities has a rail line going right through it. We were brought to this area. My grandfather was asked, on a program with CNR and the Government of Canada, in 1942, to move from the Prairies to our area and settle here with the hope of settling the railway as we went along.

At that time, there was lots of opportunity for industry to have access to rail cars. We saw our cattle being moved to market through the railway. We saw our lumber moved through the railway, and there was lots of access for us to sell our goods.

That has changed. We now have about 30 trains that go through our communities; whereas, in the past there were about a half a dozen a day that would go through our communities. A long train used to be 40 boxcars. Now it's not uncommon to see 100 boxcars.

Along with that, we are told that about 10% of the goods that go through our communities have hazardous material on them. That is significant. It's really significant when each one of our six communities in the regional district of Bulkley-Nechako operates with a volunteer fire department.

These men and women leave their families and volunteer their time to give back to the community, to make sure that we have a safe community in a place where their families can grow up and be part of living here in a rural lifestyle.

It's not fair for us to be told, as communities, that we have a joint responsibility to keep hazardous material and that, if there is a problem in our area, we will need to be responding to those things. We do not have the equipment, as volunteers, to address that.

At a recent meeting in the early part of November, we had a presentation from CN Rail at the regional district. Our understanding from the presentation was that there is no equipment in our regional district of Bulkley-Nechako, which has a bit more than 300 kilometres of rail line in length from one end to the other. There is equipment in Prince George, as well in Terrace, British Columbia.

What we understand is that train personnel—should there be a derailment, should there be a fire or anything like that—would need to come out of Edmonton. We were told that if there were something, we would need to somehow get close enough to a derailment to check to make sure what the bar-code was on the side of the train, and that if we got that information and sent it to CN, they would be able to tell us what was in that derailed car.

That's not a viable solution when you're working with volunteers. They give of their time. There needs to be quicker access to an emergency.

If there were an emergency in the town of Vanderhoof, which I am very familiar with, many of our emergency personnel would be in a tough situation because our volunteer fire department, which is our emergency response team, is within about a half a block of the rail line.

To me, it would just put us at a really [Technical difficulty—Editor]. We would have to evacuate our town while we were waiting for the information coming back of what was in those boxcars that were derailed.

Recently there was an accident that came through our community during my time as mayor and the first I heard about it was when I received a call from the local news media, asking me what I thought about the rail accident in my community.When I called to ask about it, I was basically told that they were taking care of it and that they were okay.

When there was a derailment just east of our community and I had some concern about how close it was to the Nechako River, again I was told that this wasn't something we needed to worry about and that they were taking care of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Thiessen.

I'm now going to move on to Ms. Remington for five minutes.

[Dawn Remington, Chair, Friends of Morice-Bulkley]

I acknowledge that I'm speaking from the traditional territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation.

Similar to Gerry, I'm going to tell you about our recent experiences in my small town, in the same regional district, actually. Smithers is a railway town. It was surveyed during construction of the railway, what's now CN railway. It's a divisional town where trains stop for several hours to take on fuel and new crews. They spend time in town. It's an important employer and important to our local economy and regional economy.

We became aware of upcoming changes from a newspaper article, in 2019, announcing the opening of a propane export terminal at the port in Prince Rupert. The terminal requires delivery of 50 to 60 propane tank cars per day by rail, and soon we were seeing strings of black tank cars rolling through town. We then learned that three other export terminals were in the works. The largest, Vopak, would export 240 cars per day: 60 of propane; 50 for fuels like diesel and gasoline; and 90 of methanol, methyl alcohol.

If all four terminals are approved, we will have approximately four 100-car trains per day passing through town and stopping in town, carrying what are regulatory hazardous, flammable products. Liquids like diesel and gasoline also have a hazard if they are spilled in our river, as it could cause serious harm to salmon stocks.

The terminals were being reviewed with no consideration of the rail portion of the project. Residents began to feel like deer in the headlights seeing our rail line becoming a hazardous products corridor, and we were receiving no information and having no opportunity to input any decisions.

The fact is that train can derail, and collisions happen inside towns. Propane compressed into a 30,000-gallon tank—that's over 113,00 litres—has a huge explosive potential.

I'm going to try to show you a map of the rail corridor through Smithers. The yellow and red are the evacuation corridors for propane, the yellow is for fire. This side of that zone is the steep slope of the mountain, the other side is another slope onto the river, and the town is completely under the evacuation zone. This includes the municipal office, ambulance, fire station, police station and the hospital.

We started talking to local governments, telling them our worries. In Smithers, the fire chief is on staff, but the rest of the firefighters are volunteers. When the chief was asked if his department was prepared to handle a large propane accident in town, his answer was definitely not.

Smithers council invited CN and learned that the nearest emergency response team was in Prince George, over 370 kilometres away, and it would take 12 to 24 hours for them to get to town. This is tough for a small community, because the town council is responsible for making its decision to evacuate the town.

Local governments began writing the Minister of Transport asking for an independent, public, risk assessment of hazardous traffic on the northern B.C. rail line, and they also asked that local governments be included in the process. To my knowledge, the transport minister or ministry hasn't replied to any of these letters, so we have no more information than we did.

I'd like to thank MP Taylor Bachrach and your committee for studying this issue and perhaps getting some answers for us, and perhaps getting some attention to the hazardous situation we feel we've been put in.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Remington. That was well done.

Members, we're running short on time here, and we only have resources available to us for a limited time, so I want to try to get the first round in. The only way I can do that is if I cut back to half the time. Is everybody okay with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Everybody is okay with that, but I know that Taylor is a bit hesitant.

I'll try to squeeze a bit more time in for you, Taylor, because this is your study. You championed this from day one, so I'm going to try to get you in a bit more.

With that, I'm going to start off with Ms. Kusie for three minutes.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In its brief presented in the 2021 prebudget consultations for the province of Quebec, the Railway Association of Canada, or RAC, states that closeness between citizens and railway infrastructure is a significant safety issue for the province's municipalities. The RAC wants the provincial government to promote coordinated, safe and environmentally friendly land-use and development plans, and coordinated practices in terms of managing risk at crossings and in terms of trespassing.

Ms. Bleau, do you think land development policies concerning railway corridors and residential or commercial development are aligned across Canada?

[Isabelle Bleau]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Go ahead, Ms. Bleau.

[Isabelle Bleau]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I cannot talk about the situation across Canada, but I can talk about the situation in our region. I can tell you that the railway does directly traverse our municipality and that six schools, seven kindergartens and three seniors centres are within 50 metres of it.

As a result, many people are at risk, without taking into account all the residents and homes that are there, too.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Ms. Bleau.

Here is my second question.

What are the best practices in land development that help consolidate access to railways and promote residential or commercial development, as well as citizens' safety?

[Isabelle Bleau]

I would like to answer if I may, Mr. Chair.

The City of Boucherville has carried out a prefeasibility study in collaboration with cities traversed by the same railway—Varennes, Verchères, Contrecœur and Sorel-Tracy. That study shows that it is possible to relocate the railway and to put it in the median of Highway 30. With that kind of a relocation, fewer cities and citizens would be at risk.

That prefeasibility study established five routes and, according to our guiding principles, we think it would be realistic to put forward such a project if the Government of Canada helped us fund the feasibility study.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Chair, if any time is left, I will let Mr. Bachrach have it. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Kusie, and Ms. Bleau.

We're now going to Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, you have the floor for [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to say welcome to all of our guests.

Unfortunately, the technical problems that we have cut into some of our time. Hopefully we'll get a chance to see some of these people on Thursday.

Mr. Thiessen, I listened with interest to your comments about the situation in your municipality and some of the concerns you have about safety. Being a former mayor, I understand, when you're talking about volunteer fire department and lack of resources, and so on, the concerns that poses for you as a mayor and the challenges when you have cargo travelling that can be potentially explosive—or very challenging if there were a derailment.

What suggestions have you made to the rail companies? What suggestions or ideas have you put forward to them to address your concerns?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Go ahead, Mayor Bleau.

[Gerry Thiessen]

It was for me, I think, wasn't it?