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.