Evidence of meeting #129 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was passengers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
All right. Thank you.
I find something odd. We were told that railways were supposed to keep a supply of food and water in stock for passengers in the event of an incident or delay, which only seems sensible and appropriate. That's why I'm having trouble understanding why, for a period of seven hours, people were offered only pretzels and chocolate.
Do you think Via Rail should have given passengers more than that?
Passenger, As an Individual
Yes, I think we should have been given something more substantial than pretzels and chocolate.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
You said the water would have run out after 10 hours. Obviously, a railway can't be required to keep six months' worth of supplies on board. I'm not referring to the slogan, here, but what does common sense tell you would be logical or appropriate in terms of the supplies a railway should have in reserve for passengers? Basically, what would you expect?
Passenger, As an Individual
I think it should have enough supplies on board to cover at least 12 hours. You never know when something like this will happen.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you.
Now I'm going to turn to the union representatives.
Ms. Murray, I believe you said you didn't think this was an isolated incident as the Via executives claimed. Do you have any data or information on the number of incidents involving extended delays?
I think it's important to distinguish between delays of a half-hour or hour and delays lasting four, five, six, seven, eight or 10 hours. Delays like that are simply unacceptable. The company has to take responsibility and do something about those.
Do you, as a union member, have any data on that, internally?
Director, Atlantic Region, Unifor
I don't have numbers per se, but I can say.... I worked at Via Rail here in the east coast, in the Atlantic. That train is notoriously late—many hours. Although I don't have data, I would agree that in the corridor region, delays of 10 to 12 hours are less rare than in the long service trains, but I would argue that they're certainly not isolated.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
It happens fairly regularly, then.
I'm having trouble understanding something. First off, it's unacceptable for incidents like this to happen on a regular basis. Second, how is it that the company didn't have enough food and water in reserve to give passengers in a situation like this? Were there any internal discussions on that?
Director, Atlantic Region, Unifor
I understand what the CEO has said—there's not a lot of space on board to keep huge reserves. It's not only long delays where they're running out of supplies. I don't think that they're properly stocked anyway, let alone for delays of a significant number of hours.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
I have one more question for you. It was quite a stressful situation for all of you. Staff on board the trains worked very hard.
Were they compensated in any way? Were the employees paid? I assume they were paid for the overtime hours.
Director, Atlantic Region, Unifor
They would have been paid, as per the guidelines in the collective agreement. It's not something that I have asked—as far as how they were paid—but it is covered in the collective agreement how they are compensated.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you, Ms. Murray.
Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.
Next, we have Mr. Bachrach.
The floor is yours, sir. You have six minutes, please.
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Coderre, you and I were speaking just before the meeting, and you told me that you had reviewed some of the testimony from the previous meeting with Via Rail. I hope you don't mind if I ask you a question regarding your impression of that testimony.
In Via Rail's characterization of the incident and their handling of it, was there anything that stood out to you as being inconsistent with your experience on the train?
Passenger, As an Individual
That is a good question. How can I say that? The one thing that really stood out from the testimony was....
Liberal
Stéphane Lauzon Liberal Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC
You can answer the question in French, Mr. Coderre.
Passenger, As an Individual
I know. I'm just trying to remember. Is it okay if we come back to that question later?
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes, that's fine.
I'm curious as well—when you talked about how some of the updates on the train were updates to say, “Hey, we don't have a plan right now. We're trying to come up with one,” and how that might have alarmed some passengers—about the fact that the company responsible for the train didn't have a plan at that given point in time.
I think there's potentially another view, which is that the more honest, transparent and forthcoming the company can be, maybe the more trust can be built among the passengers that they're going to get updates, regardless of whether it's good news or bad.
As a passenger, which of those would you prefer? Would you prefer frequent updates, even if it's bad news, or no news?
Passenger, As an Individual
Yes, probably. Ideally, I would say, if they can avoid getting to the point where they have no plans, that would be ideal.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think we all want to avoid getting to the point where we have no plans. That's certainly my approach.
How did Via Rail compensate you for the inconvenience?
Passenger, As an Individual
I had a 100% travel credit, and I also got refunded.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I don't know, Mr. Chair, if this was news to other members of the committee. I hadn't heard in previous testimony about the police escorting someone off the train.
You said this occurred in a different car. I was wondering if this was something you heard second-hand, or if there is any information about it that you can share with us.
Passenger, As an Individual
It was from car 1. I actually saw the person get escorted off. I couldn't say why or what happened, but I did see someone get off the train with the police.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Coderre.
I would turn now to Ms. Murray.
Ms. Murray, I should preface this by saying and just reflecting on Mr. Coderre's comment that he felt that the staff did an awesome job under the circumstances, and certainly that's been my experience on Via Rail. However, I'm curious whether your members, who were involved in this very stressful incident, who were responsible for dealing with it, reached out to the union afterwards to convey any concerns.
Director, Atlantic Region, Unifor
I don't want to say that they didn't, but it was certainly not to our offices directly. I don't know for sure. I would say that this incident wasn't as off the wall as we're led to believe. I can't say with great certainty, Taylor, how to answer that.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay.
Your point about the need for Via Rail's planning to include how they handle situations like this in the moment and how passengers and employees are taken care of is very important. Is Unifor engaged with Via Rail in its climate resilience planning, and to what extent?