Transport Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out today.

I'm going to try to drill down a bit here. I think a lot of the questions may be similar, but I want to give you guys an opportunity to really drill down on it and think of anything you haven't mentioned yet in particular areas that you've been asked about.

My first question is very simple. It's on risk mitigation. What proactive measures does the TSB recommend for rail companies to minimize risks when transporting dangerous goods through densely populated or environmentally sensitive areas?

[Yoan Marier]

You have to understand that there are already a number of rules that are in place. There is a set of rules that we call the rules respecting key trains and key routes, which were put in place following Lac-Mégantic and modernized a few years ago. These rules put a number of requirements on the railways regarding speed. When the trains go across communities, they have to slow down even more. Key routes are also subject to increased maintenance requirements and risk assessments, and there is also an exchange of information between the communities.

There is already a lot of work that has been done to help protect these communities following our recommendations.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You answered my second question in that answer as well, so thank you for that.

With respect to emergency preparedness, how does the TSB collaborate with provincial and municipal emergency response agencies to prepare for rail incidents involving dangerous goods?

I was a mayor for 14 years. We often had exercises with emergency preparedness as the theme, not only for the community at large but also within our team. In different instances, there were different teams.

Do you go through the same processes directly with municipalities to ensure that, if something does happen, you're ready for it right from the incident itself to the effects of that incident on the community and sometimes even the surrounding communities?

[Yoan Marier]

I can give you a response from my point of view, but I suspect that you're going to get a more detailed response from Transport Canada.

The TSB mandate is to look at occurrences. When there is an accident or an incident that happens, we do an investigation, so we're always looking backwards. We're always looking at what happened, why it happened and what can be done to prevent it from happening in the future.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Would you make recommendations to the team on how to perform before and during these incidents?

[Yoan Marier]

During an investigation, if we identified safety deficiencies that were related to a specific response, then yes, it's something that would be identified in our report, and eventually we could make a recommendation if we deemed the risk to be high enough.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Go ahead, Mr. Béland.

[Michel Béland]

In terms of working with municipalities and the provinces, we do a lot of awareness with provinces and municipalities, and we have participated in a number of exercises over the years with our folks at CANUTEC. They have conducted a number of exercises with various municipalities across the country.

As well, we have remedial measures specialists who are experts in incidents. They have also participated in a number of exercises with municipalities, and they're always looking for anybody who is interested in having an exercise. We'd be more than happy to assist and help.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

The reason I ask is twofold. One is the obvious reason, but the second one is this. In my past life, there were instances when we would have an incident and nobody stepped up from the federal level. That was extremely frustrating, because then I would have to rely on my fire chief to take charge of the incident, and sometimes they might not be as intimate with the incident as you might be. I'm not saying that it was you; it was other agencies, quite frankly, but I've had that challenge.

What I am looking for is having that protocol in place so that, when these things do happen, the TSB has already made recommendations from their end, and then, from your end, you're following up on those recommendations that were made by the TSB.

Are you confident that it is up to date and that it's happening?

[Yoan Marier]

Yes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's good.

With respect to recommendations that the TSB makes to improve communications among rail operators, municipal governments and residents regarding hazardous material transport, is there anything that you would require from Transport Canada to meet part of the processes that you involve yourself in?

[Yoan Marier]

We currently don't have any active recommendations on that subject. As I mentioned, if we do get an occurrence that involves a safety deficiency related to communications, it is something that we would certainly consider issuing a recommendation on if the risk is high enough, but we currently don't have any recommendations.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

This is a broader question for both TSB and Transport Canada.

It was touched on earlier with respect to the TSB recommending any enhancements to community safety and emergency preparedness when it comes to transport of dangerous goods by rail, particularly in urban and rural areas where access to emergency response resources can vary significantly. That's what I'm getting at. There are some sparse areas throughout the country.

Do you involve yourself in recommendations not only with respect to capital capacity to mitigate the risk itself, but with respect to the way and the means to deal with the risk, especially in more remote areas?

[Yoan Marier]

Again, it depends on whether we have an occurrence that involves these issues. It is certainly something that we would be looking at during the investigation.

Our mandate requires us to look backwards and look at occurrences that happened. There has to be an occurrence for us to have the mandate to investigate.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That said, do you not come up with recommendations when those instances do happen?

[Yoan Marier]

Sure.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

If something happens, like what just happened recently with one of the rail lines, when there was a problem in a remote area and passengers were stranded for a long time.... There are recommendations that came out of that, which would have dealt with those situations in remote areas.

[Yoan Marier]

Just to clarify, when the occurrence is reported to us, we deploy investigators to the site. These investigators will assess the occurrence and determine whether or not we'll do a full investigation of the occurrence. If we decide to do a full investigation, it can take a number of months before a report is produced, and then my colleagues on the board and I sit together and decide if the risk of the safety deficiencies in the report is high enough to warrant issuing recommendations.

Not every investigation will lead to a recommendation. There needs to be a high risk with insufficient defences. When we assess that recommendations are warranted, we'll issue the recommendations, and then the Minister of Transport has 90 days to respond.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Badawey.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor for six and a half minutes.

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

Oh, okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Marier, you mentioned that two of the recommendations you made after Lac-Mégantic were still being implemented.

Could you tell us what those two recommendations are?

[Yoan Marier]

The first is on safety management systems. Railway companies have long been required to have safety management systems. The problem we see in our investigations is that these systems are not always effective. A safety management system must not be limited to a set of volumes in a library, for example. We also need to set up internal processes within companies to encourage employees to report incidents without fear of being punished.

For these processes to be effective, a culture of safety must therefore be established. Currently, we see that companies have safety management systems, but they are not effective enough.

The second recommendation pertains to the use of physical safety guards to prevent uncontrolled movements.

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

Can you tell us more about that?

[Yoan Marier]

In fact, a set of safety guards needs to be put in place to prevent uncontrolled movements. There are administrative safety guards, such as rules, laws and procedures. There are also physical safety guards, such as electronic systems or mechanical devices that can prevent something from happening if an employee makes a mistake.

What we find in our investigations is that physical safety guards are often not present in the rail industry. People rely a lot on administrative safety guards. That is why we recommend a greater emphasis on physical safety guards.

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

I assume that physical safety guards include, for example, the famous handbrakes. We know that some of them were not activated just before the Lac-Mégantic accident. I think they are hydraulic brakes.

[Yoan Marier]

That is why we recommended putting automatic parking brakes on trains. I believe Transport Canada is looking at that recommendation. That would be an additional safety guard.

We could also consider installing wheel temperature detectors. These devices could detect, for example, that a bearing on a wheel is overheating. Such detectors are installed beside the tracks. They could warn operators about a possible railcar issue and thus avoid a derailment.