Transport Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

[Michel Béland]

Yes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Of course, we are familiar with the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, in which, as I said, 47 people died, 30 children were orphaned and 30 buildings were levelled.

Can you tell me one similar incident involving a pipeline that has occurred in the last 50 years?

[Michel Béland]

I'll have to ask my colleague. I can't answer that.

[Yoan Marier]

We investigate pipeline incidents and accidents. A number of these incidents are reported to us every year.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

What's the number of fatalities at a pipeline in the last 50 years?

[Vincenzo De Angelis]

There haven't been any.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

If you're serious about reducing these types of incidents and securing safety, does it not make sense...? You have a safety abatement strategy in front of you. They're called pipelines. Study that and maybe bring it to the attention of the minister.

Again, it was 47. That's how many people died. There have been zero deaths at pipelines.

[Yoan Marier]

I don't really know how to answer that question.

As I mentioned, we try not to compare the two. There are ways to transport dangerous goods by rail that can be—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

You can't provide us with any assurance that right now, the towns of Port Hope, Cobourg, Brighton and Newcastle are adequately equipped to respond to an incident involving dangerous goods on rail that are literally travelling through my riding right now.

Okay. I'm done.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence.

Next, we'll go to Ms. Koutrakis.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

What measures are in place to ensure that rail companies prioritize safety over cost-cutting? Do you know?

[Stephen Scott]

Thank you for the question.

Rail, from a safety and security perspective, is a highly regulated environment. There are multiple pieces of legislation with dozens of different regulations that layer upon railways' various expectations, requirements and obligations for safety and security. These range from track conditions to equipment, brakes and operating parameters and protocols.

As the regulator, our role is not to deliver for the railway companies on their regulatory obligations. We send inspectors to the field to make sure that they're meeting their obligations.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

How frequently are railways and their safety practices inspected? What are the consequences for non-compliance?

[Stephen Scott]

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we do about 40,000 inspections every year and 20 safety audits. That's in addition to what's done on the dangerous goods side.

Every day, Transport Canada inspectors are out, ensuring that railway companies are meeting their obligations. We take a graduated enforcement approach. If non-compliance or a deficiency is identified, there's a spectrum of actions that are available to us as a department. It can start with a warning letter or a notice and order, and then it can escalate to an administrative monetary penalty and all the way to the suspension of the safety licence, which a railway company needs to operate. That's an extreme scenario.

There's very much a spectrum of levers available to the department to take action if required.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

How often, Mr. Scott, do we have audits showing that railway companies are not meeting the expectations?

[Stephen Scott]

We've been doing safety management system audits since the early 2000s. We started doing effectiveness audits based on recommendations from this committee, the Transportation Safety Board and the Office of the Auditor General. We started that in April 2022. Since then, all of the audits we do have an effectiveness component. That's going deeper in the audits to look at not just what railway companies are doing at their corporate level in terms of safety protocols, but also how they're doing it and whether it's having an impact on their performance metrics for safety.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

How does your department incorporate lessons learned from past incidents into future policies and regulations?

[Stephen Scott]

We have a continuous cycle of policy and regulatory modernization, and it's risk-based. The trends we see on the ground through our on-site inspections and safety audits feed back into our regulatory agenda. That really helps to guide and inform the future actions and priorities we're pushing forward as the regulator.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I know you've probably answered this many times, but I can't stress enough how important it is to make sure that long-term strategies are being developed to address increasing volumes of dangerous goods transported by rail.

Can you advise this committee today on what is being done in that regard?

[Stephen Scott]

As I said earlier, a lot of progress has been made on the regulatory framework and our oversight posture, but we know there's more work to do. We are moving forward with an update to the railway safety management system regulations in order to solidify and codify the effectiveness approach into regulation.

We're also moving forward with enhanced train control, which will address the risks around signals that colleagues from the Transportation Safety Board spoke about. We're advancing some of the technological pieces, such as the piece around automatic parking brakes. It is a TSB recommendation to move forward with automatic parking brakes. It's still in the prototype stage for freight railway. We're doing research now with the National Research Council and other partners to help push and nudge that technology forward. That's ongoing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Koutrakis.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Béland or anyone who wants to answer. In 2016, Transport Canada issued Protective Direction No. 36 ordering railway companies to share with communities and first responders the list of the top 10 dangerous goods they carry through their area. Why is it limited to just 10 goods? Does that mean that communities do not have all the information about what is moving through their area?

[Michel Béland]

No. I imagine that communities are informed of everything that goes through their area. However, at the time the decision was made, it was for the top 10 dangerous goods.

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

Is there any other regulation or any other way of knowing what is being transported that is not on that list? Is that information shared with communities?

[Michel Béland]

Railway companies are required to provide reports on the volume and nature of dangerous goods. That report is issued every three months.