Evidence of meeting #144 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 plans.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
You want to now go with Hamilton-Niagara, and it would [Technical difficulty—Editor] Niagara-Hamilton.
NDP
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Do we have unanimous consent, colleagues?
(Amendment agreed to)
(Motion as amended agreed to)
Thank you, colleagues.
Colleagues, now that we have dispensed with Mr. Bachrach's motion, I have some housekeeping.
I'd like to formally ask for support for the budget for tomorrow's meeting with the CEOs.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you.
Now we can get to the business at hand with our witnesses.
What we will do first is turn the floor over to you, Chief, for your opening remarks. You have five minutes, sir.
Chris Case Fire Chief, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon.
My name is Chief Chris Case. I'm the fire chief for Chatham-Kent, Ontario, and the co-chair of the dangerous goods committee for the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, the national association representing the country's 3,200 fire departments.
I'm joined by the CAFC's executive director, Dr. Tina Saryeddine. We appreciate the invitation to discuss the transportation of dangerous goods by rail.
Last year, on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, the association, in collaboration with Transport Canada, ran a summary of the status of the recommendations made after Canada's largest rail tragedy. We have provided the clerk with a copy of our article.
I will highlight some of the actions taken, and then I'll discuss some of the remaining vulnerabilities, as well as our recommendations for a national fire administration and the renewal of emergency preparedness equipment.
Before I begin, however, the CAFC would like to express continued solidarity with the people of Lac-Mégantic—the deceased and the 1,000 firefighters who came to assist—and every community that has ever experienced a tragedy of such proportions. They are not forgotten, and they inspire us to do better.
In this regard, after Lac-Mégantic, the Transportation Safety Board made five recommendations. As of 2023, three have been met and two remain in progress. These relate to regulatory oversight and safety management.
The government banned one-person crews on trains hauling hazardous cargo and set new standards to make tank cars carrying flammable liquids sturdier. It established stricter accident liability rules. It imposed lower speed limits in rural and urban areas and gave Transport Canada stronger enforcement powers.
The CAFC was involved in developing the Canadian emergency response to flammable liquid incidents in transportation training program, which is freely available. Rail companies have developed products like AskRail, which are important to first responders.
Transport Canada boosted the number of rail safety inspectors to 155 in 2022, from 107 in 2013. It also quadrupled the tally of inspectors of dangerous goods to 188 from 30. It introduced directive 36 to ensure that the authorities with jurisdiction have access to information about dangerous goods passing through their communities.
CANUTEC also does important work, and we commend it.
The lessons of Lac-Mégantic have not gone unactioned. However, it's one thing to assess the issues of the past and another to be proactive for the future. As the TSB correctly concluded, the tragedy at Lac-Mégantic was the result not of one person, one issue or one organization, but of their confluence. Today, we face the confluence of many new challenges.
Last week, close to 50 of my fire chief colleagues were here in Ottawa. They didn't come to talk about rail safety necessarily, but they could have. They talked about fire and life safety issues in building codes, explosives, wildfires, climate change, electric vehicles and rapid housing construction as examples of why Canada needs a national fire administration. Not only is each of these issues rife with risk, but their convergence could be a disaster of tragic proportions in the blind spot of policy-makers.
The transportation of dangerous goods by rail is no exception. Can another rail tragedy involving dangerous goods happen today, and how can we prevent it? We need both national coordination and local capacity building.
Consider that in my region of Chatham-Kent, the nearest haz-mat team is 90 minutes away, in Windsor. Emergency response plans may be in place, but I have yet to see one. In other cities and towns—up to 56% of them—equipment needs to be updated. This is why we are asking the federal government to restimulate investment in fire and emergency equipment through a cost-matching program with other levels of government. It is not the federal government's job to buy our equipment, but it is its job to keep Canada thriving and prepared.
At the national level, new risks need to be coordinated to avert the disasters of tomorrow. They can't be studied in silos by committees or departments. They can't be solely in Ottawa or in isolation. They need a holistic, national and systematic approach to and oversight of fire and life safety issues in coordination with fire service experts.
This is what a national fire administration could provide you. This is what other countries do. It's what's needed here, and it's not about jurisdiction or money. It's about linking subject matter expertise with policy coordination proactively, not in retrospect. This is our most important recommendation to you.
Thank you for considering this; thank you for your time, and thank you for your attention.
We look forward to your questions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Chief Case.
We'll now go to Mr. Masterson, who's joining us by video conference.
Mr. Masterson, the floor is yours. You have five minutes, sir.
Bob Masterson President and Chief Executive Officer, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
Thank you, Chair. It's a pleasure to be with the committee today on behalf of CIAC.
Our chemistry and plastics industry is your third-largest manufacturing sector in Canada and the second-largest rail shipper. About 80% of all that we make in Canada is shipped by rail, and we take our responsibilities for the safe production, safe handling and safe transportation of our products very seriously.
What I want to share with you is that we don't just meet regulatory requirements; we go well beyond those. We can talk about some of our responses to some of the questions you had earlier, as you see fit.
Forty years ago this month, in fact, and in response to the Mississauga train derailment and other incidents, our association founded the Responsible Care initiative, not only to improve our safety performance, but, most importantly, to improve trust with the communities we operate in and the communities we move our products through. Today, participation in Responsible Care is a condition of membership in our association. There are many commitments to transportation safety in Responsible Care, and those are audited within our member companies every three years. That includes transportation emergency management.
Let me just share two aspects of Responsible Care that relate most closely to the transportation of dangerous goods.
First, very clearly, we are committed to the public right to know and understand the risks and benefits of the products that travel through their communities, whether it's by rail, road, ship or pipeline. In partnership with the Railway Association of Canada, we operate TRANSCAER, the transportation community awareness emergency response initiative. TRANSCAER members work with municipal officials, emergency responders—whether they're staff or volunteers—and residents along the transportation routes. We work to assist them in developing and evaluating their own community emergency response plans.
A highlight or a drawing card, if you will, of these outreach sessions and education sessions that we try to do is our safety train. This is a converted rail car that's a classroom on wheels. It travels across Canada from spring through fall, to a wide number of communities, to act as a focal point to bring the shippers, the railways, the emergency response contractors, the first responders and elected officials together to build relationships and talk about these goods and how to manage them safely. It provides hands-on training to first responders and the community; it raises awareness of the products going through and the risks, and it supports the first responders in being prepared to respond to emergencies involving our members' goods.
Most importantly, though, and we hear this all the time, is that the main benefit of TRANSCAER is building trust and relationships between the first responders in the communities and the industry, whether that's the shippers, the railways or the emergency contractors, so that when those people do arrive on site, everybody knows what everybody's job is. They're trusted, and they know that the information they're being provided with is appropriate and accurate.
In recent years, as was just discussed by the chief, a lot of attention has been focused on the movement of dangerous goods. There have been a lot of changes to the regulatory environment, and we've been very pleased to see many other organizations join us and the Railway Association of Canada in these TRANSCAER outreach efforts, committing themselves to engagement and training with first responders. That includes groups like Emergency Response Assistance Canada, or ERAC, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, the Canadian Emergency Response Contractors' Alliance, the Canadian Fuels Association, Responsible Distribution Canada and others.
Second, our members are obligated to ensure—and this comes up a bit in the questions you were asking—that they use only certified professionals with adequately trained personnel who have the equipment and training to handle the specific commodities that our members are shipping.
One member of emergency response personnel is not the same as another. What is their training? How well equipped are they? Do they have the right equipment to respond to the emergencies involving our members' products?
This is done through another initiative, called the transportation emergency assistance program, or TEAP. We're actually on TEAP version three, and we refer to it as TEAP III. Through TEAP and our partners, we've established and we maintain a national emergency response network that's capable of safely and efficiently mitigating the impacts of a chemical transportation incident anywhere in the country. There are standards that must be met and regularly reconfirmed. These are registered emergency response contractors. There's a registration process to ensure that those people are adequately and appropriately trained to respond to these emergencies.
We do work with many others, including the Railway Association, the two class 1 railways and others on that process.
I'm very proud of the work we do on transportation safety. Our members experience far fewer and far less severe incidents than in the past. Nevertheless, transportation safety, including and especially that of dangerous goods, requires constant vigilance and a constant commitment to continual improvement. We definitely commend this committee and its attention to this activity.
Probably there's nowhere in public policy in Canada where we have seen more change and more reform than in the transportation of dangerous goods over the last 10 to 12 years, and that's okay. That's appropriate. The spirit with which Transport Canada, the Government of Canada and all the stakeholders come together to advance that is probably not seen in any other area of public policy that we work with. Even participating in this discussion and seeing how you interact as a committee is quite unique, so never forget that all the stakeholders involved are committed to this.
The voluntary work we do through responsible care is not a substitute for regulation. You will never hear us say that. It is a demonstration that a committed industry can establish and demand performance standards well beyond regulation that meet Canadians' expectations for our industry.
Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to your questions, especially related to the many improvements in rail safety and those around improvements to community awareness in this area.
Thank you very much for the time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Masterson.
As we are discussing transport by rail, I have my own rail signals here. I forgot to point out at the beginning of the meeting that yellow is for 30 seconds left. Red means don't force me to cut you off. I don't want to do it, but I will have to in order to keep us on time.
Thank you very much, Mr. Masterson.
We’ll now go to Mayor Yves Lessard.
Mr. Mayor, you have the floor for five minutes.
Yves Lessard Mayor, Ville de Saint-Basile-le-Grand
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I'd like to thank and congratulate members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities for beginning this consultation. I also realize that having heard Messrs. Masterson and Case allows me to put myself in the middle, since one manufactures hazardous products, while the other intervenes when incidents or accidents occur.
I'll address three points: the safety of our community, emergency preparedness and the importance of paying particular attention to rural communities. However, I would first like to provide some context.
Saint-Basile-le-Grand is a semi-urban city with a population of 17,500, where 78% of the land is agricultural and protected. Every day, several trains carrying goods pass through the heart of our town and our entire territory without stopping. More than 500 cities and towns in Quebec experience the same situation.
The main sources of danger in our region are a lack of preventive information on dangerous goods transported by rail, as well fear of a train derailment in an urban area. I think you have the list, but some of the dangers facing our municipality are the speed of freight trains passing through; the number of cars per train; signal errors, such as gates lowered without the presence of a train; trains stopped on the railway track, dividing the city in half; and the transfer of hazardous materials unknown to the municipality, which is responsible for responding to an accident or incident.
In the last two or three years, things have gotten worse. There's now more vibration caused by the trains, day and night. There's also the noise caused by rattling, which is extremely disturbing. Even in winter, when the windows are closed, that noise is noticeable.
Today, there are often more than 200 cars per convoy, without our knowing about the hazardous materials they carry, while towns are responsible for taking emergency action when rail activity causes an accident caused on their territory.
In addition to potential long-term damage to the foundations and structures of houses and public buildings, Saint‑Basile‑le‑Grand's territory is literally divided by railroads. The passage of a long train can quickly create compartmentalization and considerably increase vehicular congestion, completely blocking the way in and out of the southern part of the city in the event of a medical emergency or fire. So it becomes impossible to get out of the city.
We also fear a worst-case scenario: a derailment exposing our populations to toxic or flammable materials. The presence of a railway in the heart of a city like Saint-Basile-le-Grand creates considerable problems, both in terms of the safety and well-being of citizens, as well as the fluidity of car and pedestrian traffic.
In recent years, there has been a consensus on the need for railways to try to eliminate hazards at their source. That's what the Union des municipalités du Québec wants. We must admit that it's not easy, but there surely are solutions. To do that, we must now acknowledge the reality we face every day and that we have to adapt to: rail is the best means of mass transportation for people. Public transit is also one of the best ways to combat greenhouse gas emissions.
Furthermore, there's an incompatibility between passenger trains and freight trains. To answer your main question, I'd also say that we must necessarily consider exclusive rail lines in certain locations for each use, which is to say for the transportation of goods and people.
In conclusion, there's no longer any obligation for freight trains to pass through cities. There was a time when agricultural trade made it necessary to stop trains in almost every municipality. Those days are now gone. Why not broaden the range of possibilities that could make the transportation of goods safer and thereby eliminate dangers at the source? We'll be able to make suggestions in response to your questions.
Thank you for your attention.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.
We'll begin today with Mr. Muys.
Mr. Muys, the floor is yours. You have six minutes, please.
December 12th, 2024 / 4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Muys Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses who have taken the time to be here.
I'll start with my questions for Mr. Masterson.
Back some years ago, in my private sector life before politics, I worked at a company that was actually part of Responsible Care, so I have some familiarity with that. Of course, like all industries and industry organizations, there are multiple acronyms, so you've enlightened us on a few new ones today.
Maybe you can talk a little more about TRANSCAER. When you started that, what were the goals? Did you benchmark where things were in 1985 and where you were headed?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
It's tough to think back to then; it has been a long time. What I can talk more about is where we are and where we're going.
What's the goal? The goal of Responsible Care writ large was to build trust. There's that expression, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” We want to be able to demonstrate to the communities we operate in and the communities we move our products through that we do care, that we know what the right thing to do is, that we want input on that and that we can do it. Again, that includes with transportation.
There's no question that communities are under-resourced. It's not always a top-of-mind priority with all the pressures on communities. We have a duty to help them be as prepared as they can.
One of the things that's been most interesting in recent years is the amount of increased attention being paid specifically to communities that rely on volunteer first responders. One of the newest things we've done—Responsible Care is very evolutionary, and TRANSCAER is as well—in recent years, with the assistance of the Government of Canada, is integrate a virtual reality approach into TRANSCAER. You can put on these goggles, do the walk-through and go through all the training modules as if you were physically with this train car.
In most instances where we have a TRANSCAER event in a larger community—maybe it's Sarnia; maybe it's London, Ontario; or maybe it's Medicine Hat, Alberta—you're talking about bringing the first responders together for two or three days. They'll do simulated rollovers. They'll talk to the shippers and the railways. There's a lot of activity taking place, and someone who's got a full-time job and is a volunteer firefighter can't dedicate that time.
We're trying to be responsive to the realities of today's world and make sure those communities are also getting served by these programs. That would be one example.
Conservative
Dan Muys Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Are there some metrics or numbers you could point to in terms of the success of the program, just so we can quantify—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
I can certainly get the numbers in terms of how many communities we serve and how many first responders would participate in a year. Those would have to come after this meeting.
Conservative
Dan Muys Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
If you could table that with the committee, that would be instructive.
In terms of an industry-led initiative and a proactive initiative—I know that, of course, with the alliance with the Railway Association, this, of course, is North American—are there other jurisdictions in the world that have good examples we should be looking to of how they manage dangerous goods on the rails?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
There's really no comparison to the U.S. and Canada in terms of the reliance on the economy of rail and how much it's integrated. Certainly in Europe, you have more movement by barge, etc. It's there that we need to focus, and it's also the integrated nature of our economy and the integrated nature of the rail system to make sure that what we're doing in Canada doesn't create a sticky border for the movement of goods, because that's not in anybody's interest. We can align, and we can drive improvements in areas that are unique to Canada.
Nothing in particular comes to mind, but I would say, again, Canada is a leader. The range of reforms the fire chief talked about after Lac-Mégantic and the commitment by governments—all governments—and by all stakeholders in the transportation value chain to prevent that from ever happening again are very serious.
We have taken the best of what's coming out of the United States in terms of new tank car standards and other things. Look at ERAPs as one example—and we can talk more about those. One of the key calls for action for the United States after the East Palestine incident was why they don't have ERAPs like Canada does.
There are some good things up here. The work is, “And what's next?” and not, “We don't have anything; it's not functioning, and it's not good.” It's, “Where are we, and where's the best place we can make more improvements with best efforts going forward?”
Conservative
Dan Muys Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you. That's helpful.
In the remaining time—and I'll probably have to pick it up in the next round—I want to ask a question to Chief Case. You talked about a national fire administration. Is that like FEMA? Is that what you're envisioning, or what is the comparison?
Dr. Tina Saryeddine Executive Director, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs
FEMA is a much larger infrastructure. What the fire chiefs are proposing is something that's turnkey, that's accessible and that can be done rapidly. It's about linking and coordinating fire service expertise with federal policy priorities. For example, if we're introducing rapid new housing, we're doing so without having fire and life safety issues in a blind spot. The fire administration in the United States is the nucleus. It's inside of FEMA. What we're seeing here is that we need a similar coordination body.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Muys.
Next we go to Mr. Iacono.
Mr. Iacono, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My questions are going to be addressed to Mr. Case and Mr. Masterson, if you can give me short answers.
Many communities in Canada are crossed by rail lines carrying goods of all kinds, including dangerous goods. In 2023, 1,235 rail transportation events, including 914 accidents, were reported to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Of these, 87 accidents involved dangerous goods, and six resulted in a product release.
After Lac-Mégantic, are communities today that are crossed by rail lines aware of the types of goods transported, and, if so, are they informed before or after trains pass through?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada
First, yes. One key measure, after Lac-Mégantic, was so-called “protective directive 36”. The railways must provide the registered municipalities with information on the dangerous goods that go through those communities, and they must do that twice annually.
Do they know that for every shipment? No, not necessarily beforehand, but I'm coming back to that—the chief also mentioned this earlier—and that's the first piece. Every community has the ability to look at that list and see what's going through. How that community wishes to communicate that information to its own citizens is at their discretion.
The second thing the chief mentioned, a very important piece, is the AskRail initiative, if you will. A first responder—or anybody, really, who's registered—can go on, and if you see a tank car—when the mayor talked about, “Hey, there are tank cars on an intersection, and I don't know what's in them”—you simply put the number of that car in, and it will tell you what's in that car at that time, so that information's available.
Again, the other initiative, which is more after the fact, is the CANUTEC information. When you have an incident, you can get instantaneous results 24-7 from the CANUTEC initiative.
First responders, especially those with the competencies and people.... When we talk about ERAPs, remember, these get tested, if you will, on an ongoing basis. That's part of the requirement. Typically, a company, whoever owns the ERAP—it'll be the shipper or the rail company, or it could be a trucking company as well—and the emergency contractors and first responders on the routes for that product are going to sit down every year and refresh their knowledge of that chemistry, that substance, what's going through and how they have to respond to incidents.
There's a range of things, but those are key aspects of that information.
