Transport Committee on Jan. 26th, 2023

[Martin R. Landry]

Thank you for the question.

VIA Rail also owns a more frequently used line between Coteau and Brockville. According to our statistics, on-time performance on VIA Rail’s network is well above 90%. In many cases, it goes over 95%.

When we share the tracks with freight transportation companies, our on-time performance falls below 50% during some months. In September, it even fell below 40%.

As a result, when it comes to our passenger trains, we can prove our ability to be on time within our own network, where we are the ones establishing priorities for the trains rolling down the tracks owned by VIA Rail.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much.

I rather agree with the idea of broadening public ownership of railway infrastructure.

As for the unfortunate event during the holidays, there were communication problems with passengers.

How frequently do you get information from CN? Does the contract between you and the company require them to inform you when such adverse events occur?

[Martin R. Landry]

If I may, I will ask my colleague, Mr. Brankley, to answer the question.

[Michael Brankley]

Thank you for the question, MP Boulerice.

During the night of the 23rd and into the 24th, I would say there was regular/constant communication by way of telephone and by way of text message between operational personnel attempting updates.

When we move forward into the events following the derailment, the timeline becomes a little different as CN assesses the derailment and assesses its ability to clear the track and its timeline. In that case, we're now in contact, I'll say, every couple of hours as the situation changes in the field.

Through that process, we continued to update our planned service. We didn't want to cancel service prematurely, but we wanted to ensure that we communicated with passengers before they left for the station or before they began travel that would take them to a Via Rail station.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brankley.

Thank you very much, Mr. Boulerice.

Next, we have Mrs. Kramp-Neuman.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the witnesses for being present.

I have a number of questions. I'm going to get right to them in the interest of time.

From a timeline perspective, and from correspondence and communications that I've read from passengers who were on the train, there were points in time when passengers felt like they were prisoners. That came from a 25-year-old passenger who was on the train.

The first question I'm going to pose is this. If there was an emergency, why did it take so long to contact local authorities?

[Martin R. Landry]

Michael, do you want to touch on this?

[Michael Brankley]

Thank you for the question, MP Kramp-Neuman.

Throughout the night of the 23rd and into the 24th, there was an operational disruption. We continued to have contingency plans to resolve the disruption.

I'll pause there and say that I'd like to apologize to the people on board our trains. I understand the experience they had. It is not an experience we ever wish to deliver at Via Rail.

During this operational disruption phase, we had passengers in a safe place with light, heat and access to washrooms. We couldn't access the train to evacuate them. It was only in the early morning when passengers, unfortunately, took it upon themselves to detrain from the train that the situation became unsafe for both those passengers and then the rail infrastructure.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

If you don't mind me interrupting, it was after 12 hours when a local authority.... The local emergency services were not aware of this until someone deboarded the train and contacted the authorities.

Was there anybody contacting the local authorities? Was it Via, or was it just the passengers who ended up connecting with local authorities?

[Michael Brankley]

Via Rail police were in contact with CN police. Based on the assessment of the conditions in the town of Cobourg, the term “code black” was referenced, which I'm not familiar with, but I understand it refers to a situation when emergency services will only respond to life-threatening emergencies.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Earlier in your testimony, Mr. Brankley, you mentioned that the train was not accessible, but just moments before that, Ms. Toporowski mentioned that you were less than a two-minute walk away from a residential area. I'm not sure if they correspond with each other or if they contradict each other.

If it's a stone's throw away from residential areas.... That's the concern that I have, because there were people who were diabetic and there were unsanitary bathrooms. There are a lot of concerns, and I'm grateful that you own them and that you're trying to acknowledge and remedy them, but from a perspective of....

From the federal ministry of transportation, is there a definition of what constitutes an emergency? Why was nobody contacted sooner?

[Michael Brankley]

Thank you for the question, MP Kramp-Neuman.

To refer back to the original portion, you mentioned houses within a stone's throw. There was a subdivision nearby where there was no hydro as well. We were on an embankment with a creek running below the embankment, and to get there you had to go through a forested area. Even in daylight, emergency services had to work to get into that location.

We did not see it as a safe environment to attempt to detrain passengers, when they did have light and heat, to an area that did not have light and heat.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Okay.

[Michael Brankley]

We could also not access the buses or any other transportation to move those unfortunate passengers somewhere else.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Okay.

Maybe you could help clarify this question for me. I understand that the train was struck by a tree. Can you speak to the damage from the hit, or can you comment on whether there's a federal regulation for a train to move a kilometre forward or back without a horn? I understand that the horn fell off. Is there a regulation that you can move forward or back a minimal amount if you do not have a horn?

[Michael Brankley]

Yes, we could have continued operating without a horn. The issue that kept us from moving that train was the fact that the tree came to rest on the train, with a significant portion of the trunk leaning against the train in the vicinity of the passenger windows. The assessment was that if we tried to move the train at that time without assistance from CN, the tree would intrude into the passenger compartment, break the windows, and open the car to the environment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Kramp-Neuman. Unfortunately, there's no time remaining.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Fair enough. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brankley.

Next we have Mr. Badawey.

Mr. Badawey, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to concentrate on the business—the business that you're in, the business that we're in and the business of government—and with that the priorities that we both share relative to this issue, which are protecting passenger rights on a daily basis and looking not only at what happened then but probably equally, if not more importantly, at how we're going to deal with this moving forward.

With that, I'm going to get a bit granular with respect to your backup or surge capacity. What backup or surge capacity does Via have when weather incidents disrupt your service schedule? What changes do you plan on making within that surge capacity?

[Michael Brankley]

Thank you for your question, MP Badawey.

This was during the Christmas season, of course, December 23 and 24, and December 23 was our heaviest travel day of the year. All of our available equipment was in service. Of course, this impacted the next day's service, because we didn't have additional equipment to move into the cycle until the CN derailment occurred, when we could no longer provide that service.

In a situation where we did not have all capacity in use, in a winter readiness we would try to stage guard trains. We did have guard equipment at facilities, but we weren't in a position to reach those locations with that equipment at that time.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

With that, I do want to emphasize the fact that it's unfortunate that CN isn't here, because they would be part of that surge capacity, as would CP, of course, or any other of those that are responsible for the infrastructure.

What's changed? What's changed in terms of where you're going from here with respect to equipment?

I also want to concentrate on the surge capacity with respect to your employees. Mr. Landry mentioned the employees earlier and the care for the employees as well as the passengers. With that, what's changed in terms of that surge capacity—yes from the capital side when it comes to the equipment and the infrastructure, but also with regard to the human element in terms of the surge capacity with your employees? What's the backup along with taking care of the passengers aboard your trains?

[Michael Brankley]

Thank you.

I'll take a brief moment to thank our employees, who worked tirelessly through this event to try to provide service and who ultimately achieved getting all the people who boarded trains on the 23rd to their destinations safely. We did position employees in strategic locations in order to provide backup and support. We did source crews, often travelling in their own vehicles, to trains to recrew and provide—

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Brankley. I've heard that before. What I'm getting at is this: What's changing now? How are you going to fix the challenges you had with respect to your surge capacity from both the capital side, vis-à-vis infrastructure, trains and equipment, and the human element moving forward? What's changed? How are you going to deal with this next time?

[Michael Brankley]

In terms of our capacity, we have a finite equipment capacity. We do have, as you may be aware, more equipment coming online. We have a buffer built into our staffing levels to react to situations such as this.

This did also occur over the Christmas holiday, when all of our personnel were at work and some were on vacation, which—