Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 52 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, February 3, 2022, the committee is meeting to discuss the Air Passenger Protection Regulations.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House Order of Thursday, June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Colleagues, appearing before us today by video conference for the last meeting on our air passenger rights study are, from the Canadian National Railway Company, Monsieur Olivier Chouc, senior vice-president and chief legal officer; Monsieur Martin Guimond, vice-president, transportation, eastern region; and Mr. Hoang Tran, director, passenger services.

Thank you all for joining us today.

We will begin with opening remarks.

I will turn it over to you. You have five minutes.

[Olivier Chouc, Senior Vice-President and Chief Legal Officer, Canadian National Railway Company]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee for inviting us.

As you mentioned, with me today are Martin Guimond, vice president of Operations for CN's Eastern Region, and Hoang Tran, director of Passenger Services at CN.

Before I go into details about the events of December 23 and 24 and the extraordinary circumstances under which they occurred, I would like to say that we at CN are deeply sorry for the impact that the derailment had on the travel plans of many Canadians during the holidays.

CN has dealt with the challenges of Canadian winters every year for more than 100 years. We invest annually in our network to build resilience, to keep our operations running, and to be able to resume operations following disruptions. We regularly adjust our practices to reflect the experience we have acquired, the major investments we make in our infrastructure, the increased training we provide to our employees, and the operational changes we have made. A fluid, resilient network benefits all our partners, including VIA Rail.

By being prepared and investing across our network, we are better positioned to deal with the harsh Canadian winters.

However, the winter storm that struck in late December was in a different category altogether. Much of Ontario's transport infrastructure was affected. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians were without power for several days. Ontario Provincial Police closed a number of major roads, including highways 401 and 402. Some regions in Ontario even declared a state of emergency.

The extreme weather not only caused the events we are looking at today, but also hampered the efforts of the teams tasked with restoring train operations.

The first incident occurred on Friday, December 23, around 10:30 p.m., when VIA train 55 hit a tree that had fallen on the track near Coburg, Ontario. CN dispatched a crew to clear the tree. However, the disposition of the tree and the weather conditions made it unsafe to proceed.

So, CN and VIA Rail dispatched a VIA Rail train to tow the damaged train. This was the preferred course of action because it meant that we would not have to move passengers in the middle of a blizzard. Unfortunately, that option was also abandoned due to concerns for passenger safety.

As the VIA crew was nearing their hours-of-service limits, the VIA Rail train dispatched to train 55 was sent to Toronto, and another train was dispatched to the site of the incident. Around 10:50 a.m. on December 24, passengers and their luggage were moved to a new train and brought back to Oshawa.

At 10:40 a.m. on December 24, the second event that impacted rail service occurred. A derailment near Grafton, Ontario, completely shut down CN's corridor for three days. Train Q122 was in the process of “getting out of the way” for the rescue efforts to VIA Rail train 55 when it collided with train M305, which was parked on another track.

As we explained in the brief submitted to the committee on January 23, the operation was complicated by issues such as limited access to the derailment site, road closures, high winds, limited visibility, and the location of the cars and locomotive. We should also keep in mind that one of the cars involved in the derailment contained dangerous goods. While no dangerous goods were released, these conditions required a number of precautions.

We dispatched all available crews to clear the track so trains could go through, and our railroaders worked tirelessly despite the bad weather.

I would also like to thank local authorities and community members for their support.

Safety is a core value at CN, and we learn from every incident. After reviewing the incident with VIA, we have identified opportunities to improve our communication protocols, and we have followed through with concrete measures.

We pride ourselves on being particularly focused on serving our customers. VIA Rail is no exception. We understand the role we play in moving the Canadian economy, and we are just as keenly aware of the role we play in moving Canadians.

To conclude, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to brief the committee.

We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chouc.

We'll begin our line of questioning today with Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Strahl, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much.

It's good to have you here today. I think the Chair made it clear in one of our emergency meetings that we had hoped to have CN here earlier, when Via was here to talk about the incident. We're glad, even though it's a bit delayed, to have you here today.

I recognize the work that your crews do. I certainly saw that first-hand when we had our devastating floods and mudslides wash out the CN track. The professionalism and hard work of your crews to get that service back up and running in record time were certainly noted and valued by the community. Knowing that it was possible made it difficult to understand—you've given some context here—the reasons there wasn't access to the stranded train.

Obviously, if you have problems on both sides of the incident, there are going to be delays. I did ask Via this question. I'm going to ask it to you as well. When a train hits an object on the track, there's the risk that it could have been much more serious than it was, I think. The train did not derail. There wasn't a breach of passenger carriages, etc. After the delays in getting to the passengers and providing any additional services to them, my concern is what would have happened had the situation been worse. What would have happened had there been a significant derailment or the carriages had been breached?

You said that crews were able to get to the scene relatively quickly and were then unable provide any additional assistance. Would your protocols have been different? Would there have been more that you could have done if you had deemed the incident to be more serious than it was?

[Olivier Chouc]

I'll hand this question over in a second to my colleague Martin Guimond for a comment from an operational perspective.

There's no doubt that every situation is assessed on its own merit. We put priority on the safety of the passengers in this case and on our crews as well. That's a first priority. As the situation is assessed to be more or less severe, the response will be adjusted accordingly.

My colleague Martin Guimond could provide you with more context and colour on this.

[Martin Guimond, Vice-President, Transportation, Eastern Region, Canadian National Railway Company]

Every incident is a bit different. For this one, we needed an understanding of what really caused it and the type of situation we were working in. When our crew arrives at a derailment situation or any other situation that may impact our network and the fluidity of our network, the first thing is deciding how can we handle that in a safe manner.

In this case, because of the situation, the tree that hit the Via train was deemed not safe. Therefore, in collaboration and discussion with the RTC, which is our regional rail traffic control, it was decided to look at other means to rescue the people and to act differently in this situation. We wanted to protect the safety of our employees and of all of the passengers who were on the Via train.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Obviously, you take rail safety very seriously. There are strict protocols in place for who can access a rail line and when. Obviously, you have your own police force to ensure that occurs.

When an incident like this happens, what are the protocols in place? Is there an agreement to immediately relax them to allow local emergency services to access a train, for instance, this one? Does that require a bureaucratic chain of command decision? Are there protocols in place that kick in as soon as an emergency is declared or an incident like this happens that would allow, for instance, the Cobourg fire department to access that train to provide services to passengers without back-and-forth with CN, or is it still part of the protocol that there has to be a checkdown agreement from the CN police or CN in some way to provide those services?

[Olivier Chouc]

Again, Martin can comment, but I think the key is always safety.

Everybody is notified. We have a very strict protocol in terms of how we respond to these types of incidents and who we communicate with, including local first responders, which we did in this case as well.

The key, though, is that this is a live operation. It has certain risks, and we want to make sure that the protocol is well followed to optimize and make sure that we always protect the safety of the passengers and our crews.

Martin, maybe you have, again, more context to offer.

[Martin Guimond]

I think Olivier summarized really well the protocol that we have.

In terms of response time, though, it's the same. As soon as we have an incident, our team is deployed to reach the site. Once we're deployed, there is an assessment of the situation made. Based on that assessment and the situation that we have, we elaborate the next phases of the plan.

In a case like the derailment we had, because of the weather, because of the difficulty accessing the site and because it involved a passenger train, some protocols were decided to ensure the safety of the people. It was also decided that the passenger train would be a priority.

Depending—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Guimond.

Next we have Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses appearing today. Welcome to the transport committee.

First of all, this storm played a major part, obviously, and a combination of factors led to this challenging time for Via Rail, CN and others. There was an advance warning and forecast.

Knowing that, what steps did CN take to prepare for potential consequences that might result from this incoming weather?

[Olivier Chouc]

We have, as I said, very strict protocols. We have winter protocols as well. We have a very rigorous response structure, if you like, and we prepare. We deal with winter every year, and we prepare for winter every year.

This was an extraordinary situation. I think you heard Via's CEO a couple of weeks ago testify that this was a once-in-a-25-year event for Via. These come with their unique challenges, but we're equipped to respond to them. It will impact the timeliness of our response because, if you look at the conditions of the road and the time it took to bring the equipment under those conditions, the lack of visibility forced us to take extraordinary precautions to make sure that we protected the safety of everyone.

We are prepared, and we have robust protocols to respond to these situations.

Martin, again, do you want to add anything?

[Martin Guimond]

Yes, thank you, Olivier.

In terms of preparation, when we know the specifics or that a storm will arrive, there is planning, and it's all done knowing in which department who is on duty and who is going to cover.

We also have a regular patrol that goes on our track to inspect the condition of our rail, the condition of trees or anything that might evolve during a storm and anything that impacts us or impacts the fluidity of the network.

We have people on duty on site who patrol the corridors and report if they see anything. They try to be proactive as well in preparation for any snowstorm.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I'm assuming, of course, that being proactive means that currently, following this difficult period, CN would be undergoing a review of emergency procedures. Have you done that in preparation, just in case this thing ever happens again?

[Olivier Chouc]

Yes. You're absolutely right. We do review every incident after the fact to try to see what lessons we can learn and what improvements we can make to operations and response.

In this case, our chief operating officer and Mr. Tran met with Via's CEO and their chief operating officer a few weeks ago to discuss this, do a post-mortem and assess what could be done differently. We've already identified some opportunities from a communication standpoint to have a better communication protocol.

We've also agreed to provide Via with access to some of our systems so that as events unfold, they can get a better sense of what's going on on the ground, which will help them manage, hopefully, their own communications at their end.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

How long was it before CN became aware of disruptions to its rail network that would affect Via passenger trains?

[Olivier Chouc]

Go ahead, Martin.

[Martin Guimond]

Normally, within 30 minutes we are all aware. In this case, within 30 minutes we even deployed some of our engineering team to go on site. However, because of the weather in this case, and the impact of this type of snowstorm with all the road closures, it took us a little bit longer to arrive on site.

Within 30 minutes, the team was deployed to try to get access to the site. Within the next hours, they were on site trying to assess the derailment and the impact on the network we had in this case.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

How long an interval was there between when the problem was identified and when Via was informed? How was Transport Canada informed?

[Olivier Chouc]

I can speak to the Transport Canada piece, and then maybe Martin or Mr. Tran can speak to the notification of Via.

We were in communication with the minister's office basically minutes after we became aware of the situation. We stayed in contact with the minister's office throughout the process, from the 24th all the way to the 27th.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Is there an established protocol for how...or the kind of information that's provided to Via or Transport Canada?

[Olivier Chouc]

Maybe Mr. Tran can speak to the Via piece.

[Hoang Tran, Director, Passenger Services, Canadian National Railway Company]

Thank you, Olivier.

There is a protocol whereby we communicate with Via. Our operations centres are tied at the hip, if you will. As soon as there is anything that may impact their trains, we give them as much forewarning as possible so that they can advise their customers and let them know what is going on with the infrastructure.

The success of their service, and the success of our service to them, is the exchange of this information in a timely fashion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Tran.

I'll now give the floor to Mr. Barsalou‑Duval for six minutes.

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

I'd like to thank Mr. Guimond, Mr. Tran and Mr. Chouc for being with us today. We appreciate it.

We had a meeting in January to analyze the events. Unfortunately, CN didn't participate, and I have to say, I was greatly disappointed. This is your opportunity to explain why you didn't attend that meeting.