Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2023

[Olivier Chouc]

I'd be happy to do that. Thank you for your question.

The invitation we received coincided with the date of our board meeting and the release of our annual financial results. These are dates that are set well in advance. At that time, it wasn't possible, but we immediately offered to work with the committee to find new dates.

I also want to point out that even before we were invited to appear, we had provided the committee with our summary of important facts in order to inform its work.

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

Thank you very much.

During their testimony, VIA Rail representatives told us that communication between CN and VIA Rail has been difficult at times. I understand that you don't have to coordinate every day during storms like this one.

Have any lessons been learned on both sides? From your side, do you think that things need to be improved for the future?

[Olivier Chouc]

Thank you.

Yes, absolutely. Some of the difficulties that arose were definitely related to the somewhat extraordinary nature of this storm. There's always a difficult balance between wanting to communicate very quickly with VIA Rail to allow them to manage the expectations of their passengers and the need for us to do so at a time when we have enough facts to not create expectations that VIA Rail would not be able to meet.

So we adapted to the situation. We contacted VIA Rail quickly. Then we had to adjust our communication or expectations based on the conditions on the ground.

That being said, there are certainly opportunities to improve communications. We have had discussions with VIA Rail, including about the idea of centralizing communications somewhat, both at home and at home, to ensure that we have a point of contact that is quickly accessible and that we can communicate a clear message. That's something we’re working on with VIA Rail.

We also thought about the possibility of giving them access to our systems so that they could see what's going on in the network in real time and manage, on their end, the expectations of their passengers.

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

Thank you for your answer.

I have another question, still about the events that occurred.

There is communication between CN and VIA Rail, and you sent a statement to the committee, but it seems to me that there's been relatively little public communication from CN. Why is that? Is it an internal strategy? Did you need to coordinate?

I imagine there were journalists who would have liked to have had information, as did the public, who were wondering what was going on.

[Olivier Chouc]

Thank you. That's a very good question.

My colleague Mr. Tran could comment on that, but generally speaking, in these cases, there is the whole issue of the relationship with VIA Rail's passengers, and we try not to step on their toes. As far as we are concerned, though, you're right. We communicated what we could communicate, but the situation was changing a lot. Again, there was a risk of communicating information that might be inaccurate, because the situation was constantly changing.

That's certainly a reasonable comment and something we could consider on our side.

Do you want to add anything, Mr. Tran?

[Hoang Tran]

Thank you, Mr. Chouc. Yes, I'd like to add a little something.

With respect to the infrastructure we own, we issued fairly regular updates on the status of things, including the progress we were making and when the tracks would be reopened. On CN's side, we took the necessary steps. However, to reiterate what Mr. Chouc said, VIA Rail has primary responsibility for communications related to VIA Rail's passengers and services.

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

Thank you.

A tree had fallen on the track. There were other problems, but I think that's the one that's being talked about the most and that caused the most delays.

When was the last time you inspected that section of track?

[Olivier Chouc]

Would you like to answer, Mr. Guimond?

[Martin Guimond]

Thank you, Mr. Chouc.

I don't have the details of that information, but I can tell you that the inspection of our tracks is done according to a well-established protocol. Visual inspections are done by our employees, but we also use some form of technology to increase the number of inspections we do when trains are travelling on those tracks.

However, I don't have in my possession the exact information of the last inspection done on this section of track. That said, I will be able to provide it to you.

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

I could add—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Unfortunately, there's no time left.

Thank you very much, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Next we have Mr. Bachrach.

The floor is yours. You have six minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the gentleman from CN for being with us today to answer our questions about what occurred over the holiday period, which were pretty troubling events that left a lot of passengers in a very difficult situation.

I'm a little bit surprised by some of the comments, especially around the severity of conditions. This is similar to what we heard from the airports at one of our previous meetings, which is that they didn't have contingency plans for the meteorological conditions they experienced. In this case, it was the rate of snowfall.

In the case of this incident, you mentioned that you figure it was a once-in-25-year event, which to me doesn't seem like a terribly improbable occurrence. I'm curious what the specific conditions were that made it so extraordinary and challenging.

You run trains in all sorts of weather conditions. I'm from northern British Columbia. I know CN operates trains in cold weather, in lots of precipitation and in all sorts of other conditions.

What was the confluence of events that made this particularly challenging?

[Olivier Chouc]

Thank you.

Martin, do you want to take this?

[Martin Guimond]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

We already spoke about the weather. What makes it difficult for us when there's an incident like this is that we need to access the site. As we know, some of the roads and major highways in Ontario, like some of the 400 series, were closed at some point.

On top of accessing the location of the derailment, the location of the derailment itself was extremely difficult. The derailment occurred really close to a creek with a narrow passage from a bridge to access the derailment site.

We have to remember that this derailment involved two trains. The cars of 122 came in contact with the locomotive of train 305. Both tracks at the time had cars and locomotives derail. Normally, when we access a site, to be able to remove a derailment really quickly we use all the space we have. In this case, we were working in a really restricted area.

As an example, we also use contractors to support us, not only people from CN. Normally we can use the contractors and the heavy equipment they have and position it at the site, so we can start working in parallel. Because of the location of that derailment, we were forced to bring one piece of heavy equipment at a time to do its portion of the work, then remove it and bring another one. We could not even use our track as a space because another train was derailed on it.

It was the location of it, the fact that dangerous goods were involved, and the fact that we were in proximity to a creek and had a really narrow space to access the point of the derailment that made it much more complicated. Of course, there was the weather, as we spoke about earlier. When you put all of that together, the effects compounded.

I just want to point out, though, that once inside, our people worked 24 hours non-stop. It's wasn't only the people of CN, but also our contractors, who did a great job supporting us. We worked 24 hours non-stop to re-establish the network as fast as we could in this situation.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

What were the dangerous goods on board that train?

[Martin Guimond]

The dangerous goods were on what we call the “intermodal” train, in containers. The name of the product is pyridine. It's a type of liquid similar to fuel and diesel.

What's important to note is that at CN we have what we call our dangerous group. Our employees, our officers working in that area, are specifically trained in those types of situations. They were, of course, deployed onsite during the derailment. They also work with the local fire department. They assessed the situation, and because in this case there was no breach, no leak, and with the cold temperatures, it was decided that there was no threat for public safety. In a situation like this, we also have to wait, and they tell us which angle, or how we can manipulate those types of products.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Guimond, there are videos from passengers on board the Via train that showed freight trains being prioritized following the clearance of the derailment. Given how long passengers were stuck on the tracks, why did CN choose to prioritize the movement of freight trains before giving these passengers a respite from their situation?

[Martin Guimond]

I understand the perception. Again we're very sorry for the impact that the passengers of Via suffered during the holidays.

When we have a derailment, what's important to understand is that there is no prioritization of the trains. When we fix a derailment, the first thing that we're looking at is to restore the network and make it fluid. We don't prioritize. We have to go with the backlogged traffic that has been stopped from both sides of the derailment.

The first thing needed to be able to reinject trains on a network is to make sure that the trains that are blocking the network are able to move. Once this is done, then after that you can reinject trains. I understand the perception of people when they see that, but if you have a bottleneck and you have trains on the east and west sides that are also stuck, the first thing you have to do after a derailment and when you reopen your network is to move those trains. Otherwise you are not really able to reinject trains after that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Guimond.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Muys, the floor is yours, and you have five minutes.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses from CN. You indicated that you were in touch with the minister's office, but I'm curious to know whether you heard from the minister and when.

Reportedly, it took 13 days for him to contact one of the airlines and 19 days for him to contact your rail counterparts at Via. He didn't contact any of the three largest airport authorities at all. Did you hear from the Minister of Transport himself, and if so when?

[Olivier Chouc]

We were not in contact with the minister himself directly. We've been in contact with the deputy ministry, his chief of staff and their team on a constant basis. They informed us that they were keeping the minister informed, but we haven't had discussions with the minister himself.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

During a major meltdown in transportation in the country, the Minister of Transport was absent.

You indicated that you had some commentary about a limit on hours of service. We heard testimony at the January 26 meeting from Transport Action Atlantic. One witness was on train 14, which was scheduled to depart Montreal at 7 p.m. on December 23. In his testimony, he indicated that the train only made it as far as Rivière-du-Loup because the CN repair crews had reportedly called it quits for the day.

I'm just wondering if you could talk a bit about what happens in this sort of circumstance. I understand there are hours of service limits, but what are the contingencies in place? Is there not some flexibility in the case of an emergency.

[Olivier Chouc]

Just to be clear, in this case, the hours of service that we're talking about were those of the Via crews that were brought in to relieve train 55. Martin can comment on this, probably way better than I can, but there is coordination and planning. Technically, schedules are planned in such a way that you don't run out of hours. There's a transition that's affected, but in extraordinary circumstances like this one, it could play out a little bit differently.

Maybe my colleague Mr. Tran could respond to that question.

[Hoang Tran]

Thank you very much.

There are issues related to hours of service. As you know, Transport Canada's rules mandate the maximum hours of service. In only very rare exceptions are we able to use an emergency provision to work crews beyond the 12 hours maximum. It is very clear in the regulations when that can be applied.

Perhaps this would be an opportunity for the committee to review this regulation to see if there aren't further situations where it may be appropriate to have exceptions apply.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

That's a good point.

With the remaining time I have, I'd just like to ask one additional question.

You talked about the fact that you have identified ways to improve communication protocols and you have followed through. Could you specify or itemize those, just so we have that as we're in consideration of what needs to be improved?