Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Unfortunately, there isn't any time left.

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Next we have Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Our witnesses today began their presentation by apologizing, which usually, to me, indicates that something was not done properly. I'm somewhat surprised that CN's emergency response plans don't consider an incident like this in hard-to-reach places or don't consider contingencies for when transportation routes to the site of the incident aren't available.

If this exact set of circumstances were to occur tomorrow, how, specifically, would CN address the situation differently from how it did over the holiday period?

[Olivier Chouc]

Mr. Guimond, would you like to answer that?

[Martin Guimond]

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chouc.

If the exact same situation were to occur with the exact same winter conditions we had.... I think the big learning there was assessment of the situation. The site was accessible. We were able to access it about 300 feet away from where the derailment happened. Our network goes across this country from Vancouver—in fact, Prince Rupert—up to Halifax, where our infrastructures are, and there are specific locations that could be a bit more difficult to access.

In terms of what could be done differently right now, it's definitely accessing the point, accessing it by road, and communication with our contractors during that period. Our contractors needed a letter to be able to hit the road with heavier equipment, so we had to prepare a letter to make sure that they hit the road with heavy equipment for those conditions. These are places we're looking at to understand where and how we can accelerate the response time.

Again, this was a really specific derailment with multiple compounding effects that made it difficult—

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

Mr. Guimond, I'm a little bit confused. What you've said in response to my question is that you would access the site to assess the situation and that you would access it by road, but you started off your presentation by saying that you couldn't access it by road.

What I'm wondering is what you would do differently. Would you use different vehicles? Would you use different roads? How is it that you had so much trouble getting to the site to assess it, and how are you addressing those critical failures moving forward?

[Martin Guimond]

Let me clarify. We could access the site. The winter conditions and the snowstorm made it slower for us to access the site. It was extremely difficult to get over there, because we wanted to do it safely. We didn't want our people and our contractors to go on a highway that was closed while the OPP was asking people to stay home. When you look at all those conditions, this is one of the things that made it a bit more difficult.

On top of this—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Guimond.

Unfortunately, time is up.

Next we have Mr. Lewis.

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

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming before the committee this morning.

This is starting to sound more like CN is the airport and Via is the airline. When the airport shuts down, the airline takes the brunt of it. Everybody's upset with the airline. I say that because I realize that CN owns the majority of the tracks, and Via is basically at CN's mercy.

My first question is this: How far was train 55 from the closest railway crossing?

[Olivier Chouc]

Hoang or Martin, do you know the answer?

[Hoang Tran]

I don't know the exact distance, but certainly this is something that we could provide. It wasn't close enough for people to conveniently get off the equipment and onto buses, let's say, if that's helpful

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

How close was your closest hi-rail vehicle, the kind that drives on the road and then jumps on the railroad track? How close would that have been to train 55?

[Olivier Chouc]

I don't know the answer, but if it would be helpful to the committee, we can find out and then report back.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

The reason I'm asking is that it still completely confuses me as to why we could not have a crew in a hi-rail vehicle, with a chainsaw on the back, and with some hard hats and workboots remove a tree and not have passengers sit for 14 hours. I don't want to talk about the derailed train that was causing the congestion. I appreciate that. What I want to talk about is why we had so many Canadians sitting on a train for 14 hours.

The reason this gets a little under my collar is that I served as a firefighter for seven and a half years. I drove through a lot of snowstorms, in both in my personal vehicle and a fire truck, to get to a burning house or to somebody who needed CPR. A snowstorm wasn't an excuse. We ran to the emergency. I have a hard time believing, if this was a derailed passenger train, and thank goodness it was not derailed, that a lot of emergency response crews wouldn't be there. If I'm wrong in my way of thinking, then I'm very, very scared.

We understand that the minister's office was reached, as well as his deputy minister's, but the minister himself was indeed not part of the discussion. As of today, then, a month and a half later, has CN sat down with the minister—not with his staff, but with the minister?

[Olivier Chouc]

In response to your first comment, it wasn't so much about bringing a chainsaw to the site, because that was actually done fairly quickly. The location of the tree was deemed to be a hazard to the safety of passengers. In terms of cutting it the way you're suggesting, that could have been done in other circumstances but not in this one without threatening the safety of the passengers. We would have needed a full boom truck to access the tree and do this safely. That's why it wasn't done that way.

Insofar as engaging with the minister is concerned, we have not had discussions directly with the minister on this issue.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

That's remarkable. Thank you very much for the answer. I would have thought that after a month and a half, this being such a huge inconvenience for so many Canadians, he would have reached out.

Finally, with all due respect, Mr. Tran, you said, that “there's no point in keeping an open phone line between the two companies” when you're working on something. I'm hoping you recall that, Mr. Tran. I suppose I don't agree with that statement. I say that because when we heard testimony from Via, their passengers were getting information—I don't want to call it false information—that was old. Via was getting updates from CN. They would promise somebody an hour, and that hour would turn into three hours. They were actually sending out incorrect texts.

Mr. Tran, can you tell me if that was just something I misunderstood? When you speak about between the companies, knowing full well that Via is responsible for their passengers.... Is communication not of the utmost importance at a time like that?

[Hoang Tran]

Absolutely. I may have misrepresented that. What I meant was that when we're in an emergency situation like dealing with the passengers on train 55, absolutely this line of communication has to be constant, and it was.

When we're dealing with the removal of a derailed train and talking about when the line is going to open up again, we don't receive minute-to-minute information from the people on the site. These activities actually happen on a longer timeline. We try to provide Via with accurate information on a timely basis, but this isn't continuous. This is something where we'd say, “Let's have another update in two hours, because the estimated line clearance time will be 30 hours from now.” They would not get updates every 15 minutes or every 10 minutes. They would get updates every two or three hours.

Then, when we have a final line clearance, or an estimate of when the line is going to open up again, we sit together and we plan the resumption of service. How many trains can it take? When can we take them? When would you like to run them? What trains would you like to run first?

So yes, there was a lot of communication. It's the basis for our success and for their success. I can't speak for the communications they had with their own passengers. I wasn't privy to that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Tran. Unfortunately, we will have to end that line of questioning there.

Finally for today, we have Ms. Koutrakis.

Ms. Koutrakis, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to advise you that I'd like to cede a minute and a half of my time to my colleague Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Koutrakis, and thank you, Mr. Chair.

Having heard a lot of the testimony as well as the questions being asked, one of the things I'm most interested in is moving forward with updated emergency measures “management”, which I guess would be the proper word, for all the partners in any given situation—all levels of government, whether it be federal, provincial or municipal; emergency services, such as fire, police, EMS; and others that may be involved in the community, such as public works operations, planning, finance, and all those that would otherwise be included in activating an emergency measures team in any given instance.

I have two questions to the folks on screen here. One, do you have an emergency measures plan there for something to activate when these instances happen? Two, would it be advantageous to have more of a formalized national emergency measures plan updated so that therefore, once again, when these instances happen, that can in fact be activated?

[Olivier Chouc]

I'll ask my colleague Martin Guimond to add to this, but I can assure you that we do have a national emergency response plan. It is also reviewed on a regular basis. It's informed by whatever experience we've had at the time of review. Whatever we've learned from this incident will find its way into that protocol.

Martin, you may want to expand on this.

[Martin Guimond]

I think Olivier summarized it. For every single incident we have at CN, with the mindset of continuous improvement we analyze what happened. We incorporate that into our emergency plan so that we can learn from what we have.

In terms of communications with local authorities, I believe Hoang may be in a position to explain how that protocol works as well with what we call the “RTC” and also with the involvement of even CN police, in our case.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Ultimately, I guess my question to you folks is this: Would it be advantageous for us to sit down after this study and have it as part of one of the recommendations that this in fact be updated with the federal government, in particular with the transport ministry?

[Olivier Chouc]

Yes. Absolutely. We'd be happy to do that.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you to the witnesses for coming to testify before the committee this afternoon.

In your view, would it have been a good use of anyone's time for CN to repeat the information directly to the minister that it was already providing to Transport Canada officials or to staff in his office, as you have already testified today?