Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On March 21, a railcar full of petcoke caught on fire in the rail yard in Smithers, B.C., my home community. The volunteer fire department in Smithers responded with 17 firefighters. The neighbouring Telkwa volunteer fire department responded with a number of units and personnel. This was a single car filled with a relatively inert substance. I see comments in the newspaper from the deputy fire chief saying that “with the types of hazardous materials moving through Smithers a large-scale rail event would quickly go beyond our fire fighting capacity.”
I think this speaks to the emergency response assistance plans that the railways are required to have. Those plans are approved by Transport Canada. The real concern here is the transport of more volatile dangerous goods, like liquefied propane. Because we've seen such a dramatic increase in the transport of propane through our rail corridor—hundreds of cars per week—is there a point, when hazardous goods increase in volume, at which Transport Canada requires the railroads to reassess their ERAPs, their emergency response assistance plans, and have them reapproved by Transport Canada?
At what time was the current ERAP that is in place last assessed and approved by your department?