Transport Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the seventh meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House Order of November 25, 2021. Members may attend in person in the room or remotely use the Zoom application.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

Given the ongoing pandemic situation and in light of the recommendations from Public Health authorities as well as the directive of the Board of Internal Economy of January 28, 2022, to remain healthy and safe, the following is recommended for all those attending the meeting in person.

Anyone with symptoms should participate by Zoom and not attend the meeting in person. Everyone must maintain two-metre physical distancing, whether seated or standing. Everyone must wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room. It is recommended in the strongest possible terms that members wear their masks at all times, including when seated. Non-medical masks, which provide better clarity over cloth masks, are available in the room.

Everyone present must maintain proper hand hygiene by using the hand sanitizer at the room entrance. Committee rooms are cleaned before and after each meeting. To maintain this, everyone is encouraged to clean surfaces such as the desk, chair and microphone with the provided disinfectant wipes when vacating or taking a seat.

As the chair, I'll be enforcing these measures for the duration of the meeting, and I thank members in advance for their co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, January 31, 2022, the committee is meeting to discuss railway safety and its effects on surrounding communities.

Before I begin and invite the witnesses to deliver their opening remarks, colleagues, I've had discussions with all of you. If there is no objection, as discussed, I will go into committee business at 5:10. Are there any objections?

Seeing none, I thank you, colleagues.

Our witnesses today are from the Bluewater Association for Safety, Environment and Sustainability. We have Vince Gagner, general manager.

From the Municipality of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, in the riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges, we have Mayor Michel Bourdeau.

We also have Marc Brazeau and Gregory Kolz, respectively President and Chief Executive Officer and Director, Government Relations, from the Railway Association of Canada.

Appearing as well are Teresa Eschuk and Mike Martin, respectively National Vice-President and Policy Advisor, of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees.

We will begin with opening remarks.

I will turn the microphone over to you, Mr. Gagner. You have five minutes. The floor is yours.

[Vince Gagner, General Manager, Bluewater Association for Safety, Environment, and Sustainability]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having me appear here today.

Thank you to the Honourable Marilyn Gladu for her invitation to speak. It's a real honour for the Bluewater Association for Safety, Environment, and Sustainability, otherwise known as BASES, to be here today.

My name is Vince Gagner and I'm the general manager. I'm very pleased to provide this summary on behalf of my board of directors.

We know that rail safety can be studied as a stand-alone topic. We know that it can also involve highly technical, site-specific risk assessments based on different operations and different localized conditions. Within the Sarnia-Lambton petrochemical and refining scope of activities, rail operations are just one of many activities that require constant attention.

The approach to public safety here at BASES applies to many different hazards, one of which is rail safety. We have many challenges, and there are lots of best practices shared and opportunities to be realized here on behalf of our members and on behalf of our community. BASES brings groups together from across the region to look at and improve workplace safety, emergency preparedness and environmental protection. They're all connected.

BASES is just a brand that bridges three non-profit organizations. The first is the IEC, or the Sarnia-Lambton Industrial Educational Co-operative. It has a board of directors that includes leaders from industry. We have a very progressive community college here called Lambton College. Local contractors and the local construction and building trades contribute to the design of workplace safety.

The second one is called SLEA—the Sarnia-Lambton Environmental Association. That board of directors includes leaders from industry, and we have a direct line of sight on committees and different working groups with first nations, municipal governments, and provincial and federal agencies.

The third one is CAER—the Sarnia-Lambton Community Awareness and Emergency Response. The CAER board of directors includes representatives from industry, but it also includes mayors and different leaders from local municipalities and the Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

CAER has two components—CA and ER—which are community awareness and emergency response. CAER has been around for a long time. CAER was formerly coordinating emergency preparedness here in Sarnia-Lambton in the 1950s. Remember the $10 bill? That had a shot of our site from a long time ago.

Actual events and simulated exercises at our sites activate regional emergency notifications. Those notifications go out to all of industry, all the local municipal groups and first nation responders. They're coordinated through regional dispatch. Dispatch will notify and provide updates to response teams, including, for example, requests for certain types of municipal support and/or mutual aid, because we're all working together and we all know the different resources that are shared across the area. If an emergency event were to originate from a rail operation here, then our regional systems would respond and that would ensure very quick and timely responder notifications, which are key in terms of the response, deployment of the right resources, and highly effective coordination.

In fact, CAER is planning an exercise here. All of you may know that Emergency Preparedness Week is the first week of May. On May 2 we're going to have a regional simulated fire at a refinery tank farm here. That will require site actions, response from adjacent rail operations, and activities that are going to happen through local authorities for the protection of the community.

The coordination of the exercise will occur through a staged unified command centre. Community volunteers and other observers will be at that exercise, and they will participate directly in that. The nice thing about that is that we will get their feedback directly in the debrief. The community is directly connected to our design here.

Last May there was a pretty significant development here. At BASES, we expanded our CAER model of response coordination, which was a notification process we had had since the fifties. We expanded that to include notifications directly to the public. These are called the CA or community awareness notifications. They go directly from member sites through the BASES website, but simultaneously they will go out through emails and texts to whoever would like to subscribe, and to predefined audiences such as media, political audiences and community leaders.

This new system can provide information for both emergency and non-emergency events, like abnormal noise, construction activity and high flaring. This approach ensures that the public receives timely and accurate information directly from the site, and it reduces uncertainty, creates knowledge in the community and really lowers that risk of public outrage.

It's important to recognize that the idea for sharing these notifications came from a small but effective community notification tool created by Aamjiwnaang first nation. We used their system as our template, and we would like to recognize them for setting that example for all of us here in Sarnia—Lambton. This story clearly demonstrates the value of sharing, learning and collaborating to improve public safety across the region.

If you'd like to receive these notifications, you're more than welcome. If you go to our website, lambtonbases.ca, you can sign up for notifications, and you can get them directly from Imperial, Shell, Suncor, Nova and Arlanxeo, just like all of our residents here who are able to receive them.

Most companies in Sarnia that operate rail systems are part of our design, and it provides them with direct access to this network of really talented people who, as a team, study risk, understand it and control hazards posed to public safety.

Equally important to this is the opportunity provided by BASES for all rail operators to engage with and listen to the public, and that's key. This approach helps all of us better understand risk, because it requires us to look at our sites through the lens of the community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Mr. Gagner, you have 15 seconds.

[Vince Gagner]

I've been practising. Five minutes.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Vince Gagner]

That's it, sir. That's all I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gagner.

I now give the floor to the mayor of the municipality of Terrasse-Vaudreuil.

Mr. Bourdeau, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Michel Bourdeau, Mayor, Municipality of Terrasse-Vaudreuil]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Michel Bourdeau, and I have been the mayor of the municipality of Terrasse-Vaudreuil since 2013. I was also a municipal councillor for many years before that.

First, a little background. The municipality of Terrasse-Vaudreuil is situated on Île Perrot, west of Montreal Island. Our municipality is enclaved between two railway crossings and a body of water. To enter and exit the municipality, we have only two options, both of which involve crossing the rail lines of the Canadian National, or CN, and Canadian Pacific, or CP, railways, which means we have to cross four sets of tracks every time we come and go.

The 3^e Avenue is under the jurisdiction of the Ministère des Transports du Québec, or MTQ. Railway traffic has doubled in recent years to approximately 100 trains or more a day, and automobile traffic has also increased over the years. The popularity of public transit grows daily, and Terrasse-Vaudreuil station serves our residents as well as those of the neighbouring towns of Pincourt, Île-Perrot and Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot. Parking is at full capacity and buses provide shuttle service throughout the day. The level crossing at 3^e Avenue is very busy, and the risk of accidents is constantly increasing.

Although Terrasse-Vaudreuil council has frequently drawn attention to the urgent need to build a viaduct at that crossing, the Ministère des Transports du Québec does not intend to pursue the project, preferring instead to wait until Autoroute 20 is completed. However, that major project is not on MTQ's agenda and will not be for years.

We find it hard to understand MTQ's inertia. A few years ago, delegates from the department met with the council and representatives of Transport Canada. At that meeting, it was confirmed for us that Terrasse-Vaudreuil was home to one of the most dangerous level crossings in Quebec. The representatives of both orders of government were also deeply troubled by the risk that our municipality's enclaved position presents.

The patience of drivers has its limits. It is not uncommon for drivers to have to wait 10 minutes for successive trains to pass before they can cross, and they take increasing risks at this already dangerous crossing. The accident in Dorion in 1966, in which 21 young people died, haunts people here to this day. Everyone still remembers the school bus that was mowed down by a train. Will we have to wait for another such incident to occur in Terrasse-Vaudreuil before we finally get our viaduct? Since the property required to build that infrastructure has already been expropriated, all that's left is to go ahead.

During the historic floods of 2017 and 2019, Île Perrot, which is one of the two exit ramps to our municipality, was closed due to the rising floodwaters. To the best of our knowledge, the barriers at the crossing frequently malfunction an average of 50 to 60 times a year. Freight trains often block the crossing, and the trains are so long that both access roads to Terrasse-Vaudreuil can be blocked at the same time. This is a major problem for emergency services. The municipality had no choice but to build a $1.3 million fire station on a one-square-kilometer lot to protect our 2,000 citizens.

The safety of pedestrians, motorists and buses should be everyone's priority. Even though, as a municipality, we constantly remind our citizens that it is important to cross safely, their frustrations often take over and they cross illegally.

I have a few brief stories for you. Last week, I was in one of the first cars at the railway stop sign. A lot of cars pulled out and passed me because the barriers were down for about half an hour and there was no train coming. We shoot videos and try to increase people's awareness, but people in a small town like ours are used to this kind of situation and don't think much of it. So it becomes a safety issue because it can be dangerous. We've had at least five accidents in the past 10 years, five of which involved buses. In one instance, two buses were stuck side by side between the two barriers.

We aren't necessarily asking for a huge railway viaduct, but we must at least be able to move people and stretchers under it if a serious situation occurs in our community, such as the one in Lac-Mégantic a few years ago. That's not what we want.

The number of railway cars has increased. Passing trains constantly obstruct our roads. If a train stops, no one can enter or leave. The crossings are approximately two kilometers apart, and the trains are longer than that.

Mr. Chair, I hope someone can help us solve this problem so we can improve the situation and the safety of our citizens.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bourdeau.

We will now hear from Mr. Brazeau, president and chief executive officer of the Railway Association of Canada, the RAC.

Go ahead, Mr. Brazeau.

[Gregory Kolz, Director, Government Relations, Railway Association of Canada]

Mr. Chair, I'll be giving the opening remarks, thank you very kindly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Welcome, Mr. Kolz. It's good to see you.

[Gregory Kolz]

Likewise. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, honourable members.

My name is Gregory Kolz, and I serve as the director of government relations here at the Railway Association of Canada. I am joined by Marc Brazeau, president and CEO of the RAC.

We are pleased to be appearing before you as part of your committee's study on railway safety in Canada.

I will provide the opening remarks, and afterwards Marc and I will both be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

The RAC represents nearly 60 freight and passenger railways, which transport tens of millions of persons and goods worth approximately $320 billion across the country every year.

Canada's freight railways move more than 900,000 tonnes of goods every day, transporting everything from the cars we drive to the food we eat. To deliver these goods, more than 3,700 locomotives pull 5.5 million carloads across the country every year.

The number one priority for Canada's railway industry is safety. Over the past 10 years, Canada's railways have invested more than $20 billion to ensure the safety and efficiency of their networks, and they remain fully committed to fostering a robust safety culture.

Here are a few more relevant statistics. Over the past decade, from 2011 to 2020, the freight rail accident rate in Canada has decreased by 22%. In 2020, railways invested $2.6 billion into Canadian assets, which is the second-highest level on record behind $3.1 billion in 2019. Over the past decade, Canada's railways have invested $20.5 billion into their networks to improve safety, resiliency and network fluidity; since 2011, the dangerous goods accident rate has improved by 46%.

In terms of transporting dangerous goods, Canadian railways move many hazardous materials that simply cannot be transported by pipeline or other means. In fact, under the common carrier obligation of the Canada Transportation Act, railways in Canada are required by law to move dangerous goods. With that in mind, it's worth noting that over 99.99% of all dangerous goods carloads moved by train reach their destination without a release.

In short, we are very proud that Canada's rail network is the safest in North America and among the safest in the world. Our members remain committed to building on their stellar safety record.

The RAC and its members believe that rail safety is enhanced by working closely with communities. Canada's railways have long shared information with municipalities about the goods travelling by rail, to help them properly train for and respond to a potential incident. In fact, Canada's railways [Technical difficulty—Editor] to inform communities and first responders about dangerous goods handling and emergency responses.

For instance, since 2000, the RAC's transportation of dangerous goods team has participated in more than 1,400 transportation community awareness and emergency response—otherwise known as TRANSCAER—events to inform municipalities about the products being transported through their communities. Furthermore, through the TRANSCAER initiative, the RAC's TDG team has helped train over 20,000 first responders and other personnel on the safe handling and transportation of dangerous goods.

The RAC remains determined to work with all orders of government and communities across the country to ensure that Canada's railway sector remains globally competitive, sustainable and, above all, safe.

This collaborative approach is also exemplified by the proximity initiative, which is a partnership between the RAC and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. As Canada's population grows, new residential and commercial developments are being built in communities across the country. The FCM and the RAC recognize that it is in Canada's best interests to develop appropriate relationships between railways and communities. This is to promote proper planning and communication practices and offer dispute resolution mechanisms for resolving unanticipated problems.

I also want to highlight Operation Lifesaver Canada. OL is a national not-for-profit funded by Transport Canada and the Railway Association of Canada. It works to raise public awareness about rail safety and, in turn, prevent rail crossing and trespassing incidents. OL works in partnership with railways, governments, municipalities, law enforcement, labour groups, the media and other organizations from coast to coast to coast, because rail safety is a shared responsibility.

In conclusion, I want to ensure members of the committee that railway safety is an absolute priority for the RAC and its members.

In the past few years, the railway sector has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure, adopted innovative technologies and practices and expanded training and liaison activities so that we can operate safely across Canada.

Thank you very kindly.

Marc and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kolz.

We will now hear from Teresa Eschuk, from the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees.

Is it Mr. Mike Martin? Perhaps you're splitting your time. I'll let you decide.

I'll turn the floor over to you. You have five minutes.

[Teresa Eschuk, National Vice-President, Union of Canadian Transportation Employees]

Thank you.

The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, UCTE, is a national union representing federal inspectors who review all modes of transportation, including rail, as well as those who inspect the transportation of dangerous goods.

UCTE has long been a proponent of stronger safety measures in the transportation of goods and people in Canada, regardless of the method. Since transportation by rail is a major factor for a range of materials, including many dangerous ones, our members are invested in safety issues in rail transportation, including improving and enhancing Transport Canada's safety management systems.

We will not review the many instances and incidents—some of them tragic—that have occurred in the rail sector in recent years. Sadly, many of these situations could have been avoided or prevented. Instead, we hope that this time, with your committee's work and subsequent actions by Transport Canada and the industry, things can be different.

First of all, we want to thank the committee for studying this issue and making rail safety a priority for Canadians. Our presentation today will focus primarily on Transport Canada's rail safety management system, or SMS for short. We continue to have a number of outstanding concerns that have not been addressed, despite the fact that UCTE has raised these issues in formal and informal consultations with Transport Canada and previously with parliamentary committees.

Many of our concerns are raised in a report that we commissioned in 2020, which undertook a full review of Transport Canada's SMS. This report, entitled “Transportation Safety Management Systems—Still not right” was released in 2021 and delivered to the Minister of Transport and departmental officials. We have provided a copy of this report to the clerk of the committee to distribute to you. We hope to have the opportunity to speak to your committee about this report and SMS in Canada across all modes of transportation sometime in the near future.

Last year, we made a submission to Transport Canada on its proposal to introduce a safety culture policy statement for the railway sector. In that statement, we recorded that given Canada's recent record on safety in rail transportation, it is our view that a [Technical difficulty—Editor] be nearly enough. It should and must be swiftly followed by actions. We would like to note that we're still waiting for those actions from Transport Canada, the regulator.

Some of those actions should include more random and unannounced inspections of rail company operations and equipment; hiring more rail inspectors to ensure compliance with outlined policies and procedures; stiffer penalties for infractions as a deterrent to not following outlined processes and policies; suspension of rail operation licences for repeat offenders; a focus on safety first as the priority of the regulator, Transport Canada, and not competing priorities that put rail company operations on the same footing as the safety of Canadians; whistleblowing protections that are enshrined in legislation to ensure that employees who come forward with safety concerns will not be harassed and/or threatened; and a full review of the rail safety management system to ensure that it's up to date and provides maximum protection for workers and the Canadian public.

This is not the first, second or third time that we have brought these recommendations to the attention of Transport Canada or policy-makers. Following the rail tragedy at Lac-Mégantic in 2014, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport was charged with conducting a safety investigation on all modes of transportation.

At that time, UCTE appeared before the committee and offered the following observations and recommendations about SMS and related safety measures.

SMS ought never to be a replacement for direct and unannounced inspections by Transport Canada inspectors with powers to revoke licences and impose monetary penalties.

Inspections, not SMS audits, should be the primary means by which companies are held accountable to laws and regulations ensuring safety.

SMS audits and inspections are completely different functions. Audits and inspections, and the inspectors doing them, should not be separated within each modal safety division. Without separation, audits become a substitute for inspections.

Ministerial delegations to private companies or industry associations should not be permitted.

Inspector-to-staff ratios by department and mode should be increased significantly, and new inspectors hired should have specialized safety knowledge.

Accident and incident reporting by inspectors and company officials should be mandatory for all modes. There should be a searchable online database accessible to the public—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'm sorry to cut you off, Ms. Eschuk. My apologies.

[Teresa Eschuk]

The most important multimodal principles that should be made available in Canada are whistle-blowing protections enshrined in law.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I don't know if she can hear me.

Ms. Eschuk, I'm sorry to cut you off. We have an issue with translation, we believe. Can you hold where you are?

[Teresa Eschuk]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We will allow you to continue once we've established translation once again. Thank you for your patience.

[Teresa Eschuk]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

All right, Ms. Eschuk. I think we've rectified the situation.

You many continue. Thank you.

[Teresa Eschuk]

All right. Thank you very much.

The most important multimodal principles that should be made available within Canada are whistle-blowing protections enshrined in law, such as those that exist in the U.S., with an independent office established for these protections. The highest level of safety benchmarking should be required and written into transport safety law regulation guidelines and policies.

Today we look back with some of the same recommendations. On the transportation of dangerous goods, railways have made virtually zero progress in implementing alternate routes for the transportation of dangerous goods around heavily populated areas, as recommended by the Transportation Safety Board. Transport Canada needs to be more forceful in mandating company progress—for example, via interchange agreements—on rerouting, to reduce the risk of major accidents.

Since 2015 there have been seven major derailments of trains carrying dangerous goods. All occurred because of broken rails or other track infrastructure problems. The TSB March 2020 advisory noted that in key train and key route rules, there were “no provisions...to address the need for enhanced track standards for key routes”, despite the huge increase in dangerous good traffic volumes. The traffic safety standards for key routes need to be updated.

On the Transportation Safety Board, we noted with interest the comments made by Kathy Fox, chair of the TSB, when she appeared before this committee in February. She said that Transport Canada has recommendations from the TSB back to 2013 that have yet to be acted upon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have 15 seconds, please, Ms. Eschuk.

[Teresa Eschuk]

Okay.

That should be unacceptable to this committee. Safety should be everybody's number one priority.

On behalf of the members of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on this important matter. We remain committed to ensuring that Canada has the best safety standards in the world. We recommit to working with Transport Canada and all invested parties to make that happen. In our view, safety cannot be one of many priorities. It needs to be the number one priority for all modes of transportation in this country.

I look forward to any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Eschuk.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today. I know the members are looking forward to asking you questions.

We will begin the round of questioning with Mr. Dowdall.

Mr. Dowdall, you have six minutes. The floor is yours.