Transport Committee on March 3rd, 2022

[Marc Brazeau]

Railway police services have the same capacities and powers as municipal and provincial services, and receive the same training. They work together with other police services when required.

They exchange information and they collaborate, but the work done by the railway police services is important because their members are very familiar with everything affecting railways and they are on-site to deal with situations and to ensure that there are no trespassing or other incidents. They work closely with the other municipal municipal police services.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Iacono and Mr. Brazeau.

The floor is now yours, Mr. Jeneroux, for five minutes.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take a quick 30 seconds at the start, if I may, Mr. Chair. We had the minister here last time, so I didn't get the chance to say thank you for the kind welcome I received from a number of colleagues on the other side of the table, and of course from my current colleagues, for officially rejoining the committee.

I know I worked with a number of you from our previous time on the transport committee. We haven't gone very far. Mr. Badawey, Mr. Iacono, Mr. Rogers—it's good to see you all again.

My first questions are for you, Mr. Brazeau. It seems to me that the concerns from Mayor Bourdeau, and what I can only suspect are other mayors around the country, are curious with regard to that data piece. You mentioned that you're looking for a lot more funding and a lot more supports from the government, but that data piece seems, to me at least, a reasonable ask from the municipalities.

You've been working with FCM since 2003 on a number of other initiatives. Again, it would seem to me that this type of ask would be something that it would be fairly easy for your association members to provide to certain municipalities. As I go through this, can you explain to me, I guess, why it's obviously not as simple as Mr. Bourdeau and I, and I assume many others, seem to think it is?

[Marc Brazeau]

Thank you, Mr. Jeneroux. Just to be clear, are you referring to the transportation of dangerous goods data, so that municipalities have information at their fingertips?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes. Mayor Bourdeau let it be known earlier in this committee that often railcars come through his municipality, as they do through other municipalities, and he doesn't know what's on them until after the fact. It seems to me that you guys obviously know and the company obviously knows. Why can't you let the mayor and other municipalities know?

[Marc Brazeau]

There is a protective direction that's in place for the sharing of that information. Again, as I mentioned, there's a program called Transcaer. Transcaer provides free training to first responders in municipalities across the country. When that training is received, and the individuals who have it need to have that kind of information, that information is shared with them by the railways through a mobile app. That information is available.

On the question of whether there is a delay in getting that information, there may be some information that needs to be delayed for whatever reason. You have trains coming in from all directions. Sometimes they're transferred from one company to the next company. That's something we could look into, to see if there are some efficiency gains to be had there, but generally that information is available. That training is available to all first responders across the country.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

You have a tough job here today, Mr. Brazeau. You're defending all of your members. I get that there were some other members who were invited and weren't able to show up. That's acceptable, in my opinion, but to think that the mayor of a town, someone like Mr. Bourdeau, who would be responsible if anything were to go south with whatever was on that type of railcar going through.... To me, it would seem reasonable that he and his municipality, or members of his team, would know what was on that car, just for that proactive piece.

Is it simply that a mayor of a town isn't considered to be on a “need to know” basis when it comes to what's on the railcars?

[Marc Brazeau]

I just want to be clear here, because there's probably some missing information.

First of all, I extend the invitation to the mayor, Mr. Bourdeau, again, because we've provided training in Baie-D'Urfé, L'Île-Perrot and Vaudreuil to first responders. We provided training as early as last year, and we're available to do it again in this year.

CN and CP and the railways have ERAP, the emergency response systems plan, which they need to have. It is in place. If there is an incident, you have experts who come through the railways and deal with those situations. Certainly, as a first responder on site, we provide intensive training. That training is available at no cost. We work with other jurisdictions to provide that training. I just want that to be clear.

There's mock training as well, put on by both CN and CP with municipalities, to ensure that there are good communications—

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I think I understand that training piece, Mr. Brazeau. Thanks for clarifying some of it. You're saying training is being offered. That's great. You guys show up if something happens—great. In my opinion, and it sounds like it's Mayor Bourdeau's opinion, there's still that missing piece of information where the mayor has no idea of what's coming or going through his town.

I can appreciate that you probably go through a bunch of towns, but to me, the data of what's coming through the town would be a reasonable position for your rail companies to take.

Maybe I'll turn it over to Mayor Bourdeau in my last few minutes to see if he has any comments on what that would look like as a data piece, from his perspective. He made some comments earlier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Give a 30-second response please, Monsieur Bourdeau. Thank you.

[Michel Bourdeau]

That would certainly enable me to contact my fire safety service immediately so that they could be prepared in the event of danger, rather than have to react to a situation after it occurs. For example, if we know that there are certain types of products, the head of our fire safety service would already be aware of it and could take measures with his counterparts in the other four municipalities to prepare action plans ahead of time. That could certainly be useful.

I have taken note of Mr. Brazeau's comment and will be contacting him soon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bourdeau.

Thank you very much, Mr. Jeneroux, for your questions.

Thanks, colleagues, for your thoughtful questions as well.

To all of our witnesses who appeared today, I thank you on behalf of this entire committee for sharing your responses.

Witnesses, you are now free to disconnect. We will wait for you to do that before this committee goes into committee business.

Matt, hopefully we'll be able to get to see you in person at some point, when you can join us here in Ottawa.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes, I was trying to this week, but I couldn't make it work.

I forgot to give you a shout-out, Schiefke. It's good to see you in the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, I appreciate that, Matt.

I'm going to confirm with the clerk that we no longer have any of the witnesses on with us. Is that confirmed?

Great. There was a motion presented by Ms. Lantsman. As I stated earlier, after discussions with all of you, we wanted to ensure that we had an opportunity to discuss that motion, as it is timely and I believe quite important.

Ms. Lantsman, I'll turn the floor over to you to explain the motion and perhaps the discussions you've had with other members to come to a consensus.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Sure. I think you'll find consensus on the committee.

I'll read the motion into the record:

That, pursuant to standing order 108(2) and in light of the presence of Russian vessels on Canada’s east coast and the violation of prohibited airspace by Russian aircraft, the committee immediately undertake a study of Canada’s preparedness to respond to Russian threats to Canadian waters, ports and airspace; that this study include two meetings; that the committee invite the Minister of Transport to appear, as well as other witnesses, at the request of the committee; and that the committee report its findings to the House.

We saw late yesterday that the Department of Transport confirmed that an aircraft detained in Yellowknife was a charter carrying two Russian foreign nationals. Transport Canada is working with CBSA to assess the matter. Given the recent events, I think this is a timely study. It should precede any committee business for a couple of meetings if there is agreement from the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Lantsman.

Is there any discussion on this?

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, I know that you've received comments on this matter and that an amendment was put forward this morning.

Does Ms. Lantsman's motion include the changes you wanted to make to the wording?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes indeed. I appreciated reading Ms. Lantsman's proposal and am happy to see that the changes I wanted are now included in the motion she presented.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Excellent.

Thank you very much, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Are there any other comments on this motion?

Okay. Can we have a vote on this?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Ms. Lantsman.

Just to be clear, we will be starting this when we return after the break, and we will be pushing all the committee's business forward as needed. Does that sound good?

Thank you, colleagues. It was a great meeting.

The meeting is now adjourned.