Francis Scarpaleggia on Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

With regard to rail safety in Canada: (a) for the period of 2006-2012, which railways were permitted to operate with a single operator; (b) for the period of 2006-2012, which railways had permission to leave trains unattended for limited periods of time on main lines with or without an idling locomotive(s); (c) for the period of 2006-2012, which railways had permission to leave trains unattended for limited periods of time on side lines with or without an idling locomotive(s); (d) with regard to the railways in (b) and (c), under what specific conditions could the trains be left unattended; (e) what legislative or regulatory framework governs local emergency preparedness plans in the event of a rail accident; (f) with respect to the plans in (e), (i) who is responsible for creating and executing such plans, (ii) by whom are they audited, (iii) how often are they audited, (iv) against what criteria are they audited; (g) by whom and how often are municipalities through which freight trains pass provided with regular reports on (i) the state of local emergency preparedness in the event of a rail accident, (ii) the state and maintenance record of the railway lines within their borders, (iii) the materials, hazardous or not, that are transported through their jurisdiction; (h) if reports referred to in (g) are not provided, why not; (i) how many of the DOT-111 railway tank cars and the DOD-112 tank cars are in use in Canada, for each year since 2006; (j) for each year since 2006, how many rolling stock and track safety inspectors were employed at Transport Canada, broken down by (i) province of work, (ii) oversight responsibility; (k) for each year since 2006, how many rolling stock and track safety inspectors employed by Transport Canada were responsible for inspections in (i) the Greater Montreal Area, (ii) the municipality of Pointe-Claire (iii) the municipality of Beaconsfield, (iv) the municipality of Baie d’Urfé, (v) the municipality of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue; (l) how frequently are railway tracks inspected in (i) populated areas, (ii) unpopulated ones; (m) since 2006, when have the rail tracks between downtown Montreal and the City of Vaudreuil-Dorion been inspected; (n) does Transport Canada have a system of evaluation in place, based on the results of inspections by its inspectors, that ranks the operational state of different sections of railway tracks; (o) with regard to the system in (n), if it exists, does this system or database correlate with allowable train speeds on each section of track and with which company owns each section; (p) for each year since 2006, how many freight train derailments, minor and major, have taken place in Canada, broken down by province; (q) with respect to the derailments in (p), how many took place on (i) a horizontal track, (ii) a sloping track, (iii) curved track, (iv) straight track; (r) for each year since 2006, how many cases of runaway freight trains have been reported in Canada, broken down by province; (s) for each year since 2006, how many train accidents, derailments or other, involving hazardous materials have there been; (t) how are the contents of rail cargo verified by the government or its agencies to determine if the contents conform to the contents labels/markings on the individual rail cars; (u) what is the process by which environmental risks of the transport by rail of oil and gas or other hazardous material are assessed; (v) what quantity and type of goods that are shipped annually by Canadian National and Canadian Pacific on lines that run through Montreal’s West Island in each of the last 5 years; (w) what are the allowable speeds for freight trains travelling different rail segments in the southwestern corridor of the island of Montreal from downtown Montreal to the city of Vaudreuil-Dorion; (x) with regard to the speed limits in (w), how is adherence to these limits monitored by Transport Canada; (y) with respect to the slowing of rail speed due to poor track conditions, how does Transport Canada verify that rail operators are implementing reduced speeds; (z) what is the slowest speed at which a rail operator will be allowed to operate its trains over a portion of track experiencing poor conditions before all traffic must be halted due to the poor track condition; and (aa) subsequent to the fatal accident in Lac-Mégantic, what plans are in place for reducing the speeds of freight trains passing through Canadian municipalities?