Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that I will be sharing my time with the member of Parliament for Timmins—James Bay.
I rise today to speak to Bill C-52, an act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act. I would like to say at the outset that I, along with my colleagues, am pleased to see that the government, at least incrementally, is coming forward with some reforms addressing the concerns of the Canadian public. A good number of the measures in this bill are welcomed, although there may be some significant changes and additions we might want to add at committee.
I recommend that, top of mind, we recognize that the federal government has almost sole responsibility and power to regulate the rail sector, in particular the major lines. This is a mandate, based on my own experience too often in the past, not delivered effectively, both in preventing and responding to rail-related disasters.
Deep and widespread concern continues to be expressed about the risks that exponentially increasing dangerous rail traffic poses to Canadian communities, a concern shared by my constituents, and frankly, by all Albertans. Why the concern? A major percentage of hazardous rail cargo originates in Alberta, is shipped into the province, or is shipped out of the province to markets. Each time I commute from my home to the airport to head to Ottawa, parallel to me along the highway I witness continuous lines of tanker cars. In summer months, my cottage shakes from the heavy-loaded railcars, and I whisper a silent prayer, “Please, no derailment today”. I will explain my reaction and my fear momentarily.
I regularly hear complaints from constituents who are distressed that their daily commute is delayed by tanker cars blocking their route to work or school. Massive rail terminals constructed on the eastern edge of my constituency store and shunt loaded tanker cars close by businesses, a university, and commuter traffic. Residents of my riding of Edmonton—Strathcona loudly cheered the decision recently by Canadian Pacific to finally remove some of the rails that, until a few weeks back, shunted tanker cars, unsecured, right into the heart of Edmonton's historic Old Strathcona district into housing, businesses, and significant commuter traffic, mere feet away.
A few years back, the Hardisty town council expressed concern about the construction of a massive American co-owned crude-by-rail terminal that would load 120 tankers per day. In Bruderheim, the largest constructed crude-oil-to-rail terminal automatically loads 180 tanker cars, or 700 barrels, with 13-unit trains of diluted bitumen per day to be shipped south to the United States.
I met with Albertans protesting that a CN Rail siding, once used to load grain for now abandoned grain elevators, located 30 metres from two wildlife conservation areas, less than 200 metres from two homes, and 700 metres from a golf course, was being converted to shunt Imperial Oil tankers. Strathcona County councillor Alan Dunn dubbed the decision to store tankers in the middle of country, residential, and agricultural areas “an abomination”, in his words.
Albertans have experienced 3,421 rail incidents in the past decade, 1,700 of which were derailments, with 122 fatalities and 13 evacuations. This monumentally increased dangerous railcar cargo, coupled with the Lac-Mégantic tragedy and the continuing derailments of similarly dangerous cargo, have caused heightened public concern and increased calls for government action, including by municipal councillors.
To fully understand Albertans' concerns about hazardous rail traffic and their lost confidence in a government response, I wish to share highlights of just three major rail accidents that happened in Alberta over the past three decades.
First, the 1986 Hinton train collision between a CN freight train and a VIA Rail passenger train killed 23 people and seriously injured 95 others. Until the Lac-Mégantic disaster, it was the most lethal Canadian rail disaster since the Dugald accident of 1947. The resulting investigation revealed serious flaws in CN's employee practices. A commission of inquiry investigated the crash. Justice René Foisy, from the Court of Queen's Bench in Alberta, following 26 days of public hearings, condemned what he described as a “railroader culture” that prized loyalty and productivity at the expense of safety.
In August 2005, a derailment dumped over 700,000 litres of bunker C fuel and 88,000 litres of carcinogenic pole oil on the north shore of Lake Wabamun, essentially on top of the summer village of Whitewood Sands. More than 500,000 litres of the chemical entered the lake, with half remaining unrecovered.
Thousands of volunteers walked the shoreline picking up tar balls or rescuing oil-coated birds and wildlife. The shores of the Paul First Nation sacred lands were coated in oil. In the words of the provincial environmental commission struck to assess the government response, the event was a catastrophe for the community and a disaster for the environment. This important recreational lake was closed to swimming, boating, and fishing for a full year.
Who would have thought that in the oil capital of Canada, timely access to either the equipment or expertise to adequately respond to an environmental disaster of this scale, and so close to Edmonton, was completely absent? It was a major wake-up call, but are we fully awakened or ready still?
While the province at least formed a special commission to critique the failed response and recommended improved emergency response efforts, no similar effort was made by the rail regulator, the federal government. The commission identified a complete failed response and a lack of emergency preparedness and made significant calls for reform, including advance resolution of interjurisdictional responsibilities, including over first nation lands and people, and better management of rail transport risk prevention and response.
According the Transportation Safety Board, the cause of the derailment was rails replaced with faulty second-hand equipment. Despite these findings and recommendations, a decade later, another derailment of petroleum crude oil and liquified petroleum gas happened at Gainford, mere kilometres from Lake Wabamun. According to the report by the Transportation Safety Board, the heat from the explosion and fire was so extreme that flames shot across the highway, damaging a home on the other side. The Trans-Canada Highway had to be closed and around 100 residents evacuated. Similar to the findings by the Transportation Safety Board for Wabamun, the cause was attributed to faulty rail, unidentified by transport inspectors or CN inspections. It must be noted that another derailment occurred just two weeks earlier near this same location.
The Conservatives have promised time and again to rectify shortcomings with safety inspections and rail safety compliance measures. They have yet to fully honour that commitment. As my colleague pointed out, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have, in the majority, let companies self-regulate and self-inspect their equipment and rail lines. This approach is just not adequate. Rail traffic is now a major industrial operation.
Despite the growing volume of dangerous rail traffic and despite the related serious derailments, Transport Canada has apparently hired only one additional rail safety inspector, and the Rail Safety Directorate's budget has been cut by almost 20%. We need stronger regulation of this dangerous rail traffic, and we need intensified inspection and enforcement.
Bill C-52 does offer some important reforms to address compensation after a rail disaster occurs, including minimum insurance levels for railways transporting dangerous goods, a disaster relief fund, and greatly expanded authority by the minister, cabinet, and rail safety inspectors. However, these have more to do with the costs and cleanup after the fact. They do nothing to prevent further accidents. What we need is federal action to prevent rail disasters, including full, open, and public review and assessment of all proposals by the rail sector and its clients to construct new facilities or to substantially increase the volume of hazardous goods shipped.
The rail industry is the only major industrial sector almost totally exempted from the application of federal environmental assessment laws. Currently, federal laws bizarrely also completely exempt the rail sector from advance public scrutiny. Regulations under the federal environmental assessment act currently only narrowly confine the rail industry operations to be reviewed to where certain migratory bird sanctuaries are impacted.
The Minister of Environment is empowered to order that rail traffic that could cause adverse environmental effects or public concerns undergo an EIA. To date, she has failed to exercise that power, despite the growing potential threats to life and environment.
The government could also expand the powers of the National Energy Board to ensure that all exports of hazardous petroleum products by pipeline and rail combined, not just exports by pipeline, are reviewed.
An Alberta first nation, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, has actually called for the National Energy Board to expand its mandate.
I look forward to questions on my speech and action by the government.
