Lisa Raitt

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

I am sorry, Mr. Chair. I honestly did not hear. I think there was a translation error there. Could the member say it again for me?

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, what the hon. member will note more importantly is the fact that we have increased our funding in this area by 686%. That has to do with our world-class tanker safety and the fact that we strongly believe, with increased activity on all of our coasts, we need to ensure we have a world-class system going forward. Any administrative cuts or decreases one would see were all activities that were back office and had nothing to do with safety.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, we always have conversations through officials and through ourselves with the railway companies as to the movement of goods in the country. After we realized that the difficulty was twofold, one being the amount of crop, the other being the difficulty in winter, we had meetings both with the grain companies as well as with CN and CP to determine the best way to move the maximum amount of grain in the shortest amount of time. That is exactly what we did with an incredible order, which had never before been done in Canada, with respect to the movement of a million tonnes of grain out of our country in a short period of time, with monitoring and reporting back to us as ministers.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, this has been addressed before by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. The sunset clause is something that is administrative in nature and needed. Indeed that discussion happened at committee and that amendment was not passed.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, we became aware from CN and CP that they were having difficult winter conditions in January. We could also see it with the volumes of grain that were being moved in the country through our reporting mechanisms and we understood from them that it would be a stretch for them to move the amount of grain that was being cited simply because of the temperatures they were experiencing in various parts of the country, which debilitated their ability to run a full train. Instead they had to run smaller trains.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, with respect to the particular example the hon. member has given, I do believe that in order to construct anything in the country one probably has to do an environmental impact statement or a study, depending on who gives them the permit to do the construction in the area. It is not on federal land so I cannot speak to the details of it.

I can say this. In the operation of key trains, which includes even a single tank car of crude oil in this specific instance, we do demand that a risk assessment be taken into consideration. That would be carried out in consultation with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to make sure that they are doing what they can and have all the operating procedures to keep the train on the tracks as part of their operation.

Further, if the system is one in which the dangerous good, such as crude oil, is being loaded at a facility, our inspectors, under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, can inspect the facilities as well.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, as the hon. member will know, railways and railroads in our country are private and what they carry from shippers is their business, in terms of moving through. However, we have rules and regulations around the transportation of dangerous goods. We have rules and regulations around railway safety. We have taken unprecedented moves in the past nine months, giving emergency orders and protective orders to ensure that safety is primary when we are talking about this increased risk. I agree, the more volume that is being shipped, the greater the risk. That is why we are acting so strongly to ensure that railways are doing the best they can. There are always going to be safety and environmental regulations that they will be subject to, as I mentioned, in terms of transportation of dangerous goods and railway safety.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, if we look over the past number of years what we will see is that there has been an increase in the spending on rail safety. Our government has put $100 million in since 2009, based upon an analysis and study that we undertook in 2007.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, an important decision was taken in terms of our transportation infrastructure and how we provide transportation in the country when we determined to go forward on a marketplace-based system. In doing so, a number of strong actions were taken. One of them was moving out of the Canadian ports corporation and into these free-standing, independent, self-financed, self-regulated port authorities, and it has been an incredible success when we look at what has been accomplished in moving to that model. We have seen an increase in productivity in the transportation sector of over 30%. Those are real and important gains to ensure efficiency in our transportation system that gives us that global competitive edge.

The ports are an integral part of our transportation sector, whether in St. John's, Newfoundland, Port Metro Vancouver, or Prince Rupert. They all listen to their local communities' needs and their wants in order to balance the economic and community benefits that they bring. Their focus, however, is on marine shipping and they continue to stay at the cutting edge of what is important.

Our world-class tanker safety system will work very well with what we are doing in ports. It is another step along the way to a modern marine system, one that is envied around the world.

[Business of Supply, May 7th, 2014]

Mr. Chair, as the hon. member has indicated, Port Metro Vancouver is absolutely critical to Canada's Asia-Pacific gateway. We have invested heavily in the Asia-Pacific gateway and it has been a great success. As we open up more markets through our unprecedented free trade deals, as we continue to responsibly develop our vast resources, we need to have a way to move these resources to that market and the Asia-Pacific gateway has been a stellar success.

Port Metro Vancouver is an important part of it. The port handled $172 billion worth of cargo in 2013, a total number of jobs 100,000, with 38 million metric tonnes of coal or 40% of the total black cargo in 2013. These are all important things.

The specific question with respect to the trucks and the containers is one that is of great importance to us. It all commenced in February of this year with a protest that started on port property. We acted very quickly. We appointed Vince Ready to ensure that an independent review that was directed at resolving the concerns of truckers and stakeholders was undertaken.

We joined with the Province of British Columbia and Port Metro Vancouver soon after that to announce our action plan. An agreement on that action plan was reached between the governments of Canada and B.C., Port Metro Vancouver, and members of the United Truckers Association and Unifor in order to end that work disruption at Port Metro Vancouver in order to get to full operation. The port is at full operation.

Almost immediately the steering committee started meeting in order to ensure that the joint action plan was carried out. Meetings have been continuing on a weekly basis ever since. The obligations the federal government said it would undertake in this joint action plan have been carried out or are in the process of being carried out as we speak.

Most importantly, on May 2 of this year I announced with the Province of B.C. and Port Metro Vancouver joint funding for an expedited initiative to outfit the remainder of the container truck fleet approved to serve port terminals as part of Metro Vancouver's truck licensing system with GPS technology. This is the kind of implementation that is expedited and needed because it represents one point of the progress in the joint action plan.

We will continue to work. I will be meeting with Minister Stone on the topic. We have all hands on deck when it comes to ensuring that we have full service and full accessibility at Port Metro Vancouver. We will continue to be seized with the issue.