Transport committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Honourable members of the committee, thank you for once again inviting the agency to appear before you. My name is Fred Gaspar. I am the chief compliance officer for the CTA. With me today is Randall Meades, our chief strategy officer, as you've heard.

Transport committee  First of all, under the Railway Relocation and Crossing Act one of the first first triggers is that the parties are required to negotiate and submit an accepted plan. It's important, as I think all members would agree, that they come together and come up with a transportation pla

Transport committee  I should clarify: I think it was in 1987. This is conjecture, and I'm always hesitant to get into that realm, but I suspect that it has something to do with the financial implications, obviously. One of the standards is that, effectively the railway has to be made whole, and it

Transport committee  Madam Chair, that gets to the heart of what makes this so difficult to do, because there has to be an arrival of interests for all parties at the same time. There are circumstances whereby it would be efficient and effective for the railway to consider doing that, whereby there m

Transport committee  I think parliamentarians are best positioned to speak to the merits of the act. It is what it is.

Transport committee  I should start by apologizing. My colleague, Doug Smith, who is our chief dispute resolutions officer, is not here today. But we do have a system and the mechanism in place to facilitate that under this act, and a number of other provisions. We always try to encourage negotiated

Transport committee  As part of the issuance of the certificate of fitness, which is effectively the operating licence, we look at the insurance. We first do a certificate of insurance. Under the Safe and Accountable Rail Act the government has now prescribed a set definition of what constitutes adeq

Transport committee  Parliament will decide.

Transport committee  Yes, if you're operating on a federally regulated line in Canada.

Transport committee  Yes, and importantly, these are regulations that are administered by Transport Canada. I think you're referring to the shunting of rail cars.

Transport committee  Yes. Amongst its other duties, the agency is responsible for resolving crossing issues between the federally regulated companies and other interested parties as well. This is related to matters as diverse as infrastructure, relating to level crossings versus grade crossing separa

Transport committee  I think when such parties can't reach a formal agreement, then certainly we can step in. If they can make a case, as a quasi-judicial tribunal, that the numbers are sound, that it is of no net loss to the railway company.... And again, this is just an example; I'm not suggesting

Transport committee  I hesitate to define it too much, because, quite frankly, this is art not science, and so we do want to allow for the maximum latitude of discussion with regard to someone making and building a case. To that end, certainly one of the provisions in the act, for instance, is an all

Transport committee  I wonder if, perhaps, you might be referring more to the certificate of insurance, which is a feed-in to the certificate of fitness. There's no doubt that the insurance market is pretty constrained, and there are only a few in the market of underwriters internationally, and the i

Transport committee  With all due respect, Madam Chair, could I come back to the committee with that? To be perfectly frank, I would be guessing at this point. I will definitely come back.