Transport committee  The money that has been given to VIA is much needed. It's being wisely spent. This is a very good investment, which is bringing some economic benefits. It will give us moderate improvements in track speed between Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal, greater capacity, and less interference wi

Transport committee  I don't have the numbers here. Last year, the Railway Association of Canada put forward some numbers that were part of a memorandum of understanding between the railways and the federal government. The railways are already meeting Kyoto objectives, even in their existing operatio

Transport committee  There would certainly be shifts in ridership that would result if high-speed rail were developed in that corridor. I mentioned when giving my brief that I would expect a good deal of short-haul flight traffic, particularly business travellers, to use high-speed rail if it provide

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Chair. My name is David Jeanes. I'm the president of Transport 2000. I have provided a brief. I apologize for the poor quality of the French version. It is complete, but it is not accurate. I am going to start by summarizing what Transport 2000 is. Then I'

Transport committee  Yes, and I can't do a clause-by-clause redraft of the law for you here; we don't have the ability to do that, nor have we really had the time to evaluate it at that level. It's just that if these changes are used by the department as an opportunity to downgrade its investment in

Transport committee  I think with respect to SMS, we certainly recognize that introducing a corporate culture of safety is very important. The concept of a safety department and of a chief safety officer, and of the visibility of safety going right to the senior management level, is very important an

Transport committee  Yes, but also it has been observed there are impending retirements of large numbers of qualified people in the inspection establishment.

Transport committee  Yes, that's correct.

Transport committee  That's correct, yes.

Transport committee  We certainly don't monitor the number of inspectors in Transport Canada. Our information comes from sources such as Justice Moshansky's talk last September. I'd like to say again that we're not coming up with these ideas. I would like to directly quote from his paper, where he s

Transport committee  I think, Mr. Bélanger, the regulation of the insurance industry is far too complicated a matter. I can think of analogues in completely different areas; you know, there are churches that are having trouble getting insurance to cover some of their normal activities. So it's not ju

Transport committee  I'm sorry if I'm launching off in another direction.

Transport committee  I'm interested in your comment about Canada having a very fine safety record in aviation, which is correct; we do. The public have had confidence in it and must continue to have confidence in it. We've had an allusion from the other side to the problems that have happened with ra

Transport committee  On your last question, I certainly hope so. I think with SMS the important thing is that it has to instill a safety culture in the organizations that are going to be responsible for it. That means the idea of a dedicated safety department with a senior or chief safety officer re

Transport committee  We still see all of this legislation against the background of a declining level of ability to perform safety enforcement at the Transport Canada level. It's a problem of replacement of expertise; it's whether the department will even continue to have much of a role when it is de