Public Accounts committee  I'll say one thing on that, because it's a really good question. What I think Mr. DeJong was saying a minute ago was that under the new stronger regulations on key trains and key routes, CN is legally obliged to perform a new risk assessment and submit it to Transport Canada. T

Public Accounts committee  In answer to that very good question—and it's one that we spend a lot of time drilling down on—it features in the current work we're doing establishing indicators of effectiveness of SMS systems. There are a couple of principles that guide us in that, and the first is that we lo

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for a very insightful question. I think the Auditor General's assessment of our challenge here is fair. We were not systematically pulling information from our SMS audits to shape our risk-based oversight. We were doing it in some cases, but not all, and most important

Public Accounts committee  I think I'll answer that in two parts, if I may. I think the law creating this stronger responsibility for safety management systems is essential to having better safety outcomes, because it creates the—

Public Accounts committee  The question really relates to a strategy of systemically strengthening the regulatory and the oversight system. The first step we took was to overhaul the rules for SMS in 2015, and then the second step was to ensure and put in place more standards for what had to be in a safet

Public Accounts committee  I would say—I'm going to give a quick general response and then turn it to Michael—that the kinds of issues the AG found with respect to the data and the documentation are core issues we need to resolve, and we're working as quickly as we can to resolve them in order to make sure

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I apologize if I actually created a false impression on the relationship between the Auditor General's report and the terrible tragedy of Lac-Mégantic. The fundamental reality is that it was a terrible tragedy, and it showed, dramatically, weaknesses

Public Accounts committee  I think we're—

Public Accounts committee  I think you're seeing that the follow-up audit recognized the progress that Transport Canada had made and asked us to take further steps in building a risk-based oversight program. We're doing a better job of aligning our resources and our actions to safety outcomes, and we are e

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. There are a lot of questions there. I'll do two really quickly, and then I'll turn the third one over to my colleague Mr. DeJong. On the first one, Transport Canada took significant action on all of the recommendations in the 2013 report, and I am ha

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I think that in this case there is a very clear pattern of significant and major improvements in the rail safety system and the oversight. Those significant improvements have actually been noted by the Auditor General in the follow-up audit. The Audi

Public Accounts committee  Certainly. I apologize. I'm going on too long.

Public Accounts committee  There are two things, and I'll be quick. I think the Auditor General has been balanced in her assessment. She has made the point that we've made progress and improved our risk-based planning for oversight in particular, which is in paragraph 5.20, while pointing out the areas wh

Public Accounts committee  I will. I apologize again.

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, the member puts out a really key question that's at the heart of the continuous improvement, the Japanese management system that the previous member described. Back in 2015, we started establishing a regulation requiring information. The Auditor General has properl