Transport committee  So far it's been very good. We did one in Cobourg about a month and a half ago. Usually we get very good cooperation. The cities are glad to cooperate. The feedback we're getting from firemen and first responders is that they're learning a lot from those exercises. So it's go

Transport committee  Usually, yes.

Transport committee  When we had Direction 2006, we did participate in some of those mock accidents or derailments. The railway would provide equipment and the track and the city would provide the time for firemen first responders. Usually there was cost-sharing in place.

Transport committee  I can't talk about funding. The only thing I can say is that we do have a new outreach program--Direction 2006 was from 1996 to 2006--and part of that outreach program uses a risk-based approach, finding the areas throughout the community where they may be helped with respect to

Transport committee  In the past, most inspections were conducted on foot. Inspectors chose a section of track, walked along it, inspected it and took measurements. But now, we have a car to do all that.

Transport committee  We are beginning to catch up with the current technology, which has greatly increased our capacity to...

Transport committee  Indeed. When we implemented the SMS, we never intended to stop inspections. What we ultimately want is to obtain a compliance profile for each railway company. We want to know their compliance profile and how their safety management systems work. If a railway company has a good p

Transport committee  I have not seen the report yet, but I presume that the report on the review of the act will contain various recommendations for us. Perhaps one of them will be to hire additional staff. But since I have not seen the report yet, I cannot say whether that will be one of them.

Transport committee  That is currently not an obligation under the safety management system. However, we will meet with CP in the third week of January. The company will present its plan for 2008. Every year, we see the amount of capital investment the company makes. We also see the figures for whol

Transport committee  The only powers we have are contained in section 31 of the Act. If, for instance, we found a 60 m/h section of track which was not up to standard, we would issue a slow order for 35 or 40 m/h for that section.

Transport committee  It's the only power we have. If the railroad company decided not to make the investment and to travel at 40 m/h, then the track would be in compliance. We would have no problem with that, but trains would not be allowed to travel at 60 m/h.

Transport committee  We added two inspectors per region.

Transport committee  No, the number of inspections has not gone down since then. We still operate with both systems in parallel, because the level of compliance of the safety management system is not where we would like it to be. Consequently, we are still not confident that we can reduce the number

Transport committee  Yes, we have a report. That number has increased because in British Columbia, we have bought a car which allows us to take readings of the tracks, to read the track geometry, and this is something we could not do before. This car is similar to the ones owned by the railway compan

Transport committee  We only have one, which we bought last year.