Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, December 11, 2020 -

Despite improvements from past audits, Transport Canada still had deficiencies regarding its oversight of the transportation of dangerous goods, according to a report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts (the Committee) presented yesterday by Kelly Block, Chair of the Committee.

In the fall of 2020, the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD) released a follow-up audit on the transportation of dangerous goods, whose purpose was to determine the extent to which Transport Canada and the Canada Energy Regulator implemented recommendations from 2011 and 2015 reports regarding these organizations’ compliance and enforcement responsibilities. It also focused on whether these organizations followed up with companies that had contravened regulations to ensure that they had returned to compliance, among other things.

The 2020 follow-up audit found that since the 2011 audit of the transportation of dangerous products, Transport Canada had made some improvements but there was still important work to be done. Also, although Transport Canada implemented the recommendation to develop a national risk-based system to prioritize inspections, the underlying data was incomplete and outdated. Lastly, since the 2015 audit of the oversight of federally regulated pipelines, the Canada Energy Regulator had largely implemented the three recommendations but needed improvement pertaining to database design and the documentation of analysis.

As part of its report on this audit, the Committee made six recommendations to ensure that the federal government addresses these matters to help ensure the safety of all Canadians.