TRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

LE COMITÉ PERMANENT DES TRANSPORTS ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 31, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I think I see a quorum for witnesses, so I'd like to start the proceedings. We're dealing with Bill S-3, an act to amend the Motor Vehicle Transport Act of 1987.

We have Mr. Darren Christle and David Church. If they would take their seats and proceed with their interventions, I would appreciate it.

Mr. David W. Church (Director, Transportation, Recycling and Purchasing, Forest Products Association of Canada): Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you on Bill S-3.

My name is David Church and I'm the director of transportation, recycling, and purchasing for the Forest Products Association of Canada.

By now you should have copies of our submission in both official languages. They were sent to you last week. You will see from the submission that our concerns are very specific and deal with the continuation of federal authority over bills of lading and conditions of carriage as they relate to extraprovincial and international trucking.

Last year the Canadian industry shipped a record 31.6 million tonnes of forest products to customers in Canada and to over 100 countries around the world; 21.7 million tonnes of forest products, or 69%, were shipped within North America.

While rail transportation is primarily utilized by our members, the transportation of forest products by truck has become increasingly important in recent years, primarily for shorter distances and from mills located in or close to urban centres. Our members negotiate freight rates with motor carriers and rely upon the uniform bill of lading and statutory conditions of carriage as the basis upon which forest products are transported by extraprovincial and international truck transport.

Under the Motor Vehicle Transport Act of 1987, provincial transport boards in each province were entitled to issue a licence to a person to operate an extraprovincial truck undertaking on the like terms and conditions and in the like manner as if an extraprovincial trucking undertaking were a local truck undertaking. This provision constitutes the basis upon which the provincially enacted uniform bill of lading and statutory conditions of carriage are given effect beyond provincial boundaries. These uniform provisions preclude the necessity for individual negotiations of terms and conditions of carriage with each of the many truck carriers our industry utilizes. Moreover, the uniform bill of lading and statutory conditions of carriage provide consistency as to the rights and obligations of shippers and carriers, and they also provide a large measure of certainty as to the manner in which those rights and obligations are to be interpreted.

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The Forest Products Association of Canada strongly submits that they should continue to be effective even though the provisions of the MVTA, which give them force and effect, are being repealed with the enactment of Bill S-3.

Proposed paragraph 16.1(1)(h) of Bill S-3 permits the federal government to make regulations to attain the objectives of the act and to prescribe the conditions of carriage and the limitations of liability that apply with respect to extraprovincial motor carrier undertakings.

Proposed paragraph 16.1(2)(b) provides that a regulation made under proposed subsection (1) may incorporate by reference all or any portion of another document as amended from time to time, including the law of a province relating to motor carrier undertakings.

We have been assured by Transport Canada that these statutory provisions contained in Bill S-3 will ensure the continuation of the uniform bill of lading that currently governs extraprovincial truck transportation arrangements between shippers and motor carriers.

While FPAC supports the enactment of Bill S-3, it asks that the two sections I referred to be implemented without substantive change in view of these assurances received from Transport Canada.

FPAC also urges this committee to recommend to the government that a federal regulation incorporating, by reference, the provincially enacted uniform bill of lading and statutory conditions of carriage be promulgated at the same time Bill S-3 comes into force and effect. This will ensure that there is no lapse in the extraprovincial effectiveness of the uniform bill of lading and statutory conditions.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Church. We'll start with Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick (Prince Albert, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Church, for taking the time to attend our committee—

The Chair: Hang on a second, Brian. Maybe we should have the other...I'm sorry.

Mr. Christle, do you want to give us a five-minute intervention? Then we'll ask questions of both of you right after. That's probably a better way to do it.

Mr. Darren Christle (Director, Transportation Safety and Regulation, Manitoba Department of Transportation and Government Services; Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators): Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, I'm honoured to convey regards on behalf of the Manitoba Minister of Transportation and Government Services, the Honourable Steve Ashton, and my CCMTA colleagues from across Canada. I would like to thank the committee for requesting that the CCMTA appear before you today to share our perspective regarding Bill S-3 to amend the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, 1987.

There will be a document distributed shortly in both official languages that will explain that the CCMTA is a non-profit organization comprising approximately 600 members, including representatives from Transport Canada and all provincial and territorial jurisdictions, which, through the collective and consultative process, makes decisions on administration and operational matters dealing with licensing, registration, and control of motor vehicle transportation and highway safety. Its membership includes approximately 370 associate members from the private sector, special interest groups, and associations such as CRASH and the Canadian Trucking Alliance, whose expertise and opinions are sought in the development and strategies on programs.

The CCMTA receives its mandate from and reports to the council of ministers responsible for transportation and highway safety. It is structured with a 15-member jurisdictional board of directors and three primary standing committees. The three standing committees are the committee on drivers and vehicles, the standing committee on road safety, research, and policies, and the standing committee on compliance and regulatory affairs, CRA.

It is as a result of my participation as a jurisdictional representative on the standing committee on compliance and regulatory affairs, which has had significant involvement in the development of the bill under consideration, and primarily NSC standard number 14, motor carrier safety ratings, that I've been asked to represent the CCMTA before this parliamentary committee.

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In order to provide information on where we are going, it's necessary for me to spend a moment on where we've already been.

The federal authority to regulate activities of extraprovincial trucking and bus companies was delegated to the provinces by the Motor Vehicle Transfer Act of 1954. The MVTA of 1987 continued this delegation of authority, but with rules covering how the provinces could use this authority, while simultaneously enacting national deregulation policies.

The deregulation eased economic regulations, primarily market entry and exit, and refocused attention on safety. This refocus served as a precept for the creation of a memorandum of understanding, named the National Safety Code, also referred to as the NSC.

The CCMTA forum facilitated the consultative and participative efforts of each Canadian jurisdiction, including the federal government, to establish 16 minimum safety performance standards for the operation of commercial vehicles in Canada. One standard, first aid, is voluntary, thus leaving us with 15 standards today.

Many of the minimum NSC standards have been agreed to, and jurisdictions are undertaking implementation. Bill S-3 supports the precept of consistent application of the standards, while recognizing that there will be some jurisdictional differences in approach.

There exists today a certain amount of criticism respecting the development of the minimum safety standards by federal-provincial consensus. Additionally, there exists a perception of gross inconsistencies between jurisdictions on all elements related to the National Safety Code. I believe it's appropriate that I take a moment to speak to these issues.

Provinces have accepted the delegated responsibility for interprovincial trucking for the last 50 years. As such, all have, in good faith, dedicated scarce provincial resources, in conjunction with the federal funding, to develop systems to manage this task within their own respective jurisdictions, albeit they are unique.

Between 1988 and 1993, Transport Canada allocated $24 million, and between 1995 and the year 2002 approximately $20 million, to assist provinces with the development and implementation of the National Safety Code, and there have been positive results. It would be inappropriate to discount the success of harmonization respecting the major elements in a number of the standards.

It must be recognized that the NSC is comprised of minimum safety standards. There is no barrier to prevent a jurisdiction from exceeding these minimum safety standards; however, when this occurs, the result is a perception of incompatibility and inconsistency. I must recognize that there are certain regional and provincial issues that have caused inconsistencies; however, many of the major elements, for the most part, have been developed and implemented in each jurisdiction.

Additionally, it must be recognized that provinces exercise the authority for intraprovincial transportation regulation. By the consensus development approach fostered through the CCMTA, we mitigate the possibility of dual regulatory regimes dependent on either the intra- or interprovincial characteristics of a motor carrier. This recognition is evident when considering proposed sections 3.1 and 3.2. This amendment is particularly important in that it allows a cooperative opportunity to exist between the provinces and Transport Canada to examine, develop, and test new or best practices in an extraprovincial environment.

One of the most significant amendments to the bill rests with the reference to the National Safety Code in clause 3 and the incorporation by reference of NSC standard number 14, motor carrier safety ratings, in the regulations, with reference in proposed subsection 16.1(2).

Through CCMTA participation, National Safety Code standard number 14 has been under development and refinement for a number of years. The guiding principles of the standard will ensure that safety rating systems in Canada are based on: compatibility between jurisdictions; effectiveness, utilizing objective data analysis; equity independent of motor carrier characteristics; flexibility to recognize differences while not compromising process integrity; and consistency whereby carriers will receive similar ratings regardless of the rating jurisdiction.

The incorporation of NSC standard number 14 into the MVTA is the major enhancement to Bill S-3. Each member of the CCMTA, government and associate, has had an opportunity to participate in the open drafting of the standard. The standard was approved by the CCMTA board of directors in December 1997.

Standard number 14 is significant due to the fact that it incorporates many of the other NSC standards within its purview. It's a complex standard and has required significant resources in its development.

In the year 2000, Transport Canada made $7 million available to the provinces for safety rating development, electronic data transfer, and rating harmonization. These funds have been put to good use, and it is anticipated that the jurisdictions due to release their carrier profile systems, coupled with safety rating, will do so before the end of 2001. In fact, ten jurisdictions are now capable of currently exchanging electronic data in support of the safety rating elements.

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I would surmise that the committee may have heard comments about inconsistencies respecting tests of provincial safety rating systems. Please recognize that when these tests were conducted, many of the jurisdictions were using theoretical processes and algorithms that were under development in order to assess the consistency at that specific point in time.

The standard will result in a safety rating being assigned to each motor carrier, base-plated in its jurisdiction. The safety rating will either be satisfactory unaudited, satisfactory, conditional, or unsatisfactory.

Each jurisdiction will have in place a system to address issues of non-compliance based on objective data analysis and a facility audit consistent with National Safety Code standard number 15. Each jurisdiction will assess the carrier safety rating by taking into account a motor carrier's record over a two-year period, as reflected by their record of roadside convictions, at-fault motor vehicle collisions, commercial vehicle safety alliance roadside mechanical fitness inspections, and facility audit results, thereby making a positive impact on safety.

Proposed section 9 of the bill provides the federal minister with the authority to withdraw the ability of a province to issue the federal safety fitness certificate should they be in non-compliance with the standard. This provision will increase accountability of provincial jurisdictions and could result in significant adjustments being necessary should this section be exercised. Provincial authorities are committed to operate in good faith and in support of national consistency.

It is the position of the CCMTA that Bill S-3 does support the principles of safety and increases the opportunity for additional national harmonization. The CCMTA supports the bill as it is tabled.

I'd be happy to further assist the committee by answering any questions you may have. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Christle.

We'll go to the first round, for ten minutes, starting with Mr. Fitzpatrick of the Canadian Alliance Party, please.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Mr. Church, maybe you could expand for the benefit of the members of the committee, when you use the term “uniform bill of lading”, exactly what we're talking about.

Mr. David Church: It's basically the terms and conditions of a bill that are on the back. They've been in place now for many years.

There's a large body of jurisprudence that deals with the standard liability issues, and so on, that would be in a bill of lading.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: So it's kind of like a uniform contract for the shipping of the goods so that the carrier and the shipper both know what the rules are, and so on.

Mr. David Church: That's correct.

You can modify those through a contract if you like, but there are standard provisions that are on the back of each bill of lading that have been around for years and years, and there is a body of jurisprudence that deals with those issues in the event that there's a dispute.

So we just want the continuation of those things, extraprovincially and internationally.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: So the parties involved in that have certainty, and there are reasonable expectations of what's going to happen, and so on, because you have a uniform type of contract that everybody understands, or a uniform rule book.

Mr. David Church: That's correct.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Okay.

I'm going to raise a question that I think is important, because it came up in another committee. I think one of the most fundamental roles of a government is to create an environment in which the economy can grow and expand.

The U.S. is basically an example of a common market. They have 50 states, but it is a common market. States aren't little fiefdoms unto themselves. The borders are open, and trade moves relatively freely between those states.

Europe has recognized that concept, and they've been into the common market and that sort of concept.

Something that I find troubling in Canada in the year 2001 is the things that I still see as obstacles or impediments to the free flow of goods and services east-west in the country.

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The Canadian Truckers Association were, in my interpretation, lukewarm about this proposal. If I was understanding them correctly, if they're trucking something from, let's say, Ontario to Mexico, in respect of safety requirements from state to state and Mexico and Canada, we're talking about a uniform set of rules on safety, while it wasn't the case going east and west. My impression was that from province to province there were varying interpretations as to what safety requirements are. If I were in the business of trucking, that would bother me, because it's costly. You have to hire legal people and so on and get different rule books from province to province. It would be nice to know what the standard is, whether you're going east or west, to have one standard right across the country, not wondering whether the Manitoba umpires are going to call things differently from the Ontario umpires or the Alberta umpires on safety, and so on.

This seemed to be something they were saying, and I'm not exactly sure whether that's really the role for the provinces. It seems to me more appropriate that the federal government set out what those safety standards are and make them uniform.

Mr. Christle mentioned that they could exceed those standards. To me, that causes problems too, because if some provinces have only minimal standards, while other provinces have higher standards, and you're in the interprovincial trucking business, this gets to be a complicated game, trying to figure out what regulatory regimes and rules you're dealing with as you move goods across the country, and it adds to the cost of shipping. I think one uniform standard right across the country would make movement of goods east and west a lot easier.

Maybe you could respond to that. The truckers association would not be agreeing with the statements that were made by Mr. Christle on this point, and they say they represent 70% of the trucking industry.

Mr. David Church: From the perspective of the shipper, what we would like to see is uniformity across the board. We'd like to know that if you're loading a trailer in Halifax and you're going to move it through to Toronto, the standards you have to meet in Nova Scotia would be the same as those you have to meet to get to Toronto. And that includes safety issues, vehicle weights and dimensions, how you load the cargo, so you know when you're loading it that you're going to meet the standards right across the country, and into the United States as well, because we do a lot of trucking into the United States. There are movements afoot to get there, but I think on some of the issues we're a long way from that. Certainly from a shipper's perspective, that's what we want to see, uniformity across the board.

As for the safety issue, we'll leave that to those who are far more knowledgeable about it than we are in respect of what those standards should be, but definitely we would like to see uniformity of those standards.

Mr. Darren Christle: May I respond to your question as well?

One of the first sections in the bill, specifically proposed section 3, talks about consistency and what the bill is trying to accomplish. I'm going to paraphrase this particular clause. It talks about the fact that regulatory regimes must be based on the National Safety Code and that the operating standards applied consistently across Canada. For the last 48 years provinces have been responsible for the regulatory aspects of interprovincial transportation movements, and there's a lot of history there. To say there is potential for numerous inconsistencies I don't think would be necessarily accurate. A lot of the regimes in place across Canada are based on the National Safety Code, which is our framework, our starting point, and the major elements in most of those standards, the 15 that are remaining today, are in place in all jurisdictions. So I think we are quite close to having national consistency.

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Additionally, many federal standards and the National Safety Code have been incorporated by reference into provincial legislation. I'll use Manitoba and hours of service as an example, where the provincial hours of service regulation mirrors the federal.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Based on the evidence we've heard, there seems to be some disagreement on these points. I'll just leave it at that point, but the truckers are the people where the rubber meets the road, so when they tell me something like that, I'm more likely to perk my head up and listen to them, because they're the ones involved in that. I'm leaning heavily on what they have to say.

I'd like to ask one other question on this. This thing is designed to deal with motor vehicle safety moving interprovincially and so on, and I raised this with other people before. The road system you're using is an integral part of that highway safety, and in my mind, you can't separate them. As I said, you can't separate airlines from airports. If you've got inadequate airport facilities, there are going to be problems with airline safety. I'm wondering what your view is about the state of the interprovincial highway system in the country. Is it adequate the way it is, or is there a strong need for some infrastructure improvement in that system?

Mr. Darren Christle: I would agree with you. I think that there's always room for improvement. To answer your question, I would have to reflect on whether the current state of the infrastructure relates to or causes accidents. Potentially, I would say yes. When you consider issues such as demographics, speed, state of the infrastructure, weight differences, there are areas we need to focus attention on. Infrastructure would be something we could focus resources on to bring it up to a certain standard.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: A role for the government in creating a good environment for the economy is to invest in the infrastructure of our nation. That's good for the economy, that type of investment. It helps the economy to grow, links our country more strongly, and so on. In your view, if the federal government took a more active role in our national highway system and invested public funds in making our highway transportation system a first-class east-west system for the movement of goods safely and economically, would that be a good thing for government to be doing, would it be a bad thing, should they stay away from it?

The Chair: We need a short answer, because Brian is out of time.

Mr. Darren Christle: The short answer would be, absolutely. It would be a great thing for the federal government to inject resources into our national highway system.

The Chair: Thanks, Brian. You can save up your ammo for the next round.

Larry, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): I'm delighted once again to see the party that's always asking the government to cut spending once again advocating more spending for the government.

An hon. member: Right on the money.

Mr. Larry Bagnell: I got out of the wrong side of the bed.

I'll shorten my time, because my question is virtually the same as Brian's—or it's the same comment. There may be a different solution, not necessarily in the bill. We have tremendous interprovincial barriers between Yukon and British Columbia in trucking. Maybe you can take this back when you're talking to the provinces. I think it's more politics than safety. I don't think most of it is related to safety issues, although you said they can be different province by province. I just think they're artificial barriers, probably set up for politics, and, as Mr. Fitzpatrick said, it really hurts commerce. I hope, going on record, that you'll work towards reducing those, because I don't think it helps anybody in the long run.

I don't know if you want to make any further comment or not, but I'll turn now to my colleagues, because I didn't have any other questions.

The Chair: Mr. St. Denis, shall I switch over to Madam Desjarlais or do you have some questions?

Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.): Yes, I do.

Mr. Christle—and thank you, both, for being here—I asked this question in the first meeting, but I think, considering your involvement with the CCMTA, it would be very appropriate to ask you this as well.

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On the safety rating system, I appreciate your characterization of the progress as being very positive. Nothing is perfect yet, but you're well on the way toward the harmonization that I think all Canadians want to see.

Jumping ahead a few years to when everything is running smoothly and is in a stable state, will a business wishing to use the services of a carrier, or the public at large, be able to find out how particular companies are faring when it comes to their place in the rating regime? Will it be a very consumer-friendly system?

I have another one or two small questions.

The Chair: You have five minutes.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Darren Christle: The short answer, first of all, is yes. Each jurisdiction has made a commitment to making public access available, via the Internet. So an interested party could check on the safety rating of any motor carrier base-plated in any jurisdiction.

As I understand it, right now there are two jurisdictions that have public access on the Internet. One of them is Ontario; the other one is Manitoba. There is a fee for the Ontario query. Unfortunately, I don't know what that fee is. Manitoba's site is free, and it was released as of April 1, 2001.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: One of the witnesses on Tuesday said we'd been at this for a long time, and they were anxious to see things come to a conclusion. Hopefully, we will have the bill dealt with early next week, which I think shows the seriousness of the federal government to move this whole process forward.

To you first, Mr. Christle, how long do you see the process taking, by the time we have at least the early stages of a good system up and running?

Mr. Darren Christle: Are you referring to a safety fitness rating system?

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Yes.

Mr. Darren Christle: I see this as being very aggressive, and I think there were aggressive steps taken on behalf of Transport Canada even last year. One of the very positive things they did was invest $7 million in the provincial rating regimes. That money has been used by all the regimes to focus on developing carrier rating systems in each province; to ensure that electronic data can be transferred between the provinces, so provinces get the full scope and picture of what's happening on the roadways; and to concentrate on the harmonization issue.

In June 2000, the federal government contracted a gentlemen by the name of Fred Nix. He did a study that looked at the consistency between the jurisdictions, related to safety rating regimes. His recommendation to the provinces and the federal government at that time was to build the systems first, get them done right, based on the parameters of the National Safety Code, and then focus real time data on the issues of harmonization.

That is the recommendation we've embraced. The latest information I have is that six jurisdictions have the systems built. I'll be getting an update within the next three weeks, so that might even be low.

The very next major project CCMTA will be taking on, in this respect, will focus on the harmonization issues. It's going to be very aggressive, and you're going to see some significant changes and developments within the next 12 months—and that may even be a little long.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: If I have another moment or two...unless, Mr. Church, you want to say something on that question.

Mr. David Church: No.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Okay. If I can go back to Mr. Christle, you made reference to the fact that if the standard 14 is really a minimum standard, provinces are entitled to have a higher or more restricted standard—or they might say a safer standard, I suppose.

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Could you give us one or two examples of where a difference like that is not a problem, and another example or two where it is a problem? Maybe it's weight restrictions or something. I think truckers would have concerns if those differences were of a nature that required equipment adjustments from one area to another. So perhaps you could give just one or two examples of where a lack of harmonization is just not an issue, and one or two examples where it is an issue.

Mr. Darren Christle: Sure. On some provinces that have moved toward a higher level, if you will, I'll give you an example using Ontario and Alberta. We have four minimum standards for rating a motor carrier: satisfactory, satisfactory unaudited, conditional, and unsatisfactory. Both of these jurisdictions have indicated an interest in having a fifth rating category. This would be called an excellent carrier—a carrier that has not only met their benchmarks but exceeded them to such an extent that they should receive some other incentive, whatever that may be.

In terms of other provinces that aren't considering this fifth rating element, it really doesn't have an impact, because ultimately all the carriers will meet the high-level benchmark to be satisfactory.

In terms of a jurisdiction that has not been consistent or has done something with a federal standard that has posed a problem, I'll make reference to hours of service, specifically the intraprovincial hours of service regulations in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The two jurisdictions have no weekly cap, which creates a lot of contention in the industry.

In terms of how the other jurisdictions would look at it, obviously they're not consistent in those two areas; however, since we're talking about an intraprovincial regulation, it has no bearing on an extraprovincial trucking operation. That, potentially, would roll into my jurisdiction.

You raised the question of whether there should be differences in mechanical fitness issues. That one's actually consistent. You're referring to NSC standard 12, which is the commercial vehicle safety alliance. That's a trilateral agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States. So we're consistent with that right across the country.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Thank you. I'll pass it back to the chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. St. Denis.

I'll go to Mrs. Desjarlais from the NDP party, please.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Just to follow what Mr. St. Denis was asking you, if your intraprovincial carriers are allowed to do different things within the provinces, and their safety is affected or they are audited because of violations within the provinces, does that affect their rating overall? If they go beyond the provincial rule and drive more than 16 hours a day, does that affect their rating nationwide?

Mr. Darren Christle: Potentially it could. If I understand your question right—and please correct me if I'm wrong—if they're accruing violations within the boundaries of my province, and they happen to be an extraprovincial carrier, the answer is yes, that would impact on their ability to operate, or their rating. We look at accidents, violations, convictions, CVSA roadside results, and facility audit results. That regime is applied uniformly to each carrier—the same algorithm.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: You mentioned that all the carriers affected would have to meet the high-level benchmark when they're travelling, overall. I'm pointing this out because you used the term “high-level benchmark”. However, we also know that all anybody has to do is meet the minimum standard benchmark. To me, they don't fall in the same line. If someone's allowed to meet a minimum standard, I hardly consider that a high-level benchmark. I just wanted to make that point.

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You mentioned two provinces that have intraprovincial changes. Are there discrepancies between the provinces on what they will want to see certified at a certain rating? Can you tell me where the discrepancies are? There hasn't been total harmonization of what the code will imply. Different provinces are going to be able to certify what they see as acceptable in terms of the safety rating, right?

It won't be the same. This province can vary their position on satisfactory as compared to other provinces. Can you tell me on what particular issues that will differ between the provinces?

Mr. Darren Christle: I'll just go back for one moment to address your question about high-level benchmarks.

In the context I was using to explain the excellent carrier status, NSC has set a performance standard, and should a province decide to have an excellent carrier status, they potentially would meet a benchmark, which is higher than that minimum. That was the context I meant it in.

In regard to safety rating regimes, you're quite correct, there can be differences. The key thing to keep in mind is that the rating elements will be exactly the same; however, the number of carriers and how we arrive at the proper classification for that motor carrier may differ. In fact, there are four different regimes in Canada right now.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Can you give me some specifics on where the four different ones differ?

Mr. Darren Christle: Sure. I can be a little more general than that and I can talk a little more about what we're doing in the west, if that helps.

The regimes as they exist right now are in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and western Canada for the most part. We're working towards making sure a carrier rated in Manitoba would receive the same rating in Newfoundland, but there's work to do there.

One of the areas we need to focus a lot of attention on and we haven't resolved yet happens to be on the fact that the standard requires us to keep two years' worth of data on every motor carrier and assign a rating based on that two years' worth of data.

Right now three jurisdictions are using 12 months of data as opposed to two years. As for jurisdictions not using two years' worth of data, I see this as an issue that we're going to continually work towards to resolve.

That would be an example, to answer your question.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Is there a recommendation that they have to use two years of data?

Mr. Darren Christle: Two years of data is what was agreed to in the National Safety Code standard and endorsed by the board in December 1999.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: We have a listing in our briefing book of the 15 standards that fall under the National Safety Code. In each and every province, territory, and wherever else this applies, is there a specific standard that they fall under here so they'll be the same in each and every province? Let's use the hours of service. If it says we're going to use 60 hours a week, every province will have to abide by that 60 hours a week with no discrepancy. The carriers registered in that province will have to abide by that.

Mr. Darren Christle: If the NSC standard was incorporated by reference into provincial regulations, the answer is yes. The NSC, first of all, doesn't have a force in law; it's a memorandum of understanding. Every one of the standards is very prescriptive. Every one of the standards has had participation from every jurisdiction across the country.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: So if the provinces choose not to incorporate into the provincial law, then it won't be in effect?

Mr. Darren Christle: Ultimately, I guess that would be an accurate statement. However, in my experience with CCMTA, that hasn't been the case.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Are there some provinces that don't incorporate these standards right now?

Mr. Darren Christle: Not that I'm aware of.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: So all the standards are incorporated in provincial legislation.

Mr. Darren Christle: As far as I know, but I'd have to confirm that with the secretary for you.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I'm just following up on Mr. Fitzpatrick's point in regard to the Trucking Alliance, and again my question is to you, Mr. Christle.

They were here before us and they did not support this bill going through without making sure the national safety standards were incorporated into the legislation.

As well, although CRASH didn't come out quite the same way, there seemed to be concern from CRASH. As they are two of the members you distinctly mention, and both of them were not really thrilled with just exactly how things were, I'm wondering how they rate in the involvement in your organization as to others who might want this legislation to go through.

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Mr. Darren Christle: Certainly. The CCMTA membership is quite extensive. As I mentioned, there are 700 members, 370 of which are associate members. CRASH and CTA are associate members. The voting members would be the provinces, including Transport Canada and the federal government.

Every one of the issues we have examined under CCMTA, regardless of which standing committee, involves an opportunity to participate from all members. To say that we often have 100% consensus on every issue wouldn't be accurate. At the same time we also have an opportunity to adjust the issues we're examining, based on the feedback from whether the associates are voting members or not.

In regard to your statement about CRASH and CTA having some discomfort in regard to the consistency of the safety rating, I would go back to my earlier statement about the Fred Nix report from June 2000, where the consultant suggested to us that we needed to build the systems and then concentrate on the harmonization and consistency issues.

When the Nix report was first done, a lot of the jurisdictions didn't have the systems in place. Please understand that the algorithms and the thresholds being used are very complex. Often they're done by PhDs in mathematics.

So those of us who aren't quite skilled to that level need the computer systems to assist us. We're taking it from doing a paper exercise, paper and pen, into an exercise using real data on systems that are in place, and focusing attention on consistency. I think we're doing it correctly.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: There was a comment made that the provinces have enough resources to police this system, to make sure the data is inputted, and they will follow through so that it can be accessed from one province to the next.

So again, Mr. Christle, I have a question for you because you're the representative of the Manitoba government. Do the provinces and certainly the Province of Manitoba have enough resources to make sure this is going to be policed satisfactorily to ensure we don't have unsafe carriers on the road?

Mr. Darren Christle: Resources are always an issue, whether from a federal perspective or a provincial perspective. I'm going to use Manitoba as an example, because obviously that's my area of expertise.

To put things in perspective, the number of base-plated carriers in Manitoba ranges from 17,000 and 21,000, depending on the season. In terms of transportation safety investigators, I have six. In terms of people concentrating on the carrier profile system, I have four. Roadside enforcement is a different realm. It's still within the auspices of the Manitoba Department of Transportation and Government Services, but there are considerably more resources for roadside enforcement.

Our approach has identified that resources are an issue, and we're embracing technology to assist us in making sure the data integrity is 100% and that we're managing our systems appropriately. I think we're doing it. Do we need to focus more attention on resources? You bet.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I'll move to Monsieur Laframboise from the Bloc Québécois.

[Translation]

Mr. Mario Laframboise (Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I will tell you what my position is on the government of Quebec's recommendations. I repeat that I am sure it is too soon to pass Bill S-3. It is too soon because safety is the responsibility of the provinces and territories. There is still a lot of work to be done on harmonization, and the officials admitted that on Tuesday. Among other things, work needs to be done to set up the assessment system and make sure it is compatible, to develop the assessment mechanism, to implement the penalty process in each jurisdiction. There is a good and simple reason for all of this, and here I agree with Mr. Church: the industry needs to be confident that the standards will be applied across Canada and be completely compatible. So, given that the work is still in progress, why seek to enact Bill S-3? Why not wait for harmonization and top up any investment there is in resources? The Canada Trucking Alliance told us Tuesday that resources were underfunded. No one is asking the federal government to do its share. At the end of the day, the federal government is going to set the standard and will not have to invest any more than the amounts you mentioned. Personally, I think there is a consensus that there should be greater investment. Nothing in this bill provides for a federal fund to promote the application of a Canada-wide standard. There is nothing, in my opinion, as we speak, to reassure the industry, which has to...

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To begin with, each province or territory has to make sure its industries and carriers are competitive. No province can apply a standard that would jeopardize its own industry's competitiveness with other provinces, since we are talking about extra-provincial transport. So we have to make sure there is a consistent, harmonized standard, and there is still work being done; there is still work to be done.

Mr. Christle, what you are telling us, basically, is that everything is done. That is what you are saying to us, but on the ground, that is not true; there is still a lot of work to be done to harmonize standards. So why pass Bill S-3 right now, when everyone accepts standard 14? Everyone agrees. All provinces and territories agree to apply standard 14, but we need to have a system that is fair to the industry, so that no undertaking is unfairly penalized because it has to comply with a higher standard in its home province or territory than elsewhere. So if we are not yet harmonized and are unable to ensure consistency across Canada, why seek to enact Bill S-3 right away? That is the question I am asking you.

[English]

Mr. Darren Christle: Thank you for your question.

Your question to me brings to my mind the question, “Where is the starting point?” I don't have the answer. It's rhetorical in that case. Do we develop the standard first? Do we develop the regulations first? Do we develop the systems first? How do we start this process?

The decision was made to develop the National Safety Code standards first and concentrate our efforts on NSC standard 14 specifically. We have undertaken to build the systems based on the Fred Nix report, as I mentioned previously. We have now moved forward with the drafting of this particular bill. The culmination of each of these steps can lead to a positive result at the end.

You have suggested that the federal government dictates what the standards are going to be. I want to speak specifically to that for one moment. This may not necessarily be completely accurate, because the CCMTA process involves interjurisdictional—federal and provincial—cooperation and negotiation in development of every one of the standards. To suggest that the federal government could potentially force a provincial jurisdiction down a particular path in this process may not necessarily be accurate.

Ultimately, anything coming forward from a standing committee would go to the CCMTA board of directors, and following this would go to the council of deputy ministers responsible for transportation, and ultimately the council of ministers responsible for transportation and highway safety. There are checks and balances to make sure that one jurisdiction—whether a provincial or a federal one—isn't forcing other jurisdictions into a corner.

In your statement, you spoke about the need to be consistent and asked me if everything is done. Certainly, everything is not done, nor did I want to leave you with that impression. What I have suggested is that every one of the jurisdictions either have right now safety-rating regimes in place—we've used the federal money, the $7 million Transport Canada made available to us, to build those systems or re-engineer them to be consistent with the standard—or will have them in place by the end of this fiscal year.

Does this mean that everything is done then? Again, the answer is no, because then we have to take the other side of Fred Nix's report and concentrate on areas of consistency. Who knows? When the data sets are run, we actually may be consistent. I don't know, because that particular process hasn't been completed yet, but that's where our attention needs to be focused next.

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[Translation]

Mr. Mario Laframboise: I would just like to reply by saying to you that when you say Bill S-3 does not set the standard, it comes down to a “may” and a “shall”, because the Canadian Trucking Alliance requested that the “may” be replaced by “shall”, so that the federal government could withdraw a province or territory's power to issue certificates. It just comes down to a “may” and a “shall”, and you already have stakeholders requesting that the federal government “must” withdraw. So since the provinces and territories are the only ones currently able to enforce the standard, and since Quebec does not support Bill S-3 at the present time, I do not understand how people fail to see that it is too soon to table this bill.

Once again, stakeholders are requesting more money so they enforce the standard, and no one, not even you, has inserted a request in the bill for the federal government to invest more money in the enforcement of that standard.

It is fine for you to say to me that we have to start somewhere, but before the federal government enacts legislation that is going to tell Canadians there will be compliance with the standard, why not make sure that those responsible for enforcing the standard have the means to do so and are able to harmonize it, in the interests of the industry across Canada?

[English]

The Chair: This will be the last question, unless either of you gentlemen want to respond.

Mr. Darren Christle: Thank you.

In response to your comment about the term “must” or “may”, jurisdictional representatives from CCMTA have had some issues regarding that particular word, because we would want any decision made by the federal minister to take into account the unique characteristics of whatever he or she happened to be looking at.

If the word “must” is in there and the inconsistency, whatever it may be, is irrelevant for the most part, should that jurisdiction's ability to issue safety fitness certificates automatically be revoked? This is really a fundamental question. Maybe the answer is yes, but changing “must” to “may” would give the minister the option.

In proposed section 7, the bill specifically refers to the issuing of safety fitness certificates. I'm paraphrasing here, so please forgive me if I don't get the wording right, but proposed subsection 7(2) of the bill states that provinces may issue safety fitness certificates, but they don't have to be in any prescribed format.

All of the jurisdictions and territories across the country have in place some method to issue a safety fitness certificate to both intra- and extraprovincial carriers. I would suggest to you that you have different ones in every jurisdiction. As long as it's being done, and it's being done in accordance with the fitness criteria, it's not an issue. That's why I would suggest to you that the word “may” may be more appropriate.

The Chair: Okay.

We'll switch to Mr. Szabo for a quick question. We're almost out of time. I'd like to give Mr. Doyle five minutes, because he's been here, then I'll come back to Mr. Fitzpatrick to wrap it up.

Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Gentlemen, there was a previous witness who made a statement with regard to CRASH, basically saying it was funded by the railroad industry. CRASH stands for Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways.

I received a letter this morning from a constituent who also was a little concerned about the influence of certain groups or organizations who are really fronting for special interests within the transportation industry.

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I'm curious about this. Do you have any concerns about—or are you aware of—certain groups within the transport sector who have been unduly influencing policy or legislative amendments on behalf of a group that is not transparent?

Mr. David Church: CRASH is the only one I'm aware of. Again, in terms of an organization perhaps fronting for some other groups, the information is basically anecdotal. CRASH would be the only one in the transportation sector I'm aware of.

We speak for ourselves as the forest products industry. The trucking industry speaks for itself through its members in the Canadian Trucking Association, and the other carriers speak for themselves as well—either directly or through their associations.

Mr. Darren Christle: In terms of CCMTA, I'm aware of CRASH and of the Canadian Trucking Alliance. I am aware they receive a good proportion of their funding from the railway industry. I guess I'm being asked a question about whether or not it is right for them to have an opportunity to be heard and an opportunity to express their opinion.

My answer is yes, they have a right. They should be heard just like any other stakeholder group. Whether I agree or disagree with them is irrelevant.

Mr. Paul Szabo: I agree with you.

We have a process that allows for people to come forward. But when they hide behind names that don't seem to relate to the interest group they are representing, it tends to lead to conclusions about their credibility as well.

Mr. David Church: And I have no objection to CRASH being heard or appearing as a witness.

Mr. Paul Szabo: My last question, Mr. Chair, relates to this constituent who obviously is a trucker. He asked why all these groups showed so little concern for the thousands of motorist-created fatalities.

There is a frustration here—maybe there isn't a balance. What is the reality on our roads in terms of the safety, and is our legislation responding to the realities? It isn't only truckers. It isn't only rail, or bus, or whatever. Our roads are shared by many different kinds of motor vehicles.

Is there a balance in the representation—the concern or the focus—in the review we're doing? Are we missing the mark in terms of responding to the need to review and amend?

Mr. Darren Christle: That's a very difficult question. Accidents on the highway are everyone's concern, and it's a significant issue.

Again, in terms of trying to put it in perspective, in 1998 there were 2,934 accidents involving fatalities in Canada, out of a sample of 33,596 collisions; 500 of them were related to large-displacement vehicles.

From Manitoba's perspective on this particular issue, 3% of the accidents in Manitoba involve tractor-trailers. Manitoba Pubic Insurance has issued a statement that, in their statistical analysis, for the most part it's the driver of the passenger car, as opposed to the driver of the commercial vehicle, who was at fault. So when we consider fault, the 3% actually goes down.

Things are actually improving from a commercial perspective; the number of accidents is going down. It doesn't excuse them. We still have to concentrate...we still have further to go. We need to ensure that Canada's roads are the safest in the world.

What we're seeing reflects the kind of attention being paid to this particular issue. Crashes—collisions—are one of the rating elements under the National Safety Code standards. Under this particular bill, we do ultimately assign fault for them and weight them accordingly. When we take that weighted fault, we assign it to an algorithm and compare it against like fleets to see if one company happens to be having more at fault accidents than another company of the same size. Then we would address that issue accordingly with our transportation safety investigators through the audit process and sanctions. We're focusing a lot of attention on this.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, sir.

I'll switch over to Mr. Fitzpatrick for the last word.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I did want to make a comment. From my own experiences, when we're preparing legislation or designing legislation, the focus always seems to be the punitive side. If you don't meet, what do you do with the ones that are offside. I think Pavlov's experiments with dogs showed that positive reinforcement is much better than negative.

I find it interesting in your comment about Ontario, that Ontario is actually not just looking at the punitive side, they're focusing on the positive side. Excellent performers would be rewarded in the system. Sometimes I think when we're designing legislation and public policy, we should be looking at that end of things as well.

I would also like to pass a comment that very often we criticize the private sector. But I think there is a trucking firm from your province—a national trucking firm—that is recognized in the industry as being a North America-wide leader in quality and has won many awards. They're not doing it because of government regulation. They have a commitment to quality and performance. They're doing it on a voluntary basis, and it's good for business too. I just want to point that out, because too often the private sector is the whipping boy when you get into government circles.

I was going to ask one other thing to try to get this matter clarified in terms of implementation. Brent was asking about this.

If I were in the business of advising trucking companies and had a business person who was going to set up a national trucking firm that went from coast to coast in this country, could I advise that person that he only needs one lawyer from one province who could advise him on the National Safety Code requirements? That should be the case right across the country. I won't have to get ten different law firms involved from each of the different provinces to advise them what the varying standards are for safety. I can have just one person advise them on the National Safety Code and you'll be onside from coast to coast by complying with that thing.

Could I also train my maintenance and operation people from a management standpoint—drill them inside out—on that National Safety Code and assure everyone that if I comply with that code, I'm going to be onside in every province in this country?

This is very significant. If you're in business and you have to hire law firms from nine different provinces to keep you up-to-date and you have to train operators and maintenance people in nine different regimes, the cost of shipping is going to go up and you're not going to be competitive. To me it's a very important point. When this act is implemented, could I in all fairness advise a client that this would be the way to go?

Mr. Darren Christle: I just jotted down a couple of notes as you were speaking.

In regard to the excellent carrier status out of Ontario and Alberta, it's not to say that the rest of the provinces aren't recognizing it as well.

In my personal discussions with industry in Manitoba, what they've told us is, we don't want you on our back; let us go out and make money. If you meet my minimum benchmark—a satisfactory safety rating—as far as I'm concerned, you're an excellent carrier; go do what you're supposed to be doing: provide the service. That would be an excellent carrier as far as I'm concerned.

In terms of the company in Manitoba that has won two national fleet safety awards, Bison Transport, you're absolutely right. That would be a credit to the way things are done in Manitoba. I couldn't resist, sorry.

Mr. David Church: And there are companies in our industry using Bison Transport.

Mr. Darren Christle: In regard to your question about whether one lawyer could do it, that's a little bit more complex. The issue would depend on where the vehicles were base-plated. To answer your question, I'm going to use the premise that the vehicles are base-plated at home in Manitoba. Then my answer to you would be, yes, you could use one lawyer to get you from coast to coast and have your people trained. In fact, the reason behind that is we concentrate on base-plated fleets. That's the way the system is supposed to work. If you happen to have a fleet in every province, that would put this in a completely different realm, because you're going to be focusing on specific provincial regulations and some slight differences. For the most part, they're quite similar.

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What we've done in Manitoba, because we considered this particular issue as well, is we instituted a program called CORE, and that was just released today, as a matter of fact. CORE stands for commercial operator regulatory education. I submitted the English version to the parliamentary committee secretary this morning. That leads a carrier through the regulatory burdens and responsibilities in my particular jurisdiction, and for the most part is consistent with the National Safety Code.

The Chair: Mr. Church, do you have a response as well?

Mr. David Church: Not really, no.

The Chair: Okay.

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being here. We certainly had some enlightenment, particularly hearing from the province and the people who do the shipping. We appreciate your input. Thank you very much for being here.

We'll switch to the next two witnesses very quickly: Ms. MacGillivray is with the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association, and we have the representative from the Canadian Bus Association. I understand we have a name change.

We'll start with Ms. MacGillivray, and then we'll go to Mr. Haire for a five-minute presentation.

Ms. Lisa MacGillivray (President, Canadian Industrial Transportation Association): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased once again to appear before the committee. I am Lisa MacGillivray. I'm the president of the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association.

The CITA is a national organization of shippers. We are the buyers of transportation services, so we are the customers of the trucking companies and the railways and the airlines, as well as the marine lines. CITA members purchase annually approximately $6 billion in transportation services, and they contribute more than $120 billion annually to the gross domestic product.

From a shipper perspective, we look at bills like Bill S-3, and certainly we are supportive of the bill. Again, you've heard other witnesses before you express a certain degree of concern about the length of time it has taken to get a National Safety Code off the ground. I am encouraged by hearing Mr. Christle, the earlier witness, indicate that perhaps within 12 months we might actually get there. After 16-plus years, this is good news.

From our perspective, the Motor Vehicle Transport Act accomplishes three things for the shipper. First of all, it delegates regulatory authority from the federal government to the provinces in regard to trucking between provincial and territorial jurisdictions, as well as internationally. This is a key issue, because without the regulations contained in the MVTA, there would be a gap there. This would lead to a certain degree of lack of surety in our contractual relationships.

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The second thing it does is it certainly establishes the National Safety Code and outlines some of the requirements within it.

I guess thirdly, at this point, it will hopefully give the federal government a little bit more standing as far as ensuring that a national code is actually achieved.

On the first point, the idea of the contractual relationships, we know that highway transportation is a provincial jurisdiction. But the federal government has jurisdiction on international and interprovincial trade. Therefore, the clauses that contain the ability for a bill of lading—this is a shipping contract containing 400 years of common law and legal jurisprudence that direct the relationship at a minimum level between the carrier and the shipper and is carried on across jurisdictions.

As it stands now, if you are originating a shipment in Ontario and you want to go to Manitoba, you would issue a bill of lading. The bill of lading would then be under an Ontario jurisdiction. But if anything were to happen—for some reason the shipment was damaged—within the jurisdiction of the province of Manitoba, the provisions within the MVTA that carry on this umbrella understanding between the jurisdictions would allow a Manitoba shipper to enforce the standard and go back and claim recompense for the damages. Without these clauses, there would be little recourse for that shipper.

So we are very much encouraged by the continuation of this, and as the Forest Products Association has indicated, we encourage that umbrella to remain intact.

On the National Safety Code, from a shipper perspective—and perhaps we deal with these things rather single-mindedly—a national code is all very nice, but what it does is it allows the public dissemination of whether a shipper is safe or unsafe. It allows the shipper to make a good decision when they are choosing their carriers. In order for us to make these decisions, we need to know that a rating given in one province means the same thing in all the other provinces and the same thing to our trading partners in our other NAFTA countries.

It adds incredibly to a shipper's uncertainty if they're not sure whether one province is accepting the safety ratings of another province, or whether all the input that goes to making that safety rating is similar between the provinces. So we take it from a very high end. We view it that a safety rating is actually created for the shipper. It's created for the user of the transportation services, so that they know whether the service providers they are hiring are safe to use.

From that perspective, we encourage that at some point, once the processes are in place, I suppose, and once everybody knows where they're standing, somebody will take control or take the initiative to ensure that the national safety standards are applied equally across the jurisdictions and the shipper will get good information.

Ideally, I would take that even a step further and hope that some day there will be a central database, so that the shipper won't have to determine where a carrier is home-plated. He can go to one place, type in a name, and get a national safety rating for that carrier. You don't have to try to find them.

Now that perhaps is a few steps down the road, and certainly I believe it's probably beyond the positive idea that it might be in 12 months. But from our perspective, this would be an ideal situation.

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So in closing, I would like to say that it's very important to us that the bill of lading, the contractual regulations, remain intact, but secondly that we move further, we move quickly, because right now there's a huge information gap out there and there's a lot of pressure for shippers to use safe carriers. We're asking you, how do we know?

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Lisa.

Mr. Langis, or is it going to be Mr. Haire who will be the spokesperson?

Mr. Sylvain Langis (President, Canadian Bus Association): Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much.

You just heard my name, Sylvain Langis. I am the president of the Canadian Bus Association, and we're very pleased to be here today to appear before the committee.

We wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, in particular standard 14 of the National Safety Code governing carrier safety ratings.

The intercity bus industry is a key travel mode serving Canadian travel needs. The intercity bus industry is the least costly public mode of travel, the least subsidized mode of travel, the most environmentally friendly—in fact, three times more environmentally effective than either the private car mode or the intercity rail mode—the safest surface mode of travel, and the most comprehensive network service in the country, connecting some 3,000 Canadian communities.

The scheduled service portion of our industry provides some 50 million passenger trips per annum. It is estimated that the charter and tour service portion provides even more passenger trip services. We estimate the total as around 40 million passenger trips in Canada on a yearly basis. By comparison, the intercity rail industry provides some four million intercity passenger trips per annum.

So the Canadian Bus Association, or Association canadienne de l'autobus, directly represents some 25 bus carriers in Canada, including most large scheduled service operators. In addition, the CBA indirectly represents another 100 bus carriers who are members of l'Association des propriétaires d'autobus du Québec, which is a member association of CBA. In total, we estimate that the CBA membership represents some 85% of scheduled bus activity and some 25% of charter tour bus activity in the country.

In submitting our comments today, we wish to emphasize the following issues.

One, the Canadian Bus Association supports this bill. This piece of legislation is certainly a step in the right direction, even though the requirements set out in its contents are not as stringent as they should be.

Secondly, a primary concern for legislators ought to be that bus carriers should be held to a higher safety standard than truck operators.

Three, if at some future time a form of economic deregulation or reregulation is put in place, a more stringent set of safety rules should be imposed as a prerequisite.

Fourth, even if deregulation is not introduced at some future time, there are still some areas where bus safety rules can and should be improved.

[Translation]

The enforcement of road safety rules is a provincial responsibility. The federal government's role is to coordinate the regulations, which continues to create conflict among various levels of government in Canada. Given the high cost of enforcing the regulations, a number of provinces are unwilling to accept federal safety proposals. The watering-down of standard 14 on carrier safety records is a good example of this.

The federal government initially wanted to impose mandatory inspections of the facilities of new carriers or site visits in their first two years in operation. Although this proposal garnered some support from the provinces, including Ontario, a number of provinces did not want to accept the provisions dealing with mandatory inspections, largely owing to the high cost of those inspections. Currently, new bus operators can operate commercially without having their facilities inspected, unless they cross a threshold for traffic accidents and highway traffic violations. The Canadian Bus Association strongly supports the mandatory facilities inspection proposal and even recommends that new bus operators be required to undergo mandatory inspection within the first six months of commercial operation, rather than two years.

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The disappearance of the mandatory facilities inspection provision from standard 14 underscores some of the main weaknesses of the current bus safety framework. The CBA can understand provincial concern about the federal transfer of responsibility. It is certainly true that site inspection costs must be borne by the provinces. In our opinion, however, the broader problem is that most governments appear unable to distinguish between the activities of truckers and bus operators. In fact, they regard both as commercial motor carriers. There are over 100,000 truck undertakings in Canada, but only 1,000 bus operators. We firmly believe that mandatory inspection of the facilities of new bus operators should be kept in standard 14, even if that requirement has to be dropped for new truck undertakings.

[English]

The bus mode carries people, not goods. Yet within the safety framework, the bus industry is largely treated as an adjunct to the trucking industry. One need only examine the onerous safety certification requirements imposed on passenger air carriers to get some sense of the gap that exists in terms of protecting public mode passengers. The Canadian government needs to examine bus safety from a standpoint of their duty to these passengers, not from a standpoint of what is commercially viable for truck operators hauling freight.

In the end, we are confident that a bus safety code will emerge that is substantially separate from the truck safety code.

[Translation]

The motor vehicle transport industry has also raised the need for consistent harmonization of the provisions of the National Safety Code across Canada. This is not a big concern for bus operators, a number of whom already have internal safety practices that greatly exceed the minimum regulatory requirements in several provinces; the issue of national harmonization is in large part irrelevant to them. As a matter of principle, the bus industry supports the national harmonization goal. However, the most immediate challenge is the overall improvement of bus safety regulations. As far as we know, the lack of harmonization of bus safety regulations among provinces is not a significant problem for the bus industry. The real problem is to come up with a way to deal with the bus safety regulations themselves.

[English]

In closing, the CBA affirms its support for standard 14 of the National Safety Code governing carrier safety ratings. We would prefer even more stringent requirements, most notably a mandatory facility audit of novice bus carriers within six months of commencing operations. That being said, we certainly embrace the proposed standard 14 as being an important step in the right direction. It's our hope that an organized examination of bus safety regulations will be forthcoming in the near future.

[Translation]

Thank you.

[English]

Thank you for your kind attention.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll go to a round of questions. We'll start with Mr. Fitzpatrick of the Alliance Party. You have ten minutes.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: If I understood you correctly, Lisa, you are questioning the validity of the rating system that's going to be in place under here, whether or not as a shipper you can rely on the system that is being proposed or implemented in this country.

Ms. Lisa MacGillivray: Until they get it up and running, and we've heard this morning that they're working on the processes before they work on the harmonization and consistency.... It's the consistency that's key, and the devil is in the details there. If one jurisdiction decides that a safety rating will be based on a threshold of one number, and the next jurisdiction decides that their threshold per number of tractors in the fleet, or however they do it, is a different one, is that the same safety rating? What is satisfactory, and does everybody agree with what satisfactory is? You'd hate to find out that you're using somebody who another jurisdiction may not believe is as safe as one who perhaps checked.

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Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Sylvain raised a point, which I don't think is isolated to just transportation but goes into a lot of areas, and that's the ability of the federal government to make laws and regulations. Then it's in the provincial jurisdiction to have to deal with the enforcement of those laws. The Criminal Code would be a good example. We deal with that all the time. For instance, for firearms registration the enforcement of that law will be in provincial jurisdiction. Provinces do have limited resources, and from province to province the ability to put resources into place varies. It is a problem, and I can understand their dilemma because they have to be discretionary, they have to prioritize what they're going to do with limited resources. You can't do everything under the sun.

But the federal government can take credit, saying, we have good laws in place, good regulations, and so on, but they really skirt the main issue: the enforcement end. If you can't enforce and execute these laws, they're not going to be of a whole lot of importance.

So do you have any suggestion as to how the provinces can deal with this sort of problem on the enforcement end? I think you're alluding to the idea that the provinces really aren't opposed to safety standards but they do have economic limits in how much they can spend on this sort of stuff.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: But as I said, there are not 100,000 bus carriers out there. There are about 1,000 throughout the country. The industry, the scheduled bus industry and the charter and tour bus industry, carries approximately 40 million passengers in this country on a yearly basis. If you compare it to what the train carries, it's 4 million. So we carry ten times more people throughout the country to about 3,000 locations throughout Canada in all the different regions.

More and more, because of the type of mode of transportation we are, we are economical, and we are environmentally friendly.... If you look at the studies that have been conducted, it says that by far the bus industry is the most environmentally friendly, compared to any other public modes of transportation.

This being said, some provinces are doing the enforcement. I can give you the example of the Province of Quebec, which is doing right now a very strong enforcement. In fact, it's even too strong for the moment. It follows some incidents that have happened in the province, but they can do it and they can do it very easily. They even have to follow some of the recommendations that came from a coroner's investigation. We think we can do it.

The problem is that for years—and it's an historical situation—we've been treated as heavyweight vehicles, the same as trucks. We believe very strongly that for the future, because of our capacity and the potential we have in carrying more and more people throughout Canada, a different set of rules to carry people and to protect people with safety should be put in place on a national basis.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: That brings me to another question. You made reference to the airline industry, which is in the passenger business. Surely the bus industry is not inviting the same level of regulation there, like the instructions at the start of a flight in both official languages, and the playbacks, and the instructions about what's going to happen in an emergency situation. Are you suggesting that this sort of thing is something you want government to do for the bus industry?

Mr. Sylvain Langis: I don't think we're looking as far as that, even though I can tell you that personally in my own company we do many things on a bilingual basis just to make sure our customers understand very well, for example, all the safety features of a vehicle. But we do it on our own, although I would say between the month of September to the month of June, 97% of my customers are francophones.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I'm not criticizing the language part of it.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: No.

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Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: When you're travelling by airline, you're constantly barraged with that. It is time-consuming, but most people just ignore it anyway.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: You go ahead; you may have technical information.

Mr. Don Haire: I think what the CBA is trying to get across is that there should be a serious examination of what's needed here. It's never been done. We are not lobbying to be subjected to the same level of rules and controls as the airline industry.

I assure you I've talked with a number of friends at ATAC, and they would like to see a lot less regulation. We're not suggesting that. The problem here is that it's never been seriously examined. That's the step that has to be taken.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: We gave it as an example, just to show that a compromise can exist between the two modes.

That being said, we are not here because we've received complaints about the safety of our mode of travel. But we believe that in the future, because of our potential for carrying many more people in the coming years, there should be a different set of rules.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I think you're trying to say that it's good business to be a safe carrier. If you're not, it doesn't work. If an elevator company has a bad track record, people don't want to buy their elevator systems. They want good-quality systems. Your industry recognizes that.

I guess that's the point. The best point is that an industry should be dedicated to safety. In fact, the industry has to provide safety because there's a government watchdog. I don't think that's the right reason for safety. It's good for business to have the travelling public know that a carrier is safe.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: I agree with you, except that we still have to work within the framework set out here. This is why we're saying that we would like to be treated differently, because we're a different industry.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: One last question, and then I can pass it on to other folks.

You mentioned novice carriers, such as maybe a small start-up bus carrier. A lot of small entrepreneurs trying to start up in the economy, in any sector, can sometimes say that the big players—with government help—create such a monstrous regulatory regime that it's next to impossible for a small company to get going.

I'm not exactly sure who you all represent in the busing sector. But in my view, it's a lot easier for Greyhound—which is an established player in the business—to advocate more and more regulations, because it has a pretty dominant position. It knows that if there are enough regulations out there, it could possibly keep start-up companies from really getting into the business, since it doesn't want the competition.

You mentioned novices a few times, and tougher regulations. Is that something your association is trying to advocate on this matter?

The Chair: That's the last question. I'm going to give a minute for the answer.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: As for the term “novice”, a 200-coach company could be a novice. For example, a farmer could buy a bus company and decide to run it by himself. I don't think it has to be a very small operation, though more often than not it will be a smaller one.

But we believe that if a newcomer in this industry has a good knowledge of how things are done, and how they could be done better, then there would be far fewer difficulties and a higher level of safety for the passengers.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Mr. Chairman, can I just make a statement here?

I referred to the airline industry, which is really more of a cliché than anything else. I did not mean to offend anybody of francophone background by saying that both official languages are time-consuming and ignored. I want to have it on the record that I certainly didn't mean to offend anybody by referring to the frustration of listening to all the instructions twice over. I'm travelling public now too.

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Thank you very much.

The Chair: Mr. Serge Marcil of the Liberal Party for ten minutes, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois—Salaberry, Lib.): According to every witness we have heard to date, it always comes back to more or less the same basic discussion: people are in favour of the legislation, but they might like to see a few changes to it. However, they point out that it might be difficult for some provinces to enforce the legislation so that it applies consistently across Canada. Interprovincial transport is national transport; it is therefore very important for safety criteria or standards to be the same from one province to the next. Otherwise, some carriers are going to be denied... In fact, they may be denied access.

We also see in the bill that north-south or south-north transport, American transport, to be precise, has to follow the same rules, even for bus transport. That is indeed so.

The question I would like to ask you, Mr. Langis, is the following. I understand that it is up to each province to enforce security standards. I also understand that the provinces are not equal in terms of financial capacity, human resources and everything, in fact. You say that the standards should perhaps be somewhat higher than standard 14. If you had the chance to propose amendments to the current bill, what would you propose? What type of amendment would you like to make?

Mr. Sylvain Langis: As we indicated, we would like amendments to separate Canada's bus passenger transport industry from the truck industry when it comes to the enforcement of safety rules, for various reasons.

We are not saying we want rules that are more strict or broad or onerous. The thing is that bus safety rules may differ from those for trucks. There are safety rules that apply to a truck that is far heavier than a bus, except that a bus does not just carry goods; it carries people. A bus carries up to 55 or 56 people. In order to protect human life, I think there have to be concrete rules specific to this mode of passenger transport. Let's stop treating buses as mere commercial motor vehicles. That is one thing.

Another thing, as we said, is that with respect to the certification standard, we would hope that it would be the same across Canada, so that carriers who apply for or have to defend their certificate do so according to the same standards.

[English]

Do you have another comment on that?

Mr. Don Haire: I have two fast comments. I think, Mr. Marcil, that the issue right now is not necessarily to propose amendments to standard 14. It's taken a long time to get standard 14; they've been working on it for five years.

But we are alerting the House to the fact that from our standpoint, standard 14 is imperfect. There is a serious need to examine bus safety as a separate entity from truck safety. They're different animals.

If we were going to propose any amendment—which we are not necessarily doing right now, other than pointing out that this is suboptimal—we would propose a mandatory facility audit for new carriers. That was there originally: the feds proposed it, Ontario supported it. They wanted to do this audit within two years of a new carrier commencing operations, which still means a bit of risk, because that carrier's on the road for up to two years before it's checked out. It just couldn't get provincial support, because they had to deal with the cost of inspection. I understand what the problem is.

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From our standpoint, we would like to see new bus carriers checked out within six months of commencing operations. When you have a bus accident such as that one at Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, that has a terrible impact on the entire industry, not just on the carrier involved. But we want to improve what is already an excellent safety record.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: I understand. I fully agree with you about bus inspections, among other things, precisely because of their mission. They are not just transporting goods, they are carrying individuals.

The problem is that this falls under provincial jurisdiction. The question I was asking, in fact, was whether the bill, which is now under federal jurisdiction...

So there are two fields of jurisdiction. There is the framework, which is established nationally, and then there is the enforcement, which is established regionally. I agree with you that these are two different types of transport, not to be assessed purely on the basis of vehicle weight and length, but also taking into account what is being transported. So for industrial transport, when dangerous goods are being transported, the safety standards have to be different from those for transporting lumber, for example. When carrying human beings, if a bus misses a curve and there is an accident, there could be 56 or 57 fatalities. When a truck transporting lumber has the same accident, the impact is not exactly the same. I agree with you on that.

In this bill, can we make an amendment that would in fact distinguish between both types of transport, without affecting provincial jurisdiction? That is the first question. That is what I am getting at with my question. It is extremely tricky because it is such a sensitive issue. I know that bus safety standards in Quebec are extremely high because of accidents. It always takes a tragedy for things to get fixed.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: That is why we raised the issue of site visits, in our case.

[English]

The Chair: This will be your final answer, Monsieur Marcil, before I move to Monsieur Laframboise.

Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Sylvain Langis: I will use this strictly as an example, but if the transporter who had the accident that we all heard about in Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive had undergone a facilities audit, it is highly likely—I'm not saying that it would never have happened—that this accident would never have happened, because some of the major security aspects that the owner had to take into account would have been examined. That is just an example.

Fortunately, very few accidents occur in our industry. In fact, it is by far the safest means of surface public transportation. We are second only to air travel given the huge number of passengers carried by the airlines.

What we want is to make our means of transportation even safer considering the clientele we will transport in the future.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. Thank you very much.

Monsieur Laframboise.

[Translation]

Mr. Mario Laframboise: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to start with a comment. I also have a question. Since this is the last time I will speak on Bill S-3, I would just like to make sure that you do not think my comment is directed specifically at you.

I just want to make sure we clearly understand each other. I have always used the same strategy on Bill S-3. I feel it is too early to table this bill for one clear and simple reason: the provinces and the territories administer and manage the system. They are responsible for safety. The federal government has it easy. With Bill S-3, the federal government is telling Canadians: “Look, we are going to force the road transportation industry to adopt the standard and apply it throughout Canada.” The problem is that as we speak, we cannot harmonize in the provinces and the territories because there is a major problem: the cost. To enforce the standard—you said it as did most witnesses who have appeared before us—involves major costs. I do not know if it is because you are shy, but somewhere, the federal government must pay its fair share if it wants a safety standard to be enforced throughout the country, which is very good. It must pay its share, and no one is asking the federal government to pay the real costs. You know that you are all making a great mistake by not asking the federal government to do that. You are going to end up paying for it.

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If I were a provincial representative, listening to all of the companies that are appearing before this committee, I would say that you want a Canada-wide standard, that it will cost money and that you are going to end up paying. I know that in your respective companies you already have enough problems with competition and costs without having to bear all of the costs incurred to harmonize these standards and enforce them. But you are not going in that direction.

Maritime transportation is a good example. It bears all of the costs for the coast guard, for de-icing. These costs are borne directly by industry. By not asking the federal government to pay its share, with everything you are giving the federal government by paying for fuel, taxes, the excise tax and the GST, you are going to be bearing all of the costs for the provincial system. I cannot get over that.

Why aren't you asking for Bill S-3 to include mandatory participation by the federal government? If not, your industry will be bearing all of the costs for the application of this system. Once again, I reiterate, the federal government has it easy. It is implementing a Canada-wide standard, and coming across as the main safety advocate, without having to spend a penny. I cannot get over that.

That is both the end of my comments and my question.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: How much are we supposed to ask for, Mr. Laframboise?

Mr. Mario Laframboise: The problem is that you did not ask for it. That is the problem.

A Voice: That is not necessarily in...

[English]

The Chair: Mario has had his say. We'll go to Bev Desjarlais of the NDP.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: What the box carriers or the trucking industry have asked us to adopt.... I think as parliamentarians, each and every one of us has an absolute responsibility to ensure the safety of passengers on buses, or people on the roads or in trucks. It's just absolutely not okay to suggest that because there isn't enough money for inspections, we're not going to do that.

By rushing this bill through the way it's been done, the Canadian public doesn't know this. We're not involving the full scope of public discussion. I think all the discussions have taken place behind closed doors, between the people involved in the industry—but not the people utilizing the industry, the ones who are really at risk.

Today we're hearing an industry that's very, very important to safety, the busing industry, saying that it wants stronger regulations. As parliamentarians, how on earth can we ignore that recommendation?

The busing industry itself says: “We need stronger regulations. We want to be different. We're not trucks. We're not just carrying goods, we're carrying people.” And we're going to ignore it because we want to rush through a bill—rush it through for no reason whatsoever.

Nothing is going to stop in the industry. We're not holding up the busing industry from carrying on; we're not holding up the trucking industry from carrying on. All we're doing is making sure we're not missing anything here, making sure that people travelling on our roads are safe—and not just Canadian citizens, because this will apply to anybody travelling on our roads.

It is totally negligent of us not to deal with this—to allow another piece of legislation to go through without ensuring that it's the best legislation. We are holding up nothing, nothing.

I want to truly commend you for taking this position today. I'm extremely impressed that the busing industry would come forth and make these points.

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I for one travel by bus and have always believed it to be one of the safest, most efficient, and most on time forms of traffic anywhere. If you want to be guaranteed to have your service delivered, it's the busing industry, and that's from someone who travels the north in numerous storms, the whole bit. It's rare that a bus doesn't make it, and I have never felt unsafe, ever. So I truly want to commend the busing industry.

I have a question for you, after getting that out of my system. I want to know which provinces didn't want the facility audit.

Mr. Don Haire: I can't be absolutely sure. What I can say is this. In the early days, the nascence, if you wish, of a standard 14—and the feds were leading the band and putting up the straw man as a proposal. They were looking at mandatory facility audits for all novice carriers, both truck and bus. To the best of my knowledge—I wasn't in the room—the only province that was strongly supportive of the initial federal position was Ontario, but I can't guarantee that. It is certainly true that some of the outlying provinces just completely rebelled at the idea of the inspection costs. I know Alberta was particularly vocal in that regard.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: And it was the cost factor?

Mr. Don Haire: There are other things that come into it, but it's basically cost; it's basically money. Mr. Laframboise has it right on the button. Maybe people don't want to talk about it, but it's a big issue.

If federally you want to define a harmonized national safety standard, but you ask the provincial government in Prince Edward Island to adopt that standard and then pay virtually all the costs associated with it...well, perhaps the voters of Prince Edward Island don't wish to have the same standard as the rest of Canada. So what are you doing here? This is the issue of fiscal responsibility that Mr. Laframboise is bringing up.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Really, what we're talking about is.... We're not dealing with national standards here; we're dealing with....

Mr. Don Haire: We're dealing with national guidelines.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: We're dealing with guidelines. We're calling this a safety code and we're going to give safety certification. We're not giving safety certificates, because that's too obvious; people could ask to see them. We're going to have safety certification that nobody can really check on. And we have a federal government that in another area of transportation is not showing any leadership whatsoever.

Quite frankly, if anybody that I'd been dealing with took 16 years to come to a resolution about something, I'd be saying where the heck is the leadership? If you get in a room and you can't resolve something over 16 years, then you have the country and the people of the country saying, look, we need a federal initiative here. Somebody has to show some leadership and get this dealt with. If we all know we need this standard and this standard in place, we put it in place and we assist the provinces the way we should in making sure we have national safety standards. That's the bottom line here, and the federal government is not showing that leadership.

Thank you.

The Chair: I'll move to Mr. St. Denis before I come back to Brian.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I have a short comment, if I may, through you, to the comments of my colleagues, Mario and Bev.

Your last comments were in support of my argument that we get Bill S-3 out of here and do show that the federal government is serious about its part in the process, fully respectful of the provincial role to implement, and so on, because of the delegated authority. But if every government takes the view, well, we'll wait till last, we'll wait till last, we'll wait till last, then it will be another 16 years.

I just don't see a huge hue and cry out there saying hold this thing up, we need more time. I think the interests of the citizenry are best served by having the hearings we've had, and a little more on Tuesday, I understand, and moving this very important file forward.

With that, unless our witnesses have a comment on that, I think words may have been put in the mouth of the bus witnesses. I don't recall that either of the gentlemen here said this bill should be held up. They would maybe like some more, but they saw that this was a step forward. I think that's in their text actually.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Don Haire: I confirm that was what we were saying. It's taken five years to get this far. There are still further improvements needed, but go ahead.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Merci.

The Chair: We'll move to Mr. Fitzpatrick.

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Oh, sorry, Lisa.

Ms. Lisa MacGillivray: I've been quiet so long I can't stand it.

In response to some of the discussion that has been going on here, the standards have been agreed on by the provinces. We've heard this morning that they've all incorporated them into their provincial legislation.

I think at this point, however, as Mrs. Desjarlais indicated, it's time for those who are promulgating a national standard, which generally is the federal government, to take a leadership role and begin to manage this process to ensure that harmonization and consistency exist between the jurisdictions. CITA believes it behooves the federal government to facilitate this by properly funding the surface transportation directorate of Transport Canada so that they can properly do this and help can be given to those provinces that perhaps aren't as flush with cash as some of the larger ones are to maintain these standards.

The hard work has been done. It's now just the implementation. We think it's time for that to happen. From our point of view, it's ridiculous to continue talking about this. It's now time to implement the concept and get on with it.

I don't know if that's helpful or not, but there it is.

The Chair: Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I'm going to go back to the NovaBus situation. I should know more about the incidents that occurred in the province of Quebec. I apologize for not understanding the backdrop of those accidents, but I know they were real tragedies.

It would be my thinking that if I wanted to start up a bus company, the people I would hire to operate those buses would have to have some pretty good training and meet some pretty high standards before the province would license that person to operate a bus. I'm also assuming that the bus itself would have to go through a fairly stiff inspection process and so on before I could go into business. I hope that's the case right across the country. Am I right on that?

Mr. Sylvain Langis: In theory you are right. In practice that's not necessarily the case. In fact, if I sell my company tomorrow to the party with the best offer, as I said earlier, it can be someone who doesn't know anything about the bus industry, including the regulations and the practices, the different provincial safety rules we have to respect, the mechanical inspections we have to conduct, and how often we have to do those. Someone can just come in and because of their méconnaissance—I'm sorry about the word in French—lack of knowledge about the situation, in the period of one year, for example, they can turn a very well-built company into a catastrophe.

That's why we are saying that if there were inspections within the companies by either regulatory bodies or safety bodies to make sure every company complies with the regulations that are in place, we think we would have a much safer industry throughout the country.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: Just to follow that point a bit further, if my first two assumptions were correct, that we had maybe poor management of a company or people who really were short-term thinkers and not long-term thinkers running things, which can happen in business, you're saying that if there was a mandatory audit procedure six months down the road for these new entries, it would be easy to spot people who are not complying with the rules or are on the fringe, and for public safety reasons we could get them out of the market or make sure they get up to snuff. Is that what you're suggesting?

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Mr. Sylvain Langis: Exactly. Mr. Haire probably has an element to add here.

Mr. Don Haire: That's exactly it.

There's more than one way to skin the cat. Mandatory facility audits are generally regarded as the most effective way of making sure a carrier is up to speed in terms of understanding all of their legal obligations and also executing to that understanding.

The Quebec coroner on the accident at Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive took a slightly different stance. He recommended that the highway board ensure that all responsible executives within any bus carrier pass both a theoretical and practical examination on the safety obligations under provincial law before they are licensed to even operate.

That would solve the problem a different way. Our way allows the guy to go into business, but he's going to be checked quickly.

Either of those methods is vastly superior to the current situation, which is that the guy is licensed to operate, and the only time he's going to be checked out with a facility audit will be if he has had such a bad track record that he's attracting attention. It's just like locking the barn after the horse is gone. That's what we don't like about it.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: I have just one further question on that. To use an example, we have an established player such as the Greyhound Bus Company. We're in the age of mergers and acquisitions, and cultures of companies can change because of that sort of thing. Let's say that Coca-Cola bought out Greyhound and still used their name. Are you suggesting that because they're not really up to date on managing bus companies and so on you would be starting audits on that company on acquisition?

Mr. Don Haire: It depends on the corporate culture changes, obviously. If you have all of the same management in place, the chances are the corporate culture hasn't changed. But I've certainly seen takeovers where a lot of the management gets wiped out and new people come in and there may not be the same cultural continuances.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: You can have an excellent manager, but a person who has been selling tomatoes for 15 years doesn't necessarily know where things are going in the bus industry or the transportation industry.

Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick: All I'm saying is that it's not just suitable for novices, that we have to keep our eyes on the established industry as well.

Mr. Sylvain Langis: If I may, I can give you an example. You may have someone buy Greyhound just to milk it, instead of having a long-term vision for the provision of a public service.

The Chair: We're out of time. I would like to thank you, Lisa and gentlemen, for your input.

Members of the committee, you have the draft report. Have a look at it and make any comments. It's supposed to be our work until we either table it in the House or send a letter to the minister.

We are adjourned until next Tuesday at 10 o'clock.