:
Mr. Volpe so moves. So the first report is here, and at the end of the meeting I will review the schedule of the people who will appear before this committee.
Joining us today is the minister again. In a matter of a couple of weeks we've had the pleasure of the minister's attendance, and we welcome you. Also appearing with the Honourable John Baird is Marc Grégoire, who is assistant deputy minister for safety and security; Peter Coyles, special adviser to director of operations; and Marie-France Dagenais, director general, transportation of dangerous goods.
Thank you very much. I'm sure the minister has some opening comments to make, and I would ask him to proceed.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm very pleased to be here to talk about Bill C-9, an act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, which was last amended in 1992.
As my parliamentary secretary highlighted in the House a few days ago, this bill seeks to improve the safety and security provisions required when transporting dangerous goods. After consulting widely with stakeholders and our counterparts at the provincial and territorial levels, our government has presented amendments designed to strengthen Canada's dangerous goods program. The ultimate goal and our primary concern is to keep Canadians safe while also keeping our economy moving.
I know that some of my colleagues still remember a chilling event near Mississauga in 1979. A train carrying a shipment of chlorine derailed and forced more than a quarter of a million people to be evacuated from their homes and businesses and surrounding areas. Thank goodness no one was injured, but the risk was extreme.
The following year, in 1980, Canada introduced its first Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. This act gives the federal government the ability and the authority to draft policy, guide emergency response, and develop regulations in order to manage risk and promote public safety during the transportation of dangerous goods.
The act was last updated in 1992, but as members of this committee know, much has changed since that time. In 1992, when the current act came into force, no one could have envisaged the terrorist threat--the new security reality the world faces today. And Canada is not immune. The proposed changes we have all been discussing in the House, and now here in committee, enable a strong security program that is focused both on prevention and response in the event of a security incident or safety accident.
The bill provides the authority to establish performance regulations for security plans and training. These are based on international recommendations, and they are aligned with existing U.S. regulations. It also enables regulations to be made to establish security requirements for tracking dangerous goods, as well as regulations requiring companies to report lost or stolen dangerous goods.
The bill would allow the Minister of Transport or the deputy to have the authority to make security measures and interim orders. Interim orders and security measures are emergency or immediate regulations that can be used to respond to a pressing identified threat in situations where the timelines of the normal regulatory process could jeopardize public safety. Such orders can only be made if the government has the authority in existing legislation to make such a regulation. Let me be clear that an interim order cannot be used to make regulations the government does not have the authority to make under this legislation.
The issue that I know was raised during the second reading of the bill is the requirement for security clearances for truck drivers crossing the border between the United States and Canada who are carrying dangerous goods. Back in August of 2005, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act came into force in the United States. It requires commercial motor vehicle drivers licensed in Canada or Mexico who are transporting dangerous goods into and within the United States to undergo a background check. Essentially, these checks are security clearances similar to those required for American truck drivers transporting truckload quantities of dangerous goods within the United States.
Canadian drivers are currently satisfying this provision if they have been accepted into the “free and secure trade”--FAST--programs of the Canada Border Services Agency and the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. But the United States still looks to Canada to implement a long-term solution. This bill we're considering could lead to that long-term solution by providing the authority to establish a transportation security clearance program.
Canadians enjoy access to the American market through the FAST program, and this will continue. But it is essential that we have long-term solutions to guarantee access to important markets for Canadian manufacturers, producers, and shippers.
With respect to the emergency response side of the bill, this legislation will provide the government with the necessary authority to use existing and approved emergency response assistance plans in order to respond to an incident. These plans are provided by companies before they're permitted to transport any dangerous good. This is an effective and efficient way to use existing capacity, knowledge, and expertise to protect public safety in the event of a terrorist incident involving dangerous goods.
The initiatives being brought forward would harmonize security requirements for activities such as security plans and security training and enable the government to have the appropriate prevention and response security program in place for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the upcoming G-8 meeting here in Ontario.
As parliamentarians, we share an obligation to Canadians to make sure that we protect their public safety. These amendments will do just that by bringing forward the necessary security requirements and proper safety enhancements to protect public safety.
I believe these proposed safety amendments, along with the new security prevention and response program, are the right things to do for public safety. Now is the time to make these changes to enhance public safety and support our Canadian economy, and it's an opportunity for us to work together to consider this bill.
I should say at the outset that I and the department value the role that all members of this committee play. If there are suggested ways to improve this legislation to make it better, we're certainly excited and eager to learn them as you undertake your deliberations.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Once again, thank you, Mr. Minister, and thank you Monsieur Grégoire.
[Translation]
Mr. Coyles and Ms. Dagenais, my thanks to you as well for being here.
I would like to ask you some questions about security and technology. At this level of questioning, the minister may not be in a position to answer, with all due respect. But Mr. Grégoire will certainly know something about it.
[English]
Mr. Minister, you focused on the plans, if we could talk about those for a moment, and about the background checks of drivers. I'm wondering whether you spent any time consulting on the technology that's currently available and/or under development for insertion into some of these vehicles that will be transporting dangerous goods. If so, with whom did you consult?
:
I'll respond to the first part, then I'll ask Mr. Grégoire to respond.
Particularly in Canada, when it comes to border issues, we're looking to see what different or new direction the new administration will take in the United States. Obviously the previous administration was not looking at a risk-based approach—I'll be charitable—but at more of an absolute approach.
I think Secretary Napolitano has been very clear that she's going to do a lot of listening and do a lot of learning, and hasn't basically set out a new framework for national security and what that means for the Canadian border. I think we're encouraged that she has underlined the reality that Mexico is different from the northern Canadian border. Neither the National Security Advisor nor the Secretary of Homeland Security has laid out a vision that the new administration will take. There were consultations, I can only assume, with the previous administration.
As you know, this bill was tabled in the previous Parliament by my predecessor.
I'll turn it over to Mr. Grégoire, if he wants to comment.
:
Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for joining us again.
This is a very important bill, but my questions will probably be in the same vein as my colleague from the Bloc. I'm concerned about the provisions under proposed section 5.2, the transport security clearances. The bill was presented so as to refer to the international movement of goods, in that we have some responsibility to take over security requirements there. I think that's a very positive step. But what this bill does is to open up grounds under proposed section 5.2 to cover any part of our transportation industry that handles dangerous goods. In many cases, with common carriers, only part of their efforts involve dangerous goods, and many of their efforts are in other areas.
So the transportation security clearances under this would apply to much of our transportation industry. And since the regulations may be put in place to match the requirements that the United States is putting forward or has in place already, we may find these regulations to be overdone for a common carrier in Canada, or for part of our transportation net within the country, and might not be appropriate.
So that's one of the bases of the concerns we have. In Canada, as well, we are governed by our civil liberties and our rights of privacy. So how do you see these powers being prescribed to an international situation in the future? Or is this going to allow ministers in future days to continue to ask for more transportation security clearances for a variety of carriers in our industry?
:
I'll go first and then I'll ask my colleagues if they have anything to add.
I think the whole notion of how we deal with security is very different from what it was ten years ago. I do think that in Canada we have had a different balance of security versus civil liberties versus privacy. The same debates that we have in Canada, they have in the United States.
We have a new administration in the United States. Neither Secretary LaHood or Secretary Napolitano has given any clear indication of what type of appropriate balance they will strike. I think that balance will likely be fluid and change in our lifetimes, from time to time, or at least in our professional lifetimes, and that's appropriate.
I do think we always have to be vigilant that we don't just automatically sign on to anything that happens in the United States. At the same time, if you have trade issues, to a degree you're more handicapped than you might like to be.
I would choose the word “comparable”, as in not just simply adopting everything that the United States does, but to have a comparable regime. In a number of pieces of transportation and security legislation, they speak to that. So they would have to be satisfied with us. That's just my overall thought.
I think it's a fair concern, and frankly I think it goes far beyond any regulation-making capacity under section 5. We're always going to have to be vigilant. We have a charter in this country, and we have case law that is very different from that in the United States. In the United States, on privacy, I think they have pretty strong case law as well.
I'll turn it over to my colleague.
:
Yes, I'd like to add a few things, Minister.
First of all, the way I read it or understand proposed section 5.2, the way it's written now, is that all of this would be prescribed in the regulations and be contained within them. So this would be specified by the regulations. For me the whole thing applies there. So the regulations would specify all of the parameters, and I would expect that the process would be similar to what we've done in the marine sector for the ports, in that we would entertain a very wide and large consultation process, and we wouldn't impose these regulations in places where they were not required.
So for the ports, for instance, we started with the three main ports and then enlarged this to a few secondary ports. We wouldn't cover every person in the TDG sector. It's just not possible.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister and officials for appearing here with respect to Bill C-9, Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act amendments.
I come from a region where we have the busiest international border crossing, between Windsor and Detroit. Of course we see the transportation of dangerous goods across the border. We have an international ferry for this purpose that we use. As well, our government is involved in investing heavily in a new international border crossing between the two locations, in part to increase the economic security, not only for Canada, but for the United States. So we have a very important bilateral relationship there.
The need to maintain access to key markets for those engaged in the transportation of dangerous goods across the border brings us to the discussion around this security clearance program. I know we've had a lot of questions delving into the specifics, but can you elaborate for the record--because there will be others and the public will be interested in this discussion--on the need for security clearance and how this program would work? Could you walk us through that?
:
Yes, I can talk about that, given the number of years we've discussed this for the ports and for the airports. The vision we have for this is to eventually replace the FAST card for the purposes of security clearance. Today a trucker must go through a background check both in the U.S. and in Canada to obtain this FAST card. Some people have told us that they perceive this as an intrusion by the American authorities into their private life.
That said, if we go with a Canadian security clearance and see the equivalency with our American counterparts, we have to convince them to accept these security clearances at face value in the U.S. if they are made in Canada. We are discussing that at this very moment for the port workers and for the mariners on board Canadian ships. When they go to the U.S. and go on shore they would like to have their Canadian security clearance recognized at face value. We're in the midst of a change of administration now in the U.S., and we're going to have to wait for the new administrator of the transportation security administration to continue those talks.
But both the ex-president and Prime Minister Harper recognized in recent talks, through the security and prosperity partnership, the need to have comparable systems and the need for reciprocity in mutually accepting the security clearances done in both countries and also in Mexico. Hopefully, if we get a security clearance system in place, a program in place for truckers, eventually that would negate the need for them to have a FAST card and they could drive down to the U.S. without the FAST card.
Perhaps I could go a little bit further. It's very important.
I deal with a lot of trucking companies that may have drivers who have lost their FAST card for one reason or another. That puts the appeal process squarely on the United States side rather than here. Of course, it's difficult to get reconsideration of a FAST card for our domestic shippers who are doing cross-border transit. The effect of some of the changes proposed in this act is that now, with the acceptance of a security clearance, does that bring the process of who gets the cards and possible appeals for cards back to our side of the border?
It's a critical question, of course, because we're dealing with particularly tough economic times, and you can't have people off for a long period of time appealing to the U.S. government as to whether they can get a FAST card back. Does that repatriate this particular concern back to our side of the border?
I have had an opportunity to work with the Teamsters in the past, and I know in this particular case I had an opportunity to speak with them again, and they seem very pleased with this bill. They want one minor amendment that is not really substantive; it's just an amendment in theory.
Have you had an opportunity, Mr. Grégoire, in particular to meet with the Teamsters and get their feedback on this bill? Is it necessary or not for the security of the Olympics, for instance, and other issues they continue to have?
Thank you, Minister and your associates, for coming out to this committee, and for your excitement and eagerness to have a dialogue here with the committee members.
We have talked enough about Americans and Canadians. I am going back to the provinces, because you mentioned that you had enough discussions with the provincial counterparts and also the stakeholders. The transport of dangerous goods on the roads is also regulated by the provincial jurisdictions.
My concern is this. Will the truck drivers have to have two permits to transport dangerous goods, and will they have to go through training twice? Can you also elaborate particularly on whether the permits that are required on the federal scene will satisfy the requirements on all provincial levels? If not, then what would it require to harmonize this into that situation?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for your remarks.
I did not live in Mississauga at the time of the 1979 incident, but for many who lived in the GTA, incomes were definitely impacted by the security risk that posed and the lack of entrance into the Mississauga area. So for those of us who had clients down there, it was impossible to do business in the area for quite some time.
I'd like to just follow up on something that Mr. Watson was talking about. He represents the area of Windsor and the largest flow of traffic between Canada and the United States. I was reading some preambles on information to the bill and I was really impressed with the number of jobs that are involved with this whole aspect of security.
My question is not specifically to the bill, but more to the outcomes of it. Will there be any impact of this on infrastructure requirements for Canada, particularly at our borders, our airports, and our ports, and if so, can you tell us what those impacts might look like?
:
There would be some significant impact on the Olympics should the bill not go forward. Obviously, dangerous goods remain a concern in relationship to use by individuals who may wish to cause Canadians harm. The bill is there to look at closing that gap, not just for the Olympics but for today, tomorrow, the Olympics, and after the Olympics. What it provides you with is a prevention and response program, so that should there be an incident, there will be capacity here in Canada to respond, to mitigate the threat, and to basically clean things up.
Firstly, there's the notion of a prevention program to enable us to do things so we don't end up at that particular situation. So it's a critical component, not only as the example that was explained, but to look at all aspects.
Another example of its potential use is if there was a piece of intelligence that came in that perhaps rail was targeted. We would be able to use a security measure to tell a railway company to do certain things using certain equipment, looking for certain, I don't know, explosives or whatever, so that the public safety could be respected and the vital goods and services that are required in this country could continue to move.
Without the bill, there would be complications from that and it would slow down that transportation. Vancouver remains an important gateway, and this bill would help allow it to continue to be a major gateway during the Olympics.
:
I hope the committee will receive this positively.
First of all, I want to compliment the officials for coming here and giving us a briefing. I know they're going to be here for a little while longer and they've been very precise in some of the responses they have been giving, but it has been, so far, a departmental briefing.
The point of order I want to make is that we have an opportunity to have the minister come forward and address questions by the critics on this side and by interested government members on the other. This is the second time that we've had him here in the course of the last week and a half, and it's wonderful to get a minister at the table. When we do get him here, I wonder whether we can encourage the chair to have him address the questions, which are essentially political in nature, in the sense that we want to get to the heart of the motivation behind the legislation. The officials have done a marvellous job in giving us the detail of the legislation. So I'm wondering whether it is your intention, Mr. Chairman, to invite the minister back to address those issues that are going to be of concern to parliamentarians on the floor of the House.
:
It is on the same point of order, Mr. Chair.
I was going to recommend that if it is the desire of the opposition to want to get to the heart of the matter, then maybe they shouldn't ask for the DNA strand, because that's what's happening: they're asking for more particulars.
If you're looking for the heart of the general part of the policy and the reasons why, then ask those questions. Those aren't the questions that have been asked by either side. I did think that the minister, quite frankly, answered many of the questions and tried to answer as much as he possibly could.
I wonder if you could help me a bit with the root purpose of the legislation. We're told that this is already reflecting practices that the ministry is undertaking. Is that correct? In part, is this codifying what's already underway?
The second part of my question is that I'm hearing from other ministries that there's a lot of duplication and some confusion about the whole matter of security clearances. Who makes them? By what standard are they done? How many times do different agencies that deal with the government have to do them? It's to the point where private organizations--businesses, for example, and infrastructure--aren't interested in doing business with the government any more because it takes too much of their time. They can't qualify people in one place to be able to do business and carry on.
Surely if the heart of this legislation is to codify some of the practices that you have, are you addressing the question of what a security clearance is and how to make sure that it is not going to be an encumbrance? This is a particular issue when we're leading up to performance-sensitive events like 2010 and so on. Is that issue addressed in here, and where? Could you comment more generally on the problem, if you think it exists?
:
I'll start with the general perspective.
First of all, this act won't repeat what we're doing now because we're not doing anything about security with the actual legislation. All of the provisions in the legislation in front of you regarding security are new, and we think these are gaps that need to be closed.
On the security clearance and the complaints you have received from private companies, you would have to clarify a bit for me what kinds of complaints you got. Are these companies trying to do business with the Government of Canada, or are these companies trying to do business with ports or airports? We definitely wouldn't want to implement security clearance requirements where they're not required for security reasons. First and foremost, we would base all of that on a solid risk analysis. That's outside of the cross-border issue, which was discussed at length in the first hour.
On the safety side, we are trying to clarify some portions of the act. I'll let Peter or Marie-France clarify those.
:
As a follow-up, do we have an understanding within our own government of the different levels of security clearance we might be looking at for, say, a truck driver of hazardous waste and somebody who makes fully responsible decisions that could move large quantities of hazardous waste around? Are there levels of that required, and do they correspond to other types of security or safety risks that are happening elsewhere?
Just to elaborate slightly on what Mr. Grégoire said, the reason is that there are people who want to have construction contracts, for example, with one part of government, and they find that the security clearances are completely different from what they are in another type of government, and they find this to be an enormous bureaucratic impediment. Now, there may be good reasons for this, but I'm wondering, within the Government of Canada, because you're introducing a new platform for security clearances, if this question is being addressed. Is it a legitimate concern on the part of outside agents as they encounter government, or is it just a misunderstanding?
You talked about cross-border a little more specifically than about cross-ministries and the different requirements we seem to have for people who deal with government to prove their security-worthiness.
Yes, there is an interdepartmental working group that is looking at the very heart of your point. They are focusing on the security clearance levels of employees, to start with. We found out through this work that security clearance levels are different between departments and that processes are a bit different between departments. The same levels are looked at differently by different departments for businesses wanting to do business with those departments. We're trying to bring uniformity to all of them, and that's one of the recommendations of this working group. So that's being discussed at this very moment, in the last few weeks and months. It will take some time to implement. That's for employees and for companies doing business with the government.
The idea would be that once you get security-cleared by one organization in the government, you could work anywhere in the government where this level of security is requested. For instance, if a company or a person is requested to have secret clearance, we're now agreeing on what that means so that the level would be recognized wherever you go in the government, either as an employee or as a provider to the government.
:
It's not the legislation itself that says that, because it doesn't, and we looked at section 5.2 before, in the first hour. It's the regulation that would look at this. But our objective in Transport Canada is to have only one kind of security clearance for workers. Whether it be a port worker, a mariner, an airport worker, a trucker, or a train driver, we would use the same clearance.
Basically the background check we do is that once the individual has submitted a form, a request to obtain a clearance, we analyze it, we submit it to the RCMP and to CSIS, and both the RCMP and CSIS do their checks. CSIS will check to see if the person represents a threat to national security, and the RCMP will look to see if the person has a criminal record or if the person is a member of organized crime. And based on that information we determine whether or not the person should be granted a clearance, with only one question in mind: Does that person represent a threat to transportation security--period.
We have not yet introduced the notion of different levels. So for now, everybody we have in the system only has one level, which is different from the way it is for the employees. For instance, for the employees, we have enhanced reliability, secret, and top-secret levels.
The transportation security clearance is quasi-equivalent to the secret level that we have in the public service, but it's the same for everybody.
:
Yes. We have the ability already to draft any requirements, the regulations. We have the ability. We have inspectors in the field. They would need to be designated and trained for security. We have all the components required. We have emergency response assistance plans that are already approved from industry.
The notion here in the act is to provide the authority to pay, should they be asked by the government to respond on behalf of it, during an incident involving dangerous goods that would be of a terrorist nature or a security nature, and we have the ability to have the indemnity protection that industry has requested, should they be asked to do so on our behalf.
It would give us a very strong and solid prevention program as well as a response program, and these are the things that obviously the RCMP is looking for from the department.
:
As you said, there's always liability. But generally speaking, the courts have never made the government liable because it issued a regulation.
The liability here is mostly if there is a terrorist event and the government requests that a company activates its ERAP, or emergency response assistance plan. Then the government would have to pay the company and would be liable for any damages incurred by the company in assisting us to deal with a terrorist incident. This is very important, because the capacity of the government as a whole.... There is a lot of capacity at different levels, either at the municipal, provincial, or federal level. But there's a lot of capacity to deal with nasty stuff, like chemical incidents, in the private sector.
But today, if it's a safety incident or accident, the companies are forced to fix the thing themselves, to activate the plan themselves, and they incur the liability for this. If there is a terrorist incident and there is a chemical leak somewhere of a very nasty chemical, we have private capacity out there. So the provisions in here will allow the government to direct the company to help us deal with this chemical leak, for instance, but will assume the liability. That is probably the biggest liability I can see in the provisions of the bill now.
:
I will explain to you the appeal mechanism or the reconsideration mechanism that we have put in place with the marine sector through regulation.
If you are refused security clearance, you can make a case to the reconsideration office, which is different from my organization in safety and security. You can make your case, with or without a lawyer, and explain why your situation should be reconsidered by the government.
We have done this. We have looked at cases. And generally speaking, we have needed more information. So it could be that your security clearance was refused for lack of information or for what appears to be a contradiction in the information you provided. If you're able to bring corrected facts and data, then clearance could be given to you. However, if the department still refuses to give you clearance, then your next appeal is at the Federal Court level.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, let me express my thanks to the departmental officials.
I've listened very carefully to all of the responses that have been given and I'm assured of one thing: I feel comfortable that all the mechanisms you require to address the movement of hazardous goods are already in place, at least from the point of view of background checks and security clearances of drivers; and secondly, the protocols are in place for addressing issues that will involve an accident.
I say that with a little bit of reservation, though, because a couple of the issues that have been raised have to do with making the legislation more flexible--or rather, I should say, making the government's ability to respond to the demands of the day a little bit more flexible. The regulations, as I heard you explain them, really address just two areas, although you've concentrated on one most of the afternoon. One is on driver background security checks that are focused more on what's going to happen inside these borders, with a potential to get reciprocity on equivalency with the United States. The second is on the documentation of the dangerous goods themselves. I didn't hear anything about the justification for this enhanced enabling legislation that's related to what the minister said initially on it, and that is the economic development and of course the upcoming Olympic Games. I haven't heard that connection.
I tried earlier to talk about what the technology might be that would help us in the movement across borders, whether they be interprovincial borders or national borders. We've avoided that discussion, but I think we'll probably get to that.
Because this is only a three-minute intervention, you'll have to forgive me if I kind of lay the groundwork with this soliloquy, but perhaps we'll do that when we get to a further briefing about which industry representatives you have met, and whether you have met with the trucking associations and the specific organizations that have developed already or are in the course of perfecting the technology that will allow, as I said earlier, for vehicle immobilization and for long-distance intervention that will really track goods and also individuals, because obviously driver verification is involved.
I think we've just talked very briefly about engaging the RCMP and CSIS and obviously their counterparts south of the border, but none of that has come forward, unfortunately. It's unfair to ask the departmental officials about all of this, so maybe we should sit the parliamentary secretary in the spot of the minister so we can address some of these important issues of privacy and security.
I don't mean to trivialize the arguments, because they're very serious and the officials have been very bang-on in terms of the answers they have given, but they haven't addressed these issues. Perhaps in the briefings afterwards we can do that.
I thank you so far. We hope to get into this a little more.
:
Strangely, I am going to continue on the same track because, for the 2010 Olympics, I see a problem with the Conservatives' view of the objective and the result.
Earlier, when I asked about security clearances in transportation, Mr. Grégoire, your answer was that you cannot put everything in place inside Canada. I understand that, there are a lot of truckers, and so on. So this will not be ready for 2010, and it was very good of you to tell us so.
Mr. Coyles told us that, as regards emergency response assistance plans, security for companies was really not a problem. He is already busy drawing up emergency response assistance plans. So safety is being included and they are going to be compensated if there are costs. That is it, more or less.
And for Quebec, for example—and I am talking about roads—there already is an inspection service. So it will not be harder to do all this. So I have difficulty understanding how it can be said that there will be more security when the Olympic Games are held. Security clearances will not be available. If we are thinking that, if there is an attack, it will come from the United States, we have to forget it. No dangerous goods will cross the border from the United States into Canada. So, if something is going to happen, it will have to come from Canada. In my opinion, the only way of going about it is to monitor the truckers, to have security clearance for truckers. But that will never be ready in time for the Olympic Games.
I understood you as long as you were not talking about the 2010 Olympics. I have a problem with the Conservatives' objective of increasing security by 2010. Can you explain that to me?
:
There are two essential aspects of the legislation that deal with the Olympics. Let us go back to the security clearances. As I said, that will not be in place for the Olympics, but that does not mean that the RCMP will not require them, or will not search people and vehicles, the trucks and the people going into strategic Olympic venues. The RCMP is responsible for security at the Olympic Games.
For our part, we need two things in order to tackle the Olympics. First, the orders, the security measures; these are the tools that we have in other acts such as the Transportation Act, the Maritime Transportation Security Act or the Aeronautics Act that you have examined in detail. These measures can be put in place if the threat level increases at any given location. For example, if the threat increases in a given airport, we can tighten security by implementing a security measure. Possibly, instead of checking a certain percentage of passengers making their way to a plane, we would check more, two or three times more. We have no regulations for dangerous goods at the moment, no legislation that allows us to put security measures in place if a threat requires it. We have absolutely nothing except sending in the RCMP. This bill would allow us to adopt various security measures as the result of various departmental orders. As I mentioned earlier, we could stop the transportation of dangerous goods on the highway to Whistler, we could stop the transportation of dangerous goods within a certain radius of the Olympic stadium or of other Olympic facilities in Vancouver. There are measures that we can take, and, at that point, all the designated inspectors or the police could stop people from going into those places.
I'm glad to have a chance to go back to some of the concepts I was talking about earlier, because I really think we need to understand how we're going to come to regulation as well.
You talk of a process of consultation and carrying forward, but when we're looking at regulations that have to be approved through a foreign government, what kind of process do you see within Parliament for coming forward with that? If you're going to go to another country and establish what that other country wants us to have for a security clearance, and then you've going to come back here and enter into consultation with groups and agencies to decide that some of these provisions are not part of our law, part of our tradition, part of our idea of privacy rights, how is this going to work out?
:
It's going to work out as I explained before. First of all, we will not go to the United States and ask what they want. This is absolutely not the premise of the conversation we will have with our counterparts. We want them to understand what we have and we want them to accept what we have at face value. So this is where we're starting the conversations.
We think we have a very good program in the ports and in the airports. We're proud of the program that we have and we're always seeking to improve it, but we wouldn't want to have a specific, harsher, or more difficult program in one mode than in the other mode because the vision is to have free flow of movement between the modes for the people and for the various vehicles.
For instance, if we were to require a security clearance for a truck carrying dangerous goods, we would want the same paper to be used when the truck is picking up the dangerous goods at the airport and driving to the ports. So we would want the same clearance to be valid throughout the transportation of the goods, and the same clearance to go across.
:
The emergency response assistance plan is a requirement in regulations since 1985. Basically it establishes the criteria that if you wish to offer for transport, handle, or import dangerous goods that are the most dangerous of dangerous goods, basically those that have reach, those that can cause problems outside of just the accident itself--and you get into all kinds of different chemicals, biological, radioactive, nuclear, explosives--all of those are required to have an emergency response assistance plan.
A company must take a look at its geographic region in relation to where it's going to transport those dangerous goods. It needs to be able to demonstrate to us that it understands what it has, it has the equipment and the technical expertise available 24 hours a day, and that it can respond within a certain timeframe to be able to help first responders should first responders need some help. They need to have the right equipment, be it non-sparking tools, be it the right suits, be it whatever that might be complementary to responding to their particular product. All these things are tied into regulation, right down to what communication equipment you're using and what techniques you're going to utilize, that you have 24-hour technical assistance on the phone, and that you can activate this plan as per requirement.
We go out and review those plans. We audit those plans to make sure they meet the requirements of the regulations and that we're satisfied they could be used effectively in a response, and then that plan is approved and that plan is available for people to utilize when transporting dangerous goods.
With these particular goods, if you do not have an emergency response assistance plan, you cannot transport dangerous goods of those natures--the chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear, explosives--unless you have an approved plan.
With the short time we have left, I'll thank our guests for being here today. We certainly have some other witnesses coming forward over the next few meetings, so I appreciate your time and your efforts today.
For the committee members, I want to give you a heads-up for Thursday. We have a full agenda. We have the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association, we have the Teamsters, we have the Canadian Trucking Alliance, and we're waiting for confirmation on one other organization.
I just want to advise members that we are pushing forward, so if you're thinking of amendments or other things you might want to do, you might want to start preparing for that.
On Tuesday of next week we have NavCanada coming. Pending how many other people we contact who accept our invitation to appear on , we could see them on Thursday, March 6, or perhaps be looking at clause-by-clause at some point on that day.
Monsieur Laframboise.