1.
Transport Canada should complete the implementation of the
recommendations raised in the Railway Safety Act review and relevant
recommendations of the rail safety review conducted by the House of Commons
Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. It should
integrate the changes into the regulatory framework for federal railways to
comply with and for the Department to oversee.
2.
Transport Canada should accelerate the resolution of important and
long-standing safety issues. The Department should establish a formal process
with clear timelines to monitor significant safety issues, from the time they
are identified until they are mitigated to an acceptable level.
3.
To oversee the safety management systems implemented by federal
railways, including their compliance with the regulatory framework, Transport
Canada should:
- review its methodology to identify key safety risk and
performance indicators, and the safety performance information it needs from
railway companies, in order to make risk-based planning decisions;
- collect the relevant risk and safety performance information from
federal railways and assess its completeness and reliability; and
- develop an approach to make better use of the information on
federal railways’ safety risks and performance when preparing annual oversight
plans.
4.
Transport Canada should reassess the number of its planned audits and
inspections so that it takes into account the new safety management system
environment. It should review how it allocates resources, with the aim of
conducting the minimum level of oversight necessary to obtain assurance that
federal railways have implemented adequate and effective safety management
systems to comply with the regulatory framework. The Department should conduct
this minimum level of oversight.
5.
Transport Canada should:
- provide better documentation tools to inspectors to carry out
their oversight activities, so that they can better document and communicate to
federal railways what they assessed and what they found;
- improve its oversight of federal railways’ safety management
systems by having inspectors assess their quality and effectiveness;
- require federal railways to make the necessary changes to correct
deficiencies affecting the safety of their operations; and
- conduct timely follow-up on deficiencies affecting the safety of
federal railways’ operations, to assess whether they have been corrected.
6.
Transport Canada should set a clear expectation for management review
and approval in the planning, conducting, and reporting of oversight
activities, with the aim of ensuring that inspectors comply with the
methodology and that their reports are accurate. Transport Canada should
provide guidance to management on how to document the timing and extent of
management involvement.
7.
Transport Canada should improve its methodology to set clear
expectations for planning and conducting audits and inspections, and for
drafting and communicating findings to the federal railways.
8.
Transport Canada should identify and develop a strategy to ensure that
it has the needed number of inspectors with the necessary skills and
competencies required
to plan and conduct the oversight of federal railways, including oversight of
safety management systems.
9.
Transport Canada should ensure that inspectors and managers receive in a
timely manner training to carry out their responsibilities.
10.
The Department should put a process in place to monitor whether
inspectors maintain their independence and objectivity when conducting audits
and inspections of federal railways.
11.
Transport Canada should develop a detailed quality assurance plan to
assess its oversight methodology against best practices and to regularly evaluate
audits and inspections against its methodology, with the goal of promoting
continuous improvement.