Before I start, I should say one thing. Unfortunately, I have some health issues, so I may have to leave the room for a very short period of time a couple of times. I would ask the committee's indulgence.
The only other thing I would say is that I think it's very appropriate that we're meeting in this committee room.
Mr. Chair and honourable members, let me thank you for the opportunity to appear today to comment on Bill .
The Railway Association of Canada represents 52 freight, commuter, intercity, and tourism railways that make up about 99% of all of the railway operations in the country. The railway industry contributes nearly $11 billion annually to the Canadian economy, and our direct employment is around 35,000 people a year.
With me today, representing the industry, are: Mr. Paul Miller, chief safety and sustainability officer with CN; Mr. John Marginson, chief operating officer with VIA Rail; and Mr. Glen Wilson, vice-president, safety, environment and regulatory affairs, from CP.
Mr. Chairman, we had hoped to have one of our three board members representing short lines here today, but unfortunately, with the short notice, they were all out of the country at the moment, frankly. I'd be quite happy to speak for them, but we would have liked them to be here as well.
Let me begin by saying that I had the opportunity to read the comments made by members during the second reading debate of Bill , and I was frankly very pleased to see that everyone was on the same page with regard to the most important element of this legislation, that is, improving rail safety.
From the outset, I'd like to say that safety is a very high priority for our industry. I would point out that the railways have worked closely with Transport Canada, labour organizations, and other interested stakeholders to develop the action plans and recommendations flowing out of the 2007 Railway Safety Act review and the committee's reports on the same subject.
We are very supportive of the proposed legislation, and, as explained in detail in our written submission, we believe that more can be done to improve safety, even beyond what is on the table at the moment.
Without overburdening you with statistics, I'm pleased to say that the railway safety record in Canada continues to improve. Our track record might not be perfect, but it's impressive. For example, safety performance as measured by accidents per million train miles in 2010 was superior to results in 2009, as well as results when measured against the five-year average. These results were achieved at the same time that there was growing freight and passenger traffic, and we had the continuing pressure from increased exposure from urban sprawl and heavy traffic on roads.
Increased proximity between rail operations and everyday life in our communities across Canada is a risk factor that must be addressed to improve rail safety. We believe that Bill can be strengthened in this area. At the centre of these concerns involving proximity between railway lands and municipal development is the wide variation that exists across Canada with respect to land use planning regulations.
In recommendation 34 of its report, the advisory panel recommended that the Railway Safety Act be amended to require developers and municipalities to engage in a process of consultation with railway companies prior to any decision respecting land use that may affect railway safety. Unfortunately, Bill is silent on this issue at this time.
We believe that one of the most efficient ways of improving railway safety in this area is to give the Governor in Council the power to make regulations respecting notices that should be given to railways regarding the establishment of a local plan of subdivision, or zoning by-law, or proposed amendments thereto, where the subject land is within 300 metres of a railway line or railway yard. We believe the 300 metres is a distance that makes sense from a safety point of view.
Further, we also believe, as is done in the Aeronautics Act today, that power should be given to the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the control or prohibition of any other activity in the vicinity of a land on which a line of railway is situated, to the extent that it could constitute a threat to safe railway operations.
Mr. Chair, we believe these two simple measures would go a great distance to reducing accidents and incidents involving railways and the general public.
Another simple measure suggested by the panel in its recommendation 35 is to limit to the extent practicable the opening of new level crossings in Canada. Bill does not currently address this issue. The current regime does not take safety into consideration in the decision to open new crossings. Presently the only criteria taken into consideration by the CTA when authorizing the opening of a crossing is the owner's enjoyment of the land in the case of private crossings. This does little to consider safety in the process. For that reason we would ask the committee to consider amending the Canadian Transportation Act via a consequential amendment to authorize the construction of crossings only when there is no other reasonable alternative and when the minister confirms that a formal safety risk assessment concludes that it would be safe to do so.
We hope you will agree with us that proximity and crossing issues require particular attention and consideration. Given the clear relationship that these issues forge between the railways and the public, the railways maintain that Bill will not result in sufficient improvement in rail safety without the inclusion of provisions addressing these issues. The railways believe that railway safety will be furthered as a result of these inclusions.
I should say, Mr. Chair, that these amendments have been consulted broadly. We have talked to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We've talked, of course, to the government, and we've talked to a number of other stakeholders and interested parties. While they are obviously our recommendations, we have not had negative pushback on these recommendations from other players.
In closing, I would say that if the proposed legislation did not go far enough, as the panel suggested, with respect to proximity in crossings, it went too far with respect to safety standards that railways should apply.
Recommendation 24 of the panel observed that improved safety management systems could be gained through better safety performance measures and increased focus on safety culture and a wide range of other recommendations. What it did not recommend or mention in any way was a particular measure for an acceptable safety standard.
That said, Bill extends beyond the panel's recommendation to introduce regulations that would force railways to implement, as a result of a risk management analysis, remedial actions required to maintain the highest level of safety. This proposed threshold creates a standard that may well be unattainable from a practical perspective. Put simply, it may hinder railways' ability to continue operating, a result that would create grave consequences, not just for the railways but also for the Canadian economy.
The question in our mind is, why reinvent the wheel? The question of a proper level of safety has been debated in the past, particularly during the development of the national transportation policy. I would refer you to section 5 of the CTA. In this instance, the legislation was wisely amended to include the highest practicable level of safety. The railways view a similar standard in the RSA context as both manageable and appropriate. This is one of our main recommendations.
We have other recommendations in our detailed brief that I will not go into today. I have spoken here to these three because we believe they are the three most important in advancing safety in our system.
Once again, on behalf of my colleagues and myself, I'd like to thank the committee for their attention. We look forward to working with you to improve safety in the future.
Mr. Chair, we would be pleased to answer any questions.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Chair. I would like to thank the panel members for coming here.
When I come here, I come with mixed emotions. When we talk about railways, I'm a great champion of the Pacific gateway. The railways will play a key role in its success. Yet I have a clear message for you here.
I don't think the safety effort is perfect, but you say it's great. The people I talk to, whether they're workers or members of the public, feel that it's not good enough. Over the past five years, you have averaged 139 main-track derailments, 24 of which involved dangerous goods. Many of these accidents were preventable. Too often I hear that your operations are attended with mistrust instead of collaboration, with good equipment but poor training, and with concern for profit over safety. This culture needs to change. CP Railways will not only be better for the environment, the public, and its workers, but they will also be more profitable for shareholders.
There's one incident in B.C. that no one can forget—the spill of caustic soda into the Cheakamus River, which killed over 500,000 fish. Two years later, the Transportation Safety Board warned CN that improvements were still not enough to prevent another similar incident.
Have you finally addressed all the problems that led to that spill?
:
Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal.
You mentioned, first, the main-track accidents, and Cheakamus was a main-track accident. The accident subsequent to that, at Lillooet, was also a main-track accident. And that's something that we've been focused on at CN.
Main-track accidents tend to have either a mechanical or an engineering cause—a broken wheel, a broken rail, things of this nature. We've invested tremendously over the past several years to increase the density of our wayside inspection network. We have also increased the frequency of inspections for rail flaws, as well as the number of times we inspect our track for track geometry issues. Accordingly, our 2010 main-track accident experience has been the best on record. Of course, one accident is too many, and we continue to focus on improvements in this regard.
With respect to your comment about safety culture, we used the Railway Safety Act review and the study of this committee as a catalyst. We worked much harder and in a more collaborative way with our union leadership and our employees to develop our safety culture. Based on the catalysts provided by those two studies, we've undertaken a number of initiatives over the past several years, especially since 2007, to work on safety culture. We're pleased that a number of the initiatives we've undertaken at CN, in cooperation with my colleagues at VIA and CPR, have been adopted as best practices in publications that Transport Canada has recently put out on safety management systems and on safety culture.
It's always a work in progress, Mr. Dhaliwal. One accident is one too many. Can I stand here and tell you that we won't have any more accidents? I'm afraid I can't, but it's something we're tremendously focused on. Nothing is more important to us than operating safely.
:
First of all, I want to return to the point that Mr. Dhaliwal made about the questioning in his presence by employees of why he was present in a rail yard, and I'm going to relate this to the culture question as well.
At Canadian Pacific, we've done a great deal of security awareness training among all of our employees, and you have to recognize that rail yards are an open environment. People who are present who are not usually present, or who may not have proper safety protective equipment identifying them, should draw questions in our environment.
That's something that I'm actually relieved to hear, that employees and managers are questioning the presence of outsiders, either to look for their safety, the safety of the operation, or the security of the facility. How that links to the safety culture is that we're trying to promote an awareness among all employees at Canadian Pacific of the importance of safety and the importance of security in their workplace.
The position put forward by the union referred to, I believe, 6,000 grievances. I had that looked into at Canadian Pacific. There are 400 outstanding grievances. Most of them were late-to-work rules. So I think you'd agree, in a work force of 12,000 unionized employees, that's really not a bad number.
I try to remove a lot of the rhetoric that comes from labour relations and look purely at the facts. We have 80% of employees telling us, as a result of surveys that we do, that they feel their workplace is safe. That number has gone up with every single survey that we've done at Canadian Pacific. We have reporting processes that allow employees to report, anonymously if they wish, through a confidential hotline, any safety concerns, or they can report them to their manager by filling out something called a safety hazard report.
The benefit of the safety hazard report is that it requires the manager to answer the employee as to what corrective action, if any, was taken in response to the report. We find that the vast majority of employees prefer the safety hazard reporting process, even though they must identify themselves. They prefer that because it gets them an answer. If you know the identity of the individual, management can answer as to what corrective action was taken in response to the safety hazard.
We have a multitude of processes available. As Mr. Miller said, can it be improved? Absolutely, safety and effective management is about continuous improvement.
:
Don't take all of my time. If the committee wants to give me two more hours, I will let you have the floor.
I am surprised to hear you say that 6,000 grievances for 12,000 employees is not very much. I would like you to tell me what you would consider to be a lot of grievances, what would the threshold be? Would it start at 6,001, 6,002, 8,000, 12,000, 15,000 or 20,000? That is my first question. In a previous incarnation I worked in labour relations, for 16 years. I have discussed, settled, arbitrated grievances. I was not an arbitrator, but I did argue and defend some of them in the course of the 16 years I spent in the pulp and paper industry.
Could the three companies that are before us ask their human resources people or labour relations team to provide us with a breakdown of grievances by subject? I have a lawyer's training. When a lawyer asks a question, it is because he already knows the answer. This exists and I would like to have the breakdown of grievances by topic. In other words, of the 6,000 grievances from the 12,000 CP employees, how many deal with safety in the workplace? Some of the 6,000 grievances may concern the interpretation of call-back provisions, overtime, etc.
When I was director of personnel, we had a very militant union that had filed a grievance asking that we support a campaign to boycott California grapes and bananas from Angola. That was one grievance. I saw a certain number of grievances. My vice-president in Montreal used to climb the walls when I would come in and tell him that I had more grievances on that.
And so I do not agree with you when you say that 6,000 grievances is not very many. I would like the three companies to tell us how many health and safety grievances they have pending currently. I want to know whether we are talking about a real issue. If we are talking about 15 or 20 grievances for 12,000 or 15,000 employees, there is no health and safety issue.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, of course, to our witnesses for appearing today in consideration of Bill .
Mr. Miller, in one of your statements you said one accident is one too many. In 2009, according to the Transportation Safety Board, there were 1,038 rail accidents, including 68 main-track derailments. I'm going to submit that there's significantly more work to do, and our government believes, of course, that Bill goes a long way toward that. It was broadly consulted on. It responds to 56 recommendations made by the special expert panel doing a rail safety review, as well as 14 recommendations by this very committee.
Mr. Mackay, I hope I haven't discerned something more than is here, but I sense a subtle shift or an intention to shift the discussion to things like the government with respect to crossings, or municipalities with respect to municipal planning, when this bill responds to safety reviews about your member companies, CN, CP, and to a lesser extent VIA. When I say lesser extent, the expert panel had more favourable things to say about the safety culture at VIA than they did about the other two companies. So I'm hoping to talk about the bill.
We've had many witnesses here who have said, for example, that Bill is “the right thing to do”. I'm going to ask each of the companies, CP, CN, and VIA, whether they agree, broadly speaking, about Bill C-33, that it is in fact the right thing to do. Maybe we'll start with CN.
:
My final question is in relation to the land governance issue. I know this is a big issue in my riding. In northern Alberta we have a lot of rail crossings. We have a lot of communities that are built up around the rail. I know that's something we can't avoid when the economy in those communities is so tightly linked to the railroads.
Really, you're asking us—to my mind—to interfere in provincial jurisdiction, municipal government jurisdiction, and the alarm bells go off whenever that happens, because obviously we have a balance of power in this country. That's the first thing I see. I do see a difficulty with that. As well, though, don't you think it would be better for you as the rail industry to go to each province and try to arrange some sort of agreement with them? That's my first question.
Second, do you not see some difficulty in relation to this, if there is an obligation on the municipality to advise you within 300 metres of a rail line? My goodness gracious, in Lac La Biche, for instance, or Slave Lake, every single thing that goes on in the city or in the community has to go to you. Every single building in Lac La Biche is within 300 metres, I would say, of a rail line, for instance. So every time anybody wants to build anything, they have to send you notice. That just seems so onerous.
Are you prepared, every time you do something on your tracks that may affect someone around you—such as a business around you—to give them notice of that?
:
Let me speak to the two things.
Number one, with regard to the jurisdictional issue—and I guess I'm a bit mystified because it already exists in the Aeronautics Act, and has existed for 40 or 50 years, and has not resulted, the last time I checked, in any major federal-provincial issues. This is a matter, in our view, of public safety. We think there are some obligations on the part of the federal government in that context. We don't think this would be in any way an onerous intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.
With regard to the 300 metres, we recommended 300 metres because in our work on proximity issues—noise, vibration, a whole range of other issues—that seems to be the standard that has emerged through practice and through other studies that have been done. If you're outside that kind of range, then it's highly unlikely that you're going to have anything impactful either way. If you're in that range, it's possible.
I should also say that just because a municipality sends a piece of paper saying we're giving notice, it doesn't necessarily mean that this triggers a big process. Right now, there are hundreds and hundreds of notices given every week to airports across the country, and most of them are of little or no consequence. But the few that are of consequence are important.
First of all, I just want to remind everybody that this is the Prime Minister who put a moratorium on closing the rural post offices. Secondly, I think he's the first Prime Minister in the history of the country who's given a directive to Canada Post in relation to rural mail. I do want to remind members of that.
I did some research on this for Mr. Bevington just before committee, and I understand that at this stage the document is only in English. So we will certainly need to have it translated. I understand as well that there may be some ATIP considerations in relation to the contents of the report itself that will have to be removed.
Other than that, I don't see a problem with it. I think it's a good suggestion, and it will certainly help us move forward, especially when issues come up with Canada Post from time to time, which I think they will. This government has been very clear on its position with Canada Post in standing up for rural mail delivery, and I think that will not change.
I certainly think it is a good idea from Mr. Bevington, and I'm glad to hear about it. If he wants to work on the scope of this particular issue and where the study goes from here, I'm happy to work on that one on one behind the scenes as well.