Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 4 - Evidence, November 23, 2011
OTTAWA, Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 6:45 p.m. to examine Bill S-4, An Act to Amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act.
Senator Dennis Dawson (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I call this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications to order.
[English]
The Chair: This evening the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications is continuing its consideration of Bill S-4, The Safer Railways Act. Appearing before us today are Phil Benson, Bill Brehl and Rob Smith, from Teamsters Canada; Robert Shouldice, Legal Counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais, for the City of Ottawa; and David Jeanes, President of Transport Action Canada.
[Translation]
Welcome. I thank you for taking the time to come to discuss this important bill to improve rail safety in Canada.
[English]
We will begin right away with your opening remarks and then move on to questions from members of the committee. Seeing the panel, I would appreciate it if you could keep your opening remarks as short as possible and if we could go to questions immediately afterward. If everyone wants to, we could go to clause-by-clause consideration at the end of the discussions.
Phil Benson, Lobbyist, Teamsters Canada: Thank you for having us here. We are Canada's transportation union and are involved in all modes of transportation and many other areas we will not bore you with. I was very impressed with Minister Lebel's comments the other day. He talked about the consensus being built on this bill. All members of Parliament around the entire committee are unanimously supporting it. I would like to thank some of the members of that committee — Mr. Bevington, from the NDP; Mr. Dhaliwal, who unfortunately lost his seat, from the Liberals; and, especially, Mr. Watson; Mr. Tweed, the chair of the committee; and Mr. Jean, the former parliamentary secretary.
I especially thank Mr. Jean for building the kind of consensus and stakeholder input that we had. We could not agree more with Minister Lebel. We are very pleased with his comments. Quite bluntly, it is a good bill. Pass it as quickly as possible.
William Brehl, President, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, Maintenance of the Way Employees Division, Teamsters Canada: Mr. Chair, senators, ladies and gentlemen, my name is William "Bill" Brehl, and I am the president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, Maintenance of Way Employees Division. I also have 30 years seniority with CP Rail, and was everything from a track monkey to a bridge foreman. We represent over 4,000 railway workers who build, inspect and maintain the track and infrastructure on roughly two dozen of Canada's railways. Thank you for having me here and allowing me the opportunity to speak on rail safety and, in particular, Bill S-4.
I want to thank the government for taking such an active interest in rail safety. This is an issue that crosses all party lines and one that is critical for the well-being of this country and its citizens. When Stronger Ties, the review of the Railway Safety Act, was released in November 2007, it made it clear that 80 per cent of main-line train derailments occurred because of track or equipment failure. It pointed out that the majority of derailments involving dangerous goods, which included hydrous ammonia, chlorine, propane and hydrochloric acid, occur in railway yards, not out on isolated track. These railway yards are usually found in the heart of Canadian cities. None of us can forget the disaster in Mississauga, when a CP Rail derailment of cars containing chlorine caused the largest North American peacetime evacuation prior to hurricane Katrina. There were millions of dollars in cleanup and property damage, as well as many injuries. Only by the grace of God was no one killed.
Everyone here reads about the derailments covered in the news, but were you aware that there are, across the country, an average of three train accidents a day? That is why we, as teamsters and as Canadian citizens, are so adamant in our cry for the improvement and enforcement of rail safety regulations. We are grateful that the government has listened.
We support Bill S-4 and believe it reinforces the strong foundation already built into the Railway Safety Act. We see this bill as bringing the stakeholders together to jointly work on issues such as risk assessments, fatigue management and other processes integral to ensuring it is no longer just good luck and gravity keeping the trains on the track.
We believe that to truly build a safety culture and to put an end to the culture of fear prevalent on the tracks today, you have to be actively committed to safety. That includes everyone from the ballast all the way to the boardroom, as well as governments and communities. Our membership needs the safety of non-punitive reporting and the ability to confidentially report problems and defects. We welcome its inclusion in the act.
This bill is important because it keeps the focus on safety and helps to eliminate the temptation for railways to take dangerous shortcuts in the pursuit of greater profits. It is not only possible to run a safe and productive railway, it is a necessity. Remember, safety is not expensive, it is priceless.
R.D. Smith, National Legislative Director, Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, Teamsters Canada: I would like to thank the Senate committee for letting me speak here today. My name is Rob Smith. I am a national legislative director for the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference. I am also a locomotive engineer and conductor with Canadian Pacific Railway. I started in 1979 and I took a union position in 2007.
TCRC represents approximately 10,000 members, including conductors, rail traffic controllers, shop craft workers and motor coach operators, customer service ambassadors and locomotive engineers across Canada. We are here today to briefly discuss the proposed amendments to the Railway Safety Act. Our organization fully supports the bill with the amendments as it addresses the safety and security concerns of our TCRC membership.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference welcomes the proposed amendment to strengthen Transport Canada's enforcement powers to impose monetary penalties for safety and environmental contraventions by the railways. This is an essential element to ensure rail safety for all stakeholders.
The proposed amendments also include local railway companies that operate on federally regulated track to be governed under the rules of the Railway Safety Act. This also addresses an area of concern for our organization, as we represent workers at these local railway companies. The TCRC supports the proposal for a non-punitive internal reporting process for our membership, as well as the additional accountability of the railways under safety management systems.
In closing, I would like to again thank the committee for the opportunity to speak here on behalf of the TCRC union members. As previously mentioned, we are in full support of the passage of this bill. Thank you for the time.
Robert Shouldice, Legal Counsel, City of Ottawa: I am here today on behalf of the City of Ottawa. Joining me today is Janice Marks, a member of the leadership team for the project for Ottawa light rail.
Our interest in this bill is very specific. It relates to the Ottawa light rail project, which is going to be a federal railway undertaking. Therefore, of interest to the city is the proposed legislation relating to the authority of the minister to delegate to the city the power to regulate the light rail project.
I have submitted to the committee previously two memorandums that describe what I would characterize as proposed clarifying refinements or edits to the proposed legislation. The first relates to the expropriation process as it relates to federal railways. Because the city is in a somewhat unique position as a federal railway operator of a light rail system, and because of the proposed legislation, I think there is a risk that the expropriation process that would apply to the light rail system as it relates to federal land interests is unclear and perhaps is an unfortunate omission in the proposed legislation. We have suggested clarifying language that might address that point.
Second, in the other memorandum we provided there are a handful of less minor proposed clarifying refinements to the legislation. We do not think it changes the substance at all in what is being proposed; we just think it might be helpful refinements to three sections. I am prepared to speak to each of those points in further detail, as the committee may wish.
David Jeanes, President, Transport Action Canada: Transport Action Canada, which was formally known as Transport 2000, is a national group that advocates for better public transportation. We were founded in 1976. We are a volunteer-based, non-profit organization and a registered charity, and we have associated regional organizations across the country. Our membership is composed of people with knowledge and concerns about the state of public transportation in Canada, and we speak for transportation users and for the general public.
Bill S-4 now before you is the final stage in a process that was started five years ago by the then Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, the Honourable Lawrence Cannon. We participated, as did other people before you, in the hearings of the review panel chaired by Mr. Doug Lewis, which produced at the end of 2007 the report that has already been mentioned.
At that time, we stated that although rail is a very safe transport mode, in the years leading up to that inquiry, the frequency and severity of rail accidents had raised public concerns, particular for risk to human life and damage to the environment. It was less than two years since the Lake Wabamun accident in Alberta and the Cheakamus River derailment in B.C., both of which resulted in very severe environmental damage.
Fortunately, in the succeeding five years, accidents of that severity have not been repeated. However, main-line derailments do still occur and may disrupt passenger train services, which share the same tracks. We are concerned about the impacts of these incidents on VIA Rail's passenger operations, as well as commuter rail services in cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Canada has very important national capabilities, which support safe railway operation and also allow us to respond rapidly to changes in needs and technology. We respect the regulatory roles of Transport Canada, the Canadian Transportation Agency, the investigative capabilities of the Transportation Safety Board and the scientific and engineering experience at the Centre for Surface Transportation Technology here in Ottawa.
I will mention that organization provided its world-class capabilities when Britain experienced a very severe multiple-fatality rail accident in the year 2000 at Hatfield, which exposed serious safety issues with the maintenance of Britain's privatized rail network. As a result of that accident, that network had to be re-nationalized, as well as its maintenance. We believe that the strong federal role in Canada has helped to avoid that kind of problem here with our privatized rail network.
We believe the federal role in rail safety is critical because neither the provincial nor the municipal levels of government can afford to create those competencies. In a few cases, municipalities are already self-regulating their rail transit networks, but even there we have seen problems — for example, the multiple-fatality Toronto subway collision in 1995 that was in large part due to the continued use of 40-year-old signalling and safety technology.
Therefore, we support these changes to the act. We are particularly interested in the simplification of the process for developing rules. Transport Canada has clearly explained how this is a much more effective way of responding to needs and technology change than the more cumbersome process associated with orders.
We have seen some good examples of how that works. In fact, 10 years ago, the City of Ottawa collaborated with Transport Canada to develop new rules for the O-Train for one-person operation and the use of automated train control, which was unique in Canada.
We do share some concerns expressed earlier this week by the Railway Association of Canada about the impact of municipal land-use planning, particularly where there are pressures to do new housing development close to existing rail facilities. We have examples of that occurring in Ottawa as well.
Another concern of the RAC was to try to minimize the creation of new highway crossings of railways at grade. They were primarily concerned about safety, but we see this also as a major inhibiter to the development of high-speed rail in Canada. These crossings actually limit VIA Rail's trains to speeds that are less than half of what has now become the world standard for fast passenger trains. VIA Rail's best trains do a maximum of 160 kilometres an hour; and in many countries — Spain, France, China, Germany and Japan — passenger trains are now regularly exceeding 300 kilometres an hour and faster.
Those are on high-speed lines that do not have any grade crossings. Yet we still have cases where everywhere in Canada, even where fast intercity trains operate, there are even farm crossings still of the rail lines. We are very sympathetic to the points raised by the Railway Association of Canada.
I will also point out that where serious accidents have affected high-speed passenger trains in other countries, it has often been in those rare cases where a collision with a motor vehicle has happened — such as in the United Kingdom, a serious crash at Great Heck, and in the United States, some collisions involving Amtrak trains and passenger fatalities. That is a serious issue; and really only the federal government is in a position to deal with that, in the same way that the provinces and municipalities ensure there are not any dangerous crossings of the freeways that fall under their jurisdictions.
We followed closely the introduction of safety management systems. We are glad that the responsibility at senior management levels for safety in the railways is clearly identified. However, we are still concerned that the cost of safety management systems may still be beyond the resources of some the smaller rail companies and perhaps beyond the resources of some municipalities that are establishing their own regulatory capabilities. Ottawa is an example of that, and Kitchener and Waterloo may be other examples. Federal expertise should continue to be applied or at least available to the provincial and municipal transit operators where it is needed.
I have other things I could say, but I would like to thank you for your attention to this very important matter. I trust we will see this bill passed into law very soon.
The Chair: I guess the cooperation of the different senators will make that a possibility.
I thank all witnesses for the presentations tonight.
I have one question, Mr. Brehl: You said that you started as a "track monkey." Perhaps in an answer later, would you define "track monkey?"
As you know, this is one step in a process started by former Minister Lawrence Cannon. The Honourable Doug Lewis held consultations, and there were many amendments in the other place that were debated previously. We will try to adopt it in committee as quickly as possible and send it to the other place by next week. It could be a Christmas present, but I do not want to speak for the other place. I can only ask that colleagues and witnesses keep their questions and answers as brief as possible. We could go to amendments tonight. One amendment will be moved by the sponsor of the bill, to whom I give the floor: Senator Eaton.
Senator Eaton: Mr. Benson, I have something here that says the Teamsters proposed an amendment to add a section to the bill that would provide for confidential reporting by company employees of safety concerns directly to Transport Canada rail safety.
Mr. Benson: That is correct.
The Chair: The amendment will be distributed to you when we get to clause-by-clause consideration.
Senator Eaton: Are you comfortable with that?
Mr. Benson: We think it is a great improvement.
Senator Eaton: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Benson: Thank you for proposing it.
Senator Zimmer: Gentlemen, thank you for your candour and brevity. You said that it is a good bill and that you support it. Is there anything else you want to add or delete at this last time?
Mr. Benson: From our point of view, pass the bill with the amendment. It is the end of long process — more than five years. We have discussed it and the other place has discussed it. There is unanimous support, and we certainly support it.
Senator Zimmer: Thank you.
Senator Merchant: Mr. Shouldice, you said you would have liked to see more clarity regarding expropriation. I am not suggesting that we make amendments to that effect, but sometimes we attach observations to a bill. Perhaps you could quickly make some suggestions, and perhaps we could work some of them in.
Mr. Shouldice: I appreciate that. I can elaborate. It is a very technical point. The way the legislation works together with the federal Expropriation Act is that technically the city's light rail operation, although it will be a federal railway undertaking, does not fit within the definition of "railway company" within the Expropriation Act. That means if the city does need to pursue an expropriation in support of its railway, it will not be able to use the process available under the federal Expropriation Act. It will not be able to go to the Minister of Transport and seek assistance on or consideration of a possible expropriation.
The way the bill works, as drafted, the city does not fit within the definition and therefore would have no opportunity to pursue an expropriation process. In my memo, I suggested some wording that would potentially fix this gap. Certainly, we would be open to considering other wording that might fix the gap. I am not sure that attaching remarks would necessarily help because it is a technical disconnect or shortcoming that can only be fixed with additional wording.
Senator Merchant: I read through your brief. I thought for some reason that you were going to be here last week, so I do not have the brief before me. I cannot remember your suggestion.
The Chair: Either the sponsor or the critic could take the opportunity at third reading to put on the record some of the comments that have been made. We have Mr. Shouldice's comments, and Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways made some comments this week that could be on the record. I guess the reality of amending the bill at this stage would probably delay the report. However, there is an opportunity at third reading to add comments if either Senator Mercer or Senator Eaton wants to put them in.
Do we have other questions?
Mr. Shouldice: If I may supplement my comments, I want to emphasize that the proposed amendment we are putting forward is very much consistent with the underlying objectives of this bill, which are to improve legislation from a public safety perspective. By that I mean, where we see the possibility for potentially having to expropriate, it may be in connection with the city's proposed alignment of the line, which is in the interests of public safety. If there is disagreement between us and the relevant landowner as to our proposed alignment, the person who should be vested with the authority to deal with this potential public safety issue is the Minister of Transport. It would be an unfortunate outcome if there were no ability to refer that public safety issue to the Minister of Transport. I just wanted to emphasize that point.
The Chair: If there are no other questions, I will ask Mr. Brehl about the "track monkey."
Mr. Brehl: We have our own jargon for the railroads. Has anyone here heard of gandy dancers?
The Chair: Now you have to give two definitions to the committee
Mr. Brehl: Pierre Burton wrote about them and Gordon Lightfoot sang about them. A gandy dancer is a trackman — someone who works on the track. It gets its name from the company that made the shovels — Gandy, in Ohio. When you are tamping up a tie, you put the shovel under one end, push it down, and these guys, usually Irish immigrants, do a jig on the end of the shovel; so they called them "gandy dancers."
I was in the bridge department and worked on the high steel in British Columbia. They called us track monkeys because we were climbing the steel all the time.
The Chair: People listening to us on the Internet or on CPAC at 3 a.m. will now know the definition of "track monkey."
I thank the witnesses.
We will break for three minutes while the witnesses take their leave and then go immediately to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. If it is agreed, I will group clauses on which there is consensus; Senator Eaton will move her amendment to a clause; and, if possible, we will adopt the bill after that.
Colleagues, we will now go, if you agree, into a very technical part of the evening where I will be asking you if you agree or disagree. As I mentioned, we will be regrouping certain clauses.
Is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-4, An Act to amend the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to the Canada Transportation Act?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Is it agreed, with leave, that the clauses be grouped, where appropriate?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
[Translation]
The Chair: Shall the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. Shall clauses 2 to 10 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Shall clauses 11 to 20 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
[English]
The Chair: Do articles 21 to 30 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Shall clauses 31 to 36 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Have Senator Eaton's amendment been distributed?
Senator Eaton, would you like to make a few comments on the amendment?
Senator Eaton: Yes. As you heard from Teamsters Canada, our witnesses, this was a proposed amendment by the Teamsters to the clause of the bill. Also, witnesses including not only the Teamsters but also the railways and Transport Canada have stated that direct reporting to Transport Canada already exists, and no one seems to have a problem.
If you look at section 47.1 in clause 37, and you go down to (1)(a)(iv), you should take out the words "to the Transportation Safety Board."
It should read:
(1)(a)(iv) in the case of a railway company, the implementation of non-punitive internal reporting and confidential reporting to Transport Canada by employees of contraventions of this Act or of any regulations, rules, certificates, orders or emergency directives under this Act relating to safety, or of other safety concerns . . .
What you are really taking out is "the Transportation Safety Board or . . ."
[Translation]
The Chair: Do the members agree with the amendment as proposed by Senator Eaton?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: The amendment as proposed by Senator Eaton is carried. Shall clauses 38 to 45 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 37, as amended, carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Shall clause 1, which contains the short title, carry? Everyone agrees?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Does the title carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Shall the bill, as amended by Senator Eaton, carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried. Does the committee wish to consider appending observations to the report?
Hon. Senators: No.
The Chair: But the sponsor or critics may make comments at third reading.
For all practical purposes, unless you have any comments to make, it is agreed that I report on this bill, as amended, to the Senate as soon as possible.
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
[English]
The Chair: We will not have any committee meeting next Tuesday morning because we had put that time aside for clause-by-clause consideration. Our next meeting will be on November 30, which will be on the airline and airport report. After that, next week we will report what meetings we have scheduled for the month of December.
(The committee adjourned.)