Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Transportation Safety
Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 2 - Evidence for November 26, 1996
OTTAWA, Tuesday, November 26, 1996
The Subcommittee on Transportation Safety of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 3:34 p.m. to study the state of transportation safety and security in Canada.
Senator J. Michael Forrestall (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we have with us today Ms Barbara Butler, Mr. Engels, Mr. Goguen and others, touching on the question of safety in Canada.
Ms Butler, gentlemen, we are pleased that you could be with us today and we look forward to your presentations. I should point out that, although our hearings are rather informal and we are not too rigid with respect to time, we will be hearing from other witnesses this afternoon. With that in mind, would you please make your presentations.
Ms Barbara Butler: I wish to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak about this one aspect of transportation safety. It is a specific issue that is facing all modes of transportation right now, and I am referring to workplace alcohol and drug issues. I hope the information I provide will assist you as you hear from other witnesses and review the topic. Although I recognize that there are certainly a substantial number of other safety issues you will be dealing with, I think this one is very current to the industry right now.
You will see from the Notice of Meeting that I am not affiliated with any one organization; consequently, senators may be wondering why they should hear from Barbara Butler. Let me give you, therefore, a little context on what I have done in the past with the issue, so you can see where my comments are coming from.
When I was with Transport Canada in the late 1980s, I had the opportunity to work with the U.S. government to get the postponement for foreign operations. That is why we were not regulated by the U.S. government for the past several years. I also was responsible for a variety of safety studies that were undertaken to look at alcohol and drug issues in transportation, and that led to the development of the government strategy in 1990.
Since 1989 I have been working in the private sector with government departments, employer assistance organizations, addictions organizations, labour groups and companies of all sizes, and in all sectors, to help them try to address workplace alcohol and drug issues. The companies I have worked with include oil and gas, construction, manufacturing, finance, utilities, health care, pulp and paper, and many others. I have, therefore, been able to gain a perspective on some of the critical issues that you may want to consider. Specifically in the transportation sector, I have worked with such companies as Pearson airport, which is becoming a company, CN Rail, Socanav in the shipping area, all of the federal and provincial bus and truck associations, all transportation businesses in the Irving group of companies, and in the last year and a half I have worked with over 400 bus and truck companies as they have tried to grapple with the cross-border issues.
With that background I would like to be able to give you some assistance and understanding of the range of issues that may come before you as you deal with transportation safety. I will look at the reasons why Canadian companies are developing policies, give you a brief background on the impact of alcohol and drugs, the status of the Canadian government activities, and certainly the status of the U.S. government activities, because I am aware that you are looking at comparative issues as well.
I will give you a brief overview on drug testing, the most controversial part of this issue, and identify some areas that you may want to explore as you look further. Please feel free to jump in with questions at any time; I am quite happy to dialogue. I will just go through the presentation in the order I have outlined.
There is considerable work being done right now in Canada on policy development. A lot of companies are recognizing that drug use directly affects performance. When I say "drug use", I mean that alcohol and other drugs directly affect performance. Drug use also leads to a number of liabilities around safety that companies need to address.
In addition, U.S. regulations currently are going to be expanded to cover all cross-border truck and bus activities. In fact, anyone who ships a product, and anyone who contracts to have a product shipped, must ensure that it is being shipped by someone qualified to meet the full requirements of the regulations. I will be telling you a bit more about those later. It is a significantly different approach to the issue than Canada has taken to date.
A number of U.S. companies are expecting their Canadian subsidiaries to have programs, so there is pressure from American companies with strong alcohol and drug programs to ask, "What is different in Canada? We want you to have a policy."
Finally, because you cannot contract away safety, companies that have strong policies are expecting their contractors also to meet the same standards. Because of all these pressures a lot of companies in every sector are looking at the issue, and needless to say, because of public and transportation safety, the transportation companies are taking a leadership role in looking at this.
Now, our big issue, and the issue you need to be aware of, is that any substance can affect a person's ability to operate safely. Substances are used and abused for a number of reasons. They are used for medical and health reasons. They can be used for recreational purposes: to get high, for euphoria, relaxation. But they can also be used by some people to escape from reality, and for other people they are used to deal with withdrawal problems.
When we talk about public safety then, the issue is the responsible use of substances. And in some cases "no use" will be the only responsible standard. There is considerable data in the United States on this issue, but I think we need to focus on what we have in Canada, and we have a lot of information. It is not an epidemic in Canada, but there is change in use patterns all the time.
Marijuana use in Canada is up from the last Health Canada survey. Student drug use is up for the first time in seven to ten years. Substance abuse is at levels that are leading to unacceptable impacts on health and safety and a high cost to society. In comparison to Americans, we drink more. Our levels of street drug use are lower, but that differential is decreasing so rapidly that they are almost comparable.
In the transportation sector, we are lucky to have had the Transport Canada surveys that were undertaken in 1989, but some work was also done by the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, AADAC for short, and I thought that the information on this overhead might help to show what is happening in transportation.
In general, the use of alcohol by transportation employees at work is 79 per cent compared to 80 per cent in all industries. Thirteen per cent, a fairly high number, are moderate to heavy drinkers, but less than one per cent classify themselves as extremely heavy drinkers. Street drug use is very high in transportation, and I think that is a concern. Eleven per cent report that they have used street drugs in the last year.
To me, the most significant information from this survey is that a quarter of the respondents felt that drug use and alcohol use were extremely or moderately serious problems in their own company. Whether they will report that their own drug use may be affecting their operations is questionable, but they are reporting that what is happening in their businesses is of concern and is affecting safety.
We have had a considerable number of workplace surveys in Canada, including the AADAC survey, Imperial Oil and Transport Canada surveys, and a Gallup survey; in all of them we found that employed individuals are using alcohol and drugs at a similar rate to general society, but that the workers themselves are advising that it is causing accidents and other negative effects in the workplace. Alcohol is the most frequently reported contributor.
All employees in these surveys have had concerns about safety as a result of substance use. I would like to point out that the skills that are affected include everything from the physical side: motor functions, reaction time, concentration, and perception. However, substance use also affects decision-making. Alcohol and drug use could affect the decision-making of a committee like yours. It could affect the decision-making of people making safety policies. It is not just a matter of a gentleman or woman behind the steering wheel of a car or in the cab of a vehicle; it is that anyone making decisions can be affected.
But what we are concerned about is operating skills. I wanted you to be aware that alcohol can affect reaction time, tracking, vision, attention, co-ordination and comprehension -- all skills that can affect safety. Marijuana affects short-term memory, alters the sense of time, reduces concentration, and affects reactions and co-ordination. Cocaine is also used in our transportation system. It creates restlessness, anxiety, sleeplessness and an inability to operate safely. There are other illicit drugs, as well as medications, that also affect safe operation, but I will not go into those in great detail. However, I would like to tell you a bit more about alcohol, because the surveys have told us that alcohol is most used by individuals in the transportation system.
The concern is that anything above zero per cent can affect someone's ability to operate safely. Even at the lowest blood-alcohol levels, well below the Criminal Code cut-off, safety can be affected. Because of this, and because of the studies that went into establishing this, the U.S. government established .02 per cent as the cut-off level; at anything above .02, drivers or operators cannot operate. At .04 per cent and above they are unqualified to maintain their certification. There are certain hurdles that they have to pass, and I will go through those in a little more detail, but I wanted you to know that, even at levels lower than the .08 we have in our Criminal Code, safety can be affected.
I would also point out that medications, even when used as prescribed, can affect safe operation; and when mixed with alcohol they can have even greater impact. Therefore, many companies are looking at whether to require employees to report the use of medications when they are in a high-risk job, again because of the safety concerns.
The impacts are varied. Certainly, alcohol and drug use causes an increase in accidents, absenteeism, compensation, sick benefits and insurance claims. However, there are also impacts on the health of the business and the productivity of the company.
At the far end of the spectrum, there are legal liabilities associated with alcohol and drug use. That is why many companies are taking notice and are looking at whether they should have stronger standards for their employees. They are responsible. They are vicariously liable for the negligent acts of any employee working on their behalf. They can be sued if a drug- or alcohol-using employee affects the safety of their company.
The Chairman: You are talking about the Canadian situation?
Ms Butler: Yes, absolutely. This is within the Canadian perspective. This is what we have to be aware of. We have driver liability. No fault insurance does not protect a driver from the liabilities associated with impaired driving; if someone is driving on a company's behalf or in a company vehicle or operating rail equipment, et cetera, the company will be found liable.
There are also legal implications for hosting responsibilities. Many people are not aware that, when a company hosts a party, be it business hosting or the Christmas party, the golf tournament, or whatever, if anyone drinks past the point of intoxication, the company is then liable for that person's actions. The company was the server, the provider of the alcohol, so the company is then liable for the acts of, and the injuries to, that individual or the injuries to a third party who may be harmed. A lot of companies are now rethinking their hosting practices because of these concerns. In a recent case against Nike, the company was held liable for $2 million for injuries caused to an employee who drank on the company site, because Nike had provided the alcohol.
There are some very serious issues that Canadian companies have to grapple with, going well beyond regulation. They have due diligence responsibilities through occupational health and safety; they also have to balance their responsibilities under human rights acts and codes, where alcohol or drug dependence under the federal act is considered a disability. There are standards around accommodation; and they cannot discriminate in employment. So companies have to balance their due diligence liabilities with their obligations to employees under the various acts and codes on human rights.
There are also issues around wrongful dismissal and certainly under collective agreements. So, when companies are trying to find the most appropriate approach to this issue, they have to find a responsible approach in terms of due diligence and a reasonable approach in how they deal with their employees.
Now, let us look at what is happening with the governments in Canada and the United States for some comparative information. Under the Canadian government approach to the issue, we have Canada's drug strategy and we have the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. They do not deal to any great extent with workplace issues. The employers have been essentially on their own. National Defence has programs for the military, including testing under certain circumstances. Corrections Canada has programs for the inmates, but not for the guards. They also have random testing under certain circumstances, and under a challenge against the testing program, testing was upheld for public safety.
Transport Canada was in the process of developing regulations in the early 1990s. However, in December of 1994 the minister of transport announced to the industry that they would not be implementing regulations. So they have not been involved beyond their current acts in implementing any further regulations.
The Chairman: Could you elaborate just a bit on the draft regulations that were cancelled? Are you aware of the nature of those regulations?
Ms Butler: Yes, sir.
The Chairman: Are you at liberty to tell us what they are, so that we might understand why they were cancelled?
Ms Butler: I can certainly tell you what they are. Why they were cancelled, I am not sure. The government had done considerable research when I was still with Transport Canada. We knew what the Americans were doing and we wanted to determine what would be appropriate in the Canadian legal framework, responding to Canadian concerns about alcohol and drug use.
A draft strategy was developed. It was forwarded by the then Minister of Transport to the standing committee who heard from witnesses and then made recommendations. Based on those recommendations, the government then developed draft legislation, which I understood went no further. They were also working on regulations at the same time, and there was some consultation taking place, but in December 1994 the Minister of Transport said, "The government will not be issuing regulations at this time."
I believe their intention was to address the problem by requiring certain forms of drug testing and certain prevention initiatives, including employee assistance programs. They were going to clarify the standards of conduct around alcohol and drug use for rail, marine, aviation and motor carrier industries, but the initiatives were cancelled.
Consequently, what we have in place in Canada are the Criminal Code and the specific acts governing rail, the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Shipping Act and the Pilotage Act. But the question one has to grapple with is whether these are sufficient to ensure that transportation safety is meeting the highest quality needs.
Senator Spivak: Is there nothing about recreational boating?
Ms Butler: Under the Canada Shipping Act there are certain standards around not operating a vessel intoxicated. As well, under the Criminal Code you cannot operate a vessel, rail equipment, a motor vehicle or an airplane with a blood-alcohol level above .08 or if impaired by alcohol or drugs.
Senator Spivak: But do you know whether that is enforced on the lakes, around the lakes and for recreational boating?
Ms Butler: I am aware that there are concerns about enforcement and I understand that there is going to be some stronger action taken, particularly on Lake Ontario; that is the one I am most familiar with. But I know there have been concerns, because there have been accidents in recreational boating.
Senator Spivak: Terrible accidents.
Ms Butler: Yes. It seems that drinking and boating is a way of life for some people.
Senator Spivak: Right.
Ms Butler: So it is a safety issue, absolutely. Now, because I understand from the clerk that you are looking at comparative issues, I want to give you an idea of what the U.S. government has done around transportation safety. This all started with President Reagan and his commission on organized crime, which recommended that the public sector have strong programs, and an act was issued through executive order.
The government issued the Drug-Free Workplace Act, which requires that any supplier to government of a product or services has to have a drug-free workplace program; that is for any supplier to any federal department. The U.S. Department of Transportation specifically issued regulations in 1988 after the Amtrak train accident and the New York subway accident. The legislated requirement covered both drugs and alcohol. They then issued regulations to make that effective in 1993. Since January 1995 for large companies and January 1996 for small companies, all modes of transportation are required to meet very high standards around drug and alcohol use, and all operators are subject to testing.
The Chairman: In the United States, are these laws, or are they regulations?
Ms Butler: In 1991, the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act set in place the standards that were expected, and the regulators were then required to meet a certain deadline with specifics in the regulations. So there is a separate regulation for each mode of transportation that reflects the omnibus act and would implement it.
The Chairman: But the authority is in law?
Ms Butler: The authority is in law.
Senator Spivak: Is this mandatory testing?
Ms Butler: Absolutely. It is mandatory testing.
Senator Spivak: Every employee has to be tested?
Ms Butler: Yes.
Senator Spivak: Great stuff.
Ms Butler: It applies to every driver of a commercial motor vehicle, whether it is the municipal snowplough or a heavy truck going cross-country; it takes in every driver -- school bus drivers, church drivers, airport drivers, and the buses.
Senator Spivak: How often are they tested?
Ms Butler: Well, I have laid out what is happening in each mode of transportation, and they are tested under all of those circumstances. So they are tested for alcohol and drugs after an accident, qualifying accident, and the regulations lay out what those are. They are tested for drugs only on a pre-employment basis. They must pass the test as a qualification of being able to do that job. They are tested where there are reasonable grounds to believe someone may be unfit because of alcohol and drugs. They are tested randomly. For air and rail it started at a 50 per cent rate and I believe it has been moved down to a 25 per cent rate, but they are tested randomly throughout the year, unannounced, and everyone is in the pool. They are also tested for alcohol and/or drugs. If they are returned to their job, they must pass a test, and there is a monitoring program for a minimum of a year afterwards; in some modes, it is two years. There are very strict, very extensive testing requirements.
I should just back up. There are specific rules governing the use of alcohol for employees in designated safety or security jobs, where public risk or public safety is involved. There are five drug categories and alcohol, and employers have some obligation to provide information on treatment and education. So the U.S. regulations are very extensive and they have ramifications for Canadians.
In the rail industry, U.S-based companies have to fully implement this program; there are no exemptions. Where Canadian-based companies cross the border, they must meet the current regulations around Rule G, around not being intoxicated on the job, and they also are subject to the post-accident/reasonable cause testing in the U.S. So Canadian employers that operate into the States are covered by the rail requirements.
In the pipeline industry, the requirements have been postponed indefinitely.
With respect to shipping, the U.S. coast guard has not required Canadian employers to have programs, but they will board any ship should they choose and they can test, particularly after an accident in their waters.
For aviation, the ICAO has been asked to try to develop guidelines that would be appropriate to the industry, and those guidelines are being developed.
The largest ramification is for our motor carrier industry. As of last July 1, all large employers are subject to all of the regulatory requirements. A large employer is any employer with 50 or more drivers, and this applies anywhere in North American; it is not just for companies with 50 or more drivers crossing the border; it is 50 or more drivers anywhere in North America. These employers are subject to all of the regulatory requirements, and I will highlight them for motor carriers. Small operators, the small owner-operators, small trucking firms, small bus firms, are all subject as of July 1, 1997.
The problem is that only the cross-border drivers are covered, and that is forcing companies to look at what they do for the Canada-only drivers. It means that Canada-only companies have no obligation to put anything in place, and this is also causing companies that have a shipping arm, a small transportation distribution arm, to look at the safety sensitivity of other jobs, such as loaders, forklift operators, construction workers, and manufacturing. So the ramifications, although strictly on cross-border drivers, can spin into quite a number of other areas.
Whom do the regulations cover? Very briefly, the regulations cover all safety sensitive positions; they cover any driver of a commercial motor vehicle 26,000 pounds or more carrying hazardous materials or transporting 16 or more individuals; they cover regular employees, intermittent drivers, drivers of leased vehicles, and owner-operator contractors -- in short, anyone who drives the product.
In other words, even if a manufacturing company does not have its own trucks, if it contracts to have its product transported, it must ensure that the individuals are qualified. To be qualified they must meet certain standards on alcohol. As I mentioned earlier, at .04 per cent and above they are unqualified. They cannot be on duty or operate a vehicle while possessing beverage alcohol; they cannot drink when on duty; they cannot drink four hours before duty and they cannot drink within eight hours of an accident or until they are tested.
Likewise, for drug use they cannot report for or remain on duty if they have used a controlled substance, and the only flexibility comes if there is a drug that is prescribed and they have been assured by their doctor that it will not affect safe operations. They cannot report for duty or remain on duty after they have tested positive.
The legislation allows employers to require them to report the use of medications, but it does not mandate that. The legislation requires testing; so all Canadian operators in cross-border work must have testing programs in place, the large ones now, the smaller ones by July of next year. For alcohol testing there will be breath tests, and for drug testing, urine tests. The companies have to test before employment, after an accident, with reasonable cause on a random basis, on return to duty, and as follow-up. The testing is very extensive, and if employers do not have it in place, they will be fined up to $10,000 per violation of the rules. That can be multiple violations, at $10,000 per violation. They can also lose their operating authority if they refuse to implement the rules. So it is very serious.
In the case of drivers who violate the rules, they are unqualified to drive until they go through certain steps.
The regulations are quite extensive, and they has caused an awful lot of activity in the motor carrier area.
There is a great deal of information and there are many concerns about testing, and I will take just a few minutes to highlight what happens with testing to ensure it is accurate, and how testing fits into the overall program.
A very specific process is followed to ensure that testing is accurate. There are trained collectors for both breath and urine sampling. They must have the proper equipment and they must have the proper training. There is a chain of custody that follows the sample all the way through the system so there is no doubt that it is the original donor's sample.
There is laboratory analysis by certified laboratories. There is independent medical review of the results so the employee has the opportunity to explain why a positive might be a positive; and there is, finally, reporting of results back to the company. It is a very detailed process and it is accurate, provided trained and qualified people are handling it, and provided the whole process is followed as set out both in the U.S. regulations and by the Standards Council of Canada.
The medical review is done by qualified MRO and there is an unbroken chain of custody. So the review is accurate provided it is handled right. However, we do not have any regulation in Canada that requires it to be handled right.
The Chairman: You say it is done by government agencies?
Ms Butler: Yes. In Canada, the Standards Council of Canada, who have done other types of laboratory certification and proficiency testing, have mirrored the U.S. standards in order to certify Canadian labs, and there is negotiation under way, even as we speak, to get the agreement of the U.S. government to accept the Standards Council program. But it is not regulated by the Canadian government.
The Chairman: But how many people would this take, and how much would it cost? Maybe that was a factor in why we decided not to go ahead with full regulation.
Ms Butler: It is quite an extensive, costly program.
Senator Spivak: For the companies.
Ms Butler: It is also costly for the regulators. I mean, one must monitor and ensure that the program continues to meet the standards it is supposed to meet.
The Chairman: With all due respect, you may know that, and Senator Spivak may know it, but I am sure the public does not know it, and neither do I. In fact I am not sure whether the other senators around the table know it. Would you mind letting us in on the secret?
Ms Butler: Sure. The testing itself can cost between about $100 for the urine test and about $40 for the breath test. That would include the whole process. The certification is paid for by the labs that get certified. In other words, they pay for the inspection and for all the other aspects in order to be certified.
The Chairman: Have we any idea of the volume that we are talking about? How many transport drivers are there with backups and spares?
Ms Butler: It is very hard to tell how many there are, given that there are so many owner-operators, so many small companies, so many church buses, et cetera. I do not think the industry even has a handle on it. They know how many members they have, but not everyone belongs to one of the industry associations, so it is very difficult.
There is a Canadian motor carrier consortium that has been put together to assist the industry in meeting these standards, and they have, I believe, over 12,000 drivers registered. But that would not cover any of the small carriers, and by no means does it cover everybody operating in Canada. That would be only cross-border for the most part.
The Chairman: If we moved in this direction, we would then have a responsibility to conduct random drug tests of American or non-Canadian truckers moving from Canada back out of Canada into the United States.
Ms Butler: The Americans are totally covered.
The Chairman: They are allowed to check our people. Would we be allowed to check theirs? Was that envisioned?
Ms Butler: Probably. I do not know. I did not see the final draft legislation.
The Chairman: Would it be a good thing?
Ms Butler: You would want a quid pro quo. If they have the right to inspect our records to ensure we are meeting their standards, Canada has the right to set standards as well and ensure that they meet those. It is very far-reaching.
Senator Adams: One time when I went through Customs in the States they asked me how much life insurance I had in Canada. Do they do the same thing in transportation? Do they ask a person who is driving how much life insurance he has? If you have an accident in the States, what happens if you are on an American carrier? I am covered with Air Canada, but if I died or was injured when using another air line that was not Canadian, who would be responsible? What happens if I happen to be down in the States on the bus, or using their transportation, and I am injured or I die? Is that covered by the Government of Canada or by the American government?
Ms Butler: If a Canadian motor carrier operator has an accident in the States, they must ensure that the driver is tested. In the rail situation, the same. If they have an accident in the States, they must ensure they are tested. Likewise, if American companies are operating in Canada, they must still fulfil the requirements of the rules and ensure, if their individuals have an accident, that they are tested.
Senator Adams: What happens if a Canadian has an accident and has been drinking? Does he go to court in the States or come back to Canada for the court hearing? I am just wondering how much the court cases would cost as between the two countries.
Ms Butler: I do not have an answer for that, senator.
Senator Adams: Between the American dollar and the Canadian dollar, there is quite a difference if you are talking about $10,000, say, as the cost of the penalty. Canadian drivers go down there every day, to pick up something and bring it back to Canada. How are they covered as between the States and Canada, if they have an accident in the States. For an American it is no problem, since we only have 74 cents to their dollar. It is $1.30 U.S. Maybe there should be some kind of set-up like insurance coverage.
Ms Butler: Well, if alcohol or drugs are involved in the accident, your insurance will not cover you.
The Chairman: What is the requirement to guard against liability? How is that dealt with where drugs or alcohol might be involved? That may not be a fair question to ask you, and I, as the chair, will accept that.
Ms Butler: A number of corporate lawyers have suggested that their companies are on more solid ground if they fully investigate the accident and show that they have strong programs in place than if it is simply found out that drugs or alcohol were involved and the company has nothing in place.
The Chairman: We will come back to this, because it is very interesting. Please carry on.
Ms Butler: There is some controversy about testing programs and what the results of testing mean. For instance, a drug positive result does confirm recent use, but it does not tell you the degree or timing of impairment, the frequency or pattern of use or whether the individual is drug dependent. It simply confirms recent use. A positive result confirms, though, that the individual was to some degree under the influence of the drug.
With alcohol, we have more specific information on the degree of impairment associated with the blood-alcohol levels, but that still does not tell us the frequency, the pattern or the legitimacy of use, or whether the individual has a dependency.
Companies can utilize testing in a number of circumstances. It is not an all-or-nothing situation. Companies may utilize testing in a pre-employment or pre-assignment condition. They may use testing as an investigative tool, as we were just saying, after an accident where there is reasonable cause to believe someone is unfit; they may use it on return to duty after treatment or on return to duty as part of a monitoring program.
They may also use it for deterrence, and there is significant data out of Australia around random roadside testing and the value of that testing as a deterrent. There are studies that show a significant drop in accidents and a significant drop in fatalities since the Australian states have introduced truly random roadside testing. There is considerable data on that, should you want it. I will not take any more time on that right now, but I would be happy to give you more on that later.
What Canadian companies have to decide is whom they are going to test, under what circumstances they may use testing, recognizing that variety of options, what technology they will use, what they will test for, what substances they will test for, and what the consequences will be of a positive test or of a refusal to undertake a test.
In these circumstances, and because testing is so controversial, I want to highlight the concerns that employees and employers have. On the employees' side, they are concerned about privacy and about the accuracy of the process. They are concerned that someone might test for other medical conditions or other substances, and they are concerned about who is going to get the information that they have had a positive result. Moreover, some employees believe it is an affront to their integrity, that it implies mistrust, and some are concerned about the potential for misuse of "reasonable cause" testing, that it might be used to "get someone." These are legitimate concerns that have to be addressed.
On the other side of the equation are the employers' concerns of ensuring that people are fit for duty, of meeting their safety and liability standards and of deterring employees from drug use. Those are some of the problems that people have to grapple with.
In the interest of time I will skip a few of the overheads, but I will leave them with you for your information. I turn now to the need for programs and the need for balance in applying them.
In Canadian programs, companies are trying to find a balance in their application. Testing is not the sole reason to have an alcohol and drug program. It may be one component of your investigative tools, but awareness and education are needed, access to employee assistance is needed, and there is a need for proper training for supervisors around their job, around performance management, and a need for tools to identify someone in violation of the policy. All of these factors work together. They are not alternatives to testing, but they can be part of a complete workplace program.
While employers need to find a balance in their programs, any regulatory initiatives also need to address that balance. We want to balance health and safety and due diligence while at the same time respecting privacy. We have to be cognizant of the perspectives of all stakeholders, certainly the employers, the employees, the unions, the travelling public, the customers, and the contractors. Everyone has a concern and those concerns have to be balanced.
Also, we have to find the most appropriate mix between the measures to control or deter use and the measures to get employee commitment to change and commitment to safe operations. That balance has to be found in each company and in each approach to this issue.
I thought I might highlight some of the issues you may want to look at as this whole matter of alcohol and drugs comes forward in dealing with safety.
Is the current legislation around alcohol and drug use in transportation meeting international standards? There may need to be someone looking at a level playing field both in the motor carrier industry and between the modes. Given that only the cross-border drivers are regulated at this point in time, in the first four months of the program through the motor carrier consortium they have had a two-per-cent drug-positive rate, and on the random testing it is nearly three per cent. So there are current users driving who are using drugs. But will those current users go to non-testing companies if there is still a level playing field?
We want to make sure that the workplace testing programs are accurate. They are not regulated right now. They are simply provided through the Standards Council of Canada. Therefore, employers are not obliged to follow all of the steps to make sure they are accurate.
How do we include prevention initiatives so that the appropriate Canadian approach to this is found, and we have both prevention and deterrence. Finally, how do we ensure that around human factors, and those associated with drugs and alcohol, we meet the best possible public safety standards.
Those are all issues that come to the forefront on alcohol and drugs and transportation safety. I will certainly be happy to answer any questions you might have.
The Chairman: We appreciate the wealth of information you have put in front of us. It might be useful to the committee to have the overheads printed as an appendix to today's proceedings. If so, I would entertain a motion to that effect. I noticed that our witness, for the sake of time, did skip over several, and the complete work should be there. Is it so moved?
Senator Spivak: I so move.
The Chairman: Agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Ms Butler, because the senators might be very interested, what is the title of your most recent book?
Ms Butler: I wrote a book called Alcohol and Drugs in the Workplace. I was concerned that there was so much American information coming into Canada that we needed a Canadian input. Certainly, we can learn from the American studies, but I wanted to pull together a Canadian perspective on the issues; that was the purpose of the book.
Senator Bacon: Ms Butler, on the question of how to ensure workplace testing programs are fair and accurate for employers and employees, how can we improve that? How do you think it can be fair? Do you mean it should be fair to employees?
Ms Butler: To employees and employers both. The kind of issues that should be set out and were certainly set out in the U.S. legislation were issues around ensuring the highest level of accuracy, that the people performing the function during the collection are fully trained. The fairness in the U.S. program is that they collect two samples, and if the employees do not agree with the result from the first sample, they have the ability to request the second sample be tested in another lab.
Some of those things can help ensure fairness. The problem here is that we do not have Canadian regulations governing the testing program. There are some standards that certain companies follow in cross-border cases, and some of the larger companies that want to do this right are certainly following the highest and best standards, but there is nothing directing the others. That is why I raised the issue. How do we ensure fairness for all?
Senator Stratton: I did not quite catch what you said earlier about the percentage who had been found having taken or having had drugs?
Ms Butler: The random testing program and other testing was started on July 1 for the motor carrier industry. A consortium was developed by the industry associations to make sure that their members had access to the most accurate services, and it has been undertaking that testing. The positive rate so far has been 2.8 per cent. The majority were marijuana. So it is four months of a program, 2.8 per cent of drivers, and 2.9 per cent of the random tests were positive.
Senator Stratton: That was my next question: What were the drugs?
Ms Butler: Mostly marijuana. Some cocaine, and one opiate positive.
Senator Stratton: So it is not some other thing that keeps you awake?
Ms Butler: Well, the testing program the Americans have put in place is limited to only five drugs, so they are not testing for barbiturates or benzodiazepines. Sunnybrooke Hospital did a study of individuals in crashes a few years ago. They tested over 800 individuals and found, I believe, over 12 per cent tested positive for benzodiazepines.
Senator Stratton: That is the drug I would have expected to see. That would be the one that would cause me more concern. If you have random testing, would you not also want to test for those barbiturates that keep you awake? Those are the drugs that ultimately lead to a severe level of stress, do they not, and cause problems ultimately down the road?
Ms Butler: Yes. I believe when Transport Canada was looking at their program, they were looking at also extending coverage to barbiturates and benzodiazepines. Certain employer programs are covering a broader spectrum of drugs in an accident or reasonable-cause situation, but the U.S. program as it stands right now applies only to alcohol, opiates, phencyclidine, cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines.
Senator Stratton: Are you advocating mandatory testing?
Ms Butler: Me, personally?
Senator Stratton: Yes.
Ms Butler: No. I am advocating that people understand the issues thoroughly before they decide one way or the other if testing is warranted.
Senator Spivak: A lot of these drivers drive at night; right?
Ms Butler: Yes.
Senator Spivak: Have they looked at the effects of these drugs on vision at night, and have they also looked at the reaction time in terms of what they are driving now, which is huge truck trailers? Those would be my concerns. We have a margin of manoeuvre in the daylight, but at night, it is a different story!
Ms Butler: The International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety, or ICADATS, has the highest calibre of scientists looking at all of these aspects; very definitely they have identified that, when it comes to driving, and particularly driving large vehicles at night, any use of a substance can affect someone's ability. That is why I said we talk about responsible use, but for certain jobs it may be that zero is the only acceptable level.
Senator Spivak: I notice that in New York, for example, on the freeway there is a lane for trucks. They do not always stick to it, but there is a lane. That is not true in Canada anywhere, is it?
Ms Butler: Not that I have seen.
Senator Adams: Do all companies have a regulation now for testing for drugs and alcohol? As I recall, a few years ago the government started testing pilots and people like that, but do companies with drivers having to drive long distances now, either government or private, have a regulation that they have to be tested?
Ms Butler: Certainly, for motor carriers, all of the companies that cross the border, certainly all the large ones, already have policies and the smaller ones have until next year. A number of them have decided that their policies will cover all employees and all drivers and all safety sensitive functions, rather than just the cross-border. There are many companies that are not regulated that have programs.
To the best of my knowledge, the airlines are doing pre-employment testing, and the railroads have certain forms of testing prior to employment, and I believe they reserve the right to test after an accident. But all of them are looking at whether they should be expanding their programs. Certainly the large oil companies have programs, and in particular Imperial Oil took a leadership role in putting in place a program after the Valdez incident.
So there are companies doing testing, but it is still scattered. To be quite honest, I believe a lot of companies were waiting to see what the government intended to do. They were waiting for those regulations so that they could see what standards the government was going to hold them to.
Senator Adams: I would like to get back to one question that was asked earlier with regard to policy as between Canada and the United States. I would like to know a bit more about what would happen if a Canadian killed somebody down in the States with a big transport truck. I think the companies cover themselves, but I just wonder about the costs. It costs a lot of money. Many trucks go back and forth to the United States every day. If a person is killed down there and the accident involves a transport truck or a car, maybe the driver is down there in jail for -- I don't know how long, but I was just wondering how those people would set up in the future.
Ms Butler: Certainly, over and above the employer requirements under these regulations to require testing, the state authorities, the federal highways inspectors, all have the ability to take action where they believe any driver is unfit because of drugs or alcohol, and I would imagine in a fatality situation the driver would find himself in jail. A multitude of things can happen to a company if a driver is found to be unfit. Certainly in a post-accident situation, if the driver does test positive, but is not under the company program for alcohol, they cannot let him drive the truck; they will have to fly someone down to get that truck or bus back. The enforcement, in terms of the American highways, is very strict and very immediate.
Senator Adams: Is what happens in America the same thing that happens in Canada? Is there a different law between the United States and Canada?
Ms Butler: There is no testing requirement here, but certainly the law enforcement people can conduct their own investigation under the Criminal Code, and they may test. It is my understanding that for any American driver who triggers an accident in Canada, their employer must still ensure that they are tested. So they would still take action.
The Chairman: During your presentation you raised a question as to whether or not present federal laws with respect to drugs are sufficient to ensure safety, but you didn't answer it. Could we ask if you might take a whack at it.
Ms Butler: I think that as you hear from the railroads, the airlines, if they do speak on this issue, it would be important to hear their perspective on whether they feel the laws are sufficient. I have been told unofficially that, yes, the standards are there, but there are no teeth in the enforcement and administration of those standards. But I think that would be matter into which perhaps the witnesses from the specific modes of transportation could have some input. I think the question needs to be raised, because truly there is a difference in how we are approaching it in Canada from how the Americans are.
Senator Bacon: Coming back to the matter of fair and accurate testing, are there any specific programs for helping employees who are affected by drug use or alcohol use?
Ms Butler: Absolutely. What has become common now is their employee assistance programs. They may be in-house or they may be provided externally, but I do not believe that anyone can introduce a testing program without also providing the opportunity for individuals to get help.
The testing is the deterrent, but if they have no avenue to get assistance, you will not make any change in safety. Workers need an avenue for encouraging co-workers to get help through peer intervention, but there needs to be a confidential place where someone who needs help can get it. Unfortunately, the American regulations do not require employee assistance programs, but, for instance, in all the training I have been doing for the motor carrier industry, I have been insisting that anyone putting a testing program in place must also have that access to assistance for their employees.
Senator Bacon: As we are constantly hearing in Canada, is there any incentive that our government can put forward to help companies come up with such testing that could be accurate?
Ms Butler: I do not know what incentives there would be other than straight-out regulation saying: "This is what is expected." That would be the incentive. Certainly, I think companies need guidelines on how to implement programs on the prevention side. The industry itself has been trying to help to the degree it can. That would be certainly one area. But the best incentive is to say: "Here are the rules. You must do this."
The Chairman: Could I take you back to the workplace study of 1992 by AADAC, which is basically an Alberta and western bias, and ask you how relative are these statistics to the Canadian experience?
Ms Butler: Surveys are extremely expensive to undertake, and unfortunately there have not been a significant number of surveys. However, the findings in this particular one are very much reflective of the results that Transport Canada found in their national surveys in 1989. The difference, for me, was the higher level of drug use, the 11 per cent. That did not come out in the earlier surveys, the Transport Canada ones. Also, the Transport Canada ones did not ask about whether individuals felt there was a problem in their workplace; the Alberta survey augments that.
However, in terms of the patterns of use, this is consistent with what we were finding nationally. Usually, I put these numbers up when a group from any particular company is coming together with the union, with the employees, to develop a policy. No one has ever debated those numbers; they have basically said they are low.
The Chairman: This does not bring into the schematic at all the question of generic drug use?
Ms Butler: No.
The Chairman: Yet I think we would suspect -- although we do not know -- that that would have a very significant impact.
Ms Butler: The Transport Canada studies did look at medications and the numbers were quite high. The Imperial Oil survey also looked at medications and the numbers were quite high as well, in terms of current use. The issue would then be, do people understand, have they had sufficient education to know that those medications can affect their safe operation? That is the concern.
They may legitimately use them, but the issue is, are they aware of the limitations they place on them? That is why the U.S. regulations require that any driver who is going to use a medication must clear with the prescribing physician that it is safe to operate. In other words, they want to make sure that whoever is prescribing those drugs knows that the individual operates a train or drives a commercial motor vehicle, because then the doctor is educated enough to make more conscious decisions as to what drugs he or she will prescribe.
The Chairman: Do we have enough basic raw material for industry and government and other internal processes to make rational decisions? Do we have enough information?
Ms Butler: I believe we do.
The Chairman: There is no need to go out and do another great national survey to discover that drinking on the job is dangerous, particularly for driving a big truck?
Ms Butler: In all of the companies that have been looking at this issue, the question of a survey comes up: "Should we look into this further?" But most companies have basically concluded that the information that is available, both American and Canadian, gives them sufficient grounds to make some appropriate decisions and to move forward. So I do not think another survey is necessarily demanded.
The Chairman: I could go on all night, but if there are no other questions we do have some other witnesses. May I, on behalf of the committee, extend to you our deepest appreciation for the enlightenment that you have brought to us.
Ms. Butler: Thank you, honourable senators.
The Chairman: We have with us now Mr. Maurice Engels, the Chairman of the Railway Safety Act Review Committee (1994), which, as all of us know, has completed one commendable task, and Mr. Armand Goguen, a member of the review committee. Knowing the work of these gentlemen, I have long since come to the conclusion that our committee need not overly concern itself about seeking out questions of safety in the railway industry. I am sure that what they have overlooked or missed would not be worth going after in any event.
I say that by way of praising your very comprehensive report, Mr. Engels, and to assure you that although, like John Crosbie, I have not read it from cover to cover, I have looked at it. Without more ado, I would ask you, Mr. Engels, to lead off.
Mr. Maurice Engels, Former Chair, Railway Safety Act Review Committee: I propose to make a statement and to provide you with somewhat of an overview with respect to the study and certain elements that I am sure are of interest to your committee, given what I understand are, in essence, your terms of reference.
With respect to rail, the major components, we concluded, of Canada's public transportation system will be of some assistance to you, I am sure. As you have indicated, Mr. Goguen is appearing here with me today. He was one of the three members on the committee. We did submit our report, which was commissioned and mandated, in essence, under the RSA Act of 1989. We did embark upon this study on January 1, 1994, and concluded it at the end of 1994, which was a predetermined time frame.
I might say that the report and the study resulted in 69 recommendations, of which 60 were accepted by the government, seven were not and two are to receive further study. As a consequence, Bill C-43 is currently going through a committee of the House and should be coming to the Senate eventually.
Our comments today will be within the context of our study and report, and in doing so we propose to give a brief overview of our major findings and recommendations, highlighting certain aspects which may be of particular interest to your committee. We also wish to point out that this approach is not intended to minimize any of the other recommendations.
Let me enumerate for you some of the highlights of our findings and our recommendations.
1. We found during our review that railways in Canada are safe in comparison with competing modes of transportation as well as railways in other countries.
2. We concluded that the railway safety system must be changed to one that is both non-prescriptive and industry-driven. We envision the regulator as serving more as an auditor, adhering to the strictest standards of quality assurance and leaving the railways themselves to propose and manage how they will ensure optimum rail safety. This is quite different from what has been in effect for many years, ever since railways came on the scene in Canada.
3. The regulator must continue to play the lead role in ensuring public safety, particularly the areas of interface between railways and the public as well as the provinces and/or municipalities.
4. The matter of the use of intoxicating or mood-altering substances is, I know, of some interest to you, given the witness you have just heard from. Both Mr. Goguen and I were impressed with that witness, because we looked at that particular issue and indeed made a recommendation in that respect. Unfortunately, and I will deal with it in some detail later, that was one of the seven recommendations not accepted by the government.
In any event, the matter of the use of intoxicating or mood-altering substances by those in safety-sensitive positions must be dealt with, in our view, with the onus of developing and managing suitable programs being placed on the railway companies. As the previous witness indicated as a result of some questions, yes, there would be costs involved in dealing with these programs. Certainly, in the industry we were dealing with, railways, it was quite clear that the railways would be quite happy to manage these programs and pay for them. They certainly were very much in favour of such a program.
5. The smaller but growing provincially regulated railways require attention. It is our belief that safety must evolve to mirror the nature of the industry itself, which is continentally interconnected. The current regulatory system varies from province to province, and a consistent and national scheme is clearly needed both to ensure safety and to provide a compatible if not uniform framework.
I am sure you are well aware of what has taken place with respect to CN and CP, where they have, you might say, disposed of a number of major branch lines, which means that the operations and the regulations pertaining to those major branch lines have devolved to the provinces. Having heard from our national railways as well as from American operations and operators that are interested in these branch lines, it seems to us that there should be uniform regulations across this country that tie in with the U.S. and are cross-provincial rather than provincially based only in some instances.
6. The more efficient model we are recommending requires the Railway Safety Directorate, in the first instance, to restructure its decision-making apparatus for the setting of priorities to link them to establish performance objectives and to ensure it has the appropriate skills to undertake its new mandate.
We did find during our study that the skills, you might say, possessed by those we call inspectors are quite important. They perform a very major function and carry a lot of weight and discretion in dealing with safety. They can stop railways from operating in certain areas, at great cost to the railways. We found that these people should be required to possess much greater skills than they do at the present time to operate in the present situation and into the future.
7. As I have indicated, one of our major recommendations is to lead to a shifting from a prescriptive regime to one that will see performance standards and a comprehensive safety plan proposed and implemented by the industry, after approval by the regulator, with such plan and standards to be subject to a coordinated program of monitoring, auditing and inspection by the regulator.
8. Another of the recommendations -- and I certainly would suggest that senators read the report in its detail with respect to any issues they are interested in -- is that there should be a different appeal process from what presently exists under section 31, in that a qualified, independent body should be established for this purpose and that there should be a timely review and resolution of any appeals.
One of the major concerns we heard from the industry is that an inspector could close down, in effect, part of the rail operation, and any appeal by the industry was very time-consuming and very costly.
9. Another recommendation is that the minister implement the Railway Safety Consultative Committee as provided for under the legislation. This one recommendation, while in essence accepted in principle, is not being proceeded with, from my reading of the amending legislation, as recommended by this committee, and we heard from the industry and from others interested in the Railway Safety Act that there should be such a consultative committee.
In fact, we did find that in the five years during which the legislation was in effect, very little was done to implement a number of things that could have been implemented, because there did not seem to be any mechanism other than going through staff, and so on, and certainly there was no government legislation to do some of the things that could have been done, whereas such a committee could provide the impetus to do certain things that otherwise were not done.
10: One of the major concerns and one of the greatest safety concerns in the country with respect to rail are grade crossings. Not much has changed. In fact, any review of statistics will indicate that very little improvement is being made, and yet a great number of accidents still do take place across this country of ours.
11. I mentioned earlier the matter of substance abuse. One of our major recommendations is that there be a testing program for employees in rail in safety-sensitive positions. In other words, it is not a blanket situation that we are recommending, but, again referring to the witness you heard from earlier, when you look at what is taking place in the States, when you know that there is a great interconnection, particularly of railway operations and the U.S. railway operations where certain requirements will have to be met, even putting that aside and looking at the situation we realize the sensitivity and the need for ensuring that there is no abuse by those who may be in a position, if there were an accident, to cause, indeed, great damage.
We know that there was concern, and such concern was expressed to us, about the rights of implementing such a program. We do know, as well, that automobile drivers in practically every province of this country are now being tested on a random basis; if indeed it is considered to be of concern that none of these drivers should be on the road, how can we say that a locomotive engineer should not be subject to such testing, when you consider the responsibilities that that person would have?
However, as I have indicated, the government in the amending legislation that is now going through the House has not seen fit to include this recommendation. We certainly would strongly recommend to this committee, when it deals with the amending legislation, that it look carefully at that aspect of the bill.
12. One of the other recommendations we did make was that there should be a comprehensive review of the Railway Safety Act in another five years. I do not believe that that would necessarily be a requirement, if there were a provision for a consultative committee which would ensure that the legislation is updated as required, and so on. Our concern is that, if the legislation is just passed and in essence forgotten about, as was the case with the last bill, problems will develop and not be resolved and you will be faced with having to make a comprehensive review at the end of the day.
In conclusion, we would simply restate that, while railways in Canada do operate safely, there is still very great concern about grade crossings. As well, I have attached for your consideration a few extracts from the report that deal with comparative data.
Railways operating in this country, versus other countries, particularly the U.S, do measure up very well indeed. The other comparison, and it is a very important one, is rail versus trucking safety. Again, there is no comparison in terms of the level of safety being much higher with respect to rail as opposed to trucking, and we certainly feel that your committee may do a great service in looking at the aspect of trucking safety in Canada.
With those comments, Mr. Chairman, we are at your pleasure in terms of dealing with any questions you may have.
Senator Adams: Things have changed quite a bit in the last few years. Rail lines have been cut down, for instance, since I came to the Senate nearly 20 years ago, and the government has privatized some of the railway. Do you have any records to show whether there has been any reduction in costs or in the number of accidents? Do you have any percentage numbers with regard to railway operators being influenced by alcohol or drugs?
Mr. Engels: There are no statistics with respect to substance abuse other than those that were mentioned by the previous witness, to which we were privy as well. But in terms of the level of safety in railways today as opposed to a number of years ago, in spite of changes, in spite of reductions, doing away with the caboose and that kind of thing, we have found no evidence whatsoever that there was any reduction in safety.
Senator Adams: You have a policy now that operators have drug testing? Do you have testing regulations now for some of the engineering operators?
Mr. Engels: There may be very limited testing, but there is no hard testing. I believe that may be required to a very limited extent, but it is absolutely not sufficient at the present time. That was the strong message we received from the railways. They would very much be interested in much more expanded programs than is the case now. What they do lack, however, is the authority to implement random testing.
Senator Adams: On the question of mandatory testing for drugs and alcohol, do you have any idea how many unions there are right now in CN and CP, how many in total?
Mr. Engels: Well, we did hear from a number of them.
Senator Adams: Yes. If there were mandatory testing for alcohol and drugs, and somebody were found to be an alcoholic or drug addict who belonged to a union, what would happen? Would they have to go through a union, or could they be automatically fired by the government? How does that work?
Mr. Engels: Even at the present time, obviously the employer has certain rights, subject to grievance procedures, depending on what the collective agreement says, and certainly there would be protection for the employee not to be dealt with unfairly.
Senator Adams: Are you saying that right now you have inspectors on the rail all the time? How often are they inspecting, and is it just for safety, or is it for being under the influence of alcohol? How do those inspectors work?
Mr. Engels: I am not sure what the extent of it is. The inspectors do their work in terms of the safety requirements and regulations.
Senator Adams: I do a lot of flying on the airlines, and sometimes I see a government inspector getting on the airplane and talking to the pilot. Is there a regulation to let the crew know when they are coming in, or can they step in at any time?
Mr. Engels: Inspectors can inspect anything at any time that relates to railway operations. They have total power in that respect.
Senator Adams: We used to fly DC-3s, and sometimes, usually at 3,000 or 4,000 feet up in the air, a DC-3 inspector would have you shut one engine off to see how you were able to fly on one engine.
Senator Bacon: You said that the regular committee study and report resulted in 69 recommendations, 60 were accepted, seven were not, and two are receiving further study. Are you not satisfied with that?
Mr. Engels: Oh, very much so. I think it has been a great experience. We have some concerns with two in particular of the ones that were not accepted, one of which deals with substance abuse. Indeed, it has been very gratifying for us to see how many of the recommendations were accepted and are being proceeded with.
Senator Bacon: What are the railway companies currently doing about substance abuse, right now?
Mr. Engels: They have employee assistance programs, and, again, your earlier witness made reference to those. Any major employer has such a program in any event, and so do the railways. The concern of railways is that there is not enough power for them to deal with the substance abuse issue on a random basis, and it may be a case of dealing with a hazard like that after the fact, as opposed to trying to deal with it before the fact. But certainly they have excellent programs in place.
However, as you heard from the previous witness, the U.S. is insisting that these programs be effective come the middle of next year.
Senator Bacon: But do you feel that the railways are not doing enough and they are waiting for the government to regulate more? Is that your feeling?
Mr. Engels: Yes. The railways have indicated they would like to do more, but they need the authority to do more. At the present time they do not have the legal authority to do more, so they are looking for legislation or regulations by the government to give them the authority to do that. Now, that still would be subject to fair treatment. It is not a matter that the government would give them blanket authority to do whatever they liked in that regard. There would have to be a program developed that would be developing consultation with the unions, and so on.
Senator Bacon: But are the companies not carrying out inspections? Would that not be enough? You do not feel that they are doing enough?
Mr. Engels: No, there is no authority to randomly check them.
Senator Bacon: And they would not do it?
Mr. Engels: They cannot, and they will not do it. They do not have the legal basis.
Senator Bacon: I am surprised about that. With regard to branch lines, there will be more of them, I suppose.
Mr. Engels: Yes.
Senator Bacon: Do you have any special report on that, that could be available to us?
Mr. Engels: No. We merely dealt with the safety of the railways and obviously the emerging trend of more and more and larger and larger branch lines. What we are advocating is to ensure that there are Canada-wide regulations that deal with railways basically on the same basis so that everybody is being dealt with on a fair basis.
Senator Stratton: You were talking about crossings and that really nothing is being done. It is purely because of cost, I would imagine.
Mr. Engels: A lot is being done, but not enough is being done.
Senator Stratton: Not enough. Okay.
Mr. Engels: Not enough is being done, and perhaps a lot more could be done under the guise or under the heading of education to make it clear that people should be careful. There could be new techniques. We recommended, as well, that more research be undertaken to come up with perhaps a better mousetrap in this respect.
We do know that gates are safer than merely a bell ringing; four gates are safer than two gates, that kind of thing. But obviously there is a limit to how much one can do. So perhaps education is a very important component in that respect.
Senator Stratton: So you are not necessarily advocating the solution being more gates, but you are advocating education. I would imagine that most of these accidents are rural.
Mr. Engels: Not necessarily. I am from the city of London, and it is frightening how many accidents there are because of people sometimes ignoring signals. They are not necessarily just rural, although a lot of them, I am sure, are.
Senator Stratton: I will change topics a bit now and go back to testing. You would advocate mandatory testing?
Mr. Engels: Yes, mandatory testing under the program that has to be developed between management and the unions, and also random testing should be available. I think a random testing program, if it could be implemented and had a legal basis, would 99 per cent prevent any potential from developing, just knowing that it was there.
Senator Stratton: And that was one of the recommendations that was not accepted?
Mr. Engels: That is right.
Senator Stratton: Were there reasons given why?
Mr. Engels: No. It is rather interesting, because, as the previous witness indicated, there was a study done in 1989. There were some positions taken on an interim basis by the government in 1990, but it was never proceeded with. Then when we looked at it, we researched it, we studied it and we came to the conclusion that it would be in the interest of the public to have such a program and to have this ability for railways to do the testing. We recommended it. To our surprise it was not accepted. Well, it was only one of seven recommendations that were not accepted. But we strongly advocate that this be looked at again and really be considered as very desirable.
The Chairman: I have just a bit of a supplementary to Senator Stratton's earlier question, recalling what you have just said about level crossings -- and you stressed that in your presentation. When Mr. Ron Jackson was before us -- he was the ADM of Transport -- he dealt, just in passing, with level crossings, choosing rather to cite the increase in derailments over the last year or two, the sudden, somewhat almost alarming increase in derailments, as a growing problem. Could you comment on that? Did you do work in this area as well?
Mr. Engels: Yes, derailments. We did look at it and we looked at it in the context of the time frame in which we were studying this. Certainly, the data that we received and we reviewed indicated that there had been no increase in derailments. I know the winter of 1993-94 was a rather severe one in Northern Ontario, and there were a number of derailments.
The Chairman: He placed it in the context of the last 18 months, so it would be, in fact, subsequent to that. Again, I have a bit of a supplementary on the concept of a rail industry regulated program with respect to abuse of substances. In terms of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific being large enough and strong enough to undertake such responsibility and to undertake it in full cooperation with the unions and all of the other institutional groupings that would have to be brought together to do this outside of government, I can see that capacity there. It should be developed. Perhaps a consultative committee, if we can really get that up and going, might challenge themselves to look at it as a question. I would suspect that that would be something that would fall within that ambit.
While it might work there very well, my concern is: What do we do about the crossovers, the short line situations? Do you have an opinion as to whether or not they could afford to do such a testing program outside government parameters?
Mr. Engels: There is no question that the CN and CP could certainly easily deal with it, and indeed when we heard from them they were very supportive of it and would pay the cost of such a program, as they are paying the costs of many related programs. The smaller branch lines could benefit from a model that would be developed by the larger ones to implement in their own area.
I am not so sure that it needs to be as costly as perhaps was indicated to you earlier, but having a program in place that could provide for random testing, as in the two examples mentioned by the previous witness, is a fair way of dealing with it, keeping in mind, as well, that the smaller railways belong to a Canada-wide association, where they could benefit from such a program to implement and have one that is fairly uniform and consistent. Yes, there could be some cost, but cost in relation to something that could save them a lot more money in not having such a program.
The Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. You have set us off on yet another avenue of thought. We are grateful for your having taken the time and being so patient with us this afternoon.
I would now ask Mr. Rodrigue of NAV CANADA to come to the table, and we will look at safety in the provision of commercial air navigation services. This is NAV CANADA and its role in the ever-changing, constantly changing operations in the air.
Mr. Gilles Rodrigue, Assistant to the President, Safety and Quality, NAV CANADA: Thank you for the opportunity for NAV CANADA to give you a brief on safety in the provision of commercial air navigation services. With me today is my colleague Terry Kelly, Manager of Safety Policy at NAV CANADA. I believe you all have a copy of our brief. I have overhead slides, if you prefer, but if you all have copies that is probably preferable.
My objective is simply to give you an overview of the mechanisms in place for NAV CANADA to assure safety. In the outline, I would like to cover the overview of what NAV CANADA is all about, safety framework and the safety management program.
NAV CANADA was established in May 1995 as a not-for-profit corporation and specifically for the acquisition of the air navigation system from Transport Canada.
Bill C-20 was passed last summer in June. It drives the commercialization and permits the transfer of the air navigation services, which I will call ANS, to NAV CANADA. It permits NAV CANADA to be a monopoly. It provides for transparency of their activities in rate setting. It provides for safety generally and safety in the North.
The transfer of NAV CANADA occurred on schedule on November 1, 1996. We are new in the organization in the sense that it has been running for 25 or 26 days. On the other hand, as you are probably aware, about 6,000 people did transfer from Transport Canada to NAV CANADA. We are proud to say that we have over 100,000 years of experience collectively. The system, hopefully, is in good hands.
NAV CANADA is a fully private, not-for-profit corporation. It functions as a public utility. There are no shareholders, but there are three types of members: government, labour and industry. It is a totally debt-financed corporation, and was incorporated in May 1995 for the specific purpose of acquiring the air navigation services from the Department of Transport.
NAV CANADA's primary responsibility is to coordinate the safe and efficient movement of aircraft in domestic and international air space. This includes air traffic services, which comprise both air traffic control, flight information services, weather briefing services and advisory services; it includes technical services, which comprise all the electronic navigation aids for communication and for surveillance, such as radar, and all the approach aids; it includes the air navigation system requirements branch, which is responsible for system planning, for flight inspections and for transmitting aeronautical information to the 60,000 pilots we have in the system; and, finally, it includes a training institute, which is mainly an internal training institute for controllers and technicians.
With respect to the safety framework, the safety of ANS is NAV CANADA's highest priority, and it will be maintained at the existing standards. It is comprised of a lot of mechanisms and accountabilities which are driven from the international standards and guidelines primarily through ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. It is also driven by the federal act and regulations, a board of director's safety committee and NAV CANADA management. I will touch on those in the following slides.
The safety requirements of NAV CANADA, as in the airlines, are governed by the Minister of Transport through the Aeronautics Act. Part VIII of the Civil Aviation Regulations is a brand-new section specifically designed to regulate the safety of air navigation services provisions, primarily aimed at NAV CANADA. Part VIII includes performance-based regulations that honour common safety goals with respect to the different mandates of Transport Canada and NAV CANADA. So they are non-prescriptive standards that permit safety goals to be achieved and measured while permitting NAV CANADA to determine how to achieve those goals.
In addition to the regulatory oversight from Transport Canada, there is internal oversight at the highest level. In fact, the by-laws of NAV CANADA call for a board safety committee comprised of six members of the board of directors. They will provide an oversight of NAV CANADA's risk management by examining our policies and procedures, and by reviewing safety information and safety performance. So it is there at the highest level.
The safety committee has wide powers, including assessing the areas of greatest operational risk, examining the actions being taken by management and ensuring there is effective safety communication between the industry and all levels of NAV CANADA management.
An additional level of oversight in the organization is achieved through a program of reporting directly to the CEO. This is the program for which I am responsible, and although it is mandated by the safety regulations, in other words, we are obliged by law to do certain things, we do more. We report safety performance to the CEO and to the stakeholders. We assist managers in risk management projects and we ensure that the best practices are integrated into our safety performance.
In developing our program, we drew on our experience, and on research and consultation. From our experience in safety programs, we analyzed what was being done for system safety in Transport Canada and in airlines across the nation, and in our own ANS programs while we were in Transport Canada.
With respect to research, we looked at the world-wide programs of other commercial entities providing similar services, and we looked at programs such as NASA, and other forms of industry, including the petrochemical industry and the nuclear industry.
With respect to consultation, obviously we have consulted internally with our own people, but we also consulted externally with the industry stakeholders and with experts at the University of Waterloo Risk Research Institute.
From all of this we derived a program. Our strategic goal is, obviously, to reduce to as low as reasonably practicable the risk associated with providing air navigation services. This features a top-down approach to systematically manage the risk.
The next slide shows a short organization chart, simply to indicate to you that my office of safety and quality is strategically based. It reports directly to the president and CEO to give it a high profile for safety concerns. It is completely independent of all the operational aspects and it oversees all operating arms of the organization. It also has a direct link to the board safety committee from the board of directors.
Our program objectives are to develop and disseminate safety policy, to measure our safety performance, to coordinate our activities with the Transportation Safety Board and Transport Canada, to integrate our principles, procedures, techniques and best practices all over our organization in our day-to-day operations, to actively identify safety deficiencies, and to provide a specialized risk management service. These objectives emphasize again the top-down approach and the facilitative nature of our approach.
In conclusion, we are developing a world-wide quality program based on the best we have seen. It has received very strong support from the air industry, from the regulating industry, and from Transport Canada. It is a dynamic program that will evolve and will enhance safety of all NAV CANADA operations, while promoting good communications internally. To that end, we will have workshops and training on the safety issues.
That concludes my remarks, Mr. Chairman. I am available for discussion.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Bacon: Mr. Rodrigue, in your program objectives, you stated, and I quote: "Actively identify safety deficiencies" and, immediately after that: "And offer specialized risk management services". Could you elaborate on that? How does one "Actively identify safety deficiencies"? Are these tools that you wish to have within the framework of the objectives you have set for yourself?
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes, to identify safety deficiencies, we generally start off by doing an internal analysis of incidents that occur in order to identify any problem there might be, or we contact industry representatives when we are told that there would seem to be a problem in a given area. We then do what is called a safety review which is generally managed by someone from my office with the assistance of the operations managers who will do an on-site investigation. They meet with the stakeholders and, as an expert panel, they formulate recommendations. That is our usual way of going about things when there is a problem.
The specialized risk management service is a way of analyzing the risks of daily decision-making based on implied dollar values, the number of lives involved and the frequency of that type of incident. There is a whole procedural methodology that is recognized internationally and that we can use. Our goal is to train our managers and our heads of operations in these fields with the help of specially trained people from our organization.
Senator Bacon: Is that part of the training that you mentioned?
Mr. Rodrigue: Very much so.
[English]
Senator Stratton: It is pretty hard to measure something that is just beginning, but if there is an accident, is it still Transport Canada that carries out the investigation?
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes. The Transportation Safety Board is still responsible to investigate all accidents and incidents as called for. That still permits us to do an internal investigation, obviously, but the Transportation Safety Board is the responsible authority. Normally, they will generate a report that will be transmitted both to Transport Canada and to NAV CANADA.
Senator Stratton: I am curious about the stakeholders; the members are government -- that is the federal government?
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes.
Senator Stratton: And labour, meaning the unions.
Mr. Rodrigue: Our unions, yes.
Senator Stratton: And industry, meaning the airlines.
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes, the airlines.
The Chairman: Those are the stakeholders.
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes. Also, if I may add, senator, the board of directors is formed from these three entities. So there are airlines represented on the board of directors, there are unions internal to NAV CANADA represented and, obviously, independent members and government members.
Senator Stratton: How is this all paid for? Is it just by the landing fees paid by airlines?
Mr. Rodrigue: At this point in time it is still under the air transportation ticket tax which Transport Canada used to collect, but it will be shifted to a complete fee for service within two years of November 1, 1996. There will be charges, likely to be en route charges and terminal charges in a given terminal area. It is not landing charges per se, because landing charges are primarily for airport purposes.
Senator Stratton: As I understand it, and this may be off the topic, you are instituting an overhead charge for people who are flying, which you were not doing before.
Mr. Rodrigue: That is correct.
The Chairman: I have many questions in this area. I am still looking for a business plan. Do you have one that you might be able to give us?
Mr. Rodrigue: No, I do not have a business plan. There was a form of business plan in the prospectus.
The Chairman: I am talking about your business plan now. If things are going to run safely, they have to have money. I want to know how you are going to raise the money and what you are going to do about safety. Can you undertake to ask the board whether they would feel free, if not now, at some point in the relatively near future, like before Christmas, to let us have a copy of it for our records?
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes. As I say, there are certainly a lot of elements of it in the prospectus that NAV CANADA developed before the transfer. I do not have a final one, but I will certainly undertake that.
The Chairman: I am always concerned about the impact of saving money on safety. Why have we gone through this exercise? Why have we moved this function from the aegis of Transport Canada to NAV CANADA?
Mr. Rodrigue: Primarily because the stakeholders felt that they were not being provided the service they needed, because, basically, government and Transport Canada were trying to reduce the debt and the deficit. Accordingly, the services to the industry were decreasing while the demand from the industry was increasing. The industry at large submitted information to the previous government, and, accordingly, we studied the subject. We believe we can improve significantly in many areas in a private enterprise totally focused on one service rather than within government at large.
The Chairman: Are you suggesting you can save money and still maintain a high level of safety?
Mr. Rodrigue: We certainly can. We are convinced of that. For instance, the procurement practices will obviously be more narrowly focused. We do not have the same drives that the government would have to satisfy a lot of other objectives.
The Chairman: But on procurement, you say you can save some money.
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes.
The Chairman: Procurement of what?
Mr. Rodrigue: Procurement of all our systems. We spend about $200 million a year in capital expenditures. We have to make expenditures for acquisitions in the normal operations and maintenance, but I am not too sure what the figure would be for O&M. It is fairly significant as well, because of acquiring all sorts of equipment, including navigational aids, radar, et cetera.
The Chairman: What system is in place today in Canada?
Mr. Rodrigue: What do you mean?
The Chairman: What is it called?
Mr. Rodrigue: The air navigation system.
Senator Adams: AWOS.
The Chairman: What is the brand name for it? How old is it? Let us go at it that way.
Mr. Rodrigue: You mean the radar system, senator?
The Chairman: I mean downtown in your terminal. We are going to Edmonton to have a look at the terminal and we will be looking at it under new management and I will ask whose system it is.
Mr. Rodrigue: It is an ensemble of many, many systems, senator. Obviously, it includes our radar system, which we commissioned and acquired about three or four years ago; it is a fairly new radar system. It also includes a massive communications system and navigational aids in all sites and en route, so a centre like Edmonton controls the air space overhead within what we call the flight information region, which is simply an administrative region for the purpose of air traffic.
The Chairman: You are missing the point altogether. Is our system modern?
Mr. Rodrigue: Our system is fairly modern.
The Chairman: It is fairly modern. How old is it?
Mr. Rodrigue: Our radar system, for instance, is top notch. It is a very modern system. Some of our automation systems are not very modern. We are trying to modernize those. Some of our communications are first class and some are not. In a large system like that, you have various pieces that you replace on a periodic basis, but, overall, we have a good system, certainly.
The Chairman: But we have no level playing field then. We have an old system here and a newer system there.
Mr. Rodrigue: By and large, we have a very modern system, certainly comparable to that of any western country in the world.
The Chairman: It is comparable to, equal to, just as good as, just as up to date as and just as capable of taking control of an aircraft and moving it around as any other system?
Mr. Rodrigue: Very much so. Absolutely.
The Chairman: I am pleased to hear that.
Mr. Rodrigue: We have one of the safest in the world as well, I am pleased to say.
The Chairman: By the grace of God.
Mr. Rodrigue: No, by the professionalism of our people.
The Chairman: That is right, and the professionals are there. I accept that. To keep the system top notch for, say, the next five years, are we looking at multi-million dollar upgrades? How much money will we spend a year, for instance?
Mr. Rodrigue: For upgrading?
The Chairman: Will we be spending a significant amount of money?
Mr. Rodrigue: On upgrading, yes. As I mentioned before, it is in the order of between $100 million and $200 million that we spend every year in upgrading the system.
The Chairman: Are you able to realize that out of money saved?
Mr. Rodrigue: It is partly out of money saved but it is partly financed by the user fees. Actually, it will be completely financed by user fees.
The Chairman: It will be completely financed by user fees, and yet you will still save money, so that means user fees will have to go up.
Mr. Rodrigue: No. We calculate, senator, that what is being charged today through the air ticket tax will be almost equivalent in total to the user fee that we will charge, so in total, it should be cost-neutral.
The Chairman: Perhaps, when you make an inquiry about the business plan, you might include the prospectus of your new not-for-profit corporation, because we would like to see that. I would just remind you again that, when you start saving money, that means you are starting to cut corners, and those of us who are frequent users of aircraft are somewhat touchy about that.
Senator Adams: NAV CANADA was started in 1995. It is just over a year old. I just want to know what its future plans are. I would like to go into the operations a bit more. Companies like Air Canada have staff at the ground area around the terminal. Will you be doing that too? Right now, having taken over from Transport Canada, NAV CANADA is responsible for operations, for safety and for aircraft landing, is it? Do you think that in the future, NAV CANADA will be taking over other operations from Transport Canada?
Mr. Rodrigue: NAV CANADA is responsible for all air traffic control, in other words, all of the activities to control aircraft, and is basically responsible to manage the air space, now and in the future, unless Parliament decides otherwise. That is the intent.
Just to address the chairman's concern about safety, that is one of the reasons why NAV CANADA is a not-for-profit organization. We are not there to make a profit for specific stakeholders. This is an organization that is driven by professionals.
The Chairman: It was a not-for-profit exercise when it went before the government, I hope.
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes, indeed. That is why it was transferred that way. Yes, there will be savings operationally, and administratively especially. We figure that we can improve very much in this particular area. Overall, the intent is to provide a very modern and safe system to all the users.
Senator Adams, I am not sure I answered your question.
Senator Adams: Yes, thank you, but I have another question. Over a year ago, during a committee chaired by Senator Carney that was looking into the abandonment of lighthouses, we heard evidence from a few witnesses about AWOS, the automated weather observation system. There was concern that a private company was taking over AWOS. We heard from persons in the community, from radio operators and the weather forecasters and so on.
Really, my question is: How do you project saving more in the future now that NAV CANADA has taken over? Do you have to do budget forecasts for Transport Canada? Are they telling you that you should cut down a bit more in order to have more savings? I know you are now responsible for safety, but what the government is looking for is to cut down the costs of operating an airline.
Mr. Rodrigue: There are two parts to that. The services to the north are protected in the act, as you are probably aware, so they should not change significantly unless there is support from the user community -- from the territories, from the government of the territories, et cetera.
In Southern Canada, the level of service will be determined essentially by the user community. We will consult with the users. If they want a special service at a particular airport, and they are ready to pay for it, that will be provided. Safety analysis will take place every time, and we will have to convince Transport Canada, through what we call an aeronautical study, that the change will not jeopardize safety in any way, shape or form. If that is satisfied, we can make some changes. It applies to everything we do, such as providing weather briefings, and things of that nature.
Senator Bacon: Air traffic controllers are considered an essential service. What would happen in the case of a strike of air traffic controllers? Would you be able to ensure safety? Is air traffic control enough or would the weather services, for example, be of importance to you?
Mr. Rodrigue: The weather services are also important, obviously. The weather services, as you are probably aware, senator, are provided to us by Environment Canada and we distribute the weather information. We are briefing the pilots, essentially.
In the case of a strike, safety would not be compromised. I suppose everything is possible and a strike could occur, but our intent, and certainly by the way we are shaping our human resources policies, is to have a partnership with the main unions. So far, we have formulated our human resources policies and our staffing policies with them; so, in that sense, we certainly hope to achieve a non-event with respect to strikes, but, should one occur, safety will not be compromised. Traffic will be reduced to a minimal level, if there is any traffic, and the appropriate personnel will be there at that time, certainly.
Senator Stratton: There is an air traffic control operation at each major terminal or airport in the country. Just in the west you have Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Victoria, all with air traffic control. I recall that a while ago there was a discussion about limiting air traffic control and making it more regional. Has that taken place, or is each major terminal still looking after its own sector?
Mr. Rodrigue:. The traffic is subdivided as en route traffic through our area control centres. We have seven of them in the country. Basically, the air space is divided into seven, and the seven centres are responsible for the en route portion. When an aircraft gets near an airport, responsibility for it shifts to a terminal controller, who then shifts it back to a tower controller when the aircraft is within seven miles or five miles, whatever is applicable in the particular case, whether there is radar or not. When they are getting close to an airport, they could be under the control of the tower in that particular case, but the transfer is from the en route sector to the terminal sector, and then to the tower sector.
Senator Stratton: When you say seven regional centres, do you mean seven across the country?
Mr. Rodrigue: There are seven area control centres.
Senator Stratton: I am curious as to what they are. Can you name them?
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes. Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Moncton, and Gander.
Senator Stratton: Thank you.
The Chairman: I would like to touch on a couple of supplementary questions. First of all, given the direction we are going in with respect to privatizing airports and various categories of airports, who in the future will decide what level of air navigation service will be available, and at what level of airport or category of airport? Will that be your people or some other organization? If so, who?
Mr. Rodrigue: Essentially, it is NAV CANADA that will decide, providing it meets a certain level of safety where Transport Canada would get involved. At the existing level of service today, at least 60,000 movements are needed to justify a control tower. If NAV CANADA were to propose to do that at 40,000 movements rather than 60,000, Transport Canada would get involved. The same thing would apply, if we were to tell Transport Canada that we wanted to do it at 80,000 movements. Obviously, they would get involved.
We make the proposals and we have the monopoly to perform the function, but it is Transport Canada that approves, or has the final say.
The Chairman: Does the 60,000 take into account pilot training?
Mr. Rodrigue: Normally, we have a formula that takes into account the types of people there are -- that is, the mix of trainers ab initio, for instance, with commercial airlines, and that type of thing.
Senator Stratton: But there is a count?
Mr. Rodrigue: There is a count, yes.
The Chairman: In the case of technical stopovers, what happens when there is maintenance of the tower services? Gander is a technical stopover. I do not know if Halifax is. Is there a certain level or number of airports we keep open for use as alternatives?
Mr. Rodrigue: Yes, definitely. It is a requirement for the pilot to have an alternative airport. If the traffic activity does not warrant a tower at that particular airport, there may not be one. It could be a flight service station or there could be some other form of communication. We do not necessarily have controllers at every airport, but certainly at the major airports.
The Chairman: Do we have any airports where we continue to provide 24 hour service?
Mr. Rodrigue: We have several where we provide 24-hour service, yes, senator.
The Chairman: What would be the qualifier for that?
Mr. Rodrigue: Basically, how much activity there is at night.
The Chairman: What would it take? Would 60,000 movements warrant a tower from, say, six a.m. to eleven p.m.? What warrants a tower twenty-four hours a day?
Mr. Rodrigue: I am not familiar with the exact numbers that are called for in the evening, but it is a question of quantity and activity. For instance, in the winter, it may be more serious because there may be plowing of the runways, so you need more attention than at other times. These are elements that come into play.
The Chairman: Do you have any intention at this point in time of reducing tower service at any other airports in Canada?
Mr. Rodrigue: None. None whatsoever.
The Chairman: So if they have them, then they have them. We do not have to go through another painstaking process.
Mr. Rodrigue: We are obliged by the act to provide all the services that Transport Canada provided before. If we want to make changes, we have to make a proposal to the industry and we have to make a proposal to the government and convince Transport Canada that there is an equivalent safety level.
The Chairman: You have to justify it.
Mr. Rodrigue: We have to justify it, yes. All our books are transparent, basically.
The Chairman: It is quite conceivable, as our nation grows and the activity expands at some of the airports that are now under reduced services, that the hours of service might expand as well.
Mr. Rodrigue: Indeed, yes. We are hoping for better business.
The Chairman: Discussions are now going on with respect to how much money can be saved by the airlines if they let the pilots make a certain number of RFI approaches. Will this affect your services?
Mr. Rodrigue: No. Again, in the setting of rates, there is a note in the act that says that it should not affect safety. For instance, if we were to charge for weather briefings, many pilots might wish to skip the weather briefing if there was a charge per unit. We would have to address that, because the act does provide for safety.
The Chairman: This is my last question. Have you set the scheduled fees for private pilots for these services?
Mr. Rodrigue: We have not, senator. The proposal will not go in until next summer, at which time there will be a full consultation with all the industry stakeholders.
The Chairman: The danger is, of course, that, just as you have suggested, if it is too expensive, they will forgo it.
Mr. Rodrigue: Exactly.
The Chairman: With the consequent problems that that leads to for everybody concerned.
Mr. Rodrigue: Indeed.
The Chairman: Mr. Rodrigue, we would appreciate receiving a copy of your business plan and your prospectus, if you don't mind.
Mr. Rodrigue: Certainly, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: If there are no further questions, I would thank you for appearing today and giving us the benefit of your overview. It is quite possible, since we are just starting out, that, as we learn more, we may want you to return.
Mr. Rodrigue: Thank you.
The Chairman: We will now hear from the Canadian Automobile Association. Representing the association, we have with us Mr. Brian Hunt, Mr. Richard Godding, and Ms Rosalinda Weisbrod.
The committee welcomes you; we are grateful to you for taking the time to appear here. As you are aware, we are directing ourselves to the very broad question of safety in transportation in Canada. We want to know how we are doing, what we could be doing better, and how we should go about getting to that point. I would ask you to deliver your presentation in précis form, if possible, and then we can get on with our questions.
Mr. Brian Hunt, President, Canadian Automobile Association: Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the committee for the opportunity to present our views to you this evening.
The Canadian Automobile Association is in the transportation safety business. As an advocate for motorists and travellers, CAA has a long-standing tradition in involvement in transportation safety issues.
Some of you may be familiar with our partnership with Transport Canada on the Child Restraint Safety Network. CAA is also the national sponsor of the School Safety Patrol Program, and supplies schools across the country with materials and information on patrolling and road safety. These are just two examples of CAA's broad involvement in road safety.
CAA welcomes the opportunity to work with government and has been active in helping the federal government develop traffic and travel safety policies in a number of areas. The issues we wish to discuss with you today are: Motor vehicle safety standards; air bags; educating the public; and the condition and safety of Canada's roads. Some progress has been made in these areas; however, there are a number of items which we feel warrant additional attention.
With respect to motor vehicle safety standards, it must be mentioned that Transport Canada has made considerable progress in the past few years in dealing with what we consider to be an important issue: bringing mini-van standards up to par with automobile standards. What still needs to be addressed is the issue of removable seats. You may recall that about a year and-a-half ago there was a great deal of public concern over rear seats being ejected from mini-vans that were involved in rear-end collisions. The recall to replace rear door latches addressed the problem of seats and passengers being ejected. However, a removable seat that comes loose and stays inside the vehicle is still dangerous and can cause injury to occupants.
CAA proposes the installation of a warning device to alert the driver if a removable seat has been improperly attached or installed. This would be a device similar to the one that warns you if your seat belt is not latched or your car door is not properly closed. It is our recommendation that Transport Canada require such a warning device in any vehicle with removable seats.
A particularly hot topic right now is air bags. Unfortunately, these safety devices have recently been receiving some negative attention in the press, resulting in public concern and causing a general loss of confidence. While there is no question that there is room for improvement in the technology, we must not lose sight of the fact that air bags do save lives.
As you may know, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors recently announced that they will soon be introducing in Canadian vehicles air bags that will deploy with less force. We regard this as a short-term first step in improving air bags for the Canadian market.
CAA continues to support the use of air bags, but we believe that the technology must be developed as a supplemental restraint that provides the best possible protection for a wide range of belted occupants. Air bags are, and must continue to be, effective in high-speed collisions, where they can reduce occupant injuries. However, at low speeds, several unnecessary injuries have been documented as a result of aggressive air bag deployment. In addition, the use of air bags in vehicles like pick-up trucks, with no rear seat, still needs to be addressed in the light of current technology.
There is an urgent need for automobile manufacturers to introduce "smart" air bag technology, which we believe will greatly increase the level of safety for Canadian motorists. "Smart" air bag systems will likely be able to detect whether a seat belt is being used, how close the occupant is to the air bag, and whether an air bag should be deployed at all. In other words, the air bag will be deployed in a manner that adapts to suit the position and the size of the occupant.
CAA encourages the introduction of this new technology and urges Transport Canada and vehicle manufacturers to strive for a "made in Canada" approach to developing air bags. Current air bag standards are based on U.S. statistics, where only 65 per cent of occupants wear seat belts. More than 90 per cent of Canadians buckle up. Canadian regulations should recognize this and treat air bags as a supplemental restraint system.
CAA also strongly believes that there should be an increased level of public education regarding road safety. Public education is a vital component of road safety. CAA is doing its part to inform the public on important safety issues. However, we also believe the federal government has an important leading role to play, and we feel that public education should remain high on its agenda.
Why is public education so important? Consider these few examples: We enjoy a seat-belt wearing rate of more than 90 per cent when it comes to adults in Canada, yet only 63 per cent of our children are properly restrained. What does that mean? Each year in Canada, 70 children die and another 4,000 are injured in automobile accidents. Misuse of child restraints by caregivers is a major threat to the safety of our youngest and most vulnerable vehicle occupants. Public education is our best means of reducing the number of needless injuries and deaths each year.
Another example involves educating consumers on knowing how a vehicle "fits" them as occupants and how a vehicle suits their needs, their families, and their lifestyles. You would never buy a coat or a pair of shoes without trying them on first. Yet, on a daily basis, consumers purchase new and used vehicles without a thought as to how they will fit. Proper education could change that.
Another issue of prime importance for motorists across the country is the state of Canada's highways. We know this first-hand because we have just completed a cross-Canada expedition in support of a national highway program.
For many Canadians, safety is the biggest issue. On our journey, many people voiced their concerns about the crumbling asphalt, narrow lanes and shoulders, and heavy truck traffic on our roads. As congestion increases and road funding decreases, the state of Canada's roads worsens every day.
You may have heard about the CAA's campaign to have two cents of the ten cents per litre of federal excise tax on gasoline allocated to a shared-cost national highway program. This is a small investment to be made in exchange for saving 160 lives and avoiding 2,300 injuries every year. It is next to nothing when you consider the opportunity such an investment would provide for economic and employment growth.
As senators, you are not receiving the piles of postcards and letters that CAA members have been sending to the members of the House of Commons and to the Prime Minister, but, rest assured, Canadian motorists are making their feelings known. Most people are upset about crumbling roads and pot holes; however, few recognize the many safety hazards built into our roads.
Both the CAA/AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and Transport Canada have revealed similar findings on the safety benefits of upgrading highways. For instance, increasing narrow lanes to 12 feet in width can reduce related collisions by up to 40 per cent by providing vehicles a greater margin of safety. Wider paved shoulders can reduce related collisions by up to 28 per cent over narrow gravel shoulders, by providing the driver a greater chance to recover if he or she loses control.
Many of the most severe crashes are head-on crashes. In many cases, they are the result of motorists trying to overtake another vehicle on a two-lane highway. Placing a median between opposing directions on multi-lane roads can reduce head-on collisions by 20 per cent. Upgrading two-lane highways to four lanes or adding passing lanes can relieve traffic congestion and give motorists a means of overtaking other vehicles safely.
What CAA is seeking from the federal government is long-term funding of the national highway system from existing revenues -- revenues that should already be allocated to highway spending. If we were to set aside two cents from the current ten cent excise tax on gasoline and an appropriate amount from the excise tax on diesel fuel, we would have enough to rebuild our crumbling highways.
This committee could play a pivotal role in encouraging the federal government to establish a shared-cost national highway program by delivering a strong message in its report.
Over the past few decades, by working together we have made driving safer, but motorists still have many legitimate concerns. Confusion over air bags, mini-van safety, and the condition of our highways themselves, are all issues the government must address in the coming months. We are pleased that the committee is studying the issues of transportation safety. We would be glad to offer help in any way we can.
CAA and its 3.8 million members across the country want to see improved roads and automobile safety and will continue to work towards that goal. We urge the federal government to pay these issues the attention they deserve and do whatever is necessary to make transportation safer for all Canadians.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Senator Bacon.
Senator Bacon: Of the priorities you place on air bags, mini-van safety and the condition of our highways, which of the three would be the top priority?
Mr. Hunt: That is a tough question. The number one priority we think of with road safety is rebuilding the highways. If we can make the highways safer, as I referred to, with wider shoulders or paved shoulders, wider lanes, and divided highways, we think that will reduce accidents significantly.
I think you can draw that conclusion very quickly. If you look at the issue of air bags, for instance, in terms of their restraint and the other safety features in an automobile, they provide only about 15 per cent or so. I forget exactly what the percentages are and I may ask Mr. Godding to help me out here a little bit, but I believe, if you selected a vehicle with ABS, the automatic braking system, and a seat belt, first, the ABS keeps you on your side of the road, and then the seat belt provides 50 or 60 per cent of the restraint out of 100. As I said, an air bag only provides about 15 per cent.
When considering safety issues, safer air bags are definitely something that you want in your vehicle, but they need to be deployed properly.
Senator Bacon: Does CAA have education programs to help adults in safely securing children in cars?
Mr. Hunt: Yes, we do. Ms Weisbrod will address that question.
Ms Rosalinda Weisbrod, Manager of Traffic Safety, Canadian Automobile Association: In cooperation with Transport Canada, we run a national child restraint information program. Through that program, which we have had in place since 1988, we have built an education network of people and organizations across the country from different sectors. We have people in enforcement, we have retailers and insurance companies -- anyone who has a stake in child safety; and we have involved them as an information dissemination organization.
We are also seeing these organizations become very involved in running inspection clinics across the country, because we find that 80 per cent of the seats that are used by parents are used incorrectly. Some of this is gross misuse. There are people who do not route the seat belt properly or do not do it up. Inspection clinics are being promoted as a good way to remedy this problem.
We also provide training to anyone across the country who wants to know more about child restraints and wants to get involved in informing the public. We run a telephone inquiry service for anyone who has a question; whether or not they are members of CAA, they can contact their local CAA office and ask for any information on child restraints that they want. Information runs the gamut from what to buy to what seat has been affected by a safety defect.
Mr. Hunt: We think this is a very serious issue, and whether it be through public service messages or using a number of the media, getting the message out is something that is on our agenda for 1997. Over the last few years, you have seen a whole series of messages about adults buckling up, yet caregivers buckle up only 63 per cent of our youngest occupants in vehicles, and we think they are vulnerable. We have to get that message out more in 1997 than we have in the past. CAA has done much in the past but we have to get the message out there.
Senator Bacon: Do you feel an interest on the part of the parents to know more about safety?
Ms Weisbrod: Certainly, the interest is there. Having spoken many times about child restraints over the years, I know that to actually install one raises a number of questions about how to do it and how to do it properly. The interest is definitely there on the part of parents, but many times they do not know what questions to ask. Parents may have bought the seat, but many times they do not read the instructions. They do not realize that, for the safety of the child, sometimes the seat has to face the back of the car, sometimes it has to face the front. Definitely, the interest is there, though.
One of the things that we have to do, though, is incorporate more education into enforcement. Whenever the police run a seat belt blitz, we have to encourage them to include looking at the kids and not only at the adults in the car; they have to pay attention to what is happening with the kids as well.
Senator Adams: Our first witnesses were from Transport Canada. They told the committee that most accidents on the highways, about 49 per cent of them, involve drivers under the influence of alcohol. Are you saying it is mostly because the roads are too narrow, or do not have passing lanes or should have more lanes? Do you have figures contrasting the fatalities caused by accidents where alcohol was a factor and fatalities caused because the road was too narrow or they were passing into another road and there was not a chance to get off a road?
Mr. Richard J. Godding, Vice-president, Corporate and Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Association: There are several issues, obviously, that have an impact on how an accident happens. We know that the vast majority of accidents are a result of driver error, and that driver error may involve alcohol. We also have to recognize that part of the equation is the road system.
Just to give you a simple example, if the pavement surface is fairly narrow and if there are gravel shoulders, there can often be a fairly deep drop-off down to the gravel shoulder. If a person, who may or may not be intoxicated, weaves off the lane and hits the shoulder, he may end up in the ditch upside-down. If there are hazards within 20 feet of the edge of the road, poles and signage, or things of that nature, that can increase the fatality rate substantially. I think the figure is pegged at something like 40 per cent.
Some substantial improvements can be made to the road system itself. If you remove all the appurtenances from within 20 feet of the side of the road, you can reduce deaths from those kinds of accidents by 40 per cent. Another thing that relates to the national highway system is the fact that, if you have narrow two-lane roads with a number of accesses on to them, and they are heavily congested, you are creating a situation in which many collisions will take place. However, if you rebuild that road into a wider facility with fewer opportunities for people to have interaction with each other, you will increase the safety on the facility. These are the kinds of things that translate into safety.
There has been some improvement, however. For example, in 1973, approximately 7,000 people were killed in road accidents. Compare that to 1996, in which we expect that about 3,000 people will have been killed on our road system. Many factors are involved here. There has been a reduction in the number of drinking drivers; there has been an increase in the use of seat belts; and there has been improved automobile technology.
We also have to look at our road system. It is a major factor.
Senator Adams: Most days, I drive 75 kilometres to go to work in Ottawa. Often, I encounter big transport trucks. I drive a small car, and very typically, especially if it is snowing or there is snow on the road, I cannot drive faster than 40 or 60 kilometres an hour. Those transport trucks, however, under the same conditions, sometimes travel at 90 or 100 kilometres an hour on the highway, because they find it easy to cling to the road. I cannot go 100 kilometres an hour. It is very difficult. Sometimes those big transport trucks with heavy loads hang on to the road, whereas, with a car, highway driving is a little different.
Since the government has cut down on the railway, there has been an increase in big transport trucks on the highways. This may be a difficult question for you to answer, but has there been a reduction or an increase in highway accidents caused by trucks in the last ten years? I know that there are more accidents in the winter, when it is snowing, than in the summer.
Mr. Godding: I cannot give you any statistics on accidents relative to trucks versus cars. One statistic that is quoted widely is that, if you are an occupant of a car that tangles with a truck, your chances of dying are about 40 times that of the truck driver. In fact, the collision may not necessarily be the truck driver's fault. These are professional drivers, as opposed to the rest of us who are amateurs, perhaps. Often, the collision is the fault of the automobile driver.
Trucks have gotten very big over the years. Ontario and Quebec have the highest axle loads in North America. We are running some massive vehicles out there, and when you put that against an automobile, there is a huge difference. CAA has tried to fight against triple trailers and very long doubles, with some success, but the lengths do keep creeping up.
There are issues like splash and spray protection. We have been asking Transport Canada to look into the issue of snow coming up from the sides of trucks. There are technologies available. There are some things that can be done. At the same time, we recognize that transport is very important to the economy. We, obviously, cannot legislate trucks off the road. We have to be reasonable and come up with solutions that will improve road safety so we can share the road.
Senator Adams: Not many accidents happen on the 401 between Montreal and Toronto. Most car accidents occur on the regional highways, in the local areas between cities and in short runs.
Mr. Godding: Four-lane roads, access-prohibitive roads, restricted roads, and freeways are the safest roads we have. You are right that the majority of collisions take place on two-lane roads, where there are many turning areas and more interaction between vehicles.
Senator Adams: We heard from Transport Canada that the cost to the insurance companies is something like $40 billion a year. You are interested in widening and improving the roads. Do you have any idea how much that would save the insurance companies by reducing the number of accidents and related deaths?
Mr. Godding: Transport Canada has done a cost-benefit analysis of the national highways program and has found that there would be a positive return on investment.
Senator Adams: In the meantime, you cannot get it from the provincial governments; you cannot get it from the federal government.
Mr. Godding: The information we have is that most provincial governments which collect fuel taxes are spending at least 50 per cent of their fuel taxes on roads. The federal government, on the other hand, is collecting ten cents a litre from every litre of gasoline sold in the country and is spending virtually nothing on roads. That is the reason we are focusing on the federal government. Of the developed countries, Canada is the only country in the world that does not have federal involvement in its national highways system.
Senator Adams: What about the tire taxes? Every time I buy a car, there is a tire tax now, too, on a brand new car. Does that go to the federal government or to the provincial governments?
Mr. Godding: I do not believe there is federal tax on tires. That is provincial. In fact, there has been a lot of debate over the tire taxes. They were intended to be put into research funds to find ways of environmentally disposing of or re-using tires. I know there was a bit of controversy a couple of years ago in Ontario, where the revenues coming in were far exceeding the number of projects that they could find to spend the money on.
Senator Adams: It sounds like you buying canned beer; it is the same thing.
The Chairman: In Nova Scotia, it is $3 a tire for truck tires and $1 for car tires, but in no way is that a tax. That is a levy.
How long does it take 64 tires to go by at 140 clicks? I am terrified. I am one of those who drive 10 or 12 times a year, year-round, between Halifax and Ottawa. I have been doing that for over thirty years. Thirty years ago, it was not a horror. You did not set out in trepidation. Today, your family is a little concerned when you set out on the highway for a lengthy trip like that.
There is nothing of any description that I and Mr. Frank Barber have not seen in the last few years on the highway. We have even watched tires blowing up. Before this study is finished, this year or next year, I am going to know what truck tires are made of. I want to know who is perpetrating upon an unsuspecting, albeit cynical, travelling public the level of components in a truck tire that allow it to go "poof" like that.
I recently talked to a truck driver in New Brunswick who had been travelling on the Trans Canada highway, and I enquired how many animals he had struck that day. He said he had got six porcupines and 15 racoons, but he had run over 112 truck tires that morning. What are we going to do about these truck tires? What are we going to do about safety? Of course, wider highways will do it.
Why do we not just build trucks their own highways and let the users pay for them? Take the 10 cents, or the $5 billion, $8 billion or $10 billion a year between now and the year 2025, and build an all-weather four-lane Trans Canada highway truck system. Let the cars go back to peacefully travelling.
What about the highway system itself? Is there anything we can do in terms of four lanes? Is it economically feasible at all? Very shortly, we are going to have to ask the government to force traffic back on to the trains. There are times of the day when the highways out there are not safe. These trucks force you to drive 20 or 30 kilometres an hour over the speed limit or they will run over you. I am not kidding. I am telling you the way it is, and it is bad. I hope something can be done about it. What about a four lane system for trucks?
Mr. Hunt: A study done about eight years ago looked at a national highway system that would have two lanes from coast to coast up to standard, and would have paved shoulders and wider lanes and so on. An additional study proposed a four-lane divided highway from coast to coast across Canada. In 1988 dollars, I believe, the additional cost was somewhere around $15 billion for the two-lane; if you added on the four-lane, I think it went for another $10 billion, roughly. I may be a liar there for a couple of billion dollars, but when you are dealing with those dollars, it probably does not have too much impact. The point is that, for about $20 billion over a ten year period, you could build a four-lane highway coast to coast.
Addressing the question with regard to a four-lane road, in some areas of the country that may just not be economical based on traffic patterns and use, et cetera. As for truck tires flying apart, which are typically retreaded tires, or truck tires coming off, as we have seen recently, unfortunately, people have been very seriously hurt or even killed with that type of thing.
There are a number of issues involving the regulation of truck safety and inspections. Truck maintenance is being investigated, to make sure maintenance is done on a routine basis. How do you get some of the bad apples off the roads?
The condition of the roads also has an impact on truck safety. Some of these rigs cost $100,000 or $200,000. Some are probably even more than that. The trucks today are designed with air cushions. They float down the road. With some suspensions, the truck drivers can sit in their cabs and just not realize the pounding that their tires are taking.
As the roads continue to deteriorate, the maintenance on trucks goes up, and sometimes it does not get done on a regular basis. That is when you run into some of these scary situations, with tires coming off and wheels exploding and coming apart.
Clearly, we have supported and we will continue to support the rebuilding of our national highway system. As we submit in the document before you, as of a 1988 study, 38 per cent of the roads in Canada then were substandard. That was in 1988. We suspect that it is probably closer to 50 per cent today. All of these things impact road safety very dramatically.
We would be happy if we could start building a two-lane road coast to coast to standard. In some areas, you are going to need four lanes. The sooner we get started, the sooner the roads are going to be safer.
The Chairman: Quite a bit of our existing Trans Canada system is four-lane already. Could we give that to the trucks and build a motor vehicle car route? Would that be any saving?
Mr. Hunt: We have not really studied splitting the trucks from the automobiles. The problem you would run into is one of economics, the costs of building two infrastructures, if you like, and we would have to go back and look at that. Our position all along has been that we have to make the roads safer by bringing them up to standard. We have to get people educated in dealing with trucks on the road. We have heard an example tonight of people passing trucks and being affected by the spray. There are a number of things that we can do. Our position is that economics dictate that we have to learn to cohabit with the trucks on the road.
In terms of some of the trucking issues, perhaps we could get into that by having graduated licensing for some of the truck drivers. These things do not exist in all provinces. How do we handle things like trucks coming from the U.S., where they have deregulation, which may result in trucks which are unsafe coming on to our roads? There are a number of things that we can do in that area.
The Chairman: You have mentioned a couple of times now this new splash-and-spray technology. Could you elaborate on that a bit, tell us what it is or how it might work?
Mr. Godding: The flaps that are behind the wheels right now are basically a flat piece of rubber and there is nothing shrouding the side of the tires of the truck, so when the truck is driving on wet or snowy pavement, it is throwing water everywhere. It is hitting off the back of that flap and flying out to the side. It is hitting off the underside of the truck and flying out, and it is coming straight off the tires themselves.
There is technology that has been developed to deal with that. In fact, one of the major courier firms in the United States, UPS, made a decision about seven or eight years ago that they would, as a good corporate citizen, equip all of their trucks with splash-and-spray technology. They have replaced the flat rubber flap with a flap that has almost a fur on it -- I guess that would be a good way of saying it -- a synthetic kind of padding that absorbs the water and does not allow it to kick back out. They also have added a skirt, which looks like a Hawaiian skirt, in black rubber or plastic, that hangs down at the side. When the spray comes up off the tires, it is hitting against this skirt and again going straight down rather than going out. So the technology is out there.
The Chairman: Can that be put on the front wheels?
Mr. Godding: Yes, you can put it on the front wheels. You will see the occasional truck in Canada that has the skirting at the side of the tires. You may have noticed them if you have been driving on the highway. There are not very many of them. Those are being put on voluntarily by the industry.
The Chairman: You mentioned earlier the idea of buying a vehicle that "fits". Could you elaborate on that?
Mr. Hunt: Just take the air bag example. One of our concerns is that anyone under five feet in height and under 90 pounds should probably not get into a large, luxury vehicle such as a Cadillac, because that seat has to be brought forward. Those people are typically lower in the seat because they cannot see over the dashboard. That is a very unsafe situation for such a person.
While we are not suggesting that people should not have the choice of one car over another, we would suggest that they might want to consider the size of the compartment of the vehicle that they are buying. How many times have you seen a young driver in particular driving a very large truck and he can hardly see over the steering wheel because of age or height? We consider those to be unsafe situations.
Drivers should perhaps consider whether the compartment that they will be sitting in on a regular basis suits their needs, in terms of body size and the restraints that are there. Drivers should perhaps also consider whether they are buying more vehicle than they actually need for their life-style requirements. If they are going out to select a very large pick-up truck, but never really intend to haul very much in the back, does that make sense? Maybe they would want to go to a smaller size of pick-up which may fit their stature and lifestyle requirements more effectively.
Senator Bacon: On page 2 of your brief you mention a warning device. If it were to be accepted, would it take a long time before all vehicles would have the warning device?
Mr. Hunt: We do not see that as a major issue at all. If you look at most cars today, they have upwards of 20 on-board computers or sensors. There are varied definitions of what an on-board computer is, but there are such things as the warning if you fail to latch your seat belt, or the warning light if a door is ajar. We do not see it as a major issue in terms of attaching some sort of warning device to make sure that the seats that are removable, particularly in mini-vans, are reattached properly. We think it is a very serious issue. There were a number of accidents, in Ontario particularly, where seats were ejected out of the back of the mini-van. That problem is being fixed by putting a new latch on the back, but the fact that a seat could come loose and rumble around within a compartment may be putting the people in the front seat of that vehicle in real jeopardy. We think it is a major issue.
From our surveys, we have received many stories of people driving in mini-vans, where someone has not installed the seat properly and the seat falls over as they are driving along. It may be humorous at that point, because they are not in an accident, but when they are in an accident and the seat has not been attached properly, it becomes a serious issue.
Senator Bacon: What would be the CAA's position on the privatization of highways? Would that be helpful?
Mr. Hunt: When we were before the Commons committee on transportation recently, we suggested that a highway authority may be the way to go in terms of providing funding, perhaps allowing the private sector to go out and build highways. I am a chartered accountant by profession, and I have reviewed how the government accounts for spending on highways. It goes directly to the deficit; it is a cash-flow type of arrangement. If you were able to go to an authority and ask it to go out and contract with the private sector to rebuild the national highway system, let us say, over ten years at a cost of $15 billion, and then set it up as an asset and amortize it, we think that would have some significant merit. If you amortize a highway that costs $15 billion over 20 years, you do not have to spend $5 billion or $10 billion all at once. You can build it and set it up as an asset as it is utilized. We would actually support a highway authority if it were properly funded with proper direction.
The Chairman: You mentioned the private sector. Are you talking about toll highways?
Mr. Hunt: We would support a highway authority if it came out of existing funding. Our research shows that tolls do not work in all locations across a national highway system, based on volume, et cetera. If you do put a toll on a road, our position is that there should be a free alternative. If you followed that policy, there are clearly areas of the country where no one would ever use the toll road.
The Chairman: What do you do when the government says there is a free alternative, that you can drive 110 or 120 kilometres per hour on the toll road but you can cannot go over 80 on the free road?
Mr. Hunt: But still there is an alternative.
The Chairman: The RCMP has a contract with various provinces; every day they bring in hundreds of cars, because nobody can stay at 80 kilometres an hour when there is not a house or streetlight in sight for miles and miles and miles.
Mr. Hunt: We do support enforcement of the speed limits, but we also think that there should be an alternative. Tolls do not work in all locations. The study that Transport Canada did and our own studies indicate that there is an area around Vancouver where tolls would work. There is an area around Calgary where they would work. Toronto and Montreal are areas where they would work. However, there are only four or five places in the total national highway system where tolls would be effective. As to the rest of the system, if there is a free alternative, tolls would not work. We would never pay for the highway. You would never get the volume going on the road to pay for it.
The Chairman: We have been saying that about "Death Valley" in Nova Scotia for years, but it has not done us much good.
Senator Bacon: Have you examined the situation with the highways in the United States? Are they safer? They have tolls there, too.
Mr. Hunt: They do. One of the concerns that we have with Canada, when we compare ourselves to our NAFTA partners, the U.S. and Mexico, is the use of our taxes. The U.S. has trust funds into which their excise taxes and fuel taxes go, and those trust funds are invested in the highways. If you look at the system in the U.S., their interstate system is far superior to ours. They are undergoing a major expenditure on secondary roads. They are investing heavily in their infrastructure.
We think it is a major issue in Canada, in the sense that when companies decide to locate, they have certain considerations. They must consider things such as just-in-time inventory systems, the impacts on the maintenance on trucks depending on whether they go over a smooth road or a rough road, and stress on the drivers. We think it is a very serious concern for our economy if we do not invest in our infrastructure. There are lives at stake but there are also jobs at stake.
Senator Adams: Do you have any idea of the total number of drivers across Canada?
Mr. Hunt: I believe there are 15 million vehicles in what is called the car park in Canada. It breaks down to about 11 million passenger vehicles and about 4 million trucks or tractor-trailers, and things of that nature.
Senator Adams: I have a question about highway maintenance. Millions of drivers buy license plates every year, which cost around $30 or $40 or more. Sometimes in some provinces there are situations where one person maybe owns a half-ton truck, so there is only one licence, but there are four or five people who drive it, and they are causing still more holes in the roads. Do you think it would cost less if maintenance for highways were privatized?
Mr. Hunt: If you look at Highway 407, while I know there is some controversy in terms of safety with regard to that highway north of Toronto, the costs of building that were substantially lower than typically has been the case when highways are built by government. The bridges, as I understand it, are all the same. they have one design and it is repeated all the way down the highway, whereas I understand that when government builds a road they basically build a different bridge each time. There are some benefits to the private sector in doing that. I do not think we have seen what the impact is on maintenance costs yet, but if you look at the model in the U.S., you see a number of private highways that are very well maintained and very cost effective. So there are a number of options out there.
The Chairman: Just in closing, may I ask you one final question? Where will we be in the year 2010, in terms of safety on our highways? Have you cast your mind ahead that far?
Mr. Hunt: There are really two answers or two scenarios. If we do not get some dedicated funding for our highway system today, I think we are going to be in very sad shape in the year 2010. Fifty per cent of our roads are substandard today. There are lives at stake. There are people being injured. However, I think there will be a tremendous economic impact to this country, if we do not get very serious about building our infrastructure and dedicating funds that are being collected from road users today. The federal government collects $5 billion annually. The provincial governments collect another $5 billion. That is just from the excise tax you pay when you fill up at the pump. That does not include the GST or the licence fees or any number of other fees that we pay. If we cannot get dedicated funding quickly, I think the deterioration of our road system is going to become very dramatic.
Mr. Godding can speak to this better than I can because of his engineering background, but I can tell you that a road reaches a point where you can patch the holes and cracks and potholes and you can maintain the life of that road into the future, but beyond that there is another point, one of rapid deterioration, and a number of our roads are there. Once that happens, it is not just a matter of resurfacing the road. One must go back and start from square one and rebuild the road, which is a much higher cost than just patching it and moving forward. Many of our roads are there. Unless we can get some dedicated funding quickly, we think there is a crisis ahead of a huge magnitude to this country. It is going to affect jobs, it is going to affect our economy and our ability to collect taxes and generate other revenues and trade. We think that is a very serious issue.
On the other side, if we can get the dedicated funding to rebuild our national highway system, and if we can get the commitment from the federal government and the provinces to carry this forward, we think there is a very bright future for our economy. We could save more lives than we are doing today, avoid injuries, and it could be very prosperous, but I think it is very serious.
We have just spent the last 90 days going across the country with an expedition to many communities, driving the roads, trying to get Canadians to make roads a major issue, because, today, when you ask people about highways, it is way down on the list. It is jobs, it is health care, it is things of that nature, but if we cannot get a solid infrastructure, you are not going to have the jobs, you are not going to be able to afford the health care. We think we have to take a hard look at our priorities for the future.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. On behalf of the committee, I extend our sincerest appreciation to you for coming and for the enlightenment which you have provided for us.
The committee adjourned.