Transport committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I don't have any intention of making a formal presentation. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to appear again. I look forward to your report when the study is finished. We will leave all of the time for questions by your committee.

Transport committee  Let us look at that and we'll certainly do our very best to give everything electronically. It certainly makes good sense.

Transport committee  I may have slightly confused issues in my remarks, so let me clarify. CANUTEC, which provides response immediately to first responders on information about chemicals and potential spills, is continuing. It is fully supported and will continue in the future. There is no change proposed there.

Transport committee  This is an excellent question. The task force has been working for a year and a half. They've developed a series of very good recommendations with incident command, protocols, and various advice on training and guidance materials, etc. However, the challenge now will be to make sure that those are distributed and available, and an awareness is out there of those items in the communities and with the first responders.

Transport committee  If I can just first of all clarify that there are two elements in existence now that apply to railways and to fatigue. One is the requirement for fatigue management plans, which was a new requirement added to the safety management system regulations that were put in place on April 1 of last year, so that is a significant new step.

Transport committee  It is hard to generalize when it comes to this. However, I can say that the Railway Safety Act is very powerful. It is very useful in many respects and gives the department, inspectors and chief executive officers many possibilities in terms of reacting in all sorts of situations.

Transport committee  I would make just a general comment first and then a more specific one. In general, the requirements for the use of the remote operation equipment has not changed. Should any occurrences arise...and certainly in any of those that did come up, immediate steps were taken to investigate, to find out what was going on, and to take necessary action.

Transport committee  As of December 31, 2015—and we keep it on a quarterly basis, because they do turn over—we had 137 rail inspectors working in railway inspections.

Transport committee  I would add that there are strict safety standards in place for the use of remote operating equipment: how the equipment must operate, what the training is, and how the people using it must operate. Any use of the belt pack or the remote operating equipment must be done under those rules.

Transport committee  We might have had 138 or 139 at some point in time, but generally speaking it's been—

Transport committee  We have a series of regional offices across the country. We also have Transport Canada centres where particular staff are deployed. Depending on the mode of transport, they are located close to where the work is. In a city like Vancouver for example we have a “surface office”, as we call it, for railway and transportation of dangerous goods inspectors who work out of New Westminster, which is close to the railway yards.

Transport committee  Transport Canada generally doesn't provide oversight of trucking directly. It's usually done through the provinces, depending on exactly what the particular mode and arrangement is.

Transport committee  If I may touch on the access control, as it's often called, or the fencing and the control of people trespassing at times onto railway tracks, that is an issue that has been looked at for some time. It is an issue that was a significant part of the discussions in the 2007-08 Railway Safety Act review in terms of jurisdiction and how to manage the appropriate jurisdiction.

Transport committee  Mainly.

Transport committee  The companies are accountable to do their risk assessments, and Transport Canada then will be doing the safety management system audit evaluation. I should note that if any major change in operation occurred and there was not a risk assessment done, then that would be something that Transport Canada could take action on, of course, but in the meantime the regular updating of the audits would occur on a three- to five-year risk-based cycle.