:
no thisThank you, Mr. Chairman.
Next month will mark my 30th year with CN and my first anniversary as CN's chief safety officer.
I'm very pleased to appear before you today on the issues of railway safety and the Railway Safety Act review panel report. I'll make my remarks very brief in order to maximize your time.
As you know, railroading can be an unforgiving business, with heavy equipment sometimes moving at a high rate of speed on the main track, sometimes carrying products that are deleterious to human health or the environment, and with some of the most challenging weather and geography the continent has to offer.
Nothing is more important to CN than running a safe operation. There are two reasons for this. First, and most importantly, it's because we have a moral obligation to protect the health, safety, and well-being of our employees, our customers, the communities through which we operate, and the environment. But it's also because we simply cannot be successful if we do not operate safely. Any accident or incident has the potential to result in direct costs, delays, congestion, unavailability of people and equipment, and diverted attention. We cannot deliver the service required to maintain or grow our business if we are dealing with disruptions. Thus, safety is an obligation we take very seriously, and it is also good business.
This commitment drives CN's actions with respect to safety, which can be grouped into two main pillars. In the interest of time, I'll give you just a few brief examples of each.
The first pillar is on the technology and investment side. We are reinvesting about $1.5 billion back into the company in 2008, for a five-year total of about $7.3 billion. About 85% of this investment has direct safety benefit: infrastructure renewal, rolling stock acquisition and refurbishment, and systems replacement and upgrades. We're very pleased with the panel's comments about our investments, at page 182 of the report. We're also pleased that our financial performance allows us to continue to reinvest in the industry at a leading rate. We're further increasing ultrasonic rail flaw detection, and we're further increasing the density and capability of our wayside inspection system. These are just a few examples of the things we're doing on the technology and investment side.
On the people and process side, we're investing very heavily in hiring and training. Since the beginning of 2007, we have hired about 3,000 employees, 2,400 of them in Canada. We've spent about $14 million training new and existing employees in Canada, plus another $14 million for replacement salaries while existing employees are on course. We've translated our safety management system into concrete action steps for our front-line managers. We've revised key policies such as train handling and streamlined operations documentation, and we're focusing our field audits on higher-risk activities, territories, and employees.
What are the results of some of these actions?
In 2007, we saw a reduction in total accidents, non-main track accidents, and personal injuries in Canada. Non-main track accidents and personal injuries are typically caused by people and process issues, so we were pleased with that trend. However, we did see an increase in the number of main track accidents, which are typically caused by track, equipment, and weather-related issues. Given that nothing is more important to us than safety, we cannot be satisfied with our performance. One accident of any type is one too many.
In closing, please allow me a few words on the report of the Railway Safety Act review panel.
First of all, CN believes the panel did a rigorous and very fair assessment of the act itself and issues surrounding it. Indeed, while we think a number of the recommendations require more detailed discussion with Transport Canada and the rest of the industry, we don't disagree with any of the 56 recommendations the report contains. We do feel that they had an opportunity to make an additional several, but they did a very professional and thorough job. However, when the panel chair, Doug Lewis, appeared before you last month, he emphasized two points that I'd like to briefly discuss.
The first is CN culture. Much was made, following the release of the report, of the report's brief comments alleging a culture of discipline at CN. I found it interesting to go back and read the report of the commission of inquiry into the Hinton train collision of 1986, which characterized CN's culture at that time as placing insufficient attention on rules observance and tacitly accepting rules violations. That commission noted that the normal practice at that time was not to record first offence rules violations, and it asked out loud how a second offence would ever come to light as a result.
CN has been on a long journey of culture change. We're moving from a culture where both managers and employees sometimes treated standards and policies, even safety-related ones, as options, towards one where all people at all levels of the company will be held responsible for their decisions and their actions. It takes time and can be painful, but it is necessary in order to be successful across all dimensions of our business, including safety.
With all due respect to the panel, we don't accept the notion that this translates into a discipline-based approach to safety. CN believes it is our responsibility to ensure that people are properly trained and equipped, that the work is properly planned and supervised, and that safe work processes are in place.
We also believe that when an investigation of an accident or incident points to a human factor as a cause, we must attempt to understand why that failure occurred by asking ourselves if the system I just described was in place and working—and that's, of course, our safety management system.
Where we respectfully diverge from the panel's comments about our culture is that, unfortunately, after all of that, we sometimes find that a person has simply chosen a poor course of action that has led to an accident. More frequently than we'd like, further investigation indicates that the employee in question may have had similar issues in the past. Just as society would hold someone accountable for exceeding the speed limit in their motor vehicle, we strongly believe that we must hold people responsible for their choices and actions in the workplace, otherwise improvement is not possible.
On pages 70 and 71 of the report, the panel cites specific positive examples of the culture-enhancing activities of our peers and health and safety committee member involvement in accident investigation—an approach that takes on cardinal rule violations and employee observations with immediate feedback. Perhaps some of the panel's comments stem from poor communication on our part, because at CN, we do all of these things as well.
Finally, and very quickly, on safety management systems, CN fully supports the panel's observation that SMS is the correct approach to continuous safety improvement in our industry. This is why we have taken the safety management system regulations as the basis for our 2008 safety plan and have translated them into actionable steps. It's also why we hosted an SMS workshop for our union-management health and safety committee last December. SMS will always be a work in progress, and we look forward to working with Transport Canada and our union leaders and industry partners to continue the journey.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions.
:
I appreciate that, and I'll come back to it in a second.
The issues I have relate to some of the recommendations. I refer you in the panel's report to recommendation 19 on page 210—I'm looking now at the summary of recommendations—and on page 211 to all of recommendation 24.
Recommendation 19 relates to safety management systems and would relate primarily to the company, in this case—it's “companies”, but to CN, since we're talking with you right now—and it talks about the effectiveness of local occupational health and safety committees and the involvement of employees in identifying hazards and assessing and mitigating risks as part of safety management. This, as we heard in some of the testimony, had not been as diligently attended to as might be desired.
Recommendation 24, in a sequence of seven recommendations, again focuses on safety management systems, saying that this is a combination of effort that's required between Transport Canada and the companies that are involved.... I would note the seventh sub-bullet, the bottom one, which is the “means of involving railway employees”, and number 3, the “measurement of safety culture”.
I'm hoping that what I will hear from you, with your statement that nothing is more important to CN than safety, is that the way of doing this is not what appeared from the testimony we had to be one of discipline—a “culture of fear” was the way it was described in the testimony and in the report—wherein employees were intimidated to the point that they were afraid in many cases to pursue their concerns and that the use of these health and safety committees was minimized and bypassed.
I think we have passed a written translation.... I have a photograph, which perhaps, Mr. Chair, could be circulated to my members, and I've given a translation—or one is being done—to the Bloc. It's a photograph of a sign that was in the CN office when I was in Prince George. There was a derailment in the yard in which an engine had T-boned a train and we had a gasoline tanker explode. This was a sign on the wall. I was taking a variety of pictures, and I noted it.
At that time, as you can see on the list of “how we work and why”, safety is fourth out of five topics. The first three are: “service is our product”; “cost control is our ongoing challenge”; “asset utilization is our advantage”; and finally, “safety is every employee's responsibility”.
I would point out there the subtlety. It says, “every employee's responsibility”. It doesn't say “the company's”, or “...is everyone's responsibility”; it lays it on the employee. I wouldn't diminish the fact that safety needs to be the employee's priority as well, but it needs to be the company's corporate priority.
I was disappointed to see that, I guess, but I'm very pleased to see the actions that have been taken by CN with your appointment and with the attention that would appear now to make it a new focus, if you want to call it that, or renewed focus. I'll give you credit for that.
It includes not only, though, involving the employees, because their lives are the ones on the line; it also includes addressing the issues—and you mentioned Hinton—that deal with fatigue, which has to do with the way in which you operate. One of the concerns we had in British Columbia was that it appeared, when CN took over BC Rail, that they brought what is known as, I gather, water-grade railway operating procedure to a mountainous terrain. In other words, I don't think CN fully appreciated the challenges of the curves and the grades that British Columbia represented and that seemed to be reflected in some of the incidents that occurred—and of the length of the trains, which were restricted in numbers at times.
I'm pleased with your comments, your testimony, and I'm hoping that you indeed are able to follow through on the issues of training, of fatigue, and making this a priority in your company.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My intention is to split my time with Mr. Fast. If you can let me know when I've hit about five minutes, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miller, for coming here. Mr. Bell earlier said that he was pleased with your testimony. I'm not. I find there are a lot of things that I'm having a lot of difficulty with.
You've gone to some length today to talk about holding people responsible. This really is the problem with respect to a culture of fear: it's still focused on disciplinary actions for judgments and decisions that have gone wrong. It's not the full, fearless involvement of people in pointing out the types of things that would prevent accidents. You're still stuck in the mindset underlying what the panel found to be a culture of fear.
You've belaboured this point today. I have a real problem with that, when you are talking about your “progress”. In the last appearance, when CN was before this panel before, they went to some length to point out how far they're going in punishing employees, to the point where I asked the question whether they can provide to this committee the number of disciplinary actions taken against employees. That's how far they went in making that point.
If you want to really boil it right down, not long ago I asked Mr. Lewis, who headed the panel.... I said, you talk about the continuum—that's pages 73 and 74, “An Evaluation Tool for 'Safety Culture'”, and you can read this if you'd like—but the best practice that you're looking for is the full implementation of SMS, which is stage 5 in the continuum. That's the only best practice.
Air Transat, VIA, those who are on their way are close to that particular point. That's where you see that there aren't safety issues or there aren't real safety problems, the types of accidents we're seeing with CN.
I asked Mr. Lewis where, on that scale of one to five, he put Transport Canada as the regulator; he put us at about a three. I asked where he put VIA Rail; he put them at about a four. I asked where he placed CP; he said in the mid-range, which would be about a three. And what did he say about CN? “Well, I'd put them between one and two in terms of implementing adequate SMS.”
Step one—let's read it into the record:
At one end of that continuum is a company that complies with minimum safety standards and views compliance as a cost of doing business. That company minimizes compliance expenditures and operates from a short-term perspective, addressing problems only after it has been caught in violation. The regulator must engage in significant surveillance and enforcement activities.
That's stage one.
Stage two:
Next in the continuum is a company that views safety solely as compliance with current safety standards. Such a company has internal inspection and audit processes, as well as a system of reward and punishment. There is an assumption that compliance translates into safety, but such a company has not yet realized that compliance alone will not necessarily prevent an accident from happening. Intervention is still required from the regulator, though the approach may be more educational in nature.
That's pretty pathetic, Mr. Miller, and that's what they say about CN. You're asking us today to take your word that you're somewhere higher than that. You say you're not a four or a five—you're implying that you're a three—and that your long journey of culture change, you imply, has been started since 1986.
I'm not sure I'd be bragging that I started that long ago, because you have a lot further to go. Stage one and two: how do you respond to Mr. Lewis' assessment, Mr. Miller? I think the evidence backs him up.
Your comment was that you don't discipline employees for reporting safety issues. I wanted you to know the testimony we heard at this committee was that employees were afraid to report safety concerns because they would be penalized for delaying trains. You need to know that.
I'd like to get a report from you in writing on the dynamic braking on locomotives in B.C. They were apparently taken off the locomotives, which we believe was a contributing factor to one of the accidents.
Second, I'm curious, as CN originally opposed the release of the audit that was ordered by the previous Minister of Transport under the Liberal government. That again is consistent with the concern of the testimony we heard here and on the panel.
Also, I'd like to say that I think you need to take a look at harmonizing or improving your communications with communities. When we heard testimony from the different municipalities, we heard CP was much better in responding than CN and that there was no cooperation.
Finally, on your suggestion that this photograph doesn't represent the hierarchy, if you go to the Prince George yard, this is repeated on five individual signs in another room, which go in descending order. They don't go horizontally and they're not shuffled differently; it's a descending order, and safety is the fourth down.
I want to clarify to my colleagues that when I said I was pleased, I'm not happy. I'm pleased you've been appointed and there is a change in focus. The point I made at the beginning of my testimony was that it appears since this committee began its work and since the panel was commissioned, there has been, I'm hoping, a recognition, and I'm taking you at your word that there is a recognition in CN.
I think the danger is that it's not simply what we heard from some of the senior people in CN when they testified before us that the concerns about safety were a perception rather than a reality, and they said that's your perception. Our point to them was that perception is reality. This panel's report has confirmed the reality of that perception.
When it says in the report there is a major disconnect between CN's stated objectives and what is occurring at employee levels, you don't blame the employees for that. You have to blame the company for not ensuring that those messages and policies are not only being enforced, but they're being transmitted and concern is being shown. When you have safety ranked fourth, in anybody's reasonable reading of this, you have to demonstrate that safety is number one.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to comment on why we need to be out of here quite sharply, I need to get back because we're doing our annual president's awards at CP and are recognizing a number of teams and individuals for outstanding safety behaviour that we experienced in the last 12 months.
Good afternoon, members. On behalf of Canadian Pacific, I would like to thank the committee for your invitation to appear before you today to discuss rail safety in Canada. My name is Brock Winter; I'm the senior vice-president of operations. I'm joined by Glen Wilson, general manager of strategy, planning, and regulatory affairs.
Given that we have not had a fulsome opportunity to present CP's approach on safety to the committee, I would like to spend a few minutes up front to discuss our approach to this critically important element of our business before delving into our comments on the Railway Safety Act review panel's report.
To summarize CP's position up front, we strive to be a North American leader in rail safety and in our dealings with communities. The facts support our claim, and we will illustrate this to you today.
Our safety culture is an integral part of our operations, and we're achieving results. In fact, CP leads all North American class 1 railroads in North American operations safety. Our commitment to safety never wavers, as the safety and health of Canadian Pacific employees and the safety of our operations are of paramount importance to everyone who works for our company.
A decade ago, CP realigned its management team and in the process created a consistent, visible focus on safety that has achieved extraordinary results. Since then, we have seen a 76% decrease in personal injuries and a 73% decrease in train accidents. Our train accident record, measured using FRA reporting criteria, has been the best among the large U.S. railroads for eight years out of the last decade, and in 2006 was 60% better than the average U.S. rail industry performance.
CP's safety success is a testament to the commitment and involvement of its management and employees in hundreds of safety, health, training, and business process activities. We have been building a safety-conscious culture whereby safety is built into our business processes. It is not a bolt-on activity or afterthought; it is how we do business.
We have consistently approached safety management using the seven key principles listed on the first slide. All of them are important factors in our safety success. Our employees recognize these efforts. On our employee insight surveys, conducted every two years, safety gets very high marks.
The graph on the bottom left of slide 1 illustrates two things. The first is that 70% of our employees agree or strongly agree with the statement that at CP workplace safety is a key priority. But also, there has been a significant improvement in this metric over the last few years.
We want to continue to improve on these results, and one thing we have learned at CP is that safety vigilance can never take a holiday; it's a 365-day-a-year job, 7/24.
The next question is how we get there and how we can ensure continuous improvement going forward. Slide 2 provides more detail on how CP manages safety. We have both a top-down and a bottom-up approach. While there is some top-down direction setting, we encourage and rely upon local initiatives and actions.
This requires an environment of free-flowing communication. We have three levels of joint union-management safety and health committees, including over one hundred workplace committees, four functional policy committees, and one senior policy committee. This structure and the processes we have built into safety management oversight ensure a consistent approach, with a constant focus on improving all aspects of safety.
Lastly, turning more specifically to train operating safety, we want to give you some idea of what it takes to operate a railway safely. Slide 3 depicts the four major operating elements: track, equipment, train operations, and the outdoor environment, with the human factor overlaying all the basic elements.
It has been said that railroading is an outdoor sport. We operate in all types of weather through all types of terrain, and this greatly influences our approach to managing safety. Most of our efforts go into preventing accidents. In the distant past, say 30 or 40 years ago, the primary defences we had to deal with prevention were all manual: things such as inspection and maintenance, many of which are still regulated to this day. These elements are depicted at the bottom of the slide. These activities continue to form the fundamental base of our proactive prevention processes. They include things such as track inspection, maintenance and renewal, equipment inspection and repair, train brake testing, and operating rules and practices.
Starting in the late 1970s, technology began to play an increasingly important role, with the widespread introduction of signalling systems and the first generation of wayside detectors and hot box detectors. These were designed to detect high heat levels on wheel bearings that were about to fail.
Technology now plays a much more significant role in our prevention efforts. The next generation of wayside detectors—acoustic detectors—do not use heat to determine failing bearings; they use the sound those bearings make. This new technology gives us a much wider margin of safety.
On the track, we now use advanced ultrasonic technology to detect flaws that are starting on the inside of steel rails, and we use GPS technologies to pinpoint any defects that are detected.
What really has enabled CP to be the North American leader in safety is our focus on the human factor. All humans make mistakes, many mistakes every day, from forgetting to do something, to misplacing something, to misunderstanding an instruction, or getting distracted. We have systematically tried to understand how and where human error has played a role in accidents and to improve those underlying elements that led to an error or a series of errors causing an accident.
To assist in this effort, we have an industry-leading set of investigation tools that encourages understanding of the multiple causes of accidents and promotes corrective actions that address all aspects of casualty, particularly at the interfaces between people and processes. We also have industry-leading train accident investigation cause-finding material, and about 1,500 managers and employees have received training so that we maximize the opportunity to learn from accidents that do occur and prevent their happening again.
Now let me discuss the importance of new technology in preventing train accidents. New technology provides a major opportunity for continual improvement.
The key word here is prediction. We call it the predictive mode. In the past, there was no precise way of knowing when a piece of equipment would fail. In many cases, a failure in a wheel bearing or axle can result in a major event such as a derailment. Over the last 20 years there have been major improvements in predictive technologies. The opportunities available now and in the next few years provide great potential to enhance safety through predicting equipment failures before they happen, rather than reacting to them, as in the past.
We would also like to make the committee aware of our approach in dealing with communities, especially when unfortunate incidents like derailments occur. We want to be clear: CP's highest priority is safety and the community. Our actions are not ad hoc and developed on the spot; rather, they are driven by strict protocols, which have demonstrated results we are proud of. We work with communities we run through by developing key relationships and contact information in advance. We ensure that there is an emergency response plan in place, one that has been shared and tested with communities and emergency services, and we ensure that we have dedicated professionals available 24/7, 365 days of the year, to respond to any incident that has the potential to negatively affect the environment.
Now I would like to spend a couple of minutes commenting on the work of the RSA panel. After that, we can take any questions you may have.
In general, we think the panel's report is well researched and thorough. We commend the Honourable Doug Lewis, the other panel members, and their staff for this work. At CP, we offered them the opportunity to put their safety gear on, get out on our railway, and interact with our employees, our managers, and our safety and health committee representatives. Whenever the panel interacted with our employees at CP, we offered them the chance to speak privately with those employees. I feel very comfortable in saying to you that we gave the panel unfettered access to our operation and to employees from all levels within our operation. We did these things in an open and honest effort to show them our operation, and we respect that they availed themselves of those opportunities.
This does not mean that we think we have everything right; far from it. The operation of a railway is a very complex undertaking. But looked at on the whole, we think the panel did a good job in fulfilling its mandate.
I do not have time here today to delve into the details of all 56 of the recommendations, but I would like to comment on a couple before taking your questions.
With regard to proximity issues, we are grateful that the panel recognized the efforts of the industry in this area, but we cannot emphasize strongly enough the risks presented by the continuing lack of attention to development adjacent to railway services. The panel was on a train when they watched in horror as a young child trespassed on our property at Wetaskiwin, Alberta. We are glad that the panel's report recognized the intervention of one of our train crew members to speak to the children involved that day. Frankly, our train crews confront these kinds of issues every day all across Canada, and they often do not have the ability to speak to the children directly involved.
The panel remarked that new developments near railway tracks are a multi-jurisdictional challenge. We accept that challenge. We accept that the challenge involves many parties, but more can be done to govern responsible new development in close proximity to rail operations.
Also, we need to curtail new crossings, especially over main-line operations. Every new crossing increases the risk of an unfortunate accident. We support VIA's comments in this area calling for regulations prohibiting the construction of new crossings, unless it can be shown clearly that all other options have been fully reviewed and determined not to be feasible.
Another area in which we would like to build upon the panel's work is in regard to new technology. In its recommendation, the panel states that Transport Canada should take a leadership role in any and all technological and scientific advances that would improve public safety. While we support this statement, again, we think it should be emphasized that this and the other recommendations regarding the application of technology to improve the safety of our industry do not go far enough.
I cannot stress enough the importance of technology in enhancing railway safety and in taking our industry to new levels of safety. This is especially true in operating a railway in extreme conditions such as those of this winter, during which we endured record snowfalls. All tools—including tax credits and capital cost allowances, to name a couple—should be explored to increase the uptake of new technology.
The last point I want to make about using technologies to advance railway safety is that these technologies are not science fiction. Some tremendous advancements are being introduced, others are being tested, and many more are on the horizon within the coming years.
The photos you are seeing now are high-resolution images of a brake shoe and wheel flange. These photos were taken at 40 miles an hour and provide the best information we've ever seen to monitor the conditions of wheels and braking equipment.
Now you are seeing two new technologies being introduced at CP to monitor the condition of our track and ties. The equipment shown on the top left corner of the slide is our track evaluation car consist. It does many things to test and evaluate the condition of our track, but one of the newest technologies we have added to that equipment is joint bar imaging, shown in the picture on the top right part of the slide. Again, those pictures of joint bars were taken at a high speed—in this case, 50 miles an hour.
On the bottom left part of the slide is a picture of a high rail truck with a device on the back that takes ultraviolet images of tie condition. The image it takes is shown on the bottom right part of the slide; that image was taken at night at a speed of 20 miles an hour.
With this new equipment, in 2007 CP inspected over 5,000 miles of track and was able to have better information than ever before on tie conditions.
The couple of photos I have shown you are just a small sampling of the technologies available to our industry now. Many others are being tested or even just being conceived. We are pleased to see the panel recognize the important need to bring greater focus in Canada to the research, development, and deployment of these kinds of technologies. CP believes great strides forward can be made in railway safety through facilitating the introduction of such technologies, and that the panel's work in this area is just the beginning of what will hopefully be a strong, renewed government focus.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that the culture CP is working hard to build puts safety and the environment first. This approach is not about words; it's about our actions and it's about how we conduct our business.
The illustration in slide 4 is a protocol that is reinforced with all our employees. It was referred to by the panel in this report. The protocol is quite simple and makes clear the order in which we do things if there is an incident.
The first step is to protect the community and our employees' safety. This happens by working with local leaders and emergency services. The second step is to mitigate and remediate any environmental impact. The third step is investigation, so that we can learn from and understand what caused the incident. Finally, the fourth step is to restore railway operations.
This is how we work, and we are proud of our record. In regard to the panel's report, again, we think the report is thorough and constructive. We urge the committee to look at the panel's report and recommendations in that light.
I'd like to thank you for this opportunity. We would be pleased to take any questions you might have.
:
First of all, I'd like to again apologize to CP. You were set up with your overhead projector and ready to go on a presentation to this committee, and because of an unrelated debate we got into, you weren't able to. I appreciate the fact that you're back.
I was one of the presenters before the panel. The same day I was there in Vancouver making my comments, the president of CP Rail was there. He made it very clear at that time that safety was their number one concern, without any reservations. I was impressed with that.
You're aware of the testimony we had from Mr. Lewis, the chair of that committee, in relating to Mr. Watson's question. He thought CP was in the mid range: “They embrace it, but as Faye Ackermans says, it's a fragile thing. You have to be moving along and bringing everybody under the tent.”
We have your acknowledgement and your comments that this is a priority; you're not where you could be or should be, perhaps, but you're well along, certainly, relative to the others. VIA had a better recommendation or opinion, and it was an off-the-cuff one-to-five response to Mr. Watson's question that brought it; nevertheless, I'm generally pleased with CP's approach and would encourage you to continue to ratchet up your efforts. I'm impressed with what I see here.
I would just reiterate for you the importance of addressing the employee fatigue issue, which we heard in testimony was a major problem for the employees. Employees are under pressure trying to operate these large trains with two people while having the responsibility to be alert and aware, and we know that in the Hinton case and in other examples, fatigue was the problem. You're addressing many of the technological and technical areas of the track and the cars, but I think the human factor is really important.
The role of health and safety employee committees again was something we heard was being ignored in many cases—not necessarily with CP, but I'm highlighting that as an area you need to maintain.
During the testimony—and we had phone-in testimony at one point—we heard that CP did a pretty good job in terms of community relations. You've identified proximity issues as an area of concern. That's going to be multi-jurisdictional; it's going to be regional governments, municipal governments, and the railways. When we heard the testimony for British Columbia, we heard comments that CP at least returned the phone calls and had people come out—I'm referring to Langley, Richmond, and New Westminster—so I think your community relations people are to be congratulated. Again, more can be done, because the communities generally felt they were not listened to as well as they could be or should be by the railroads, but they made particular comment that CP made the effort.
I would just remind you that, as you stated, we're talking about the safety of the railway workers, we're talking about the safety of the public, and we're talking about the safety of the environment. We've seen in Lake Wabamun and the Cheakamus River the disastrous effects that a derailment can have. We have loss of fish stocks for maybe 50 years in the Cheakamus River. The environmental impact is not only on nature but also on the economy, because those fish-producing streams are important to the economy of the fishing industry.
We're also concerned, obviously, about damage to adjacent property. We've seen what can happen to communities built along the railway tracks in some of the pictures of train wrecks in the past.
I would be interested in getting something from you. You indicated that we didn't have the time here—and we certainly don't—to comment on the recommendations, but are there any that you in any way disagree with in this report? I would appreciate getting that in writing to this committee. As well, if there is any area where you think the panel maybe hasn't gone far enough, I would appreciate those comments as well.
Other than that, you heard my comments and questions a few minutes ago to CN here, so I'm not going to take the time to repeat those. This was a concern because of what was happening. Certainly in my case it was prompted by what I saw happening with CN, but we've had derailments and problems from CP as well. Those are going to occur by the very nature of railway operations, but they've got to be minimized to the maximum extent.
As a result of the initial motion, the investigation by this committee, and the minister's decision to appoint a panel, I'm hoping we'll see an improvement—a significant improvement—in rail safety in Canada.
Thank you for appearing.