PACP Committee News Release
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Standing Committee on Public Accounts |
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Comité permanent des comptes publics |
For immediate release
NEWS RELEASE
TIMELY RESOLUTION OF OUTSTANDING RAIL SAFETY ISSUES AND TRANSITION TO A SYSTEMS-BASED APPROACH TO OVERSIGHT NEEDED
Ottawa, November 19, 2014 -
Transport Canada (TC) needs to resolve in a timely manner any outstanding rail safety issues and to complete its transition to a systems-based approach to rail safety oversight in order to obtain the appropriate level of assurance that rail safety in Canada is managed adequately, according to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts’ report presented today in the House of Commons by Committee Chair David Christopherson.
TC is responsible for the regulatory framework required for the safe operation of railways in Canada and for the oversight of regulatory compliance by federal railways. In 2001, TC began implementing a regulatory framework based on the safety management systems (SMS) approach.
In its Fall 2013 Report, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) released a performance audit that examined whether TC had adequately overseen the management of safety risks by federal railways. The OAG found that TC had worked with federal railways on the SMS regulatory framework, but it had made limited progress in transitioning its oversight approach from the traditional one based on inspections to one that integrates the oversight of railway companies’ SMS.
In its report, the Committee recognizes that the OAG is encouraged by TC’s agreement with all of the OAG’s recommendations and by TC’s intention to resolve the issues identified in the audit.
In order to ensure that the federal government makes progress in the area of rail safety oversight, the Committee recommends that TC report to the Committee on its progress on actions taken to: address unresolved safety issues and update the regulatory framework, review its minimum oversight requirements and the resources needed to conduct this level of oversight, review its risk-based oversight planning methodology, update its follow-up procedures for oversight activities and train inspectors on these procedures, and implement its Human Resources Strategy.
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