[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, March 18, 1997
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[English]
The Chairman (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.): Let us get under way.
I would like to welcome everybody here and note the presence of Mr. Robinson, who has been instrumental in seeing that this particular topic was brought before this committee.
I understand we are going to merge a couple of the presentations from the firefighters and the people from Operation Respond. I understand you've worked out exactly what you want to say here.
I think a number of the members, given the extremely effective lobbying of the firefighters, almost from the day I arrived on the Hill... They have this soul-destroying method of lobbying where they come and talk to you, and then a year later on almost the same date, they're back in your office saying ``So what did you do?'' It's done very nicely, very persistently -
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West, Lib.): It's the receptionist who sold me, Mr. Chairman -
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The Chairman: Well, various of us are influenced by different things. But I must say - and I've said it often to other groups - it's been very effective and it's in large part why we are at this point today.
I will turn it over to you. I understand Mr. Nesbitt is going to lead off.
Make your presentation, Mr. Nesbitt, and try to keep your remarks efficient to give members a time for some discussion.
Mr. Frederick H. Nesbitt (Director, Governmental Affairs and Political Action, International Association of Fire Fighters): Good morning. I am the director of governmental affairs for the International Association of Fire Fighers, a union representing over 225,000 professional firefighters in Canada and the United States.
I'm very pleased to be here today to represent the views of the IAFF on behalf of our general president, Alfred K. Whitehead, who unfortunately was unable to present our statement in person today.
At the outset, I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I did not publicly thank MP Svend Robinson for his leadership on this issue and for his commitment to Canada's professional firefighters. He courageously led the hazardous goods issue, led the battle to get a demonstration project of Operation Respond, and sponsored a private member's motion to accomplish this.
The Chairman: Did you write this, Svend?
Mr. Svend Robinson (Burnaby - Kingsway, NDP): Very thoughtful comments,Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Nesbitt: Additionally, I would like to thank the leaders of all the parties for their support of the demonstration project and particularly for their support of Canada's professional firefighters, for whom this is a top safety issue.
The IAFF respresents the nation's first responders to all hazardous goods incidents. When there is a hazardous goods incident involving a truck, a train, a plane, or a vessel, the firefighters are the first responders. Upon arrival, they have to make key decisions within seconds, decisions that affect their lives and the public they are sworn to protect. If the hazardous goods incident involves a rescue, the time to gather information and plan an appropriate response diminishes to zero seconds. Often placing their own lives in jeopardy, firefighters make rescues and risk exposure or death with insufficient information about the hazardous goods involved in the incident.
For the past twelve years in the United States, and the past five years in Canada, firefighters have told the IAFF of the problems with the current hazardous goods identification systems. The problem in both countries is identical; namely, the current system of identifying hazardous goods in transportation is inadequate. We are relying on placards on vehicles, shipping papers in truck cabs or train engines, and phone calls for information that often take hours, not the precious few minutes that firefighters have in which to make life decisions.
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Realizing this problem, the IAFF believed that there had to be a better way to identify hazardous goods in transportation than the current system offers. After all, we're in an age of telecommunications, cellular phones, computers, satellites and the Internet. A piece of paper on the side of a vehicle and a piece of paper in the cab hardly seem adequate, especially when many times these pieces of paper are missing, burned or unavailable.
The IAFF began working with a group called Operation Respond to apply computer technologies to the identification of hazardous goods in transportation. In partnership, we worked to develop a system that would meet three major criteria: first, provide timely and accurate on-site information to firefighters responding to a hazardous goods incident; second, create a system designed for and by emergency responders that they would trust; and third, form a partnership among shippers, carriers, emergency responders and the government.
We have created such a system. It is called Operation Respond Emergency Information System, and is referred to as OREIS. It is operational, it works, firefighters trust it, and most importantly, it gives firefighters on-site information about the hazardous substances involved in a transportation incident.
Later this morning you will hear from Mr. Dan Collins, president of Operation Respond, who will explain in greater detail how OREIS works in real live applications.
But I want to state for the record that the IAFF supports Operation Respond and OREIS 100% in the United States. Certainly, because of NAFTA, OREIS needs to be in place in Canada and in Mexico, given the international shipment of hazardous goods among our three countries.
For the past five years, the Canadian firefighters have been meeting with MPs here in Ottawa and in their ridings to discuss the need for Operation Respond in Canada. We have received favourable responses to our initiative from all parties.
Earlier this year, all parties supported M-241 sponsored by MP Robinson. As a result, it was agreed to have a demonstration project of Operation Respond in Burnaby, B.C., testing the OREIS system and evaluating its effectiveness.
The IAFF is most supportive of the demonstration project and enthusiastic about the results of the evaluation. We believe you will find what we have found in the United States, namely, that OREIS works effectively, is supported by firefighters, and gives emergency responders information on site and within a minute or two, information that is not currently available to them in a timely fashion or without substantial risks to their life and health.
The IAFF represents firefighters in Burnaby and in the surrounding communities, and we hope these communities can be added to the Burnaby demonstration project. We're excited about the demonstration project in Burnaby and pledge our full support to its successful completion.
I have spoken with the firefighters and they're excited about testing the system. This will be the first real advance made in identifying hazardous goods in transportation by utilizing computer technologies. This will give firefighters a tool in making split-second decisions when there is a hazardous goods incident.
However, the IAFF has major concerns about the demonstration project. We battled for over five years to get such a demonstration and, quite truthfully, it almost came too easily. After the first hour of consideration of M-241, we anticipated a second hour and third hour of consideration. However, the government agreed to the demonstration project on December 4, 1996, and M-241 was adopted with all-party support on that date.
The IAFF wants assurances from all parties, especially the government party, that the Burnaby demonstration project will be an effective and fair evaluation of the OREIS system. We want to make sure that the cards are not stacked against us so that the project can only fail or so that those evaluating the project can call it a failure without a fair hearing. In this light, I believe several additions need to be made to ensure a level playing field with this demonstration project.
First, the project currently involves two national railroads, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific. The IAFF would like to see B.C. Rail and Southern Railway incorporated into the demonstration project. VIA Rail should also be added because of the ability of the OREIS system to provide car schematics and emergency information to firefighters and other emergency responders. Information such as this is currently not available.
Second, motor carriers should be added to the demonstration project. These carriers represent a bigger problem for firefighters because, first of all, they have no fixed route and, secondly, they are more likely to carry mixed loads of hazardous goods than are railroads. There is no system in place now in Canada to identify hazardous goods in motor carriers. However, Operation Respond has such capabilities, and the system is working effectively in the United States.
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Third, the IAFF wants to ensure that there is an impartial evaluation of the demonstration project in Burnaby. Yes, there should be an evaluation by Operation Respond, Transport Canada, and the emergency responders, but we also believe there should be a panel of experts convened to make an independent assessment along with recommendations.
Without the above changes, I'm afraid the Operation Respond demonstration project in Burnaby could be doomed to failure. I know that we did not place such restrictions on demonstration projects in the United States, and each and every one was a success.
I hope that during the demonstration project in Burnaby there is not a single hazardous goods incident that requires the firefighters to respond; that would be perfect. I would hate to think that the only test is if there's a real incident.
Such systems, such as OREIS, can be tested through simulated incidents that are extremely effective. In the United States, we have had hazardous goods incidents in which the system was tested in real life. It worked perfectly.
How do I know this? Because the firefighters involved told me first-hand how the system worked, how much better it was than the current system, and most importantly, how much trust they put in the OREIS system. No firefighter is ever going to place unqualified trust in any system, given that any information could cost the firefighter's life or result in exposures causing death or serious health problems. OREIS is trusted and effective, and it gives firefighters information not currently available and in less than two minutes.
Our firefighters are trained to obtain multiple-chemical verifications before implementing a planned response. OREIS is the first verification, as firefighters need to know the chemical name they're dealing with.
I strongly urge the MPs on this committee to carefully evaluate the Operation Respond demonstration project in Burnaby. Ensure that it's an honest and fair evaluation of the application of computer technologies to the identification of hazardous goods in transportation. We will abide by the results of such an evaluation.
This issue is not about one demonstration project or one hazardous goods incident. What you decide here today will have ramifications for all three countries for the remainder of this century and well into the next century. The issue is whether this country's first responders to all hazardous goods incidents in transportation will have the information they need to make split-second decisions and to initiate a planned response to that incident without unnecessarily jeopardizing their lives and safety, as well as that of the citizens of this great country whom they are sworn to protect.
You have a chance today to guide that decision. I ask you to listen to your country's professional firefighters and their requests for assistance on this most crucial matter.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. I am prepared to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
The Chairman: Does anybody else from that group wish to add anything?
Mr. Dan Collins (President, Operation Respond): I have a statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. My name is Dan Collins. I serve as president of Operation Respond. On behalf of Operation Respond and all our participating carriers and emergency responders, I am honoured to be here today.
I have a short statement that I will quickly get into, then I'll be happy to answer questions and get into the discussions.
In the time I have been allotted, I would like to explain a bit about Operation Respond. I'll give you a history of the institute and the software, summarize the progress in Burnaby, and outline our recommendations for the remainder of the Operation Respond Canadian demonstration.
Operation Respond began in 1992 as a cooperative undertaking of the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration and the Port Terminal Railroad of Houston, Texas. It was a direct result of a National Academy of Sciences study that recommended experiments using carrier databases to provide critical information to first responders at rail and truck dangerous goods incidents.
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In order to conduct further research and to facilitate additional private and public funding, Operation Respond became a not-for-profit institute in 1995. Since then, the Federal Highway Administration, the Research and Special Programs Administration, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have also assisted in supporting the project. For the past three years, the U.S. government has committed a total of $1.7 million to Operation Respond.
Through this joint funding and with significant support from the International Association of Fire Fighters, carriers, and users, Operation Respond has developed the Operation Respond Emergency Information System, known as OREIS. OREIS is a communications system with life-saving potential. The software connects fire and police departments with the databases of railroads and motor carriers so that in the event of a dangerous goods incident, the first responder obtains quick and accurate information on the shipping contents.
Our users and carriers view OREIS as a tool that complements existing emergency response programs. Firefighters and police arriving at the scene of a dangerous goods accident can use OREIS to verify the cargo of an affected train or truck often in less than one minute. Once the first responder knows what the contents are, they can then respond quickly and appropriately to ensure their own safety and that of the surrounding area.
OREIS also provides schematics for Amtrak train cars and locomotives, including seat configurations, emergency exit doors and windows and the location of electrics and fuel sources. This important feature of the software saves critical time during a passenger train incident and rescue.
The reaction from the emergency response community has been tremendous. Firefighters are trained to have at least three sources of information when managing a dangerous goods incident. They favour the operation response system because it provides the critical information so quickly and because it has several stand-alone features that serve as back-up information if it's needed.
In its short history, OREIS has demonstrated its value to both first responders and public officials. The system has been used successfully in several situations since its first pilot experiments in 1993. It was used to access two potential emergencies in the Houston, Texas area. It was used as a training tool for the 1996 Olympics last summer in Atlanta, Georgia, and most recently, it was used by fire officials during a tanker leak of hydrochloric acid in a Buffalo, New York, rail yard.
With each use, the response time improves considerably. In Atlanta, results show that the response time was reduced from 55 minutes in pre-OREIS tests to 40 minutes in post-OREIS test. As the IF will attest, these 15 minutes are crucial in accessing action and rescue.
Currently, there are 12 U.S. freight railroads participating in Operation Respond. There are also two large motor carriers and four passenger railroads that have opened their databases to the system. Operation Respond is on-line in 13 states in the United States. It is also being installed in 20 locations along the northeast corridor of the United States, as well as in several cities along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Operation Respond is also working cooperatively with Norfolk Southern and Conrail, which have purchased over 25 sets of the software for donating it to communities along their routes.
The Canadian program is of particular importance to our carriers and users because of the North American Free Trade Agreement and its implications for cross-border safety. As several of the large railroads and motor carriers that transport dangerous goods operate in both Canada and the U.S., firefighters and police in each country should have access to this vital information when and if an incident occurs.
In order to conduct a true test of the value of Operation Respond in Canada, we have, from the outset, viewed the Burnaby demonstration as a two-phased program. The first phase of the program is to install a new version of OREIS in the Burnaby fire department, which will link the fire department to the databases of the two railroads serving the Greater Vancouver area: Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific.
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I'm pleased to report to the committee that we have successfully completed the software testing with CN. It works perfectly, and it's presently being installed on two computers in the Burnaby fire department.
The first phase has been funded by Transport Canada for $50,000 U.S. Of that, $20,000 U.S. is being used by Operation Respond to assist the two railroads in their programming. The remaining $30,000 U.S. is being used to complete the installations and conduct that training in the Burnaby fire department. It's our goal to complete this first phase by March 31.
Transport Canada has been extremely cooperative in administering these contracts and in facilitating these first two installations. At the present time, they have released $40,000 of the planned amount. The cooperation in Burnaby has also been excellent. Under Chief Brassington's leadership, the entire department has embraced the program.
In the second phase, we recommend five activities, which I'll briefly outline. This expanded scope and the information it will provide will enable the public and private sectors to determine the merit of Operation Respond. The first undertaking is to involve additional emergency responders in the Burnaby area, including Surrey, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam, and Vancouver. These areas, because they encompass major rail yards, passenger train routes, and federal highways, are logical sites for OREIS.
Second, B.C. Rail and Southern Railway should be incorporated into the system. The addition of these two will mean that all British Columbia freight railroads that carry dangerous goods are on-line in OREIS.
The third goal is to include motor carriers that travel through Burnaby and the Vancouver area. Chemical Leaman and Yellow Freight, two major participants in the U.S. program, have volunteered to take part. This has led the Canadian Trucking Association to research more about Operation Respond. We hope to incorporate some of their members in the Burnaby test.
The fourth goal is to add the passenger train schematics into the Canadian software. Amtrak, as I mentioned earlier, has already included their locomotives. VIA Rail would be a simple addition.
The fifth and final goal is to develop a credible evaluation system. Perhaps the best way to accomplish this is to request that Transport Canada record all rail and truck incident responses for a nine-month period following the implementation in Burnaby. All first-responder agencies that use OREIS should also keep accurate records of response time and other data for a similar time period. Then at the end, a comparison of the two reports would be compiled and submitted to the government, the carriers, and the emergency responders.
We believe it would cost approximately $175,000 U.S. to complete the second phase.
I would be happy at this time to conclude. I'll answer any questions in the time allotted.
The Chairman: Mr. Domino, are you next?
Mr. Arthur J. Domino (Commissioner, Operation Respond): Thank you very much,Mr. Chairman. Good morning. My name is Arthur J. Domino. I'm the commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services for Erie County, New York, U.S.A. I also serve as chairman of the Erie County and Buffalo area local steering committee for Operation Respond.
Erie County, with a population of 968,000, is located in the western end of New York State. The western boundary is the Niagara River, which separates the U.S. and the province of Ontario, Canada. Niagara County borders Erie County to the north and shares the common boundary of the Niagara River in the province of Ontario.
The city of Buffalo, with a population of 328,000, is Erie County's largest municipality. It borders the Niagara River. The Peace Bridge, with its heavy truck traffic, connects the city of Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ontario. Canadian National's International Railway Bridge spans the Niagara River, carrying rail traffic between Canada and the U.S. through the city of Buffalo.
There are several major rail yards located in and around the city of Buffalo, the largest being Conrail's Frontier Yard. A major classification yard in the Conrail system, Frontier Yard is located partially within the city of Buffalo and partially within the adjoining town of Cheektowaga.
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On October 30, 1995, representatives of the Operation Respond Institute met with me and members of my staff and a representative of the Buffalo fire department to discuss Operation Respond and the possibility of expanding the program in the Erie County and Buffalo area. Because of the large concentration of rail yards and the proximity of the Canadian border crossings, it was determined that Buffalo would be a key area to further develop and test the Operation Respond program. It was agreed that the Erie County Department of Emergency Services would act as the coordinating agency to deliver a presentation to familiarize the emergency response community with the Operation Respond concept and to create a local steering committee to help implement the program.
The date of December 13, 1995, was set to deliver the presentation. However, we had one of our infamous snowstorms, and we had to cancel the meeting. It was finally held on January 30, 1996. Attendees at this initial briefing agreed to a three-phase program as originally proposed by Operation Respond for software installation, training and material production.
Phase one would be accomplished through June 1996, and the following jurisdictions agreed to participate: Erie County, the City of Buffalo, the City of Lackawanna, the City of Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda, the Town of Cheektowaga, and the Town of Hamburg. I might add that there are 94 volunteer fire companies within the county and three career departments that are represented by the IAFF. All of the areas chosen have major rail yards or mainline trackage running through their jurisdictions.
Phase two would reach into Niagara County, including the city of Niagara Falls, where there are several major bridge and rail crossings into Canada.
Phase three would be the Canadian phase, working with Fort Erie and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
Because of the heavy truck and rail traffic moving between the U.S. and Canada at the various border crossings, Dr. James Boone of the Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. DOT, at our June 14, 1996, meeting of the Buffalo steering committee outlined to the committee the plans for implementation along the Canadian border and the valuable role that the activities in Buffalo play in leading this initiative. We are currently in the process of phase two, with software scheduled to be installed in several locations in Niagara County on March 24, 1997, and with training scheduled for March 25 in Niagara County and additional training in Erie County.
At the April 30, 1996, meeting it was agreed by the committee that a pre-evaluation and post-evaluation of the OREIS software and the ORI procedures and protocol would be conducted. The pre-tests were conducted in late June, prior to the installation of OREIS and the training of responders. One scenario was to involve a motor carrier, and a second scenario was to be a railroad test on Conrail facilities. The post-tests would involve a duplication of the scenarios following the installation of the software and the training of dispatchers and responders.
The scenarios in both instances would be a simulated leak of a product, and the basis of the test was to determine how long it would take the fire department personnel and first responders to identify the product and to call to get paperwork and the timeframe involved in the identification process.
The pre-tests and post-tests were witnessed by Mr. Sondip K. Mathur, PhD, associate research scientist of the Texas Transportation Institute, who has prepared a full evaluation and summary report comparing the response elements in both the pre-tests and the post-tests.
For your information I have attached a preliminary report that has been prepared for Conrail by Michael C. Bethge, a representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
I should point out that in both scenarios, which were conducted after the installation of OREIS and the awareness training of first responders, the information-gathering process at the incident scene was much faster and accomplished in a much safer fashion.
The real test of the system came into focus on November 8, 1996, when fire officials were notified of a vapour cloud emitting from a tank car at the Frontier Yard of Conrail in the city of Buffalo. The contents of the tanker, 20,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid, were verified within seven minutes by accessing the Conrail shipping data base through OREIS. The arriving Buffalo fire department battalion chief received a copy of the waybill and the shipping papers from Conrail personnel. Contacting the dispatch centre with the tanker's identification number, that number was used to identify and verify the contents of the tanker. The dispatcher then printed the hazardous material's information and faxed it to the incident commander on the scene. With that information the Buffalo fire department was able to safely contain the 20,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid and to protect those on the scene.
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As late as February 23, 1997, a derailment occurred on the Buffalo-Pittsburgh railroad in the southern part of Erie County involving 10 cars, several of which were hazardous materials cars. The responding fire department and the hazardous materials team were able to secure the consist and waybills from the train crew. The Town of Hamburg dispatch centre for the responding units accessed the OREIS program and was able to verify that one of the derailed cars was an empty chlorine car.
I should state that the Buffalo-Pittsburgh railroad has not come on-line with OREIS as yet, but the chlorine car had come through interchange from Conrail and was still in the system. The OREIS program also provided emergency response data for the other chemicals that were carried.
The Chairman: Mr. Domino, we have to contend with translation here. If you could slow down a beat, it would help the translators keep up with you.
Mr. Domino: I'm sorry.
The Chairman: It's a common problem.
Mr. Domino: The chemicals that were involved included sulphuric acid, formaldehyde, urea and corn starch. This is another example of the value of OREIS and Operation Respond.
If I may digress for a moment, I've spent almost 30 years in the fire service, from 1957 to 1987. The department in which I served was an all-volunteer municipal fire department consisting of five engine companies, a ladder company and a rescue company. The area served was five and a half square miles, through which ran, at that time, four major rail lines, all within a quarter-mile corridor.
In my fire service career, I served as a company officer for eight years, as an assistant chief for eight years, and as chief of the department for two years. During this period of time I experienced two major train derailments in my jurisdiction. In 1979, the derailment involved a trailer train, flat cars with trailers carrying general merchandise, which did not create a major problem.
Earlier, in 1971, a derailment occurred in our community involving seven tank cars. We were able to determine the tank cars were liquefied petroleum gas tanks but were not able to secure the information from the train crew as to the contents. We kept getting conflicting information. When the train crew was threatened with arrest, we were able to determine the cars were loaded with the product. It was indeed fortunate that none of the cars were leaking and the incident was terminated in a safe manner. This incident is a perfect example of where, had we had the OREIS program in place, the incident commander and the fire department could have obtained the necessary information concerning the cargo in an expeditious fashion.
During the 1970s and early 1980s there were many in the fire service who proposed some type of a national database to provide the type of information we are now capable of accessing. However, the technology was not in place at that time to be able to support a program such as OREIS. Our experience in Buffalo and Erie County since the installation of OREIS has had other positive benefits. A cooperative spirit has developed between the railroads and the local fire departments, as was not always the case.
Conrail has provided hands-on instructions and training for the City of Buffalo fire department's hazardous materials unit, as well as to the chief officers of the department through their Albany division field manager of hazardous materials handling risk-management department. In addition, Conrail will be providing hands-on training to the two hazardous materials teams in Erie County.
OREIS training has also been targeted for police departments within the county and thus far has been very well received. Until recently, hazardous material was considered to be a function of the fire department. However, police are constantly on patrol and may come upon hazardous material problems before the fire department is called to respond. Police need to have awareness training for their own protection.
I humbly urge your honourable body to support Operation Respond here in Canada so that we may be able to share and expand the program and strengthen the hazardous materials response program on both sides of the border.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my views with your honourable body.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr. Svend Robinson: I think Mr. Ritchie might have a couple of comments as well.
The Chairman: Mr. Ritchie.
Mr. Terry A. Ritchie (District Vice-President, International Association of Fire Fighters): My name is Terry Ritchie. I'm the sixth district vice-president of the International Association of Fire Fighters. I'm also an acting assistant chief in the Burnaby fire department.
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Burnaby is very happy for what the government has done in bringing Operation Respond into Canada and for its decision to put it into Burnaby. In looking at this, the difference is that we see it as one test area. As Fred Nesbitt said previously, we hope we never have to use it in the sense of a disaster taking place.
Being the first responders on the scene, the fire department always wants to be doing something. In the case of a hazardous incident, the last thing you want to be doing is running into an area while trying to achieve something without the information. To date, CANUTEC has been outstanding in supplying us with information that we need at an incident, but this new tool will give us a chance to have information more quickly than CANUTEC can supply it to us.
Basically, what I'd like to say is that this system buttresses CANUTEC. It's not replacing CANUTEC in any way, shape or form. What it will do is offer the officers of the Burnaby fire department a chance to get up-to-date information immediately. Upon getting that information, they can then contact CANUTEC and give the information that we have at the scene of the incident, and CANUTEC can then assist us by telling us what the best way to handle it is. Basically, that's just what I'd like to say.
In the sense of a major derailment, we haven't had any incidents in Burnaby in the 33 years that I've been there. We do have the CN, the CP, the Southern Railway of British Columbia - which was B.C. Hydro Rail - and B.C. Rail coming through one of the longer tunnels in B.C. So our concern is just that, and it's for the citizens of Burnaby and the lower mainland area.
Thank you.
The Chairman: It sounds like you've been doing fairly well without it.
Mr. Ritchie: Yes, but we've been fortunate. Let's put it that way.
The Chairman: Of course that's always the problem with anything that is preventative in nature.
We'll take a round of questions for clarification on your presentations, and we're also going to hear from departmental officials on this.
Would that be a signal, Mr. Mercier?
[Translation]
Mr. Paul Mercier (Blainville - Deux-Montagnes, BQ): I do not have any questions.
[English]
The Chairman: Mr. Gouk.
Mr. Jim Gouk (Kootenay West - Revelstoke, Ref.): Thank you, Reg.
Maybe I could get you to clear up a couple of things just so that I can get them straight in my own mind. The first phase was $50,000 U.S., which was paid for by Transport Canada. In phase two, you're looking for what amounts to about $250,000 Canadian, which is what you estimate the cost to be. Is there ongoing cost to the government beyond that? What is the next level in terms of cost to Transport Canada?
Mr. Collins: If I could address that, the role that the government has played in the United States has been to provide some seed money. It has served as a catalyst to help get the program off the ground and to get it established in various parts of that country. What I would see here with the Burnaby expanded program is that the funding from the government in this amount of $250,000 would be the end of what the government would need to do. It would establish the program. It would have the connections with the railroads. It would have connections with several motor carriers.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Given that the $250,000 will carry the investigative demonstration phase of this project to an end and that we'll then have this system, what reaction have you gotten from Transport Canada thus far about this proposed $250,000 budget?
Mr. Collins: So far, it has been that we're dealing in this fiscal year, which ends in March. They had $50,000 available from this fiscal year's money, and that was the amount of money that has been dedicated to the program.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Did they give any indication of what type of commitment they're prepared to make for next fiscal year?
Mr. Collins: No.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Mr. Chairman, we have representatives from the government here. Could we possibly hear their position on this?
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The Chairman: In fairness to the presentation that has been made, I'd like a round of questions for clarification so that everyone has a clear sense of what the proponents are proposing. We'll then have the department at the table.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Okay, then that's all I have at this time.
The Chairman: Mr. Keyes.
Mr. Stan Keyes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to again thank the firefighters and all their affiliated groups for what they've been doing since I was elected in 1988, and for broaching the problems of hazardous goods in transportation, etc. They've spent the last eight years lobbying, and, as far as I'm concerned, it's paid off.
Gentlemen, I just want to get the figures right on the money side. You have $50,000 now. Is that $250,000 request on top of the $50,000, or is the $50,000 part of the $250,000?
Mr. Collins: It's part of the $250,000.
Mr. Stan Keyes: Okay, so you're $200,000 short. Of that $200,000 figure, how much is CN, CP, IAFF or Operation Respond contributing?
Mr. Collins: None. It's all from the federal government.
Mr. Stan Keyes: Does CN, CP, Operation Respond or the IAFF have any intention of contributing to the seed money for these pilot projects?
Mr. Collins: In the case of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, they will have finished their programming under the original $50,000. It will have cost them several thousand dollars to have already done that. Their contribution will have already been completed by the time we move into the next phase.
Mr. Stan Keyes: So you have $50,000 in government money put forward to the program that you're working on now, and you're saying that CN and CP put in money in addition to that.
Mr. Collins: Sure, they've had to do about six man-weeks of considerable programming on their own in order to get the system operational and in order the linkages made between our software and their carrier data bases.
Mr. Stan Keyes: As a not-for-profit corporation, is Operation Respond also putting money into this investment?
Mr. Collins: No, we live hand to mouth. We receive half our funding from sources at the federal level, and the other half from the carriers. The carriers contribute money. Our offices in Washington, D.C., are rent-free because the carriers are carrying the rent.
Mr. Stan Keyes: We've established that you've received $50,000 already, and $200,000 is yet needed to continue the program. Are CN and CP going to contribute to that second phase, or to the next $200,000 that is going to be required?
Mr. Collins: They could answer that question if they were here, but they should have completed their programming in the original $50,000. There would be nothing else for them to do other than to make determinations about whether they want to expand the program to other parts of the country.
I would also say one thing: in the evaluation part of this, we would like to run pre-drills and post-drills. We would like to do some drills out at the railyards in order to determine the value of the system both before we put it in and after we put it in. Instead of waiting for an incident to occur, we could simulate some incidents. It would cost the carriers in terms of participating in those with operational train crews and setting -
Mr. Stan Keyes: It's a bigger picture on this whole thing. You're going to have to expand beyond one community in order to make this thing successful. Obviously you're going to have to deal with roads and rail - and possibly even air some day - in order to accommodate all the information that you can for the firefighters when they visit the scene. How much do you predict that this software will cost Burnaby or any other municipality that would come on line?
Mr. Collins: In the United States, it's $360 U.S. to purchase the software.
Mr. Stan Keyes: It's only $360 to purchase the software?
Mr. Collins: Right.
Mr. Stan Keyes: So a community can be linked to Operation Respond or OREIS and have all the information at their fingertips - be it the police department, the fire department, or anyone else - for $360.
Mr. Collins: Right.
Mr. Stan Keyes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Svend already bought Burnaby's software.
Mr. Stan Keyes: He did?
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Stan Keyes: He has a lot of money in his budget, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: He's a hell of a guy.
Roy.
Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to congratulate you on the success of the progress of this project to date. I have two questions.
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Following up on the fiscal side, once this program is demonstrated positively, and if it's expanded across Canada - I think you've more or less answered that with Mr. Keyes' question - is the ultimate cost to expand it into a full-blown operating system really borne by the fire departments or in regular budgeting process through the municipalities?
Mr. Collins: I think the answer to that question is yes. The philosophy is basically that if the users want it, they will pay.
Mr. Roy Cullen: So they'd have to justify that or argue that in their own municipal budgets or fire department budgets, I guess.
Mr. Collins: Right.
Mr. Roy Cullen: On my second question, I'm relatively new to this topic, but I tend to think of things like chemicals and gaseous materials when we talk about dangerous goods. In an age of biotechnology, and with various initiatives to replace chemicals with biotechnological solutions - and I'm thinking here of things like viruses and gosh knows what - when you're looking at dangerous goods, is anyone looking at this aspect beyond chemicals? There will always be chemicals and gases around, but the whole biotechnological aspect could come into play as things change. Have you looked at that at all, or are you looking at it?
Mr. Collins: I'll take a crack at that, but Fred might want to help.
With Operation Respond, I think we basically keep our focus on assisting the first responders to identify the chemicals that are involved. The professionals then take over. For example, all the chemists and the professionals at CANUTEC can then get involved because they now know what chemicals they're dealing with. We do not step over that boundary. We are providing information for the first few minutes of an incident. We verify contents, and then we let the professionals take over from that vantage point, so we haven't gotten into the mixtures and the biotechnological aspects of it.
Mr. Roy Cullen: Perhaps someone from CANUTEC - Mr. Cloutier, is it? - can expand on that later. Thank you.
The Chairman: Did you want to go ahead, Mr. Jordan? I'll save this one till last.
Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds - Grenville, Lib.): I just want to make sure I understand this. In the United States - you mentioned Erie County in particular, in and around Buffalo - you have a system that you think is fairly sophisticated and that works. You'd like Canada to come on board with a similar system, and the government here has so far been receptive and is financing a dry run out in Burnaby. Is there any resistance? On page 4 of Mr. Nesbitt's presentation it says ``ensure a level playing field''. Who wouldn't want the playing field to be level? Is there a saboteur out there somewhere who wouldn't want you to look good or who would want it to be a failure? I just have a little trouble comprehending that. I don't think Canadians think that way. Is there something we don't know?
Mr. Nesbitt: Basically, I've been working on this project for about six or seven years in Canada. I always hate to make comparisons to the United States, but it's almost like déjà vu all over again. The greatest resistance to advancing this program in the United States came from our own United States Department of Transportation. The greatest resistance we have had to advancing this program in Canada has been Transport Canada.
Mr. Jim Jordan: In what way? Are they not willing to finance it?
Mr. Nesbitt: Initially, I think the opposition was based on the idea that it wasn't necessary, it wasn't needed, that there was a good system in place. In talking to firefighters across the country, we were hearing a different story - that there wasn't a good system in place, at least for initially identifying a substance.
The problem we have, sir, is that... A truck turns over and goes down over a hillside. We arrive on the scene. Something blue is seeping out of it, and there may be some vapours. We have no idea what we're dealing with, and we have a short amount of time to make a decision. We don't have the information on-scene that we need in order to make a planned response.
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Sometimes we're required to shut down a major highway. Sometimes we're required to do an evacuation and we find out the material we're dealing with is not really hazardous or extremely dangerous and then there's a lot of criticism. If you shut down a major highway in the city for eight hours or you evacuate 4,000 or 5,000 people from an area and find out it's cooking oil you're dealing with, you're open to a lot of criticism. Of course on the other hand, if we don't do the evacuation and shut the highway down and we're dealing with chlorine or ammonium nitrate and there is an incident, then they say we should have done it. So we're in a very difficult situation.
Really, the OREIS system is designed, I like to say, for the first twenty minutes. The firefighters arrive on the scene and they have a hazardous goods incident. They have to make a decision during the first twenty minutes. Do they stand back? Do they evacuate? Do they go in? Do they put water on it? Do they use foam? Are they able to handle this hazardous material or are they going to need assistance? Is this beyond the capability of the first engine that arrives on the scene?
With a tanker loaded with gasoline it's easy -
Mr. Jim Jordan: You have no trouble convincing me, but I'm surprised that you're having trouble - as you seem to suggest you are - convincing others. Who's saying that our system is adequate? Usually if they say something like that, what they're really saying is that they're not prepared to spend any more money. I'm not aware of Transport Canada people saying they weren't prepared to be approached on the basis... You're not talking about a lot of money here.
Mr. Nesbitt: That's correct.
Mr. Jim Jordan: If what I heard is true, that the program would be available for $300 and some odd dollars, Svend could afford to do that himself -
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. Jim Jordan: - for many of his fire departments in B.C. I'm just a little confused about this. If there's been a lot resistance, I haven't heard about it. I'm not sure if our committee has ever heard about it, but if there is, I guess we should be pursuing that as a committee.
Just as an aside, what percentage of hazardous goods - and we'll put them all in one big bucket here - would travel by rail as opposed to surface transport? Have you any idea?
Mr. Collins: I think Dr. Read probably has some betters numbers on that. I'm not sure about that in Canada.
Are you from Canada, Dr. Read?
Dr. John A. Read (Director General, Dangerous Goods Transport, Department of Transport): Yes. I'm with Transport Canada. I'll be addressing you later.
Roughly, by tonnage, about 15% travels by rail. And just about every train does have dangerous goods cars involved in the make-up of the train, unless they're passenger trains.
Mr. Jim Jordan: What you're suggesting in your article here is that with scheduled routes it will be much easier to control if more of it is moved by rail. Is that right?
Dr. Read: That's not my comment.
Mr. Nesbitt: I'm just saying that most of the shipments in rail are bulk, and obviously a train has to follow the tracks. A truck does not have a designated route, so our experience is that when you do have an accident there are a number of factors that you can't control -
Mr. Jim Jordan: Especially when the wheels are flying off.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Jim Jordan: The transport committee has had a lot of experience with that.
A voice: With the wheels coming off?
Mr. Jim Jordan: Yes.
I think it'd be much easier to control if it were on rail because, if nothing else, you're not zigzagging in and out of traffic. You're on a straight line and you know where the rails are going to lead.
Mr. Nesbitt: Right. And most of the track is not in a highly populated area, whereas truck traffic may very well be in a highly populated area -
Mr. Jim Jordan: It wouldn't be practical to move at all that way, I agree with that, but -
Mr. Nesbitt: No, you couldn't.
Mr. Jim Jordan: - as an option maybe that could be explored.
That's all I have. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman: Mr. Robinson.
Mr. Svend Robinson: I won't take a long time because I know we want to hear from the departmental witnesses as well.
Very briefly, just to respond, I think Mr. Jordan really puts his finger on it when he talks about the importance of resources. I see that as the key issue here this morning.
As Mr. Collins and Mr. Nesbitt and in fact all of the witnesses have indicated, to make this thing work it's effectively a two-phase project. Phase one is basically pretty well up and running. It'll be up and running by the end of this month, as I understand it. That involves some expenditure, roughly $50,000 U.S., by Transport Canada. There's also been some additional expenditure by the carriers, CN and CP, who put some money in.
The key point, then, is that in order for this test to really be conducted properly, there has to be the second phase. Mr. Nesbitt sets out the three critical components of that second phase, which I think they estimate would cost a total of $175,000 U.S. if this test is to work effectively. And that, it seems to me, is really the issue before the committee. If we want this thing to work properly this has to be done. Beyond that, then, there are going to be no additional expenditures.
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The people who want to buy into it can buy into it for roughly $400 U.S. for the software and so on, but if the test site is to work effectively, they need those additional resources. I think that's the issue.
The Chairman: Mr. Gouk.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Yes, I have just a quick supplemental to Mr. Jordan's question.
Could one of you gentlemen explain what the actual ideal results of the second phase would be? Given that this has been tested in the United States, has been openly accepted, is popular, and can provide the same benefits for Canada that are already being provided now and are about to be provided in the United States, what will you get from the expected results of phase two that you can't just go ahead and do now? Who's not going to buy into this system now who will buy in as a result of successful testing in phase two?
Mr. Collins: I can try to answer some of that.
First of all, I think we're looking to design the OREIS software in an fashion acceptable to Canadian carriers, the Canadian railroads, the Canadian trucking companies and Transport Canada, in terms of the overall plans that they have and in terms of how emergency responses are to be coordinated and handled between the government and the responding agencies and the carriers.
So first of all, we have to design... We have something that's working in the United States, but it fits in with the U.S. system. We need to demonstrate how it is to function within the system that your country has developed over the last many years to provide for emergency response.
We do not have the answers to that. We need the input from the carriers here and from the government and from the emergency-response community in order to be able to design it. When that comes about, it can then have an effective test, because it will fit in with how emergency response is supposed to be handled in your country. That is what I'm trying to get out of the demonstration: how does this fit in with emergency response plans in your country?
Mr. Jim Gouk: Do you have to demonstrate that you have designed the system so that it will operate in the Canadian system, or is it a combined design-and-demonstration phase?
Mr. Collins: I guess it's the second. You have to combine it with how CANUTEC operates, how the provinces operate, how the emergency response community operates in the local areas and how the railroads effectuate their emergency response in order to get it all coordinated so that it is accepted by the people who need to use it and the people who need to provide it.
Mr. Jim Gouk: So do you have a system now that you believe will work and is this to demonstrate that system? Or do you have a system now that you think is sort of a start and in phase two where you're demonstrating this, you're going to be modifying it to deal with different things as they come up?
Mr. Collins: We have to make some adjustments to fit into, again, how CANUTEC, Transport Canada, wants responses handled. We have a system in our country called CHEMTREC. We have made the adjustments with CHEMTREC.
Certain adjustments need to be made. The system functions. The connections to the carrier databases function. It's a simple technology, really, and just uses modems. That part of it works. What we need to do, though, is get it into the mainstream of emergency response and evaluate it so that people can determine whether they want to continue with it or not.
Mr. Jim Gouk: I have one last point, then. Is there a possibility that you'll be making enough modifications so that there could be a potential of a third phase to demonstrate the changes you've made, or will they be made and demonstrated within phase two?
Mr. Collins: I don't think the changes will be so totally significant as to require another phase.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Okay.
The Chairman: This may come as a surprise to the rest of the committee, but the chairman has a question.
I'm interested in the interaction with the trucking industry. Simply, Mr. Jordan mentioned wheels coming off trucks and some other problems we've had here that are other kinds of safety problems with trucking.
Having had some discussions with departmental officials here and in the provinces, my understanding is that it's not the big carriers that have the problems. The big carriers tend to follow good maintenance schedules and tend to be involved in all of the initiatives on safety. It tends to be independents - the guy who has gone out and bought a truck for himself and is hauling whatever he can get to haul - where the majority of these problems are occurring.
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For what you're talking about, the advantage of this, as I understand it, is to integrate the rail and road information when it comes to the carrying of these things, and I understand how that works with a large carrier who has a computer system and good waybilling. What's the American experience with these small independents and individuals?
Mr. Collins: You're right. We have been working with the large motor carriers so far. They have the sophisticated databases. They're into technology. They're into QUALCOMM and global positioning systems, and the whole ball of wax. They are the ones that carry the preponderance of the hazardous material. We're working with Chemical Leaman, Yellow Freight, Roadway, J.B. Hunt, all the big international carriers that carry the preponderance of the hazardous material.
We have not made any breakthroughs with independents, with smaller carriers. Our opinion on that is if they have a computer and a modem - and that's all we're talking about accessing - we can get into a database and have the information presented to the firefighters. We have not made any inroads into that.
One aspect of that, though, that we are making some inroads on is many independents have contract services for computer support. They don't all have computer support within their companies; they contract with an individual company to provide the computer support. We are working with those groups to try to get them to open the computer to several of the independents. That has not happened yet, but that's one approach we are going to be taking, to be working with these contract computer suppliers that take care of many companies and do their paperwork for them and do their waybilling and their data processing.
The Chairman: We'll turn to the folks from the department, Dr. Read and Mr. Cloutier. Before I do, though, I want to...
I'm not certain what the following words are in aid of, but it goes something like this: We changed the estimates process around here in order that we can do this kind of thing, that we can bring in people who have a set of concerns and we can bring in people from the department who have some expertise in this area and have a proper discussion in a somewhat, hopefully, problem-solving atmosphere as opposed to the more traditional adversarial atmosphere that occurs here.
Mr. Nesbitt, I appreciated your comments about damned if you do, damned if you don't when it comes to the identification of material. Well, if there are any individuals in Ottawa who exist in that environment, it's federal bureaucrats. So I think Dr. Read and Mr. Cloutier are here to answer questions and engage in this debate. But in the end, some of these decisions, some of the decisions on funding and that, are not staff decisions; they're political decisions. So I will be loath to allow questioning to go too far into an area that I think is, in fairness to the staff of the department, not a staff decision. The minister will be meeting with us at the conclusion of these rounds, and if we want to get into a proper discussion on some of those, shall we say, less systemic, more political decisions...
Dr. Read, I'm sure you're experienced at this. You know where to draw those lines anyway. I'll turn it over to you, sir, and away we go.
Dr. Read: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I certainly thank you for the words of comfort at the beginning.
My name is John Read, and I'm responsible for Canada's transportation of dangerous goods program. I would like to give an overview of the program, mainly to show where Operation Respond can work as a partnership at the beginning of the program, as my friend Dan Collins keeps mentioning, and also how it can fit in for doing various verifications. I'll also talk about one of the problems we did have with Operation Respond at the beginning of the proposals. So there were some heavy discussions on that matter.
Canada's transportation of dangerous goods program is designed for two purposes: the first one is to prevent an accidental release, and a second function is to respond should we have failed in our first task of preventing the release.
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The governing legislation is the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, which was passed in 1992. Its long title, which isn't very long, points out that it is an act to promote public safety in the transportation of dangerous goods. The act does define public safety to be the safety of people, of property and of the environment.
Now, it may or may not come as a surprise to people, but the Chemical Abstracts Service in the United States, which is an association that gives a unique number each time a company comes up with a unique chemical formulation, has issued over 15 million numbers, which can be interpreted as over 15 million different chemicals have been produced.
Products are also dangerous because of their state. Liquified air under pressure is dangerous, although air by itself is not.
There are many trade names. If you take sulphuric acid and call it wonder cleaner, and someone else takes it and calls it miracle cleaner, and someone else calls it something else, we have the potential for a lot of confusion in transportation when it comes to deciding just what is being moved.
An international classification system has been developed through the United Nations. Essentially, what this program has done is to take all of these dangerous goods and to establish a series of tests. Through these series of tests you end up putting all of the 15 million into essentially 3,000 categories, and then we deal with 3,000 categories.
For each category we have a shipping name and a UN number. These are unique and are used throughout the world. A lot of our commerce is throughout the world. Eighty percent of our chemicals are imported from the U.S.; eighty percent of what we produce goes to the U.S, and we all use the same classification system.
But what I want to point out at this point is that gives you two layers: there's a layer where you're dealing with groups of chemicals, the 3,000 groupings, and there's a layer below that where you deal with individual chemicals. You could be dealing with millions of different possibilities.
As I wanted to point out before, the primary goal of the program is to prevent accidental releases of dangerous goods. One of the most important parts of that program is the packaging or the means of containment. We deal with packaging for infectious substances. We deal with the barbecue tank that is in your backyard, which is built to our standards. We also deal with the railway tank cars. Different kinds of railway tank cars are built to the standards that are called into force under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.
We have an extensive collection of words. In fact, the standards total about 50,000 words, which is a massive amount of regulations to require that we have safety in transportation.
We are remarkably successful. There are approximately 27 million shipments of dangerous goods a year in Canada. At CANUTEC we probably receive 30,000 telephone calls annually, mostly from police and fire services. I should point out that CANUTEC is the 24-hour response information centre operated by the Department of Transport. It has trained chemists, and they are able to discuss chemicals and response actions that should take place with various means of containment. So of these 27 million shipments we have roughly 600 a year that we consider serious.
I could point out that in the past six years we've had 104 calls from Burnaby on various transportation and non-transportation incidents involving dangerous goods. This is why we chose Burnaby. We actually did do a search through our data base to see which was the most likely town in which we could have the system tested, and Burnaby came out, which is bad news for Burnaby. But Burnaby hasn't had serious accidents; it's had a number of small ones.
Mr. Svend Robinson: That was 104 over what period of time?
Dr. Read: That was over six years.
Now, the second goal of the program, as I say, is to mitigate the consequences of the accident. That's what we're talking about today with Operation Respond. In the event of an accident there are three questions, and there are only three questions, for any emergency responder: first, what is involved; second, what could the dangerous goods do: and third, what should I as an emergency responder do. Those are the three basic questions.
There are sources of information for the question of what is involved. The traditional standard program is that dangerous goods are marked with placards or with labels if they're in small packages. You've probably seen the diamond-shaped placards on the back of trucks.
The second source of information is shipping documents. Each shipping document that accompanies dangerous goods must have on it the official shipping name - that's one of those 3,000 selections - and the official number, plus other information. It must have this, and that must travel with the dangerous goods.
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We certainly have obvious means of identifying what we're dealing with. As any fireman can tell you, if it's a Superior Propane tank truck that has rolled over we know what the product is. Of the last 34 major accidents we've had, a significant number were propane and readily identifiable without any system.
The fourth significant means we have for identifying what is involved is the train consist. This is a document that is held on the train and also held centrally at the dispatch office of the train, and lists all of the cars in the train in order and also which cars have dangerous goods.
The next source is you can go directly to dispatch offices. If you go to the dispatch offices, there are ways you can do this. We have connections from CANUTEC to many dispatch offices, trains and trucking companies where we'll go directly to find information.
Operation Respond is establishing the same kind of a link, whereby they will go directly from wherever they dial into Operation Respond to a dispatch office. So for those companies who had data, who are in the Operation Respond program, this also provides a rapid response to what is involved.
The last one I listed in my list on the transparencies I had was the consignor himself. The person who shipped can tell us considerable information about that shipment. I'm on slide ten, if that was of worry to anyone.
On the sources of information, now that you know what it is, the second question that every emergency responder must ask is ``What could the dangerous goods do?'' There are two sources of information, and this is where I'll come back to my two layers.
Information must be present on the shipping document to talk about what could happen in an accidental release of these dangerous goods. So you can find information on the shipping document.
You can find information in books such as this, the North American Emergency Response Guidebook, which is put together with the cooperation of three governments - Canada, United States and Mexico - and which Transport Canada provides to the fire departments. We provide sufficient copies so that one copy of this can be placed on each fire department vehicle in Canada. The purpose of the book is to either enter through the yellow pages or the blue pages - that is, with the shipping name or the shipping number - to send you to the proper orange pages. The orange pages then give you initial emergency response. That's one system.
Other systems are computer programs such as CAMEO or computer programs such as Operation Respond. Again, when you link through Operation Respond, even if you have not connected with a dispatcher, if you do know the product, you can connect with Operation Respond to get similar information to what you would have here. But I point out again that all this information is at the level of the 3,000.
If you need more information than that, you have to pass to someone like CANUTEC or CHEMTREC. These are emergency response information centres, or the centres for disease control. There are times when the subdivision in the 3,000 is not sufficient; you need to know more information about the particular product.
So we found out what it is and what it can do, and the final question is ``What should I as an emergency responder do?'' Again, the division comes in two levels. For the short term, quick sources are the North American Emergency Response Guidebook, shipping documents, and computerized sources such as CAMEO or Operation Respond.
Later on, at all times, CANUTEC is used for very precise answers and advice, and CANUTEC calls out teams such as the CEP team, the CHLOREP team for chlorine incidents, emergency response assistance plans, which are required to be in place by Transport Canada for companies who are shipping very dangerous goods. In cases in which there is a requirement for industry to respond, then we call out that industry and the industry will respond.
Most of the response at an accident, after the first 15 minutes or 30 minutes, when let's say the exterior of the situation is stabilized, the heavy-duty response, is done by the industry personnel, who know the product, who have the proper kinds of suits and proper equipment.
We do recognize Operation Respond as an important supplement to that initial portion of the current program. We did provide $50,000 such that the software could be installed, tested, and training be provided in Burnaby. We also provided to Operation Respond $10,000 so they could provide their input into CN and their input into CP.
I do note that the figure of $250,000 has been used often, and that came out of earlier hearings when someone asked what it would cost - not what it would have cost Transport Canada but what it would cost to establish a test site.
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At that time we had been talking with Conrail, who said that in order for them to adjust their database so that it could be accessed by Operation Respond, they spent $60,000 U.S. So as an estimate, we used $60,000 for CN, $60,000 for CP, the two $10,000 chunks, and the money we were spending on the installation and training at Operation Respond, plus travel and so forth, and came up with roughly $250,000 Canadian. That was the origin of that particular number.
We do support the program very much when the data exists. When the data does not exist, it's an entirely different story, and that's the question when it comes to the very costly figure.
There have been two programs proposed over time. One was to have a centralized database - or even a distributed database - where the information was required to be presented. This was what was first proposed in the United States. It was studied by the National Academy of Sciences, and the conclusion was that this kind of a system was far too expensive for what the National Academy of Sciences saw being drawn out of it.
When the proposal was first made to Transport Canada, again for a centralized mandatory reporting into a computer database or a distributed database, we had to point out the caution that industry had told us it would be quite expensive. The numbers presented showed a cost of approximately $80 million a year to maintain this kind of data. The heavy costs come down to whether or not this is a voluntary system or a mandatory system. If it's a mandatory system, that's where we are resistive, I guess. If it's a voluntary program, we are full-heartedly in support of it.
The test site of the Burnaby fire department will soon be in operation. Involved will be Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, and the two trucking companies now in the program, Yellow Freight and Chemical Leaman.
Dan Collins and I spoke recently about a proposal he was making. He had heard of activities going on under NAFTA which were to facilitate cross-border traffic of trucks from the U.S. into Canada and vice versa. I didn't know much about it and we thought perhaps we should chase customs brokers to see if we could hook up with some trucking information.
Subsequent to that, I received a package from Revenue Canada, which has a program called ``Accelerated Commercial Release Operations Support System''. It's a terrible title, but the acronym is ACROSS, which was the purpose, I guess, of the terrible title.
A company in this program will, by electronic data interchange, send forward to the border details on the truck - essentially, the licence plate - and what is contained in the truck. If it is dangerous goods, there will be comments on the dangerous goods. When the truck arrives at the border, if it is pre-cleared - there is a little electronic gismo on it - it will be given a green light to drive through. If the truck has to stop there's a red light. It stops and they do the normal customs clearance.
After talking with Dan and hearing about this, we find this concept very interesting. Here is a case in which the data is free, and where the data is free, we're very enthusiastic.
The next meeting of the committee dealing with ACROSS is on April 4. We will be attending and we will be seeing if we can have the dangerous goods information posted to the system in such a way that it will provide information. Secondly, we will want to deal with them to see if we can have Operation Respond connect to those databases. That would go a long way towards picking up information on trucks that is currently not there in this kind of system. We're supportive of that concept.
I would like to point out that in Canada there are approximately 4,000 fire departments. There are in fact 3,951 fire departments, of which 228 are professional and 353 are composite, that is, some are professional and the rest are volunteers. The rest are volunteer fire departments.
I want to point this out because for the last 34 events that we judged serious enough to send our own response experts to... When a Transport Canada expert does go to a site he has extraordinary powers to require certain actions to take place or not take place, and we exercise these actions certainly when the industry response team is providing emergency response under one of our approved response plans, so our people would be there. For these last 34 events, 12 were responded to by professional fire departments, 11 were responded to by composites and 11 were responded to by volunteers. Essentially, each type of fire department is extremely important to us.
Transport Canada does encourage the development of Operation Respond in all cases where the data does exist, such as with CN and CP, and Transport Canada will be taking steps to try to integrate the ACROSS program.
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We have two initiatives we will be working on in respect of Operation Respond. The first is the ACROSS program. The second is that we have in CANUTEC the same program that is in Burnaby, and we've been examining it to see how readily we can convert it into French so that we could use the program throughout Canada. I talked briefly with Dan about that this morning. The superficial interface can be changed very quickly. It's a built-in power builder. The inside also appears to the two of us non-highly technical persons to be a relatively simple matter to convert. The information provided will be in the French version of the North American Emergency Response Guidebook. We would then have a program we could use throughout Canada in either English or French.
Those are my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Dr. Read, before I open the floor to questions, I wonder if you could comment on this issue of independent truckers as opposed to systems. You're saying that your interest right now is in the relationship with CN and CP. Does it extend or potentially extend beyond that to the large trucking systems? What's the relationship with the trucking industry?
Dr. Read: The operation of Canada's dangerous goods program is a very solid partnership between the federal government and the provinces. Those of us who deal with the regulations meet twice a year. Regulations are developed under the federal act and then adopted under provincial acts. When it comes to enforcement on highways, the provinces do all of that enforcement. The federal government does all of the enforcement at shipping locations and for rail, marine and air. So road is really a provincial jurisdiction, which is jealously guarded by the provinces, as I'm sure you're aware.
The Chairman: That's whenever it's running well.
Dr. Read: Yes. I should have clarified that.
One of the attractive parts of the Operation Respond Program, as Mr. Collins mentioned today, is that when it is recognized as a useful tool by a company that can provide data, that company provides the data at essentially very little cost to it, and we're supportive of that concept.
For trucking associations, Mr. Collins said that the Canadian Trucking Association has already expressed an interest in joining the system.
We would prefer to see Operation Respond run in Canada in the same way that it is run in the United States. We will maintain the CANUTEC system, the placards, the labels, the systems we have in place. As a parallel system, Operation Respond would operate under an agreement between it and data providers, such as CN and CP and any trucking companies, and between it and data users, such as fire departments or ourselves. It would not be run at all by the federal government.
In the United States, where it has operated for several years, they have two trucking companies on line. I think our best chance of bringing truckers into this program is through the ACROSS program. I think that is actually rather exciting. We might be able to pick up a lot of information at no cost, which can make a considerable advance.
The Chairman: Mr. Cloutier, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Michel Cloutier (Chief of Operations, CANUTEC, Department of Transport): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I don't have any opening statement or any other comments, but I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have about CANUTEC operations.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr. Mercier.
[Translation]
Mr. Paul Mercier: I am interested in the transportation of dangerous goods, because in my riding, in Blainville, we have the Stablex Canada Inc. plant. I was the mayor when it was built. So I have some idea of how it works.
We have had very few incidents since 1980-81, but on each occasion there has been co-operation between the police, the company and the carrier. Identification has been easy every time thanks to the shipping documents found in the cab of the truck.
I wonder what benefits the city or the fire department would derive from taking part in a program like Operation Respond.
[English]
Dr. Read: Essentially, Stablex is dealing with waste dangerous goods, and it's difficult to give a really precise name to what is involved in the waste. It could be a mixture of several different kinds of waste. I think that for trucks that are going to Stablex, the question of identification is not the major issue. We know what they're carrying. Generally speaking, they're carrying waste, and normally it's a kind of waste that Stablex can handle, which means it's not going to be a compressed gas and so forth.
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The advantage in such an instance is not as dramatic as it could be in other situations. Operation Respond would not necessarily give you any grand insight into what is carried. Nevertheless, Operation Respond in their software, such as with the CANUTEC book, the North American Emergency Response Guidebook, CAMEO or other programs, can provide you with information on what to do while you're responding in the first short while. It's parallel with other programs in providing basic information, and on that it can do that very well.
The Chairman: Mr. Gouk.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Mr. Chairman, I have just a couple of questions.
With due deference to your comments at the beginning, could I ask the officials from either department if there is any commitment, any plan of a commitment or any recommendation as to further funding for the phase two test in addition to the $200,000?
The Chairman: I think the recommendations fall into a different category of information around here, Mr. Gouk.
Mr. Jim Gouk: I just want to know if the department has any particular plans or suggestions with regard to what kind of funding is available, might be available or is being contemplated.
Dr. Read: In response to the motion in the House, the minister stated that he would ensure that there was an Operation Respond site established in Burnaby. The site was named. He did specify that he would request CN and CP to participate, which he has done, and they have agreed, and that he would fund the training required for the Burnaby fire department. So that was the response in the House to the request. The department has done that, and all of that is in place. So that part has been done.
On the question of the $250,000, that number was bantered about before. But as I said earlier, that was the total cost, not the Department of Transport's cost, to establish the initial site. There was no $250,000 allocated from the Department of Transport. There was only ever $50,000.
On the final point, the expanded phase two, I first saw it in a copy of a letter that recently came to the Minister of Transport and to which he has replied. In the reply, which I happened to see yesterday, he said that he would welcome the participation of other communities but that he would leave it to their discretion as to whether or not they wished to participate and to fund their participation.
Mr. Jim Gouk: You said that you would like to see this system working, that it is a good system generally, particularly in terms of voluntary participation. You've talked about the regulatory role of your department and about responding to certain types of sites and so on. The government has two primary functions, a safety and a regulatory role. If this is a successful test and it becomes functional and starts to get acceptance in the various communities, is it going to enhance safety for the department and to reduce the regulatory and on-site cost for the government?
Dr. Read: Moving to the second question first, we support the portion of Operation Respond that is run on a voluntary basis by industry for data that exists. We have never supported the request, which was made to us several years back, that the department mandate the creation of this data. It was then summarized in the words central data base. Subsequently, it has been talked about as a distributed database. But the department does not support requiring by regulation that shippers of products record the stuff in some form that could then be used by Operation Respond.
Once we get past that, Operation Respond has no impact on our regulatory activities or on the costs of the department. If it is running the way it runs in the United States, with a voluntary agreement among the providers of data - that is, Operation Respond - and the users of data, that's an acceptable program.
In answer to your first question, would Operation Respond by itself assist in safety, it's a response package. It will not prevent accidental releases. This is where most of our energy is spent. Most of our activity, such as developing our package designs and working with railway tank cars, is all in order to prevent accidental releases. Once the release occurs or you have a situation wherein there might be a release, Operation Respond is, I would say, an equal partner to other tools that can be used by first responders to aid them in their first 15 minutes to half an hour of response.
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Mr. Jim Gouk: Thank you.
The Chairman: Mr. Robinson.
Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a couple questions, again coming back to the issue of where we go beyond phase one, both in terms of establishment of the test site and in terms of evaluation.
Dr. Read has obviously heard the evidence this morning, particularly of Mr. Collins, with respect to the second phase and the specific proposals that have been made there in terms of involving additional emergency responders, incorporating B.C. Rail, VIA Rail, some of the other motor carriers that travel through the Vancouver area, and then the proposal for an evaluation system.
We all know that ultimately it will be the minister who makes the decision as to whether additional resources will be allocated, but as with all ministers, they rely pretty heavily on the advice of their professional public servants. I am a little concerned to hear from Dr. Read that basically phase one is funded and that you're on your own after that.
In terms of making this a comprehensive and thorough test, for example, the proposal with respect to inclusion of passenger rail will obviously involve some additional cost - to get Operation Respond up and running there, to expand it beyond the motor carriers and the additional emergency responders, and so on.
The motion that was passed by the House didn't talk about a single city; it said a test site. What we're hearing from firefighters this morning and from Operation Respond is that to make this test site viable, it has to expand beyond simply one city into adjacent municipalities to be effective. Obviously that is going to involve some additional resources.
What I'm asking both Dr. Read and Mr. Cloutier from CANUTEC is whether they're prepared to have another look at this - to sit down with Mr. Collins and with the representatives of the firefighters, and look at these particular items that might not add up in the end to $175,000. U.S. It might come in at less than that, particularly if, for example, we can get some funding from VIA Rail, if VIA Rail is in on this, and if they are prepared to kick in some money.
What I hope to hear from Dr. Read is that the door isn't closed - that you're prepared to look at the proposal that has been made and perhaps re-examine the issue of resources in light of some of the recommendations that have been made this morning and previously.
Dr. Read: I did talk with Mr. Collins earlier on. He asked what my view was on enlarging the number of sites participating in the test site. I said if other municipalities would like to come into the program, we certainly would not stand in their way, and would welcome it with open arms, though not necessarily with an open pocketbook at the moment.
The minister, in his reply to Mr. Robinson's request, did also point out that he would welcome the participation of other communities.
Speaking from my very small purse, in my small corner of the government, I did say toMr. Collins that we could pay for the software alone. That's $400 per community, and I myself could make that decision, and I would certainly do that, which would bring the other communities in immediately.
As far as computer facilities, if they didn't have them, I wasn't ready to make that commitment from my purse. As far as training was involved, I wasn't willing, again, to commit money to Operation Respond to provide that kind of training, as it's expensive to bring the trainers from elsewhere.
But as far as the idea of narrowing the test to determine whether it fails or whatever, I mean, these words don't really have a say here. We would welcome the test being as large as possible. Moreover, as some people have already pointed out, we know the software works. You can use this software to check data that already exists.
Clarifying once again, the department's only opposition is to the next stage, and to the past requests, which have been that the department step in, and through regulations, make the generation of the data mandatory. That's the one that has caused such a stir with the industry. That's the one the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S. has declined. That's the one we have earlier declined. That's the high-price item we are focused on. The rest of the program we're quite comfortable with.
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As for VIA Rail, we have been hounding VIA Rail continuously for a year now for schematics. We have schematics that are not really suitable. I know VIA Rail has already agreed with Operation Respond that they would participate, so we are working as we can with VIA to try to get the schematics for the passenger cars.
Mr. Svend Robinson: And the trucking associations?
Dr. Read: The trucking associations - again, with my small purse I would rather put our research money into the ACROSS program, as I really do think we would get much more success. I look to the U.S. and recognize that they only have two trucking companies after several years of effort. There's no reason for me to believe we'd be far more successful.
In addition, we're not as close to the trucking companies as we are to the railway companies. If the minister writes to a railway company, they give great respect to his letter. The trucking companies consider themselves to be under provincial authority. We don't have as much suasion over the trucking companies as we do over the rail lines. But if there are trucking companies who would be willing to come in, we would love to have trucking companies in. There's no way we want to keep this program down and narrow.
My last point, if I could, is on the evaluation. The department is quite prepared to have the evaluation done sort of at arm's length from Transport, if that's what people would like to see. The minister does have an advisory council that has 25 members. The only civil servant on the council is the chairman of the council. The rest are from industry, from the fire chiefs, from the police chiefs, from municipalities, from environmental groups - from all that we can think of. In addition,Mr. Ritchie has recently been appointed as a participating observer, because there is a legal limit of 25 seats on the council, so there is now a 26th seat for a participating observer.
We have already said we would prefer that the council determine how this should be evaluated, in conjunction with the IAFF and Operation Respond.
We are quite willing to see an open and fair evaluation. We certainly support any program that is going to assist in emergency response. The only difficulty we have with Operation Respond is not the Operation Respond in its present form, but the earlier requests for mandatory reporting of data. That's the item we -
Mr. Svend Robinson: I have one final question, Mr. Chairman. Following up on the last response, in terms of evaluation, this advisory council meets, what, twice a year, is it?
Dr. Read: That's right.
Mr. Svend Robinson: Obviously there's a staff, an ongoing staff, and I assume Dr. Read is the key staff person. I assume he's not suggesting that the council itself do the evaluation, because that would mean effectively that Dr. Read would be evaluating this process. They would presumably determine some form of independent arm's-length review. I hope that would be the case.
The other suggestion was that all rail and truck incident responses over a longer period of time be monitored. If you're going to evaluate - even though you just have the one test site, which hopefully will be expanded a bit - during the particular period of time you would also see if there are any other incidents going on elsewhere in the country.
Obviously CANUTEC hopefully would be responding to those, but if you're going to do an evaluation, you would have to keep track of those other incidents and say okay, if Operation Respond had been in place wherever you had this incident - in New Brunswick or in Hamilton or anywhere else - would it have made a difference?
I hope you're in a position to cooperate with that, Dr. Read.
The Chairman: If I may, Dr. Read, before you answer...
Mr. Robinson, I thought I heard Dr. Read say that this council has a departmental chair, but that the other 25 members are indeed drawn from the community. Unless Mr. Ritchie has all of a sudden become a lackey of the department because he's been appointed to this council, we assume there is some element of independence in this.
I realize the bureaucrats can exercise all sorts of nefarious levels of control - they influence and soon have Mr. Ritchie trained - but I think it's fair to say that council is pretty independent already.
Mr. Svend Robinson: The question, though, is in terms of actual evaluation. The council itself isn't going to do that, Reg. They are going to have to establish a mechanism to do that. That's the point that...
The Chairman: Yes, all right.
Dr. Read.
Dr. Read: I would like to point out that nefarious control is highly overrated. It does not exist.
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You're quite right. The advisory council is 25 independent people. They have their own views, which they certainly tell us sometimes. We don't control them. There are people on the council who are interested in what the evaluation would be. There are certainly data providers who are interested. Both railways are represented on the council. Mr. Ritchie is on the council. We do expect that the council will provide us with some guidance as to how they would like to have this evaluation carried out.
I would be very comfortable if it was somebody other than me doing the work. I can do the work. I can do you a nice, fair job, but if there is an appearance of a conflict of interest, I'd be willing to have someone else do it.
But we're going to depend on the council. They provide the minister with advice.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: I asked the question about other incidents in Canada and monitoring them.
Dr. Read: The other question was on recording other incidents. To be more clear on this, the law requires that when there is an accident with dangerous goods on a train, the train company should notify CANUTEC immediately. At the time that happens, we also know what is involved on the train.
With respect to truck accidents, the law requires that a report should be made to the nearest local police. So there are many truck incidents in Canada of which we are totally unaware.
We will be brought into the situation if we go past that first layer of the 3,000 cases into more detailed information. At that point, when they call CANUTEC, we then have more information, but on the initial contact, response, or determination, all this is done through the provinces, not federally. This is the case for trucks.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: But in terms of those more serious incidents, presumably you could in fact keep track of them, what the circumstances were, and whether Operation Respond would have indeed made a difference in those incidents.
Dr. Read: We certainly keep track of all incidents we are aware of. The decision as to whether or not Operation Respond would have helped in the initial identification of the product would, I suggest, be more difficult to do. That's because we will not know the details of who came across the scene, what was involved, and how they found things out.
It might be something that with the cooperation of the IAFF, firefighters across Canada could keep their own records of incidents they responded to. I just don't see that we have the kind of information needed to do a good job on that.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: If this were part of the evaluation, you could presumably have a standard set of questions with respect to who came on the scene initially, how much time it took them to respond, and whether they had the information readily available as to what was in the particular train or truck. It's not that difficult to figure out a series of questions you could ask in the case of these serious incidents. If this thing is going to be effective, you could presumably design that.
Dr. Read: The form has been designed and has already been taught to the Burnaby fire department as of Monday of this week.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: But in the case of other incidents, you could ask those questions as well.
Dr. Read: Well, we could ask the questions, but, again, it's difficult for me to commit myself to giving you accuracy on information that comes to us second hand or third hand that's really at arms' length. We can make an effort in the direction, but I cannot guarantee that we can give you accuracy in incidents we don't handle ourselves.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: But you are prepared to make a serious effort to get this information for comparative purposes.
Dr. Read: We do record the information we receive on truck incidents. We will continue to record that. We do have the form. The form is already with the Burnaby fire department. It is available to the International Association of Fire Fighters, which could certainly distribute it across Canada to fire stations.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: I'm asking the department to show some leadership to make this evaluation work.
The Chairman: I think it's fair to say that all efforts by the Department of Transport are serious ones, Mr. Robinson.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson: I'm asking them to make an effort to do this properly, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: I'm sure they will. Thank you.
Mr. Cullen.
Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I feel I must ask the question: is it the position today of Operation Respond that this program should be a mandated program or a voluntary program?
Mr. Collins: Very definitely this should stay a voluntary program. There is no need for this to be mandated.
Mr. Roy Cullen: I guess I was hearing from the department that there was some indication earlier on that your position was that it should be mandated. So you dropped that. That shouldn't be a concern to anybody then, is that right?
Dr. Read: Just for clarification, it was never Operation Respond's position that it be mandatory; it was IAFF's position that it be mandatory.
Mr. Roy Cullen: Oh.
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Mr. Collins: It was not necessarily for Operation Respond, but I'll let Fred address that.
What they were talking about then was a national database that motor carriers and railroads would be required to keep updated and constantly feed information to. Before Operation Respond came into being, there was a movement afoot to mandate such a system.
The Chairman: Mr. Nesbitt, do you want to jump in here?
Mr. Nesbitt: Yes.
When we first advanced the idea in the United States, we basically advocated a centralized computer that could be accessed, and all data would be in that computer. But our position has always been that if there's a better way of doing things, we're always open to it. In that time period, what happened was that new technology was developed. Certainly the railroads in the United States became totally computerized; and among the trucking companies, the major carriers became computerized. It was a question of profit and dollars. Our philosophy was that if the information was already available, and if the railroads and trucking companies were doing it and profit depended upon the accuracy of the information - it has to be pretty accurate - this was a better way of doing it.
We support a voluntary system. As long as we have access to the information and the data, it doesn't have to be in a centralized computer. If we can have access to the carrier's computer, that's great.
The Chairman: Mr. Cullen.
Mr. Roy Cullen: I just have a couple more really quick questions.
This ACROSS program clearly will deal with cross-border shipments. For shipments that originate and end in Canada and are therefore not covered, however, what percentage will be picked up by this ACROSS program?
Dr. Read: I did put out the statistic earlier. As reported to me by the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association, 80% of the chemicals used in Canada are imported from the U.S, and 80% of the products produced by the CCPA are exported to the U.S.
I'm not offering ACROSS as the final answer to everything, but I am saying that ACROSS appears to be there. It appears to be an electronic system that is amenable to being used in the Operation Respond program, and we should pick it up. It sits there as a plum ready to be plucked.
Mr. Roy Cullen: I have a question about biotechnology. Maybe I can save it for another day. I'm finding that the biotechnology industry is sometimes ahead of the regulators. Maybe this is also a case in terms of dangerous goods. Is it an area you're looking at? There are a number of biological solutions that are being produced and sought for chemicals. It seems to me that this is an emerging issue over time. Are you dealing with that? Are you concerned about it?
Dr. Read: Yes, naturally. It is an emerging issue. So are the words ``endocrine disrupter''. If you really want an emerging topic, there's one to remember.
If I back up a bit, under the United Nations classification scheme, there are 250,000 to 300,000 new chemicals added each year. We don't look at these chemicals; we have a series of tests. No matter how many chemicals are introduced into transportation, the tests deal with all of them. As new chemicals, new biologicals and new infectious substances develop, they are automatically added into the program and are automatically classified. The packaging is automatically specified. We do have very extensive packaging for risk group four - infectious substances - all the way down to risk group two. Risk group one is not regulated because those under it are not a serious risk.
On the question of designer genes, as we call them, they are again a matter in which we get involved only if they fit into the category of infectious substances. As far as growing weeds faster than before and that sort of environmental damage is concerned, they don't fall into our mandate, but they certainly are covered by Agriculture Canada and Environment Canada.
The Chairman: Designer jeans are something I don't fit into any more.
I would like to ask a brief question. Is the Province of British Columbia contributing to this test?
Mr. Collins: So far the province of British Columbia has not been involved. Through B.C. Rail and through the Southern Railway's involvement, we would hope to get the province into the program. With its regulatory emergency response authority over motor carriers - which I learned about today - I think B.C. would have a very definite role to play.
The Chairman: Is it that they haven't been asked at the present time?
Mr. Collins: They haven't been asked.
The Chairman: Because of your expanded information, you will be hotfooting it back to -
A voice: I'm sure it's in a good office with Mr. Robinson. With his help, I'm sure it will become a reality.
The Chairman: Mr. Gouk has a very close relationship with the B.C. government, I'm told.
Mr. Jim Gouk: Just like you and me, Reg.
The Chairman: Absolutely.
I think that covers the field. I think Mr. Robinson and I will need to have a chat when we bring this issue forward when the minister is here.
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Mr. Robinson, I want to thank you and your good offices for making sure this issue arrived here.
Gentlemen, I want to thank you for participating. I certainly congratulate the firefighters in Canada for being a group that has been very effective in bringing issues forward to this House. And Dr. Read and Mr. Cloutier, I appreciate your attendance here.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Chair, I wonder if could receive some kind of assistance on that last point. As far as follow-up is concerned, obviously we want to know what the committee is prepared to do in terms of any recommendations to the minister. What is the schedule of the committee in terms of hearing from the minister?
The Chairman: We made a decision a couple of weeks ago. Because this is a relatively new process and we are, in fairness... I should say, Dr. Read, that I have sat at both ends of this table, so I have some appreciation for the position the department officials were put into.
Anyway, we will walk our way through the various issues we want to deal with. We'll make a list of the questions that truly are the questions for the government, and the minister will come in at the end. So at this point, depending on how quickly we move through the list we have, we're looking at having the minister come in some time around the third or fourth week in April.
Mr. Robinson: We're up against certain possible constraints, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: I am assured we will complete this before any possible constraints emerge. In fairness, Mr. Chrétien does not consult with me on these matters, but I'm told with reasonable certainty that the month of April will be a month to get this estimates work done.
Mr. Robinson: And the minister will be back in the month of April.
The Chairman: The minister will be coming as the last witness on this, so all of the issues... This is one set of issues, but there are several others we will want to discuss with the minister. So that you may be present here, I will certainly inform you at the moment such a meeting has been called, and the minister will be informed as to the list of specific questions we want to go through in order that we can have a substantive discussion.
Mr. Robinson: And the committee will presumably be making recommendations following that.
The Chairman: This committee will have to consider what it does in terms of its report to the House. Okay?
Mr. Robinson: Yes.
The Chairman: Thank you all.
We are adjourned.