OTTAWA — With persistent public focus on the potential dangers of trains carrying hazardous cargo across Canada, Transport Canada is looking to launch a risk analysis of transporting dangerous goods by rail, road, sea and air.
The federal department, whose safety practices have been under intense public and political scrutiny following this summer’s disaster in Lac-Megantic, Que., is undertaking this analysis as part of its mandate for public safety, it said.
The expanded risk analysis program will, according to the department, allow it to “more effectively monitor and assess changes in risk due to changing trends in supply chain, volumes, routes, etc.”
While this signals a step in the right direction, it’s long overdue, said New Democrat transport critic Olivia Chow.
READ MORE: Watchdog called in 2011 for stricter oversight in transporting dangerous goods
“Seven years late,” she said, referring to a 2006 internal audit at Transport than indicated a need to develop a system for assessing safety risks. “Now they’re beginning to try to tackle this whole issue of evaluating risk.”
According to Transport, the risk analysis program would include: establishing a baseline for the risks involved in transporting dangerous goods across Canada by railway, analysing hazards associated with the dangerous goods transported in Canada and as well as an analysing accidents involving dangerous goods.
But first, Transport is looking to hire a company that can lay the groundwork for the risk-analysis program.
The department on Tuesday detailed the terms and conditions of a contract, which is now open for bidding, that is intended to help launch the program.
What Transport is looking for from the outside company that successfully bids on the contract—which doesn’t yet have a monetary value attached to it—is to review and report on existing research concerning the risks of transporting dangerous goods.
Further, the company would have to identify “specific data needs” for the risk analysis program and issue monthly progress reports. All this is expected to be completed in 14 weeks.
Transport Minister Lisa Raitt on Tuesday said the safety of Canadians is a top priority for her department, and that the Conservative government is continuously working toward improving the safety of transporting dangerous goods.
The minister also recently asked the House of Commons transport committee to review the rules surrounding transporting dangerous goods as well as the overall safety management systems.
Transport Canada has been working to determine what approaches it can take to mitigate the risks that come with changing trends in transporting dangerous goods.
“Doing so requires a better understanding of the risk factors associated with transportation and an assessment of additional or new measures that can be taken to reduce risk,” according to the document.
While Chow commended the federal government for getting the ball rolling, she said it’s too early to know how helpful it will be.
“It depends who gets the contract, and what the scope of the analysis will be,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s good they’re taking steps, but as for the results, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Although the risk assessment will look at potential hazards of all modes of transportation, there has been a special focus lately on Canada’s railways.
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The federal auditor general last week published a scathing report on Transport Canada’s oversight of rail safety.
The report was completed just days before tragedy struck Lac-Megantic. The town was devastated July 6 when a train carrying highly volatile crude oil barrelled toward the town and exploded, killing dozens and levelling the downtown area.
As an increasing number of high-profile train derailments across the country cause concern for public safety, Auditor General Michael Ferguson found “significant weaknesses including a lack of safety auditors, poorly-trained inspectors and an ineffective system for collecting and disseminating data.
Transport Canada recently gave official notice of its intention to amend federal regulations for transporting dangerous goods, which, the department said, contain references to standards that are out of date.
The proposed changes, published last month in the Canada Gazette, would bring Canada’s regulations in line with current safety standards and international recommendations, the department said.
The new standards described in the notice include requirements governing the selection, use and testing of several types of tanks and containers used in transporting dangerous goods.
But as it stands, the auditor general’s report suggested, Transport has no certain way of ensuring that dangerous goods are transported safely by rail.
READ MORE: Transport Canada extended deadlines imposed to address safety weaknesses
Transportation of fuel and oil by rail increased by 66 per cent between 2011 and 2012, according to federal documents released last month under Access to Information legislation.
The documents contain a memo prepared for the associate deputy minister at Natural Resources in May, when officials there were meeting with CN Rail to discuss expanding transportation of oil by rail.
The memo noted that environmental groups have been questioning the environmental and safety implications of transporting oil by rail, but concluded that accidents are fairly rare, “particularly when considering the total volumes, distances and frequency that oil is transported in Canada.”
The department reached that conclusion despite acknowledging, in the same memo, that transporting oil by rail involves “many more injuries and deaths” than pipelines.
Transporting oil by rail has expanded to the point where today, railways are moving almost as much in a day as they moved in an entire year just three years ago, with much of that going through rocky terrains in Western Canada, said Keith Stewart, a researcher for Greenpeace Canada.
So while Transport Canada’s move to conduct risk analyses is positive, it’s a little late, he said.
“I think the federal government was so focused on rapidly expanding oil exports that they completely ignored safety risks,” Stewart said. “It is the government’s job to protect communities from hazardous goods. They haven’t been doing that job, but that doesn’t mean they can’t start now … If this will be an honest risk assessment, then that can help us.”
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