Canada’s chemistry industry welcomes the Railway Safety Act Review Report

The Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) welcomes the Railway Safety Act Review Report tabled in Parliament May 31 by Minister of Transport, Marc Garneau.

“CIAC members, located across the country, are committed to rail safety and rely on rail to ship about 80 per cent of their products to market. CIAC is supportive of the panel’s view that rail safety is a shared responsibility and its overall focus on collaboration in enhancing rail safety for the future and across the country,” said Bob Masterson, President and CEO of CIAC.

CIAC also supports components of the panel’s recommendations around land use planning, as well as short line infrastructure and investment. Short lines play an important role in the national rail network and in the Canadian economy. Additionally, rail safety should be considered in a comprehensive way in land use planning as the trends of increased urbanization and increased rail traffic continue.

The panel focused on encouraging increased capacity for community outreach and public engagement, as well as the need to increase transparency and public trust related to rail safety. The Report summarizes: To achieve a resilient rail safety regime based on continuous improvement, Transport Canada will need to collaborate with railways and other stakeholders to expand its role to include critical leadership, promotion, information and facilitation functions. It will need to broaden the core responsibilities of compliance monitoring and enforcement to include working in partnership with communities, governments and others to address the key challenges of the Canadian rail safety regime of the future.

CIAC welcomes the opportunity to partner with Transport Canada, the railways and other stakeholders in using our established TRANSCAER model to help in building this knowledge and understanding.  TRANSCAER® has been facilitating a dialogue and building knowledge and collaboration between communities, railways, government, and industry for over 30 years.