►SENATE
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources: Amidst the continuing fallout from the Lac-Mégantic disaster, senators meet in camera to consider their upcoming report on bulk hydrocarbon products and transport safety.
The study began in December 2012 and included testimony from the National Energy Board, oil producers, pipeline operators, shipping and railway officials, government experts, and First Nations leaders.
Both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways promised stricter safety measures following the July 6 derailment and explosion of a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train in Lac-Mégantic, Que. However, CP is balking at paying part of the clean-up cost despite its role as the main shipment contractor.
Glen Wilson, CP's vice-president of safety, environment and regulatory affairs, told the committee in June that:
"CP employs an array of technology across its network that is increasingly effective at detecting defects in infrastructure and in the locomotives and cars moving across our network. Vast strides have been made in scanning for subsurface defects, micro cracks in steel and other early indications that cannot be detected through manual inspection process but which are allowing CP and other railways to transition from reactive to predictive.
...
"Hazardous materials or dangerous goods that we move on our network are quite vast. There are hundreds and hundreds of different products that we have to factor into our emergency response planning. We look at what those products are, where they flow from origin to destination across our network, and we look at factors like, as you mentioned, water, but also population centres. There are a number of other factors that you have to consider in planning out where you put your resources and what resources you put in those locations."
-Andrew Thomson
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