XPost: can.politics, mtl.general, bc.politics   
   XPost: ab.politics   
   From: Panca@nyet.ca   
      
   Thursday, November 13, 2014 - the star.com   
      
      
   Rail carriers keep emergency response plans secret from residents   
      
   ‘We as the public keep getting asked to take on the risk … but are refused   
   basic information,’ says the Safe Rails Communities group, which sought   
   details   
   from CP and CN.   
      
      
   Railroads cut through almost every community in Canada, but the companies that   
   operate them are keeping secret from the public their emergency response plans.   
      
   A Toronto rail safety community group wrote Canada’s two largest rail   
   carriers   
   in late September asking for information on emergency response plans, insurance   
   coverage, worst-case scenarios and track maintenance.   
      
   The response was “extremely disappointing (but not surprising),” said Helen   
   Vassilakos via email.  “We as the public keep getting asked to take on the   
   risk   
   to both public safety and the public purse but are refused basic information.   
   Everything seems to be done in secret with the assumption that we should just   
   quietly go along with it.”   
      
   Vassilakos and Patricia Lai, co-founders of the Safe Rail Communities group,   
   wrote to Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway.   
      
   “We appreciate the importance of rail transport to our local and national   
   economy, but after Lac-Megantic we feel it behooves us all to explore every   
   option to guard against another such disaster,” they wrote.   
      
   In a response sent a month later, CP’s director of government affairs, Randy   
   Marsh, said the company has an emergency response plan that is “continually   
   updated and improved” and reviewed with local officials, but it is not a   
   public   
   document.  Information on track maintenance and insurance coverage isn’t   
   public, either, but the company meets or exceeds federal requirements, he   
   wrote.   
      
   “For safety, security and proprietary reasons, we do not publicly discuss a   
   number of the items you have raised,” Marsh wrote.   
      
   CP spokesperson Breanne Feigel told the Star it isn’t feasible to share the   
   company’s emergency response plan with the public.  The document runs tens,   
   if   
   not hundreds, of thousands of pages and contains complex information.   
      
   “It’s not relevant and palatable to (someone) sitting at the dinner   
   table,”   
   Feigel said.   
      
   Vassilakos and Lai both live near the CP Rail corridor that runs through the   
   Junction neighbourhood and along Dupont St.  They founded Safe Rail Communities   
   to advocate for greater rail safety in the wake of the July 2013 train   
   derailment and explosion in Lac-Megantic, Que., that killed 47 people.   
      
   While companies do not divulge information publicly about what dangerous goods   
   they transport, a Star investigation found that substances such as crude oil,   
   methanol, radioactive materials and sulphuric acid are transported along the   
   rail corridor that passes their homes in the heart of the city.   
      
   And the transportation of dangerous goods, particularly crude oil, by rail is   
   on the rise. In 2009, only 144 carloads of oil were shipped by rail in Canada.   
     By 2013, that figure was nearly 128,000.   
      
   Late last year, Transport Canada ordered railways to provide historical,   
   aggregate data to municipalities to help them prepare for emergencies,   
   information CN and CP have said they already provided upon request.  But   
   municipal officials who receive that information are sworn to strict   
   confidentiality.  Companies argue that sharing the information publicly would   
   threaten security and potentially harm business.   
      
   Transport Canada did not answer questions about the rationale behind not   
   releasing emergency response plans, instead sending information about the 2013   
   order that required companies to share dangerous goods information with   
   municipalities.  The department said that in the event of an incident, its   
   emergency response centre, CANUTEC, would provide first responders with advice.   
      
   Transport Canada does not require railways to disclose their insurance   
   coverage, as it is considered commercially sensitive.  Nor does the department   
   release information on track maintenance and inspections reports, as they   
   contain what is considered third-party and commercial information.   
      
   Peggy Nash, the NDP MP for Parkdale-High Park, said people in the community   
   want basic information about the goods moved past their homes and what to do if   
   there is an emergency.   
      
   “People are looking for some guidance ... They are also looking for   
   reassurance,” said Nash.  “They have discovered there is a very real   
   danger.”   
      
   Feigel, who did email the Star additional information on the notification   
   process the company would use if an accident occurred, as well as data on track   
   inspections, said the company shares its emergency response plan with local   
   responders, as well as providing training, and there are detailed processes and   
   protocols in place to deal with an emergency.  In the event of an incident that   
   threatened the public or the environment, local responders would assume command   
   and CP would assist with rail expertise and extra resources as needed, said   
   Feigel.   
      
   The company has trained more than 700 Toronto firefighters, and its fire chief   
   is an expert in fighting crude-oil fires, with 25 years of experience in the   
   oil fields of Alberta, said Feigel.   
      
   Feigel said Marsh attended the September meeting organized by Nash in Toronto   
   for concerned community members and answered 80 per cent of the questions from   
   the room.   
      
   “It’s a really well-regulated, well-run, safety-conscious industry that   
   had a   
   really awful event occur,” said Feigel.   
   “We are doing our due diligence. We are doing it properly.”   
      
   CN spokesperson Mark Hallman told the Star, via email, that the company has   
   taken steps to improve safety following the Lac-Megantic disaster, such as   
   acquiring new defect-monitoring equipment, conducting risk assessments of rail   
   corridors and urging mutual aid protocols for emergencies.  The company has   
   $1.24 billion in accident liability insurance and a “strong, comprehensive   
   emergency response plan,” said Hallman. CN sent a similar response to Safe   
   Rail   
   Communities after being contacted by the Star.   
      
   When asked to clarify whether CN would share emergency response plans or   
   worst-case scenarios publicly, he said the company had nothing further to add.   
      
   Mark Winfield, an associate professor at York University who studies public   
   safety regulation, said the secrecy surrounding emergency plans is “very   
   problematic” because it prevents the public from seeing if they are adequate   
   or   
   up-to-date.   
      
   “The issue again goes to basic issues of accountability and the balance   
   between   
   the economic interests of the railways and the safety interests of the public   
      
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