Thank you.
Your comment was that you don't discipline employees for reporting safety issues. I wanted you to know the testimony we heard at this committee was that employees were afraid to report safety concerns because they would be penalized for delaying trains. You need to know that.
I'd like to get a report from you in writing on the dynamic braking on locomotives in B.C. They were apparently taken off the locomotives, which we believe was a contributing factor to one of the accidents.
Second, I'm curious, as CN originally opposed the release of the audit that was ordered by the previous Minister of Transport under the Liberal government. That again is consistent with the concern of the testimony we heard here and on the panel.
Also, I'd like to say that I think you need to take a look at harmonizing or improving your communications with communities. When we heard testimony from the different municipalities, we heard CP was much better in responding than CN and that there was no cooperation.
Finally, on your suggestion that this photograph doesn't represent the hierarchy, if you go to the Prince George yard, this is repeated on five individual signs in another room, which go in descending order. They don't go horizontally and they're not shuffled differently; it's a descending order, and safety is the fourth down.
I want to clarify to my colleagues that when I said I was pleased, I'm not happy. I'm pleased you've been appointed and there is a change in focus. The point I made at the beginning of my testimony was that it appears since this committee began its work and since the panel was commissioned, there has been, I'm hoping, a recognition, and I'm taking you at your word that there is a recognition in CN.
I think the danger is that it's not simply what we heard from some of the senior people in CN when they testified before us that the concerns about safety were a perception rather than a reality, and they said that's your perception. Our point to them was that perception is reality. This panel's report has confirmed the reality of that perception.
When it says in the report there is a major disconnect between CN's stated objectives and what is occurring at employee levels, you don't blame the employees for that. You have to blame the company for not ensuring that those messages and policies are not only being enforced, but they're being transmitted and concern is being shown. When you have safety ranked fourth, in anybody's reasonable reading of this, you have to demonstrate that safety is number one.