When it comes to shipping dangerous chemicals on highways and railroads and pumping millions of litres of oil and gas across the country, Ottawa’s record of cracking down on companies that violate safety standards leaves a lot to be desired.
That’s just one of the many findings made by federal Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan in a damning report tabled to Parliament Tuesday.
The report documents a series of problems across Transport Canada, the National Energy Board, and Environment Canada, including a failure to enforce safety regulations and a lack of required training for inspectors. But the most common problem among the departments is a lack of follow-up after violations have been discovered.
“Inspectors find problems and deficiencies, but they don’t know whether these problems have been corrected,” Vaughan said Tuesday. “Canadians would certainly be better protected if these regulations were enforced correctly.”
In his audit of Transport Canada, Vaughan and his team examined 49 compliance reports for inspections done between 2008 and 2010. Inspectors found violations in more than half, including problems with containers used to transport dangerous goods, and missing warning labels. Despite the identification of these problems, there was no evidence of any corrective action taken by Transport Canada in most cases.
“These products — explosives, sulfuric acid, ammonia — pose measurable risk to human health and the environment if there’s an accident” Vaughan told the Toronto Star. “If there are deficiencies in these warning labels, the first at risk will be first-responders like firefighters and police, and secondly, the communities in which these events takes place.”
An average of two incidents or accidents involving the transportation of dangerous materials across the country occurs each week, he noted.
The trend of failing to follow up could also be found at the National Energy Board, the federal agency responsible for regulating Canada’s oil and gas industries.
In an audit sample of 56 compliance reports conducted between 2007 and 2010, inspectors indentified deficiencies in 64 per cent of the files. But Vaughan’s team found that inspectors had followed up on a mere 7 per cent of the cases.
Regarding his audit of Environment Canada, Vaughan said his office found that the department does not have adequate laboratory testing equipment to verify whether a company was complying with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, while enforcement officers have inadequate training to identify all violators.
His office found the department had trouble enforcing 16 of 45 regulations under the Act, while inspectors lacked required training to enforce five of the regulations.
“If you don’t have the training, you can’t fulfill the enforcement requirement,” he said. “If you don’t have the labs, you can’t take the samples to determine whether a violation has happened. If you don’t know the regulated community, you’re never going to be able to inspect them or know when an infraction has happened.”
Environment Minister Peter Kent responded to Vaughan’s findings Tuesday, saying his government places a “high value on the safe and secure transportation of materials.”
“We are proud of our record on the shipment of dangerous products, as 99.9 per cent reach their destination without incident,” he said in a statement. “We have already begun work to address the findings in this report, including a national risk-based inspection planning process which will create a harmonized and consistent framework throughout Canada.”
Origin
Source: Star
That’s just one of the many findings made by federal Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan in a damning report tabled to Parliament Tuesday.
The report documents a series of problems across Transport Canada, the National Energy Board, and Environment Canada, including a failure to enforce safety regulations and a lack of required training for inspectors. But the most common problem among the departments is a lack of follow-up after violations have been discovered.
“Inspectors find problems and deficiencies, but they don’t know whether these problems have been corrected,” Vaughan said Tuesday. “Canadians would certainly be better protected if these regulations were enforced correctly.”
In his audit of Transport Canada, Vaughan and his team examined 49 compliance reports for inspections done between 2008 and 2010. Inspectors found violations in more than half, including problems with containers used to transport dangerous goods, and missing warning labels. Despite the identification of these problems, there was no evidence of any corrective action taken by Transport Canada in most cases.
“These products — explosives, sulfuric acid, ammonia — pose measurable risk to human health and the environment if there’s an accident” Vaughan told the Toronto Star. “If there are deficiencies in these warning labels, the first at risk will be first-responders like firefighters and police, and secondly, the communities in which these events takes place.”
An average of two incidents or accidents involving the transportation of dangerous materials across the country occurs each week, he noted.
The trend of failing to follow up could also be found at the National Energy Board, the federal agency responsible for regulating Canada’s oil and gas industries.
In an audit sample of 56 compliance reports conducted between 2007 and 2010, inspectors indentified deficiencies in 64 per cent of the files. But Vaughan’s team found that inspectors had followed up on a mere 7 per cent of the cases.
Regarding his audit of Environment Canada, Vaughan said his office found that the department does not have adequate laboratory testing equipment to verify whether a company was complying with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, while enforcement officers have inadequate training to identify all violators.
His office found the department had trouble enforcing 16 of 45 regulations under the Act, while inspectors lacked required training to enforce five of the regulations.
“If you don’t have the training, you can’t fulfill the enforcement requirement,” he said. “If you don’t have the labs, you can’t take the samples to determine whether a violation has happened. If you don’t know the regulated community, you’re never going to be able to inspect them or know when an infraction has happened.”
Environment Minister Peter Kent responded to Vaughan’s findings Tuesday, saying his government places a “high value on the safe and secure transportation of materials.”
“We are proud of our record on the shipment of dangerous products, as 99.9 per cent reach their destination without incident,” he said in a statement. “We have already begun work to address the findings in this report, including a national risk-based inspection planning process which will create a harmonized and consistent framework throughout Canada.”
Origin
Source: Star
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