Burnaby council wants to work with other cities on railway issue

Burnaby council wants local governments to have their voices heeded when it comes to railway regulations and safety issues.

At its Monday night meeting, council received a staff report with some information on dangerous goods transported through Burnaby's tracks.

However, council was shocked and concerned to find out how the Canadian railway companies refused to give up any information for security reasons as the info could "fall into the wrong hands," according to the report from Burnaby's fire chief.

"What we need to do is get our cities together in order to up the pressure in regard to the transportation of goods in our community," Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said. "We need more knowledge and certainly some ways in which these transportation entities provide funding to cities."

"I think a lot of the information is actually quite shocking, or it was to me about the absolute lack of cooperation and the lack of information sharing sharing when it comes to the railways," Coun. Nick Volkow said. "I'm hoping this report will change that attitude."

The report goes through the various railway accidents that have occurred over the last 25 years. From 1988 to 2012, about 133 dangerous goods accidents involving 182 rail cars occurred in Greater Vancouver, according to statistics from Transport Canada.

Two of the incidents were in Burnaby, but both were minor. In 1996, one involved a drum of flammable liquid and the other, in 1993, was a spilt drum of sodium nitrate.

"They still think they're living under a regime with John A. MacDonald as the prime minister of this country and he passed away a long, long time ago," Volkow said. "But unfortunately the attitude in that railway act, that was probably implemented at the time of Confederation, is still in operation as far as the railway companies are concerned."

Corrigan agreed and said the arrogance of the Canadian railway companies is "incredible."

"The railway companies, the big railway companies, who have been part of uniting Canada in 1867 are now exercising a degree of arrogance that's intolerable in modern society and they're supported on a consistent basis by the federal government to the disadvantage of local governments who have to take this risk within their communities and we've all seen that in Lac-Megantic."

Council requested the federal government include local municipalities in future rail safety reviews, and that Transport Canada work with railway companies to give regular reports to local municipalities on shipments of dangerous goods. It also asked the federal government to enact legislation that would prevent the cost of rail safety and emergency response to come out of municipal pockets.