Article content

Confidentiality agreements that municipalities are required to sign before obtaining information on the rail transport of dangerous goods is preventing citizens from knowing whether crude oil and other petroleum products are passing by their homes and through their communities.

White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin said in an interview Tuesday his municipality signed the confidentiality agreement about a month ago and is still awaiting details on dangerous goods. Baldwin believes the confidentiality agreement — which permits release of the information only to first responders and emergency planners — is simply a way for railways to reduce public scrutiny of their operations.

“I understand their concerns, if they provide too much information they’re setting themselves up as targets of terrorism. But I suspect that any terrorist worth his salt would have figured out what’s going through anyways. So I don’t really buy that.

“What it really comes down to is they really don’t want people to know because they don’t want people to get upset. And if people are upset, it will cause them some difficulties and they just don’t want to be bothered with the hassle.”

CN Rail spokesman Mark Hallman said the railway “does not disclose the routes it uses to move commodities on its network for security reasons, and does not identify its customers or origins of traffic owing to commercial confidentiality.”