OTTAWA – Transport Canada says it hasn’t delivered on its own promises to improve oversight of the transportation of dangerous products in the wake of a scathing audit from 2011, including pledges to clarify its roles and responsibilities in inspections and ensure compliance from industry.

A department spokeswoman, Maryse Durette, made the comments one day after senior officials spoke to reporters about rail safety and the Lac-Mégantic train disaster, but were unable to provide details about the government’s progress in responding to the audit from the government’s environment watchdog, released in December 2011.

At the time of that audit, prepared by then-environment commissioner Scott Vaughan in the office of the auditor general, the department had pledged to complete improvements to its oversight by April 2013, in response to criticism that it wasn’t adequately tracking or following up on safety risks identified by inspectors looking at the transportation of dangerous products by different modes of transportation, including railways.

“We work collaboratively with the office of the auditor general to develop progress reports and implement timelines,” Durette told Postmedia News in a statement. “Some recommendations require more time to implement than others, which is why the (auditor general’s office) has granted the department an extension to the self-imposed deadlines.”

The auditor general’s office, which told Postmedia News on Tuesday that it was up to the department’s management to explain its progress in meeting its pledges, was not immediately able to confirm whether it had granted Transport Canada an extension.

NDP transport critic Olivia Chow said the department was offering a disorganized response to important safety concerns, also raised in internal government discussions several years earlier.

“It’s totally unacceptable,” Chow said in an interview. “There’s no business out there that could justify saying: ‘We don’t really have a performance standard to measure all our staff against.’ ”

Dozens of people are believed to have perished after rail cars carrying oil from an unmanned train exploded after derailing and crashing into the small Quebec town Friday night.

While Chow said there was not enough information to know whether the oversight weaknesses played a role in the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, she suggested that the unfulfilled pledges were “fundamental” to ensuring public safety.

She also questioned the relevance of the department improving training and its risk assessment strategies in the absence of completing its review of its own roles and responsibilities and delivering a quality control plan to guide inspectors.

“The Transport Department had a long time to set performance standards and establish a quality assurance program and set up a database so that they could track who’s at risk and who isn’t,” she said.

Overall, Durette said, the department had completed seven out of ten commitments emerging from the 2011 audit, related to training and strengthening its procedures for overseeing the transportation of dangerous goods.

But it had extended plans until next year to deliver on commitments to establish a quality assurance plan for following up on compliance, as well as to “clarify and document roles and responsibilities” of various groups “involved in the inspection of dangerous goods.” It also extended plans to “update and implement a performance measurement strategy” for the transportation of dangerous goods.