Board of Transport Commissioners

Last revised February 21, 2024

Regulations

Although the Board of Transport Commissioners has been making orders and rulings on a range of subjects, including railroad safety, since 1906, they have regularly been excluded from publication in the Canada Gazette.

The Statutory Orders and Regulations: Consolidation, 1949, vol. IV, p. 3961, states that "the orders and rulings of the Board of Transport Commissioners have been excluded from this consolidation by section 9(b) of The Statutory Orders and Regulations Order, 1949."

Again in 1955, the Statutory Orders and Regulations: Consolidation, 1955, vol. III, p. 2676, states that "the orders and rulings of the Board have been exempted from the operation of section 3, section 4 section 6 (1) and Section 7 of the Regulations Act."

Currently, the Statutory Instruments Regulations, C.R.C. 1978, c. 1509, s. 7(f)(i) states that orders and regulations issued or made by the Canadian Transport Commission established by the National Transportation Act are exempt from registration.  Please note that the National Transportation Act was replaced by the Canada Transportation Act in 1996.

However, as of 1972, the Revised General Orders of the Board of Transport Commissioners for Canada, 1965 are listed in the annual index to the Canada Gazette Part II, under the Railway Act and the National Transportation Act. 

These revised general orders can be found in the General Orders Consolidation, 1964: Diamond Anniversary, 1904-1965.

It contains the consolidation and revision of all General Orders and Circular Letters issued by the Board of Transport Commissioners since 1906, under four headings: Miscellaneous, Operating, Engineering and Traffic.  These orders, generally, were effective as of February 1965, when the consolidation occurred.

• Appendix I contains the list of all General Orders as revised and consolidated. 
• Appendix II contains the list of all General Orders and Circular Letters issued since the Board's inception and a certain number of ordinary orders. 
• Appendix III contains the list of all General Orders and their history.  In column one are the numbers of the revised General Orders, in column two is the subject matter of the General Order, and in column three are shown the original orders or letters from which they were consolidated.

Origins of the Board

According to the Railway Act, SC 1903, c. 58, the Board of Railway Commissioners was inaugurated on February 1, 1904. However, in a procedural glitch, the appointments to the Board had been made by Order in Council and gazetted before the Act establishing the Commission came into force. New Orders in Council had to be passed making the appointments.

The Board assumed jurisdiction over express, telephone and telegraph tolls, railway safety, electric power rates, approval of tolls for international bridges and tunnels, and jurisdiction over the abandonment of rail lines.

Name changes

With the Transport Act, SC 1938, c. 53, the Board of Railway Commissioners became the Board of Transport Commissioners and had authority over inland waterways and airlines, along with jurisdiction over railways, telegraphs, telephones, and express companies.

In 1967, the National Transportation Act, SC 1966-67, c. 69 merged the Board of Transport Commissioners with the Air Transport Board and the Canadian Maritime Commission to become the Canadian Transport Commission (CTC).

The CTC's mandate was to deal with all modes of transportation as a competitive whole with the object of coordinating and harmonising the operations of all carriers engaged in transport by railways, water, aircraft, extra-provincial motor vehicle transport and commodity pipelines.

Under the new National Transportation Act, SC 1987, c. 34 the CTC was renamed the National Transportation Agency (NTA), effective in 1988.

Finally, when the Canada Transportation Act, SC 1996, c. 10 was proclaimed into force in 1996, the NTA became the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA).