91��ɫ

On the 10th anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster, what’s changed?

On July 6, 2013, , a small town in southeastern Québec. It killed 47 people, orphaned 26 children, spilled a record six million litres of oil and incinerated the town centre.

It was the worst rail disaster in more than a century — a catastrophe described by the editor of the local weekly newspaper as “.”

In my book  I detail how the tragedy was the consequence of four decades of mutually reinforcing policies — deregulation, privatization, tax cuts and austerity — that eroded transportation safety protections. They entrenched the power of railway corporations in concert with government enablers and regulators — a phenomenon known as “regulatory capture.”

Austerity produced a vicious cycle where gutted regulatory resources increased pressure to devolve responsibility to private companies. Euphemistically called co-regulation or partnership, it was, in effect, self-regulation.

Oil by rail

In the years leading up to the disaster, . Resources within regulatory agencies were woefully inadequate to deal with the mounting danger.

In 2009, there was the equivalent of 14 tank carloads of crude oil per inspector working under the federal government’s . By 2013, that ratio had increased to about 4,500 carloads per inspector.

The railway lobby, along with its petroleum allies, successfully argued that additional safety regulations to address the danger were not necessary. They also secured a change in the rules to allow trains carrying dangerous goods  despite much opposition, including from within Transport Canada.

Huge volumes of volatile oil were being hauled through Lac-Mégantic by  known as MMA — a company with a downsized workforce, shoddy locomotives, a poor safety record and operating on a poorly maintained track.

The first to move cargo under the single-operator rule, .  railways carrying dangerous goods in these tank cars for years.

It was a perfect storm of regulatory failure and corporate negligence; an accident waiting to happen.

Who’s been held accountable?

Three front-line workers were  in the Lac-Mégantic disaster.

No senior official, politician, corporate executive, director or owner has been held to account for their role and responsibility for the tragedy. Successive governments have refused demands by the community to establish an 

Civil suits, including a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of town residents, resulted in a 2015 plea deal with 24 defendants, including the federal government, contributing to a  protecting them from further charges.

A lone defendant, Canadian Pacific Railway — the company contracted to transport the cargo from North Dakota to the Irving refinery in Saint John, N.B. — refused to settle.

After repeated delays, Québec Superior Court ruled in December 2022 that  suffered by the Lac-Mégantic victims — another setback in the fight for justice. The plaintiffs have appealed the court ruling.

Disaster aftershocks

The Lac-Mégantic community has been plagued by a legacy of economic, health and environmental aftershocks following the disaster.

Trains carrying dangerous goods continue to rumble through the town, whistles shrieking day and night. These longer, heavier trains still descend the steep slope and around the sharp curve where the fateful train derailed. They still carry dangerous goods in the original, or slightly upgraded, DOT-111 tank cars — the same kind that derailed and spilled that tragic night.

Trains with multiple tank cars containing only oil no longer run through the town, at least for now. The fear of another derailment continues to keep residents on edge.

Construction of a  around the town still hasn’t begun. The bypass was supposed to be a step toward healing Lac-Mégantic, but the .

Opposition to this route — preferred by Canadian Pacific, which will own the government-financed bypass upon completion — means further delay. Those whose lands will be appropriated are seen as the latest victims of the disaster. Completion of the bypass is years away.

In the meantime, another Lac-Mégantic-type disaster is still possible. Regulatory agency resources are still woefully inadequate to undertake effective safety oversight and enforcement.

Ongoing safety issues

Transport Canada’s  have continuously been on the Transportation Safety Board’s (TSB) watchlist created to highlight “those issues posing the greatest risk to Canada’s transportation system.”

In its most recent , the board noted that safety management systems are “still not effectively identifying hazards and mitigating risks in rail transportation.”

What’s more, the federal government is failing to lift the veil on corporate activities protected by commercial confidentiality. When compared to legislation internationally,  and  rank poorly.

The TSB’s 2022 watchlist concluded that , which include runaway trains, continue to “create high-risk situations that may have catastrophic consequences.”

Yet Transport Canada still hasn’t mandated , a move that could have prevented Lac-Mégantic and other runaway trains. Railways are unwilling to incur the extra costs involved.

Companies continue to resist installing effective work-rest practices for workers in accordance with sound science and the government’s promise to implement regulations have still not occurred. 

‘Window still open’

A 2020 report on the transportation of dangerous goods by the  warned: “The window for a recurrence of a Lac-Mégantic-type disaster is still open.”

Lac-Mégantic haunts rail transportation in North America.

If we are to minimize the risk of future disasters,  must be put in place.

While odds of transcending the power status quo are formidable, to paraphrase , giving up the fight is not an option.

By Adjunct Professor Bruce Campbell, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, 91��ɫ.

This article is republished from