Falsified safety records, broken rails, fragile tanks, damaged locomotive, train immobilized on a slope, no emergency derailleur: everything came together on July 6, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic, to trigger the country’s worst rail disaster. Ten years later, nothing has changed in industry practices or regulations, reveals a recent docuseries by Philippe Falardeau who worries that the tragedy will repeat itself.
“Often, we make the mistake of assuming that there are authorities who ensure our safety, that after such a disaster things change. But this is not the case. […] The ticking time bomb is still active and at some point it will happen in downtown Calgary or Magog. Across the country, the potential exists, ”launched the director on Monday, on the sidelines of the media viewing of the first two episodes of the docuseries. Lac Mégantic — this is not an accident.
He himself has long thought that the train disaster – which claimed the lives of 47 people and destroyed the heart of the small Estrie town – was just an unfortunate accident that belonged to the past. It was the Mégantic essay: a tragedy announced, by author and activist Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny who opened her eyes in 2018. “It made me angry, angry with myself. I found myself naive to have thought that everything was settled, ”he confides.
From that anger came the idea of making a docuseries that would expose the truth to the general public. Based on Ms. Saint-Cerny’s research, on interviews with survivors, bereaved relatives, but also experts, Philippe Falardeau returns, in Lac-Mégantic — this is not an accidenton the decisions and conditions that led to the derailment and explosion of a train transporting crude oil, on July 6, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic.
Through the four one-hour episodes, the director also addresses the consequences of the tragedy, the repercussions of which the Méganticois are still living through 10 years later. But above all, it lifts the veil on the impunity of the railway companies and the laxity of the federal authorities in matters of security which have persisted for years.
“Not only were things not resolved, but the same conditions that existed in Lac-Mégantic led to other similar tragedies,” said Mr. Falardeau. It’s just that when it derails in a beet field in Saskatchewan, there are fewer victims and less talk.
A situation which is all the more worrying when we know that the transport of oil by rail has increased by 28,000% between 2009 and 2013, and that we continue to let the industry establish its own rules and carry out its own even the investigation during accidents.
Political silence
The director of course tried to obtain answers and alert the authorities to the situation, but without success. “A dozen senior civil servants were asked [chez Transports Canada], they systematically refused. Some were afraid to speak out, others wanted to move on, others were convinced they were going to be blamed,” he reports.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also refused his invitation, as did former transport ministers Denis Lebel, who was in office during the tragedy, and Marc Garneau, who had the Transport Safety Board report in his hands.
A refusal all the more telling, according to Mr. Falardeau, while Edward Burkhard, the former CEO of the company Montreal, Maine & Atlantic (MMA) to whom the derailed train belonged, agreed to testify in front of a camera. .
“The problem is that the Ministry of Transport has two contradictory functions: ensuring safety in all modes of transport and promoting the economy through transport. It’s difficult to reconcile the two,” insists the director.
To change things
Philippe Falardeau hopes that his docuseries will serve as a tool for those who are “better placed than [lui] politically to finally get things moving. And this, both in the rail industry and elsewhere.
“What I’m presenting is a fable not so much about the railroad industry, but about the power relationships that exist between politicians and government agencies that are supposed to regulate an industry,” he insists. What is true in the case of Mégantic on the railway industry is probably true in the case of the oil industry, the pesticide industry, the pharmaceutical industry…etc. Wherever there is economic power, there is this danger of a lack of democratic counterweight. That’s the heart of the problem. »