We will soon mark with emotion the ten years that separate us from the mad dash of a Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) train in the heart of downtown Lac-Mégantic, on July 6, 2013. Causing a spectacular fire, the wagons destroyed everything in their path, killing 47 people. You never fully recover from such a tragedy. Sadly, the debates surrounding the construction of a bypass, to avoid the passage of trains loaded with dangerous products in the heart of Lac-Mégantic, divide the residents.
After negotiations started in October 2021 with the inhabitants of Lac-Mégantic, Nantes and Frontenac, the three municipalities directly affected by future construction work on a new route, the federal government had to resolve to impose its decision. Last week, he decreed about forty expropriations; the reasoned negotiation, extended three times by Transport Canada, failed. Angry residents speak of lack of respect, inhuman decision, double tragedy, some of them being forced to add to the loss of a loved one in 2013 the imminent destruction of their home, which was sometimes transmitted from family in the family for several generations. Canada will take possession of the lands on the 1er next August, and that seems final.
Is there really a saga of expropriation whose last chapter suited everyone, and which ended in generalized collective happiness? We can doubt it. Of course, the government would have liked to avoid expropriating, and to be able to conclude agreements by mutual agreement with all the villagers concerned, the latter being financially compensated for this vast inconvenience. He was unable to do so. However sympathetic we may be with these people who will soon see their lives take a new turn, we have to admit that the federal government’s decision seemed inevitable.
The chosen bypass has been subject to essential official approvals, and several mitigation measures, some of which directly concern the inhabitants, have been recommended and accepted by the authorities. The Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) gave its approval in 2020, and published a list of some 140 requests intended to mitigate the impacts of such a construction: the protection of soil and water , landscapes and soil quality, the sound environment, psychosocial support, the protection of agricultural and forestry activities, as well as infrastructures and recreational tourism activities, are among the many issues identified by the BAPE. Transport Canada is committed to respecting these requests.
Can we really blame the city of Lac-Mégantic, which still trembles under the passage of trains loaded with hazardous materials, for wanting to put an end to this dangerous railway route? To ask the question, is to answer it. Ten years after the passage of the runaway train, as remained in the memories of witnesses and survivors, the bypass is still only at the planning stage, which constitutes a considerable political embarrassment. In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, the mayor of Lac-Mégantic, Julie Morin, was concerned about the apparently increasing number of trains crisscrossing her city. “The convoys are getting longer and longer” and there would be “more and more” hazardous materials, she said, still inhabited by the fear of another tragedy.
Shouldn’t this feeling be enough to convince of the importance of imminent work? The route of the bypass alone will reduce the number of level crossings from 16, which it currently is, to 4, which is an eloquent demonstration. It will also reduce the slope, because we remember that the topography between the village of Nantes and Lac-Mégantic played a major role on the night of the tragedy, the train having accelerated between the two cities due to a steep drop. Finally, the bypass will above all considerably reduce the number of residences located near the railway line.
But since we cannot reason with feelings, the government must listen to the grievances and frustrations of the expropriated with patience and respect. The fact of having learned in an “e-mail” of the final sentence of expropriation shocked the recalcitrant owners, who would have liked such an announcement to be made with more consideration. They are right, and their request for an office close to the authorities to hear their claims is not unreasonable, because in the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, psychological injuries and the protection of the social fabric were issues of primary importance. . This applies to all citizens, regardless of which side they are on.