Vol. 80/No. 26 July 18, 2016
Quebec court gives green light to frame-up trial of
rail worker
For the first time, prosecutors finally spelled out the details of their allegations against Harding and train controller Richard Labrie, two years after they were both charged with 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death, one count for each of the people who died. The two are members of United Steelworkers Local 1976. Former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway official Jean Demaitre faces similar charges. The case is expected to go to trial sometime in 2017.
The railway was also initially charged with criminal negligence. During the hearing the lawyer for the now bankrupt company, whose assets have been sold off, asked to be excused from the case saying he is not receiving clear direction.
The “petition to quash” by Harding’s attorney Thomas Walsh said that the prosecutor has repeatedly denied Harding access to information needed for his defense. “For three years the actions of the [prosecutor] guarantees that there will not be a fair trial,” Walsh said at the hearing.
The night of the disaster, Harding — the only crew member because the government’s Transport Canada agency allowed the railroad to run oil trains with a one-person crew — carried out the company’s procedures he had been following for years. After his 12-hour shift Harding parked the train on an inclined track seven miles from Lac-Mégantic, left the lead engine running to power its air brakes, set hand brakes on seven cars and took a cab to a hotel in Lac-Mégantic.
A fire started in the engine after Harding left. When the firefighters put it out they shut down the engine — and the air brakes began bleeding out. When called by the train dispatcher about the fire Harding offered to go check the equipment. He was told to go back to sleep, that everything was in hand. Unknown to Harding a track manager without knowledge of engines had been sent to check things out.
Later he was awoken by the explosion. He helped firefighters uncouple and move other tanker cars that could have exploded. Many in Lac-Mégantic consider him a hero.
The prosecution’s just released “Theory of the Case” lists the specific basis for the charges. It alleges that Harding did not set enough hand brakes; he relied only on the locomotive air brakes despite the dangerous cargo, and did not conduct a required brake test; and after learning the engine had been shut down he did not inform his superiors that the train was not secure without the air brakes, or return to verify the stability of the train after a fire on the engine was put out.
According to a Transportation Safety Board report on the disaster, even if Harding had set hand brakes on nine tanker cars, as suggested in the company rule book, the train would have still rolled because at least 17 were needed.
In addition, “you can’t do a proper brake test with one person,” Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive engineer Chris Yeandel, who works out of Montreal, told the Militant. “You need the engineer in the cab and the conductor on the ground who has to verify that the wheels have stopped moving after the slack adjustment. You can’t do this with a one person crew.”
Need for solidarity
In April the provincial leadership of the British Columbia Hospital Employees’ Union adopted a motion of solidarity with Harding and Labrie and donated $500 to their defense. “This is about helping the legal defense of these workers who are being framed and being made scapegoats,” said Betty Valenzuela, a member of the union’s provincial executive and secretary treasurer of the Vancouver General Hospital Employees’ Union local.Send solidarity messages to USW Local 1976 / Section locale 1976, 2360 De Lasalle, Suite 202, Montreal, QC H1V 2L1. Email: info@1976usw.ca. Send copies to: Thomas Walsh, 165 Rue Wellington N., Suite 310, Sherbrooke, QC Canada J1H 5B9. Email: thomaspwalsh@hotmail.com. Contributions for Harding and Labrie’s defense can be sent in Canada to Syndicat des Métallos, 565, boulevard Crémazie Est, bureau 5100, Montreal, QC H2M 2V8. In the U.S. send checks to Tom Harding Defense Fund, First Niagara Bank, 25 McClellan Drive, Nassau, NY 12123.
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