Vol. 81/No. 19 May 15, 2017
Sept. trial set for rail workers facing frame-up
in Quebec
All three face 47 counts of criminal negligence and could serve life in prison if convicted. The disaster killed 47 people and leveled the town center.
When Harding learned about the derailment, which took place in the middle of the night while he was asleep, he rushed to the site and risked his life to help firemen depressurize brakes on some of the oil cars that had not yet caught fire so they could be moved. Harding is viewed as a hero by many in the town, who think the bosses, not the rail workers, should be in the dock.
The judge placed his decisions on motions by Harding’s lawyer Thomas Walsh on proposed evidence — including the government Transportation Safety Board report on the causes of the derailment — under a ban from being covered by the media.
“This isn’t unusual,” Walsh said. “It’s intended to prevent potential jurors from forming opinions before the trial.”
During an earlier hearing in January, the judge had ruled that the bankrupt and dissolved railroad, which has no assets or legal counsel, will also face a separate trial on similar charges. “The prosecution has absolutely no intention of going after the MMA,” Walsh said. “They want to go after Tom Harding. The charges against the MMA are window dressing.”
“No date has yet been set for MMA’s trial,” he said.
An exposé in the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Transportation Safety Board report make clear that it was the railway bosses’ profit-driven disregard for safety, and complicity of the federal government agency Transport Canada, that were responsible for the disaster.
Under a strict Montreal, Maine and Atlantic policy designed to save time and money, the Globe showed, Harding was barred from activating the train’s automatic air brakes when he parked the train, which would have prevented it from rolling into Lac-Mégantic that night. And Transport Canada gave the rail company approval to run their dangerous oil trains with a bare-bones one-person “crew.”
“The trial in September will establish the criminal responsibility of the top managers of MMA, of Transportation Canada, and the minister of transportation who were all aware of the breach of the most elementary rules of rail safety by MMA and who did nothing to correct them,” Robert Bellefleur, spokesperson for the Citizens’ and Groups Coalition for Rail Safety in Lac-Mégantic, told the Militant April 21. “This is what’s called for under law C-21.”
Passed after the 1992 Westray coal mine disaster in Nova Scotia that killed 26 miners without a single company executive being charged, Law C-21 extended criminal liability for negligence in the federal criminal code to make it easier to hold company officials accountable for injuries and deaths on the job. It was adopted after a public outcry by the miners’ families, their union and publication of an official report that pointed the finger squarely at the negligence of the bosses.
“Will the population be protected from tragedies like that of Lac-Mégantic if the three employees are found guilty? The answer is no,” Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny, a writer who is working on a book about the Lac-Mégantic disaster, told the Militant after attending the hearing. “The system of public safety, put in place by the government, consists of letting the companies be responsible for our safety. But the priority of these companies is making a profit, not our safety. This is as true in 2017 as it was in 2013.”
“The fight against the frame-up of Harding and Labrie is important for working people across Canada and beyond,” Philippe Tessier, Communist League candidate for mayor of Montreal, said after the hearing. “I’m campaigning to build support to defeat the frame-up of the two rail workers as part of the ongoing fight by rail workers for safety — for themselves and all those who live and work along the tracks.”
Messages in support of Harding and Labrie can be sent to USW Local 1976 / Section locale 1976, 2360 De Lasalle, Suite 202, Montreal, QC Canada H1V 2L1. Copies should be sent to Thomas Walsh, 165 Rue Wellington N., Suite 310, Sherbrooke, QC Canada J1H 5B9.
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