NOT GUILTY
After nine days of deliberations, jurors acquitted former MMA railway employees Thomas Harding, Richard Labrie and Jean Demaître, who were charged with criminal negligence causing the death of 47 people in the Lac-Mégantic tragedy.
LAC-MÉGANTIC The mood at the cafés and bars in Lac-Mégantic Friday night was subdued, as the news began to sink in that the three railway employees who faced criminal charges in the rail disaster that killed 47 people here in July of 2013 had been found not guilty.
Few interviewed Friday night expressed surprise at the verdict, and most said they never thought the three MMA Railway employees — Thomas Harding, Richard Labrie and Jean Demaître — should have faced criminal negligence charges in the first place.
“Everybody I talked to said they were scapegoats,” said Jean-Guy Rancour, who was visiting his hometown Friday night, dining with his wife at the rebuilt and relocated Musi-Café.
The original Musi-Café was destroyed, along with much of the town’s downtown, when the runaway train carrying crude oil hurtled down a hill and exploded in the worst railway disaster in Canada’s history.
Rancour said he knew one of the victims when he was young, and mourns the devastating effect the tragedy has had on his hometown.
“This event was the result of a succession of errors by a lot of people, starting with the government that kept loosening the safety rules,” he said. “One day, it was bound to happen.”
La Gare’nison, a new microbrewery pub in town, was busy Friday night, but the mood was not one of celebration.
“Justice was done,” said one man who declined to give his name but said he lost several friends in the disaster. “It was human error. It was an accident.”
“Those guys were not the most guilty parties,” said another bar patron. “The real culprits were the ministry of transportation and MMA. That train was transporting dangerous material and there was no (employee) on it. It is so simple. There should have been somebody on that train 24 hours a day.”
He said the railway workers were not blameless, but do not belong in jail.
“Those guys bear a certain responsibility, not criminal, but they do bear some responsibility.”
Jean St-Pierre, who co-manages the Hôtel-Motel Le Château, said few people in the town were expecting a guilty verdict.
“Ever since those guys were charged, I haven’t heard one person in Lac-Mégantic say they thought these three guys should be criminally charged or should bear criminal responsibility for the accident. ... I know (personally) three or four people who lost loved ones, and even they don’t think (the railway employees) should be blamed.”
“From all that I read and heard, I couldn’t see any criminal intention or any really unreasonable action that would justify criminal charges,” St-Pierre added.
But some residents did express frustration and anger at the verdicts.
“It is unacceptable. This is not justice,” Raymond Lafontaine, who lost a son, two daughtersin-law and an employee in the disaster, told Radio Canada. “When I heard the verdict it hurt me. It hurt me to lose members of my family, and (learn) there is no guilty party. It is not right.”
“I don’t want to be mean. But if we allow things to be left like this, nobody going forward will take responsibility for things. It doesn’t make sense. It seems like you cannot do your job, you can do whatever you like, you won’t be punished. If this is how we deal with things in Quebec, we are in big trouble.”