Quebec police raid railway office over Lac-mégantic
More suits filed over deaths
Quebec provincial police have raided an office belonging to the railway involved in the Lac-Mégantic disaster, adding to a growing pile of legal concerns for the U.S. company.
Investigators searched for clues Thursday inside the Farnham, Que., branch of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway Inc. as part of their ongoing criminal probe into the deadly July 6 derailment.
Farnham, a town between Montreal and Lac-Mégantic, is also the home of Tom Harding, the engineer of the runaway train that smashed into Lac-Mégantic and killed an estimated 47 people.
A police spokesman said it was unclear how long the operation would last — or whether there could be similar searches conducted outside Quebec.
“We’ll be in Farnham as long as it takes to gather all the evidence we’re looking for there,” Insp. Michel Forget told reporters in Lac-Mégantic.
“We will work with other police forces — either outside the country or in Canada — to conduct the necessary raids,” he said.
“For the moment there are no other raids, either in Canada or the U.S. Other organizations are investigating and I’ll let them comment on that.”
A number of lawsuits have been launched in the case, in addition to separate investigations being conducted by police and transportation-safety officials. The disaster has already prompted some changes to federal safety guidelines for railways.
Police said the Farnham investigation team, made up of around 15 people, uncovered some evidence Thursday, but they declined to discuss it.
The probe has already reached MMA chairman Ed Burkhardt, who was questioned for hours by provincial police during his recent visit to LacMégantic.
The company has been under the spotlight ever since MMA rail tankers carrying crude oil smashed into the heart of Lac-Mégantic, triggering a series of explosions and engulfing the area in fire. The crash wiped out dozens of buildings in the downtown core, while millions of litres of oil leaked into the soil and nearby water bodies.
Lac-Mégantic’s mayor, Colette Roy-Laroche, announced earlier this week she had sent a lawyer’s letter to MMA, demanding that it immediately reimburse the town $4 million for environmental cleanup costs.
Roy-Laroche alleged the community had to pick up the tab for MMA because it failed to pay companies it had hired to mop up crude oil that spilled from the damaged tankers. She said the crews would have left town if they weren’t paid.
The letter told the company it had 48 hours — or until noon Thursday — to respond.
A few hours after the deadline passed, Roy-Laroche told reporters that Lac-Mégantic never heard from MMA. She said she had hoped MMA would have conducted itself like a good corporate citizen.
“It was the least we could have expected from the company,” said Roy-Laroche. She said the town is now evaluating, with the help of the provincial government and legal experts, how it will proceed.
“It’s too early to say which route and procedure we will take.”
And this might only be the start of the company’s legal problems.
On Thursday, two more wrongful-death lawsuits were filed in an Illinois court against Rail World, MMA, Burkhardt and several U.S. petroleum companies linked to the disaster. They followed another similar lawsuit presented Monday by the same Illinois firm.
Lawyer Peter Flowers filed the court documents on behalf of the loved ones of three people killed in the derailment — Jean-Guy Veilleux, 32, Genevieve Breton, 28, and Melissa Roy, 29.
New Democrat MP Olivia Chow, who was in the community Thursday, said she was pleased Transport Canada made changes this week to railway regulations, such as the rule to ensure trains have two operators rather than just one.
The NDP transport critic, however, said she was disappointed her party was unable to sway the House of Commons transport committee to work through the summer to examine safety systems of MMA and those of other railways.
“Being here, so close to the site where the tragedy happened, gives me even more inspiration to work even harder to improve rail safety,” Chow told reporters.