Waiting for action from Ottawa on Lac-mégantic

Patience is one of the many virtues of Lac-Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche that have come to light in the aftermath of the horrific rail disaster that has devastated her town.

It was on display late this week when she expressed confidence that federal aid for the stricken town will shortly be forthcoming, even though, up to now, federal officials have offered nothing more than vague assurances that Ottawa will pitch in to help Lac-Mégantic weather the crisis.

Certainly Roy-Laroche could have expected more from newly appointed federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt when the latter visited Lac-Mégantic Wednesday in the company of local MP Christian Paradis.

Raitt offered sympathy for the community’s suffering and pledged federal assistance for the emergency cleanup and reconstruction, but had nothing to offer in the way of details as to how much her government is prepared to contribute and for what. Paradis, meanwhile, simply reiterated what Raitt had said and then refused to take questions from journalists. The pair left the impression that their government has yet to come to grips with the disaster two full weeks after it occurred.

The federal response stands in sorry contrast to that of the provincial government, which, within five days, came up with a carefully constructed $60-million aid package.

It is true that hands-on disaster management is a provincial responsibility. But this disaster is the result of a train derailment and, since railways are under federal jurisdiction, the Lac-Mégantic situation calls for front-line federal-government involvement, something that has been in scant evidence so far.

While the precise cause of the derailment has yet to be determined, the incident has called into question the practices and rules that govern rail transport.

A call for those rules to be reviewed and tightened has come from a group of Eastern Township mayors whose towns have rail tracks running through them, as well as from opposition members of Parliament. But the Conservative chair of the House of Commons transport committee, Larry Miller, has rejected the suggestion that the committee be convened for a special session next month to discuss rail safety in light of the Lac-Mégan- tic disaster. Miller says it is premature to convene the committee since the investigation into the derailment is incomplete. But there is merit to opposition arguments that it is by no means too soon to focus on the larger issue of Canadian rail-safety regulations.

It is certainly worth looking into why, for instance, there are no clear rules on train hand brakes, something flagged by the Transportation Safety Board last year. Or why the recommendations of a 2011 report by the federal environment commissioner on weaknesses in oversight of the transportation of dangerous goods have yet to be fully addressed.

Roy-Laroche may be showing patience for the moment, but as she said this week, she “can also bite.” That bite is something of which a federal government already in poor standing with Quebecers should beware.