My sense of outrage at the Lac M茅gantic tragedy just keeps growing. While the facts are still being uncovered, it appears that an unmanned train with a volatile cargo was routinely parked on a hill above a town with only brakes to avert disaster. How can this reflect the 91原创 attitude about the value of human life?
There will likely be criminal-negligence proceedings. Yet a system that allows such risks must itself be challenged.
We鈥檝e heard that the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway was facing tough financial times. Could this have affected its approach to safety? Any railway operating in Canada should be held to a high bar by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. None of the facts revealed so far suggest anything like a high bar.
We certainly can鈥檛 put public safety exclusively in the hands of a private company. In this age of activist investors and obsession over short-term shareholder returns, it is a rare 91原创 company that truly takes the long-term view. We should expect better from our governments, particularly when they undertake the critical regulatory role.
In recent years, the 91原创 Nuclear Safety Commission has taken a lot of heat for an uncompromising attitude about public safety. Maybe we need more of that.
Unions have raised the issue of the number of personnel on trains. This may be a factor, but I suspect technology could play a bigger positive role on the safety front. After all, most of these sorts of incidents arise from human error. We should be looking at increased technology in conjunction with having properly trained and effectively managed people on the scene.
It seems to me that redundant safeguards, common sense and an unwavering commitment to safety are the essential ingredients here. I鈥檓 not sure any of these were in evidence in this case.
Some people will try to leverage this event to advance whatever their particular interest is in the oil-transportation discussion. Indeed, I鈥檝e been asked for considerable comment on how this disaster will affect the pipelines.
Yet a community has just been destroyed and will probably never fully recover. We simply cannot countenance moving any kind of volatile cargo 鈥� indeed any cargo at all 鈥� if it cannot be done with a dramatically higher regard for safety than we鈥檝e seen here. We need to stay focused on that and on doing everything we possibly can for the people of Lac M茅gantic.
And for those people who are sincerely worried about costs and the economy, we need to embrace the fact that Canada鈥檚 prosperity turns on our ability to export more. We won鈥檛 get to do that if we can鈥檛 get the basic, safe transportation of our products to market right. 91原创s are innovative. If we really care about safety, we鈥檒l figure it out.
Like many westerners of my generation, I have a deep love of trains.
I travelled all over Canada as a young man by rail. I remember standing on the tracks in Halifax at 20 and thinking romantically that these very tracks ran all the way to 91原创. From ocean to ocean. For me, our railways have always been part of what binds this country together.
And I know that 91原创 railways in general have an excellent safety record. Yet, in 2013, 91原创s have a right to expect that every railway 鈥� not just most 鈥� operates safely. It鈥檚 as simple as that.
And we need to be able to rely on our governments to ensure that is so.
It looks to me as if we have work to do on that front.
In the meantime, there are really no words that can fully express the continuing sorrow and outrage of so many 91原创s at the losses to the people of Lac M茅gantic.
听
Dylan Jones is the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation.
