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Drop ALL the Charges NOW! Rail Safety Requires No Scapegoating
By staff - The Evidence is in: The Train Crew did not Cause the Lac-Mégantic Tragedy, January 29, 2018
On Feb 5, 2018, Canadian railroaders Tom Harding and Richard Labrie are ordered back to court to face addition federal charges, even after being acquitted in a 3 month frame up trial related to the Lac-Mégantic oil train wreck of 2013.
Set up to fail! Every danger was put in place by out-of-control railroad managers and policy makers, while the government looked away. None of those dangers was created on July 6, 2013. They were all in place long before that and part of a system and a culture of recklessness. But no owners or top manager decision makers are ever going to face trial. They are actually free and running trains around the world right this minute.
The continued targeting of Harding and Labrie is part of the ongoing attempt by the Canadian government to save face and divert attention away from worldwide calls for a real investigation of who set up the dangerous factors that killed 47 and destroyed the downtown.
The charges now being prosecuted under the Railway Safety Act and the Fisheries Act are part of an ominous recent move to criminalize workplace rules which has been a long time goal of employers who wish to shift all liability onto their work forces. They also represent a significant abuse of power by the government in this case, since a jury has already acquitted the two.
The essence of why real rail safety requires that the Canadian government must drop ALL the Charges NOW.
See Also: Canadian Jury Acquits Rail Workers in Lac-Mégantic Exlosion Case - By William Rogers, Left Labor Reporter, January 30, 2018
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