{"id":1095,"date":"2016-05-01T18:11:52","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T22:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/?p=1095"},"modified":"2018-01-19T17:51:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T22:51:23","slug":"how-quebec-cities-can-avoid-repeats-of-the-lac-megantic-rail-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/?p=1095","title":{"rendered":"How Qu\u00e9bec cities can avoid repeats of the Lac-M\u00e9gantic rail disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On July 6, 2013 an unattended freight train carrying crude oil rolled down a hill and derailed in the downtown area of the city of Lac-M\u00e9gantic, resulting in a huge explosion causing\u00a0the loss of 47 lives. Many Canadian cities are concerned about the possibility of a similar disaster in their back yards, given that Canadian railways fall under federal government jurisdiction, and thus do not have to answer to municipalities when it comes to regulation.<\/p>\n<p>But is this truly the case? In Qu\u00e9bec, the provincial &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca\/dynamicSearch\/telecharge.php?type=2&amp;file=\/C_47_1\/C47_1_A.html\">Municipal Powers Act<\/a>&#8221; enacted in 2005, states in\u00a0paragraph 62, &#8220;A local municipality may adopt by-laws in matters of safety.&#8221; Trains transporting dangerous goods through a municipality certainly is a\u00a0safety issue! What is to prevent Qu\u00e9bec cities from enacting by-laws requiring railways to provide manifests\u00a0of goods being transported, prior to receiving permission to take those\u00a0goods through the municipality; if the manifest shows that the train\u00a0includes dangerous goods, other restrictions might apply, such as a maximum\u00a0speed, adequate staffing, adequate training and supervision of staff &#8211; the\u00a0list could go on.<\/p>\n<p>Of course such a by-law would encounter resistance and legal challenges. But\u00a0this is one issue where citizens are sure to support the municipality\u00a0against the big railway corporations, and elected officials at all levels would need\u00a0to be very careful about which side they would choose to support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On July 6, 2013 an unattended freight train carrying crude oil rolled down a hill and derailed in the downtown area of the city of Lac-M\u00e9gantic, resulting in a huge explosion causing\u00a0the loss of 47 lives. Many Canadian cities are concerned about the possibility of a similar disaster in their&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[389,390,387,388,386],"class_list":["post-1095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-crude-oil","tag-lac-megantic","tag-municipalities","tag-railways","tag-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1095"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1099,"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions\/1099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henry.olders.ca\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}