Lac-Mgantic residents grapple with verdict while looking to future

Many residents of Lac-Mganticare grappling with the acquittal of three former railway employees indicted for their roles inthe2013 rail disaster, and what,if anything, it means for what happens to their town now.

On Friday, a jury in Sherbrooke, Que.,acquittedlocomotive engineer Tom Harding, 56, rail traffic controller RichardLabrie, 59, and operations manager JeanDematre, 53, ofcriminal negligence causing 47 deaths.

In general, the verdict has left most townspeople satisfied, with many saying they thought people higher up the corporate ladder at the now-defunct Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) railway are the ones who should have been tried in connection with the derailment and explosions on July 6, 2013, which killed 47 people.

However, the verdict has not given everyone closure.

Unsatisfying verdict

Raymond Lafontaine lost his son, two daughters-in-lawand an employee in thedisaster. Soon after, he and his wife of 57 years divorced. Their relationship couldn't endurethe grief.

"The verdict says you can kill a town;you can kill 47 people; you can break thousands of peoples lives:all the consequences of that, you're absolved of them," said Lafontaine.

He said despite his best efforts, he still lives with bitter anger, andthe acquittal of the three menwas a setback in his attempts to carry on.

"After five years, you tell yourself, 'I have to move on,'and I did move on, but there is a voice inside me looking for vengeance. Even if you want to just accept it and you tell yourself, 'I'm at peace,' your subconscious will never accept it."

Lafontainesaid he would have liked to see charges that would have led to convictions some kind of legal consequences for the rail workers involved inthe train's operations.

"MMAis responsible for its employees. The bosses are responsible for their employees," he said. "But the employee is supposed to do his job the right way."

"Now, in court, [the workers are] exonerated, even though we know very well that if they had donetheir job right, as employees, the train wouldn't have gone off track."

He calledthe financial compensation that families of the deceased receiveda joke. The moneywas added to his earnings,so he had to pay taxes on it.

Pushing for a safer town

Jacques Gagnonsays he still feel as if he and his family escaped with their lives: His home is only100 metres from the spot wherethe train went off the tracks on July 6, 2013.

He is pushing for a judicial inquiry. He thinks it's more important to find out everything that went wrong rather than to determinewho is responsible forthe tragedy.

He said while he recognizes the justice system isn't perfect, he believes the Crown chose the easy route in prosecuting the locomotive engineer who had last operated the train and two of his colleagues,instead of the company that ran the railway.

He said the real issue is a system that "prioritizes profit over safety."

What matters most to him right now, he said, isn't the verdict, it's safety his, and the safety of his hometown, a place he really loves.

He said Lac-Mganticdesperately needs the railway tracks to be rebuilt to bypass the town, to keep explosive cargo away from residents.

"The train, the way it passes here, it's not good for the future because people may be afraid to invest in the downtown area," he said.

Lac-Mgantic Mayor Julie Morin agrees, although not all residents share theiropinion.

During a town hall event a year ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government would speed up the process tobuild thebypass track.

Mistakes in revivingthe downtown core

For resident Jean St-Pierre, what hurt the town second only to the tragedy itself was the mishandling of thereconstruction of the downtown core.

"There werebig, big mistakes there," St-Pierre said.

Two businesses, the Metro grocery store and Jean-Coutu pharmacy, were forced to rebuild in a neighbourhood some distance away from downtown, where they'd stood.

Some businesses with minor damagewere destroyed rather than renovated.

The town also paid for an expensive bridge so that people could access the relocated businesses, St-Pierre said.

It also built two new streets Papineau and Frontenac streets outside the downtown area.

Thereconstruction is bad for businesses downtown, he said.

"In Lac-Mgantic, there's nothing close to the lake. This was a very stupid way to do it."

Mayor Morin has said she is counting on future outside investment, but business isn't what it used to be, merchantssay, and taxes are up because of all the new infrastructure.