Regulatory Failures Behind the Lac-Mégantic Disaster
This report, by CCPA Executive Director Bruce Campbell details eight key ways in which regulatory failure contributed to the Lac-Mégantic disaster. It chronicles how Canada’s federal regulatory regime failed – directly and indirectly – to prevent corporate negligence, for which the citizens of Lac-Mégantic paid a terrible price.
The report calls for an independent inquiry into the disaster. Part of the challenge in preventing another Lac-Mégantic is to keep the spotlight on its root causes – corporate negligence and regulatory failure – and hold to account those responsible, including those at the highest level of the responsibility pyramid.
About the author
Bruce Campbell
Bruce Campbell is former Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Adjunct Professor, York University, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change; Senior Fellow, Toronto Metropolitan University, Centre for Free Expression. He is the author of The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied," (James Lorimer 2018). In French: Enquéte sur la Catastrophe de Lac-Mégantic: Quand les pouvoirs publics déraillent (Fides 2019).