NANTES, Quebec — Officials in a community on the route of the proposed Lac-Mégantic rail bypass have withdrawn from talks with the Canadian government about the project.
The CBC reports that the municipal council in Nantes — which passed a resolution opposing the bypass in January 2023 — decided at a meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12, to end discussions, saying the federal government has not responded to its questions or to its demands for compensation for a loss of wetlands that would be affected.
“We’re not signing anything. We’re not talking to anyone anymore as long as we don’t get something firm on the table, saying that it’s true there will be injustice toward the municipality of Nantes,” Mayor Daniel Gendron told the CBC. “It will take something written because, empty words, there have been three years of them, and that’s enough.”
The government promised to build the bypass, taking a rail line now owned by CPKC out of downtown Lac-Mégantic, following the July 6, 2013, oil train derailment and fire that killed 47 people, and originally aimed to have it completed by 2018. But lengthy efforts to acquire the necessary land and opposition in the neighboring communities of Nantes and Frontenac have stalled the effort.
Canada’s Transport Minister, Anita Anand, said in a statement that the ministry is “working every day with CPKC and the Canadian Transport Agency” to finalize approval for work to begin on the project. Anand’s statement also said the government is “open to further discussions with Nantes to find solutions that provide benefits for them. We owe it to the region and the people of Lac-Mégantic to complete this bypass.”
