Town rallies
around local businessman vowing to make sure crude never passes
through ravaged Lac-Mégantic again
by Peter
Kuitenbrouwer
13/07/11
The downtown core lies in
ruins Thursday, July 11, 2013 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec after a derailed
train ignited tanker cars carrying crude.
Raymond Lafontaine, whose
companies employ 175 people, lost a son and two daughters-in-law,
along with a secretary, in Saturday's explosion in Lac-Mégantic.
In the days since, he has emerged as a leader among the town's
citizens, mixing calm determination with raw anger and the courage to
speak out.
In the minutes after Saturday's explosion, he rushed to the town's
centre, using one of his front-end loaders to pour gravel and smashing
buildings to stop the path of the flames. Then, beginning on Monday,
he emerged to speak publicly and resolutely, a native son who shares
his town's grief - and carries its pride.
Shaking with rage he told reporters on Wednesday that he, personally,
will make sure that trains of crude oil don't pass through town the
way they did before the blast.
"I am not a terrorist," he
said. "There is a way to organize this. That track was laid to
transport wood. The government needs to put on its shoes," he said,
using a French expression for taking charge.
He says that, two days after
the blast, he had a vision where he spoke to his dead father, who told
him to speak out.
"Ninety percent of people would be at home crying," he said. "I
have been crying for two days."
Lac-Mégantic is a
blue-collar place, where big factories transform hardwood into veneer
and sawdust into pressboard. When a man in this town wears a faded
t-shirt, dirt-smeared blue workpants and worn black steel-toed boots,
he commands respect.
On Wednesday, dressed in such
work clothes, Mr. Lafontaine came into the heart of Lac-Mégantic to
speak to Edward Burkhardt, the chairman of the Montreal, Maine &
Atlantic Railway, whose train's explosion took his family members.
Mr. Lafontaine also spoke with Yves Bourdon, another MMA railway
employee.
Many shouted insults, calling Mr. Burkhardt a "rat" and "rotted
meat" as he spoke to reporters. Mr. Lafontaine waited for Mr.
Burkhardt to leave, then called him an "assassin," but also spoke
calmly in French to Yves Bourdon, another MMA railway employee.
"I can't believe his sang-froid," said Gilles Fluet, a retiree
who lives nearby. "There are people who would have wrung the neck of
that guy from the railroad. Him, when it was over he shook his
hand."
Politicians are beginning to
notice him. On Thursday as Mr. Lafontaine ate lunch at Le Chateau, a
Lac-Mégantic restaurant, Pauline Marois, the Quebec premier - who
was lunching two tables over - came by to shake his
hand.
Raymond Lafontaine, who lost
his son and two daughters in law, gets a hug from Quebec Premier
Pauline Marois during her visit in Lac-Megantic, Que., Thursday, July
11, 2013.
After days of trying, Mr.
Lafontaine said he also spoke to Denis Lebel, the federal transport
minister, and Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister
"I told them, 'I am not a separatist,'" Mr. Lafontaine said,
standing outside the local high school, Polyvalente Montignac, which
emergency workers have turned into a hostel for hundreds of families
still homeless after the blast. "I just want to stop them
transporting dangerous goods through our town."
Later he said, "The Indians raise a feather and people listen to
them. We want the government to listen to us."
Mr. Lafontaine, 65, was born
on a dirt road, one of 14 children in a family who milked Holstein
cattle and collected sap for maple syrup. Through hard work, he said,
he built up a big business.
When the initial blasts from
exploding and burning tank cars filled with crude oil put the town
ablaze, Mr. Lafontaine was asleep at home.
In six minutes he drove to the site, he said; then he and his
employees - he owns paving, excavation and granite companies -
brought loaders into the burning heart of town. They poured loads of
gravel into manholes, to prevent crude oil from draining and
spreading. They tore down houses to stop the fire.
His son Pascal took a loader, he says, and hauled eight undamaged oil
tanker cars back up the hill to Nantes, whence they had come.
Pascal's wife, Karine Lafontaine, died in the blaze that night,
leaving behind three children.
Bouquets of flowers fill the office of Lafontaine & Fils, which
smelled like a florist Thursday. With tears in her eyes, secretary
Luce Gagnon showed photos on the front counter of those who died:
along with Karine Lafontaine they are Gaetan Lafontaine, 33, and his
wife Joannie Turmel, who leave two little girls, and Marie-Noelle
Faucher, an employee.
Mr. Lafontaine said that on Friday he and a production company plan to
launch a video of a song they have recorded for a fundraising
campaign, which the town of Lac-Mégantic will manage, to build a
park in the city in memory of those who have died.
As he spoke, several locals
waited in the parking lot to shake Mr. Lafontaine's hand. "You are
an icon," one man told him.