Oil-by-rail is on the upswing in Canada -- and Canadian Pacific just cut 500 workers whose job is to prevent derailments and keep the tracks safe.

No Canadian will forget the Lac Mégantic disaster that levelled a town and cost 47 lives when the brakes failed on a train loaded with oil tanks. But unfortunately, despite the scale of this tragedy, it seems nothing has changed.

New legislation was brought in that forces rail companies to undertake risk assessment anytime major changes -- like massive maintenance layoffs -- take place. Incredibly, CP insists that the new law doesn’t apply to it and a risk assessment that considers the effect of 500 laid-off workers isn't needed.

Um, yes it is, CP. Follow the law and conduct a risk assessment before you turf 500 maintenance staff.

This is not a drill and there are no do-overs. In 2014, 185,000 barrels of crude oil per day were transported on Canadian rails. By 2018, that number is expected to rise to 500,000 or 600,000 barrels per day according to industry estimates. By simply assuming that its rails are just as safe as they were when it had 500 more staff working on keeping them that way, CP is putting lives on the line. Are you as confident as CP seems to be? We're not.

CP can’t explain why it feels it’s immune to Canadian law. And neither can we. But there’s an easy workaround: if you don’t think jettisoning 500 staff working to keep the tracks safe is a liability, prove it: hold the risk assessment. Anything less puts Canadian lives and communities at risk -- all in the name of profit.

Demand that CP conducts a risk assessment on the impacts of laying off 500 maintenance and safety workers.

More information