FILE PHOTO - A Canadian Pacific Railway employee walks along the side of a locomotive in a marshalling yard in Calgary, Wednesday, May 16, 2012.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
April 18, 2024 - 12:00 PM
CP Rail was ordered to repay the province more than $150,000 for firefighting costs after causing multiple fires.
BC Wildfire Service responded to fires in Ashcroft, Kamloops, Sicamous and Elko. It ordered the railway company to cover the bill last month, according to provincial government records.
Exactly when those fires took place or any other details about them isn't known.
The Ministry of Forests refused to provide its report on the fires and how it came up with the $154,344 total.
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iNFOnews.ca requested the report and a week later the ministry said that information can be found in what's called a "fire origin and cause" report, which can only be released through a Freedom of Information request.
The cost recovery reports were once publicly available through an online government database.
In 2022, CN and CP were collectively fined more than $200,000 for their roles in starting multiple BC wildfires three years earlier. iNFOnews.ca reported on those fines after accessing the documents through the same online database. They are no longer available for download.
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Only a few older reports are now available, with the most recent being a $136,500 bill for CN Rail in April 2020 following two 2017 fires in Barriere and Boston Bar, respectively.
A ministry spokesperson did not respond when asked why the reports are no longer accessible without a Freedom of Information request.
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