Former Quebec premier to head probe into overpass collapse

As investigators in Quebec pore over the scene of a deadly weekend overpass collapse, political leaders are challenging Premier Jean Charest's decision to appoint a former premier to head the public inquiry into the disaster.

Five people were killed Saturday afternoon when a 20-metre section of an overpass crashed on to their vehicles, and six more were injured when their vehicles plummeted to the road below.

The rubble from the overpass was so heavy it crushed two cars to knee height.
(Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

The provincial inquiry into the collapse will be led by Pierre Marc Johnson, who was premier as leader of the Parti Québécois for a brief two months in 1985. 

With Johnson at the helm ,it is difficult to believe the inquiry will be transparent, current PQ Leader André Boisclair charged on Monday.

"Obviously, Mr. Johnson is capable of being independent. But in appearance, he was too closely associated to …the Parti Québécois, as a former leader of the Parti Québécois," Boisclair said.

The inquiry must probe decisions made by past governments regarding policy and funding, and with a former premier leading the charge that may be difficult, suggested Mario Dumont, leader of the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ).

"There's the scientific aspect of what happened on Saturday for this overpass to collapse. Then we have to go further, to transportation policy, budgetary policies of governments, not just this Liberal government's [decisions] for the past three years, but others over a much longer period of time," Dumont said from Quebec City.

Investigation continues

Police, engineers and technicians are spending a second day gathering information from the scene of Saturday's horrific collapse on the highway that connects Montreal with Laval.

Investigators are trying to work out the sequence of events surrounding the collapse using details from the scene, said Const. Isabelle Gendron with Quebec provincial police.

"So far at this point, we really don't know what happened," she said.

It took emergency workers more than 24 hours to clear away debris from the overpass, in order to reach the two cars flattened in the collapse. The weight was so great the cars were flattened to about knee height.

By Monday afternoon all five victims had been identified. In one car, three people were killed: Driver Jean-Pierre Hamel, 40; his partner, Sylvie Beaudet, 44, a front-seat passenger; and Hamel's brother, Gilles, also 44. The couple left an eight-year old son, who was at a sporting event that afternoon.

Police had to use DNA and dental records to identify the two victims in the second car buried under the rubble. They are Mathieu Goyette and Véronique Binette, both 28 and from Laval. Binette was the daughter of a bus driver with the Laval transit commission, and lived with her boyfriend, Goyette, police said. 

Six people were injured in the collapse, with five still in hospital in stable condition — four at the Sacré-Coeur Hospital and one at the Jean-Talon Hospital.

Engineers welcome probe

The body that represents professional engineers in Quebec, the Ordre des ingenieurs du Québec (OIQ), has welcomed the province's decision to call a public inquiry into the collapse.

Engineers inspected the bridge last year and did not earmark it for repairs. On Saturday, drivers reported chunks of falling concrete about an hour before the overpass collapsed. Subsequently, a Transport Quebec employee did a visual and an auditory inspection of the scene and called in an engineer for a more thorough examination of the overpass.

Jacques Gagnon, Quebec's deputy transportation minister, said the engineer arrived too late to prevent the incident. It's not clear the road would have been shut down even if he had arrived earlier, Gagnon said.

OIQ president Zaki Ghavitian wouldn't speculate on what went wrong, but said many factors could be to blame.

"We are really very surprised that happened and we're waiting for the answer from the inquiry," he said.

What may have happened

A common theory for the collapse is that reinforced steel bars supporting the overpass lost their bond with the concrete and the bridge collapsed under its own weight.

David Lau, a civil engineer and chair of the Ottawa-Carleton Bridge Research Institute, said that theory could be a possible contributing cause, but such a catastrophic failure likely had other contributing factors.

Road salt used during snowy and icy Canadian winters gets into the fine hairline cracks present in all concrete, Lau said.

"Over the years, this very corrosive chemical … slips into the concrete and starts the corrosion of steel rebar inside the concrete," he said.

"This is very difficult to detect … from just visual inspections."

An increase in the volume and size of large trucks contributes to the wear and tear of infrastructure built decades ago, when design specifications were different, he said.

A 'rare and unusual event'

The tens of thousands of bridges across the country are safe, said Lau, who called Saturday's collapse a "rare and unusual event."

However, the tragedy should serve as a wake-up call that Canada's aging infrastructure needs attention in order to prevent future collapses, he said.

Bridges need to be reviewed, retrofitted if necessary and brought up to the most modern design specifications, he said.

"All stakeholders, all levels of government need to make a major commitment to reinvest in our infrastructure," said Lau.

"We don't have a choice. The longer we wait, the more costly it will be."

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Monday the government has earmarked billions for new and existing infrastructure, but agreed that the pace of development needed to improve from the recent past.

"It's taking us too long in Canada to move from funding to planning, environmental assessment and construction," Flaherty said. "We can't wait eight to 10 years for new highways to be built, for example."

Flaherty said he foresaw a role for the private sector in assisting all levels of government in the process. 

Better spending choices needed

Engineers in Quebec urged political leaders to review their road policy in light of the collapse. Too much money is spent on building new infrastructure, and not enough on maintenance and repairs, said Michel Gagnon, president of the union representing government engineers.

Nearly one-third of the $1.3 billion allotted for road work in Quebec will go toward new projects, and that may not be wise, Gagnon said. "Everyone wants a bridge or a road. But perhaps we should renovate first and then build."

The Quebec government may not be able to afford to invest in new projects, such as the long awaited extension of Highway 138 in the province's rural eastern region of the Lower North Shore, or the widening of Highway 175 between Quebec City and the Saguenay.

The government aims to maintain about 55 per cent of its bridges and overpasses, which isn't enough in light of Saturday's collapse, Gagnon said. 

The Quebec government defended its road policy Monday against mounting criticism.

"We do promote development, and we make sure the budget is there," said Michel Després, Quebec's transport minister. "But we never jeopardize peoples' security because of budget constraints."