LAC−MÉGANTIC, Que.—Raymond Savoie has lived all his 71 years in a small stone house, surrounded by farmland, that was originally built by his great−grandfather nearly 100 years ago in Lac−Mégantic, Que.
But last month, he and his partner, Rita Boulanger, learned that their home and part of their land will be expropriated by the federal government on Aug. 1 for a project to divert trains from the community’s downtown, parts of which were destroyed in 2013 when an oil−laden train derailed and killed 47 people.
At first he was told the house would be moved, or dismantled stone by stone and rebuilt, but he doesn’t believe them. “They want to put a bulldozer in it,” he said….