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The Quebec government added the Canadian Pacific Railway to its list of legal targets Wednesday, casting a wider net to recover millions of dollars in cleanup costs from the Lac-Megantic disaster.

The big railway is now among several companies listed on a legal notice first issued last month by the provincial government, a document demanding that firms pay for the massive mop-up after millions of litres of crude oil gushed into the environment.

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CPR (TSE:CP) was included as one of the defendants because, the government said Wednesday, it was the main contractor responsible for the fateful shipment that was supposed to send the cargo from North Dakota to a New Brunswick oil refinery.

It handed off the train in Montreal to the smaller Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., which then operated the tanker train that jumped the tracks in Lac-Megantic on July 6.

The disaster killed 47 people and prompted a mass evacuation, a criminal investigation, lawsuits, and concerns that the community of 6,000 might have to abandon its downtown core.