Willie:
You make good points as well. As I am not a party to what happened in YUL I can't conduct an investigation. I did not say the Westjet Captain violated the CARs, it was implied in the original post of this thread. What I did say was that taking off with a contaminated aircraft is a CARs violation.
I am all for use of good judgement, it's what Captains get paid for. But, there are times when we should not apply judgement, but rather we should follow the regs because they were written to protect the travelling public. The reg with respect to contamination is quite clear; clean wings are mandatory, and a little bit of ice or snow is not acceptable unless the manufacturer has given a statement to the contrary in their approved manuals. To me, this regulation takes the pressure off from that particular decision making exercise. I'll take those whenever I can get them, as there are more than enough complex decisions to make on a given day, especially when mother nature takes her best shot. Given the clarity of the regulatory language, I can't understand why anyone would knowingly decide to depart in an obviously contaminated aircraft with dozens of witnesses to a potential regulatory violation looking out the windows at the evidence of my "crime". It ain't worth the risk to our lives, or my license, IMHO.