FrequentSLF;
It is quite worrying that you professional pilots are arguing whether is safer to take off with snow on the wings or to fly with an engine out (well you still have 3 working).
Is it only worrying because the discussion is taking place "in public"? Do you not think that such discussions take place among doctors in the OR - "how to proceed?...what's the "SOP"?, "I wouldn't do that!", etc, etc? In fact, the medical profession could still learn a tremendous amount from the airline piloting profession just in terms of CRM (ORM?) let alone being so open, in public, to self-examination and self-criticism. Pretty healthy and professional behaviours I think, notwithstanding the blunt comments.
Also, out of the thousands of professional airline crews, there are likely only a few who contribute their opinions regularly and enjoy the sparring, heated as it may get from time to time. This is a forum, after all and not a professional journal. That said, let us keep in mind the assistance provided to the Australian film crew doing a story on the Phuket accident.
FWIW re the topic of the thread, while we don't know whether an actual "critical surface" inspection was carried out, (such cannot be done at night with any reliability) the law in Canada is, (as has been emphasized several times here), is "clean wing", period, and I suspect the FARs are the same. If the aircraft was flown with contaminated wings (regardless of whether it would "blow off" or not), I hope the FAA is conducting a formal investigation as they did with the BA747 3-engine incident.
Unless one wishes to be yet another test case and possible statistic, these days one simply doesn't depart with any contamination on the wings. There is nothing in any Ops Manual, regulation or "airmanship" item that may justify the decision not to de-ice when wing contamination has been observed.
The thread has largely concerned itself with "how" the crew was informed and whether "tattling" is a professional behaviour. Nonsense - the entire point is missed. How they were informed doesn't matter. The crew cannot possibly know what was under the "light snow" but departed anyway.
Whether the aircraft, their passengers and their employer were at risk will never be known because the takeoff was successful and as such is being accepted by some as evidence that the "right" decision was made. As most professional aviators know, that is not how "success" in aviation is judged.