Adam: LRT — What happens next will define Sutcliffe's term as Ottawa mayor

With provincial and federal governments not fully committed to funding LRT Stage 3, the scathing report issued this week will make the city’s request for funds much harder to approve.

The Ottawa LRT commission has issued a scathing indictment of the city and construction company RTG for their handling of the signature $2.1-billion project, and the report presents a serious test of leadership for Mayor Mark Sutcliffe. How he responds may well decide the future of light rail in the city.

Citing “persistent failures in leadership and partnership” between the city and the Rideau Transit Group, malfeasance, and “egregious violations of public trust,” Justice William Hourigan said the partners failed Ottawa residents. More damning for a city that is planning even bigger and more expensive light rail extensions, Hourigan questioned its ability to handle such complex projects in the future. “While human errors are understandable and expected, deliberate malfeasance is unacceptable in a public project,” Hourigan wrote. “It is difficult to imagine the successful completion of any significant project while these attitudes prevail within the municipal government.”

The commissioner was particularly critical of both former mayor Jim Watson and retired city manager Steve Kanellakos’s deliberate efforts to hide vital information from council. Most troubling, Hourigan said, was that Kanellakos knowingly misled council on the decision to lower testing criteria for trial runs so the trains could pass. And even though Watson knew about the deception, he did not inform council, “irreparably” compromising its oversight role.

“Worse, because the conduct was wilful and deliberate, it leads to serious concerns about the good faith of senior city staff and raises questions about where their loyalties lie,” Hourigan said, noting that the deception was not an “aberration.”

The city, especially Sutcliffe, who has made expansion of the light-rail project one of his top priorities, now faces a big problem. With provincial and federal governments not fully committed to funding LRT Stage 3, Hourigan’s comments make the city’s request for funds much harder. It is tougher now for provincial and federal governments to readily provide funding after such a damning assessment of officials’ integrity and competence.

In a moment of exasperation at the height of the many rail breakdowns, Watson conceded that “our reputation is in tatters.” Indeed, it is. There is nothing in the report that the city can be proud of, and the question now is whether it can repair that battered image. The good thing is that of the quartet most responsible for the fiasco, Watson, Kanellakos and John Manconi, the former general manager of transit are all gone. While none of them can be held accountable, council must ensure that the only one still around, Coun. Alan Hubley, the former transit commission chair, never gets anywhere near a leadership role again.

Looking back, everything about the LRT project, as detailed by the commission, had disaster written all over it. We just didn’t know it. The pricetag for one, was too low, but because Watson campaigned on completing the project “on time and on budget”; the city stuck with it when he became mayor. It also chose an unproven technology for its trains, and, for political reasons, rushed the launch before the trains were ready. As well, it settled for a “design-build-finance-maintain” P3 model that may have saved money but also “contributed to several of the ongoing difficulties,” the commission noted.

There is a lot to unpack from the 600+ page report, and its more than 100 recommendations. Hourigan has laid out a clear road map to redemption that council must follow, not just with words, but immediate, concrete, and measurable action.

One of the most worrying observations Hourigan made is that the city “faces the spectre of a dysfunctional partnership” operating and maintaining the Confederation Line for decades. It is a scary thought. The city and RTG have morphed into combatants locked in a furious legal battle, and how this toxic partnership can do any good, is anyone’s guess.

Sutcliffe has vowed to implement the “key” recommendations of the commission, and we will see what that means. Sutcliffe did not create this mess, but how he deals with it may well define his mayorship.

Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and commentator. Reach him at nylamiles48@gmail.com

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