The long, heavily redacted, road to answers on Ottawa's LRT project
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: May 8, 2019
Gleaning information from the City of Ottawa on its largest-ever infrastructure project takes time.
In some cases, two years.
And counting.
One of the oldest unresolved LRT-related access-to-information requests is one submitted by the Citizen in April 2017. It sought records produced over a period of five months on risk analysis, risk management and risk mitigation related to the milestones and handover date for the Stage 1 LRT project.
The city has signed off on the release of some heavily redacted records, but the Rideau Transit Group (RTG) has appealed the release of additional material as an entity with third-party interests in the disclosure.
RTG, the builder of the $2.1-billion rail project, has the right to appeal the disclosure under freedom-of-information law, so the office of the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner will eventually make a determination on whether or not the records can be released. That’s where the request stands today.
As for the heavily redacted records the city agreed to make public, by the time those documents arrived in recent days, they were very out of date. The records outline some options for launching the LRT system between June and September 2018, although the budgets had been set up to accommodate a July 1, 2018 launch. There was also evidence of the city preparing for a later launch if RTG delayed the handover.
Today, the city awaits word from RTG about when the builder will finish the rail system after missing three previous deadlines. The latest best guess is for a handover by the end of June 2019.
Several full pages from the 127-page record were removed because the city deemed they included details that reveal recommendations by staff or consultants, trade secrets or scientific, technical, commercial, financial or labour relations information, information that would hurt the city’s economic or financial interests, information that hasn’t been made public yet or information that’s subject to solicitor-client privilege.
Those are all reasons available to the city to hold back information under the province’s Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The municipal freedom-of-information law has been used dozens of times since 2013 in response to request about the LRT program.
Local researcher Ken Rubin won an important ruling from the information and privacy adjudicator last year, opening the door to the city releasing non-conformance reports logged on the ongoing construction of the LRT system. RTG blocked the release of the information, leading to Rubin’s successful appeal. The non-conformance records have revealed deficiencies with concrete, waterproofing and drainage.
Rubin continues to fight for observation reports on LRT construction made outside of the non-conformance reporting process. He learned the city was collecting information and taking pictures of the work, but the city wants thousands of dollars in processing fees to produce the records. He’s appealing the fee.
Even insiders have had trouble getting their hands on publicly held information about the LRT project.
Rick Chiarelli, who, as a city council member, is one of 24 top bosses of the municipal corporation, had to file an access-to-information request in 2018 in an attempt to get details about land acquisitions for Stage 1 LRT. He’s even had to appeal to the information and privacy commissioner. The case continues.
Official updates on Stage 1 construction happen monthly, but it wasn’t until RTG was poised to miss its first handover deadline in early 2018 that council members demanded regular in-person reports from staff. This month’s construction update is scheduled for Friday.
Requests for information won’t subside with the eventual opening of Stage 1.
Councillors tried to pry information out of city lawyers before approving the $4.6-billion Stage 2 project in March, but the legal team wouldn’t disclose key information about how the city selected two construction groups to build the rail extensions.
Rarely, if ever, are council members told that they can’t receive information held by the municipal government — not even in a closed session with the public kept out of the room.
The enforced secrecy has hampered the city’s ability to clearly articulate its own decisions when it comes to Stage 2. When CBC Ottawa cited unnamed sources in reporting that SNC-Lavalin didn’t meet a technical threshold in bid scoring, the city said the confidentiality of the procurement process was the most important thing and it didn’t address the allegation head-on.
Because council and the public couldn’t get information from their own municipal staff, the auditor general started an investigation of the Stage 2 procurement process, likely requiring the services of rail consultants to help navigate the complexities of hiring rail builders.
Naturally, the city is starting to receive official requests for records regarding Stage 2.
There will be no shortage of work for the city’s access-to-information branch as long as the city builds LRT.
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