No excuse for cloaking LRT in secrecy

Who will Be held accountable for lack of transparency?

The light rail construction delay saga roiling the city is a classic example of how things can go wrong when government cloaks itself in secrecy and becomes less accountable.

After a storm of criticism over how the city allowed the Rideau Transit Group (RTG) to escape payment of a $1-million penalty for missing its original May 24 handover date of the $2.1-billion LRT project, the city manager sent a memo to councillors Wednesday detailing how the contract protects taxpayers from cost overruns.

Now we learn there could be $50 million in cost overruns associated with the delay. The problem is that while these are apparently costs to RTG itself ($8 million to $10 million a month), and the city says it has the power to withhold its own payments to the private firm to get its way on the file, no one knows for sure what will happen. That’s because there is apparently no detailed language in the contract about which municipal costs stemming from the delay the consortium would pay; RTG could reject the city’s demands. The matter could end up in arbitration or court, where no one can predict the outcome.

The city’s memo is, therefore, disingenuous and offers too little, too late. In a city that values transparency and accountability, all the information would have been made public months ago to allow for informed discussion and debate. Its release now is an exercise in damage control, and even then, it falls short.

Remember, controversy erupted after the RTG said completion of the LRT project would be delayed for about six months. For months, city brass had told residents that if the consortium failed to complete the LRT project as agreed, it would pay a $1-million penalty. The same message was delivered to councillors in closed-door briefings, but this was not exactly true. What officials failed to reveal is that a clause in the contract allows RTG to escape the penalty if it informs the city six months before the handover that it won’t make the deadline. That’s why, contrary to everything the city said, RTG is paying nothing for missing the deadline.

Worse still, city brass, and certainly the mayor, knew of the construction delay and its potential impact on city finances, but kept quiet during budget deliberations in December.

What happened here is that city officials decided to not give the public, and indeed councillors, all the information they needed to know about the project’s finances, until it became practically impossible to not do so. They withheld information, misled councillors. The whiff of deception surrounding this case is troubling.

The big questions are: How can staff decide to hide information from councillors? And how can our elected representatives perform their duty to protect the public interest if they are denied relevant information? How could this happen, and who is going to be held accountable?

It is worth noting that the LRT project was overseen by the finance and economic development committee — not the transit commission or transportation committee. Given the committee’s responsibility for the city’s finances, it was the right decision. But one has to question the kind of leadership and oversight this committee, chaired by the mayor, has provided.

The reason things like this happen is the culture of secrecy that permeates city government. Information that should be readily available to the public to ensure good governance is kept under wraps, just for the sake of secrecy. And in the era of the dominant mayor, councillors have simply become yes-men and -women, easy to sideline or ignore.

The way the finance and economic development committee handled this project shows it cannot be left to its own devices. Council must find its voice and assert its collective authority. We expect more from councillors than having them complain about being left out of the loop on such a key issue. Everything we know now suggests staff misled council and the public. They should be held accountable.