Niagara sets low standard for writing history

Some day the history of bringing GO trains to Niagara will be written.

We can only hope the opus isn’t composed by the current Niagara Region administration.

Because it would contain a lot of self-serving piffle.

This was brought home once again by a story in The Standard this week that had chairman Al Caslin and bureaucrat Matt Robinson crowing about how the Region’s diligence the past three years led to the province agreeing to extend GO train service to Niagara.

The catalyst for such provincial action, we are told, is primarily a business case Niagara regional officials prepared and submitted to Metrolinx in 2015.

Robinson, director of the Region’s GO implementation office, said the impact of the business case was huge, asserting it gave Niagara a leg up on other communities vying for GO train expansion.

Indeed, Robinson said other communities are looking to replicate Niagara’s strategy, which is now regarded as “a gold standard.”

Caslin, too, has never missed an opportunity to speak glowingly of the aforementioned business plan, regarding it as the key element to bringing GO transit here.

One of the things I’ve admired about St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik during his first term in office is his willingness to acknowledge the positive efforts of previous councils.

If the downtown shows signs of revitalization, Sendzik always praises those councillors of yore who voted in favour of building the puck palace, the performing arts centre and the new Carlisle Street parking garage.

Some of those decisions were several years in the making. The seeds for the performing arts centre and Brock’s relocated school of fine and performing arts school were first planted during Tim Rigby’s final term as mayor.

Anyone with any understanding of municipal politics realizes things don’t happen overnight. There are long gestation periods for any project or initiative of consequence.

This knowledge, however, seems to have escaped Caslin. Either that or he just chooses to ignore it.

Time after time, his public utterances about how wonderful Niagara is becoming give the distinct impression this journey to alleged glory didn’t begin until late 2014, which not so coincidentally is when Caslin was appointed chairman by his council colleagues.

His narrow view of history is revealed through the GO file.

Regional council has been talking, with varying degrees of intensity, about the desire to bring GO trains to Niagara since at least the 1990s. And it’s been a topic of debate in every local provincial election campaign for the past 20 years.

All those efforts finally paid off in 2009 when the provincial government agreed to launch a study on the feasibility of extending commuter train service to Niagara.

At the time of the environmental assessment, GO spokesperson Vanessa Thomas said she couldn’t predict when commuter trains would start rolling into Niagara, but noted the government agency’s strategic plan targeted a 2020 start-up.

That estimate turned out to be off by one year. (Service to Grimsby is expected by 2021.) However, it proved to be considerably more accurate than any of the goofily optimistic forecasts made by local boosters the past decade or two.

Mind you, Caslin and several of his crew weren’t even on regional council in 2009. So, it’s like the environmental assessment never happened. Yet, the forgotten study, completed in 2011, is still serving as the infrastructure template for expansion to Niagara.

But what about the business case made by Niagara a couple of years ago?

Think about it. If you’re Metrolinx, what research are you going to rely on to make a multimillion-dollar decision? The data produced from a detailed, yearlong, independent environmental assessment or the numbers contained in a report commissioned by a lobbyist, in this case Niagara Region, with a vested interest in the results?

But Robinson said the Region’s business case allowed it to leap to the head of the queue. It’s now the gold standard for other communities pining for GO.

Who exactly are these other communities?

GO commuter trains already serve Halton, Hamilton, Durham, York, Barrie and Waterloo Region.

Is Niagara, with its 450,000 residents, really thumping its chest for getting the jump on daily train service over Brantford, Peterborough, Orangeville and Beaverton? Sad! Don’t worry, though. Niagara Region’s official history, presuming it’s written in the next 18 months, will make the achievement sound a lot more heroic.