City wants provincial help with Red Hill probe costs

Investigation and hearings into the slippery parkway could end up costing taxpayers $12 million

Hamilton will ask the province to help pay a ballooning bill for the “slippery” Red Hill judicial investigation that is now expected to climb as high as $12 million.

City council voted in March 2019 to ask a Superior Court judge to probe the circumstances behind a troubling safety report on the collision-prone parkway that was inexplicably hidden for five years. The slippery asphalt controversy spurred an emergency repaving of the parkway and a $250-million class-action lawsuit that is separate from the inquiry.

Inquiry commissioner Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel and his legal team have collected 114,786 documents and

started interviewing witnesses ahead of public hearings. Those hearings will likely be held remotely because of COVID, said commission counsel Robert Centa, and will not begin before Labour Day.

The latest cost estimate for the inquiry — between $10 million and $12 million — prompted Coun. Lloyd Ferguson to label the effort “a disaster” for the city, which is responsible for all costs associated with the judicial probe.

“It’s just terrible that we’re wasting $12 million on this thing,” said Ferguson, who reiterated his belief the city should have instead asked for an auditor general report on the parkway friction study. “I think history will show we made a poor decision.”

The city has already spent $6.6 million before hearings even begin — or most of the $7 million originally budgeted.

City lawyers warned council early on that the judicial investigation could cost anywhere from $2 million to $10 million.

Still, Coun. Brad Clark called the amount of work and number of documents involved “staggering” and conceded he had not anticipated the price tag to spike as high as now predicted. “I was expecting an expeditious inquiry,” he said.

Clark nonetheless reiterated his support for the investigation, noting council chose the inquiry — and its public hearings — over a closed-door auditor general probe. “We wanted it to be transparently open with no recrimination and no accusation that staff or council was hiding any information,” he said.

Councillors supported a motion from Clark on Wednesday to reach out to see if the province would help cover a portion of the rapidly growing inquiry bill. Clark argued it’s reasonable to ask the province for aid because it is already involved in the judicial hearing as a party and did its own friction tests on the parkway.

(The province is participating in the inquiry, but paying its own costs.)

A lawyer working for the city on the inquiry, Eli Lederman, said he was not aware of an example of the province agreeing to pay part of the bill for a judicial inquiry initiated by a city, but pledged to look into it.

The Town of Collingwood is also asking for Ontario’s help paying for a $7.1-million judicial investigation that wrapped up last year, said deputy mayor Keith Hull. He said the municipality has not yet been told yes or no. “There have been conversations happening,” he said.

Outside the judicial inquiry, Hamilton taxpayers may also face costs related to a separate civil lawsuit over the parkway.

More than 200 collisions occurred on the Red Hill over the years the parkway friction tests remained buried, spurring outraged crash victims and their families to file a $250-million class-action lawsuit. A court hearing to determine whether to certify the class action is not scheduled until January 2022.