Burgoyne Bridge task force wants probe investigated

Niagara Region’s task force probing the massive cost overruns on the Burgoyne Bridge replacement project is now asking for an investigation of the investigation — at least when it comes to the role of the City of St. Catharines.

The task force passed a unanimous motion Wednesday requesting St. Catharines conduct an immediate and independent investigation of the city’s forensic audit of its role in the bridge project from beginning to end.

At issue are two years of archived city emails that are unavailable.

The city’s entire 2012 email archive is missing, the task force learned. City staff couldn’t find it when they went to retrieve it.

The city’s 2011 email archive was “corrupted” and has evaded the best attempts of city staff, regional staff and a third-party contractor to recover the data.

Those two years are especially important in understanding why the bridge costs ballooned, said Niagara Falls Coun. Selina Volpatti, the chair of the task force.

She said she is “seriously concerned” because crucial design changes that impacted the final cost of the bridge replacement were made during those years — especially in 2012.

Of particular interest to the task force are changes to the design of the bridge foundations. Those changes contributed significantly to the overall cost.

“We also know an individual employed by the successful con-

tractor — who did significant work on the foundations — was later arrested in a sting operation in Quebec and charged with taking secret commissions and fraud,” Volpatti said ominously.

Andrew Scott, the regional manager overseeing the task force’s internal probe, said 99 emails are relevant to the investigation. Those emails were discovered using keyword and phrase searches.

“I have concerns there are significant forces at play that are attempting to prevent the public from ever knowing what occurred with this project,” Volpatti said. “It is clear that issues around the Burgoyne Bridge have extended to the City of St. Catharines and are no longer limited to the Niagara Region. The Burgoyne Bridge has become a multijurisdictional is- sue.”

The bridge is the largest infrastructure project in the Region’s history — and by far the most studied.

To date, there have been two Regional investigations by third-parties, a value-for-money audit and a forensic audit. There is also an Ontario Provincial Police investigation.

Scott gave councillors an update on his work, including what his extensive review of emails from 2009 to 2013 uncovered. It revealed that lower level staff had known costs were ballooning during the design process and made the dollar figures available to senior staff. Senior staff, however, removed those numbers from the body of the final reports that went to councillors when they decided how to proceed.

Scott said the OPP informed him its investigation is still “open and ongoing.”

He said the OPP asked for information and documentation from the Region on June 5, June 19 and Aug. 2. On Aug. 29, the OPP inquired if certain Region employees and politicians would take part in taped interviews. Scott said the OPP submitted a list of 60 questions on which they were looking for information. Eight staff and three politicians were ultimately interviewed.

The final bill for the bridge is almost $100 million, well above the preliminary estimate of $59.5 million, which was divided between the federal government, the province, and the Region and St. Catharines. Niagara taxpayers were left on the hook for the overruns when the federal and provincial governments wouldn’t allow the Region a redo on the cost estimations.

The crossing is a major eastwest artery in St. Catharines and replaced a 100-year-old bridge in nearly the same location.