Metrolinx slapped with new spending, oversight rules

Torontosun.com
Nov. 23, 2016
By Shawn Jeffords

The Ontario Liberal government is tightening its grip on the troubled transit agency Metrolinx.

Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said Wednesday that new spending and oversight rules have been put in place following a sweeping review of the provincial agency, which operates GO Transit and works to plan and co-ordinate transit in the GTA and Hamilton.

Critics slammed the government, saying it shows the Liberals lost control of the “rogue” agency.

Under the new rules, Metrolinx will be required to report a long list of financial information monthly to the government, come to Del Duca’s ministry for approval of many promotional partnerships, and prove it’s fulfilling its mandate.

“This important work will help ensure enhanced agency oversight and accountability at Metrolinx,” Del Duca said in a statement.

The review was prompted by a series of high-profile screw-ups in early 2016. In late February, Metrolinx slashed the price of the Union Pearson Express air-rail link from $27.50 to $12 in a bid to bolster anemic ridership. The rail link to the airport was to be a break-even enterprise but will now require a multimillion-dollar taxpayer subsidy every year.

In March, the Toronto Sun revealed that Metrolinx had doled out $1.3 million of taxpayers’ cash over five years to fund studies and conferences. Opposition critics slammed the spending as “another boondoggle.”

The Sun also told readers how Metrolinx spent $40,000 on uniforms for UP Express employees and then paid an additional $22,000 to have them featured in Toronto Fashion Week. Metrolinx had to cover the cost of designing the uniforms - more than $8,000 - when the plan to participate in the event was derailed.

In an email obtained by the Sun earlier this year, Metrolinx board chairman Rob Prichard called the MTO review “unwelcome” and said it “compromises elements of our independence.”

However, Metrolinx spokesman Anne Marie Aikins said Wednesday the agency welcomed Del Duca’s announcement.

“This work has strengthened the communication, collaboration and oversight between Metrolinx and the ministry and we look forward to continuing to deliver and expand transit in the GTHA,” she said in a statement.

PC MPP Michael Harris said the review was an attempt by Del Duca to save face.

“A six-month internal, behind-closed-doors review announcing new communication protocols between the ministry and Metrolinx does little to make up the years of costly mutual botch-ups,” Harris said. “It’s the same team that allowed the mismanagement and waste to grow unchecked.”

NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo called the report a “public relations exercise.”

She demanded to know why the transportation ministry hasn’t been collecting vital financial information from Metrolinx during past years.

Some of the changes coming with Metrolinx reporting to the Ministry of Transportation (MTO):

• The MTO will now approve all promotional partnerships that the agency enters into that cost more than $25,000, are longer than three years in term, or represent a “high risk.”

• The MTO will now receive monthly reports on ridership, revenues, economic forecasts, capital projects, operating expenses, and other information.

• Metrolinx will also be required to hand over two years’ worth of financial information to the MTO. As part of that, the agency must disclose annually the number of “full-time equivalent” employees on the front line compared to back office staff.