Mayor defends hiring firm employing former OC Transpo head to help fix LRT

Ottawa's mayor is defending the city's decision to hire a firm that employs the former head of OC Transpo to help fix the LRT system's latest problems.

OC Transpo announced Sunday that STV Inc. was recently brought in to "closely monitor" Rideau Transit Maintenance's work as it tries to fix the line, which has been partly shut down since freezing rain fell last Wednesday.

The firm was also hired to "provide independent advice to OC Transpo and confirm that we have a solid plan to return service to this area," OC Transpo's statement said.

John Manconi, who retired as the city's head of transit services in September 2021, is listed as STV's senior vice-president and key contact for Ottawa on its website. STV also provided consulting services during LRT construction.

Asked about the hiring on Monday, Mark Sutcliffe suggested that Manconi would not be involved in STV's work to help fix the current problems.

"Is he one of the people who's involved in resolving this issue? I don't think so," Sutcliffe told Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa at Work. "I think it's the engineers in that organization that are providing that expertise."

CTV News has reached out to STV to inquire about their role in helping to fix the train and whether Manconi would be involved. But Troy Charter, OC Transpo's director of operations, said Manconi is not involved in the work.

"There's been no contact with Mr. Manconi on this specific event," Charter said.

The former OC Transpo head is not an expert in overhead catenary systems, Charter said, which broke after last week's ice buildup and have broken twice more as crews tried to fix them.

"He's not an OCS expert, so he wouldn't have information or in-depth knowledge to be able to share."

Charter said STV is helping to oversee the work to rectify the line, and will participate in the investigation into the problems after they're fixed.

"They've been working with the city for many, many years. They have in-depth information about the original design and construction, so they are able to hit the ground running," Charter said.

Host Graham Richardson asked Sutcliffe what he would say to concerns that the decision looks like a former transit head is benefitting from problems with the line he helped launch.

Sutcliffe said the city wants the best possible people working to help get the trains back up and running.

"If there are people who work for the same company who can help us resolve this issue and get the trains moving again faster, then why would we not turn to the best experts available?" Sutcliffe said.

City briefly hired STV in 2021, but backtracked

STV was the city's initial choice to conduct an independent safety review of the city's LRT system in September 2021, when it was shut down due to two derailments.

However, the city withdrew the choice after questions were raised about STV's independence, since the company provided consulting services during LRT construction.

“While the objectivity and expertise of STV is not in question in any way, I also recognize that public trust related to all aspects of the Confederation Line 1 is low right now,” then-city manager Steve Kanellakos said in a memo at the time.

“I do not want any perception challenges to get in the way of residents’ confidence in the findings and verification of the independent reviewer.”

Manconi involved in overseeing LRT launch

The LRT public inquiry's final report released in November took much of the city's leadership team to task for what Commissioner William Hourigan termed "egregious violations of the public trust."

Hourigan called a WhatsApp group including Manconi, then-mayor Jim Watson, Kanellakos and other senior officials, an 'end run around proper governance.'

Hourigan also strongly suggested that Manconi, Watson and Kanellakos misled the commission in their testimony about why council wasn't told about the suspension of train testing in July 2019.

After testing saw significant problems in 2019, Manconi prepared a memo to inform council that testing had been suspended. However, Manconi testified that Kanellakos directed him not to release the memo.

Manconi and Kanellakos both told the commission that the memo wasn't released because they had committed to only advise council on the status of testing once it was finished. Watson also adopted that explanation, the report says.

Hourigan did not buy that testimony, he wrote in the report.

"This evidence from Mayor Watson, Manconi, and Kanellakos does not withstand scrutiny, and the Commission does not accept it as a truthful explanation of what motivated the failure to communicate with Council," the report said.

"On the contrary, the Commission finds that no such commitment was made."