Letter to Mr Harrison, Mr O'Mara

Mr. Harrison, Mr. O'Mara,

For your information, this message was sent to Minister Broten last night.
If you haven't already seen page 8, re: maintenance yard location.

Please see stream of emails below.

It appears that the only reason the city of Ottawa agreed to putting the re-use of a Brownfield maintenance yard location as part of the MOU [available at bottom of this page], was to secure Government funding for the project ($400 M).

Let's think about this for a moment, you know that the Provincial and Federal Governments would have never agreed to levelling a greenspace field (site 2 or site 3) when an ideal Brownfield location was available.

The city has used the EA study and process, to change what they see as a constraint on the MOU. Unbelievable!!

Cheryl

Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006
From:
Subject: MOU - Ottawa North-South LRT project
To: "Chartrand, Rejean"

Mr. Chartrand,

Thank you for your note of March 23, 2006.

I agree, in part, with you that the the purpose of the MOU was executed to reconfirm the funding commitments. A very essential and fundamental component of this project.

However, I would like to draw your attention back to Section 1 of the MOU (the section from which you were quoting) wherein it states: "The purpose of this MOU is to build upon the announcement by: adjusting the proposed scope of the project ..., such adjusted scope is defined in Section 8 and Schedule A of this MOU, and reaffirming the financial commitment of the parties ..."

It is clear that the authors and signatories of this agreement placed, arguably, more weight on clarifying the deliverables by placing it first in the MOU than on reaffirming the financial commitment. This is the basis of any purchasing, borrowing, or lending situation, contractual or otherwise. When I buy a car I first specify the details of the car and then negotiate the price. If I am starting a business the bank wants to review a complete business plan before loaning the money. This situation is no different; before reaffirming the money the plan needs to be agreed to by the signatories.

Even if we accept that both clauses have equal weight, Section 1 of the MOU clearly and unequivocally establishes that Schedule A is the agreed to project. There is no mention in either Section 1 or Schedule A that either of the clauses, project definition or funding commitments, could be altered by an Environmental Assessment. Further, I do note that Section 9 states: "The parties may amend the Project definition by mutual agreement prior to the execution of the formal agreement". It is very clear and unequivocal that Schedule A is the Project Definition and no amendment has been provided, thus it can only be concluded that changes to the project definition have been made without the proper mutual agreement as required by the MOU.

In your note you mention that: "Section 4(a)i of the MOU explicitly requires the City to complete the necessary EA's for this project and the funding is conditional upon that requirement being met successfully. I agree, (though I understand that there are many issues regarding the completeness of the EA). However I have to disagree with you subsequent statement, which reads: "This of course includes the selection of the location of the maintenance facility ...". A reasonable person would not be led to such an interpretation. Rather a reasonable person would presume that the Section 4(a)i was to apply to the project as provided for in Schedule A - the project definition, and not as a mechanism to arbitrarily alter the project definition.

It is a travesty of due process, a circumvention of our parliamentary process, and an affront to the public good that an environmental assessment, as good or bad as it may be and clearly intended for another purpose, is being used as the vehicle from which to amend this project; a project to which the signatories have agreed to stated definition - Schedule A, and have agreed to a stated amending mechanism Section 9.

This travesty has wasted valuable resources, both public and those of individual community members who have committed to various working groups, in the pursuit of an objective not agreed to by the signatories. It is time for Council to take action and end this travesty, for anything else would be viewed as continuing the alleged veil of secrecy surrounding this project.

By cc of this note, I'm asking councillors to take action and direct city staff accordingly.

"Chartrand, Rejean" wrote:
Mr. Hillier,

Thank you for your e-mail of 23 March 2006 to Council members concerning the Memorandum of Understanding between Canada, Ontario, and the City on the LRT project.

The MOU was executed to reconfirm the funding commitments from the senior levels of government towards the City's LRT project and to clarify the procurement process that would be used for the delivery of the project. The project definition included in the MOU was based on the information available at the time. You will appreciate that the EA process was not completed at that time, and that the issue of the maintenance facility was addressed in the EA with the identification of three potential sites, with a selection process for the final site subsequently put in place by the Ministry of the Environment.

Section 4(a)i of the MOU explicitely requires the City to complete the necessary EA's for this project and the funding is conditional upon that requirement being met successfully. This of course includes the selection of the location of the maintenance facility by Council, as per the process established by the Ministry. As communicated previously, we expect that a report will be available for Council's consideration on this issue in May 2006.

The MOU needs to get formalized through a Contribution Agreement between Canada, Ontario, and the City. This will be the formal legal agreement between the parties committing the funds for this project. The development of this agreement is well underway and will be executed following contract award by City Council for the construction of the LRT project, as per Treasury Board's requirements. We anticipate this agreement to be in place by end of summer with a construction start following shortly thereafter.

Should you have any additional questions on this, please contact me directly.

Réjean Chartrand

From: Peter Hillier [mailto:pjhillier@rogers.com]
Sent: March 23,2006 9:52 AM
As requested by a neighbour, please see the attached MOU, specifically page 8 which details the layout of specific parts of the LRT project. Our questions to council are:

a. Is this MOU considered a mandate by the signatories?
b. If so, why wasn't the Walkley Yard the only option considered given the only options for other parts of the project have been lauded as a mandate in the MOU (i.e. dual vs single track and electric vs. deisel trains)?
c. Does an intergovernmental MOU of this nature necessarily have to be formalized by an agreement or contract in order to see the funding come through?

Given, I have been spending a considerable amount of my personal time "assisting" the City in the Public Working Group and now find that my time is being wasted on a selection process that should have never been facilitated, I demand to understand why the city has gone through this expensive process. At what point between this MOU and the initiation of the EA did it become necessary to position 3 alternative site if the Government of Canada and the Province had already agreed to fund on the use of one? I'm concerned that the optics of this suggest that the Walkely Yard was only positioned in the process as it was a brownfield and to front it vice any other location would bear more weght with the other partners in funding.

Peter J. Hillier