'Somebody clearly ‘dropped the ball,’ FONOM President

Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities
News Release

*******************

Quebec-based Canadian Allied Diesel (CAD) has been awarded the next GO (Government of Ontario) Transit Refurbishment Contract by the Metrolinx Board of Directors to re-build GO Transit cars. However, this short-sighted loss of a $120 million GO Transit railcar re-building contract to an out-of-province supplier transgresses the Ministry of Transportation’s own Sustainability Strategy.

Tom Laughren, Interim President of the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) and Mayor of Timmins stated, “We’ve reviewed the Ministry’s own website and were shocked by what we read, in light of the recent near-sighted, Metrolinx decision to send GO Transit work out of the province.”

The Ministry developed a widely supported internal document entitled Sustainability insight, where it states, “Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is uniquely placed to make a significant contribution to Ontario’s economic, social and environmental sustainability. Sustainability means considering all of the impacts of our actions and decisions in economic, environmental, and social terms. It means evaluating these impacts over the long-term, ensuring the best economic, environmental, and social return on investment for every public dollar spent. ...”

“The report goes on to identify what we feel are our clear concerns in this matter”, noted Mac Bain, North Bay City Councilor and Past President of FONOM. It says

“Government decisions must be guided by a responsibility to respect public interests and priorities, and to make sure that public funds are spent wisely and sustainably. Areas of focus include developing a more inclusive approach to accounting methodology to evaluate long-term social, environmental and economic costs and benefits. A more inclusive method of accounting will also consider impacts over the life of an investment, ensuring the best value for money, rather than simply the lowest short-term cost. ... The (Ministry of Transportation’s) strategic approach to procurement should be to ensure the highest economic value, not simply the best price.”

In fact, the Ministry’s own goal: ‘Demonstrate Good Stewardship and Using Procurement to Promote Sustainability’, states

“The breadth and scope of MTO's mandate offers many opportunities to practise good stewardship of Ontario's resources - human, financial and natural. Every time we make a decision, we need to consider how it will affect the surrounding ecosystem and communities.”

Bain continued, “We’ve been saying all along that Northern Ontario has second to none re-manufacturing capabilities in North Bay that are supported by Ontarians and in turn support Ontario’s ‘Common Good’. The inherently flawed tendering process used by Metrolinx needs to be reviewed immediately to ensure macro-economic considerations such as job creation and regional competitiveness and not just simple price are used to decide on which company wins bidding contracts. FONOM's interest in this issue is that the Ministry and now our Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry (Michael Gravelle) and the Minister of Transportation (Kathleen Wynne) are defending their provincial government that has decided to go against its own principles and is now supporting re-manufacturing of provincial rolling stock in another province instead of in Northern Ontario. This erodes the capability of ONTC to maintain its other operating divisions. In other words, this political action threatens the sustainability of Ontario Northland.”

Simply put, noted Mayor Laughren, “In light of the Ministry’s own policies, this contract must be re-considered in the context of what makes sense for North Bay, Northern Ontario and indeed all of Ontario. This should be an urgent and important priority for the Ontario Government before it’s too late. Somebody clearly ‘dropped the ball’ and didn’t consider the short-sighted consequences of this bad decision”.

*******************