Thread by @OccTranspo

Day 3
#OttawaLRT Inquiry Live Tweet Mega Thread

Today's guests:
John Traianopoulos (Infra Ont) - Morning
Nancy Schepers (City of Ottawa) - Afternoon

#Ottawa #ottLRT

ottawalrtpublicinquiry.ca/public-hearing…

For those tuning in. These things go from 9:00 to around 4:00 p.m. with a lunch break of 2 hours around 12:00 to 2:00.

I'm live tweeting the highlights and hypocrisy, with added commentary and sass that you have come to love 😂

Formatting.

Assume everything is paraphrased unless explicitly noted.

" " - direct quote, keyword highlight, lack of a better label
' ' - heavily paraphrased (to denote "storytelling")
[ ] - replaced words in a quote
Name: - the person talking
Random text - my commentary 😃

And we begin. The first guest John Traian~ is VP of transactional finance for infrastructure Ontario (noted as IO here after). He's giving his credentials now.

He's been exposed to Ottawa LRT since 2009.

In 2009 this is what IO was offering the City as "support/guidance" - and from other interviews thus far it looks like this is what they delivered on.

600M in funding and guidance to the city in dealing with mega project.

Counsel looks like it is going to try paint the picture that IO took The City of Ottawa on good faith.

Which I think we will see in a few moments where this is going.

Ah I see where they are going now.

The common process is: design - build.

IO was in nego~ to try convince the city to have the ops and maintance to RTG.

The city (likely OC) pushed back on that.

The choice, not to, meant less value for money and more risk for the city.

It looks like counsel is hunting for malfeasance here. I'm not seeing we're yet this lady (counsel) is going here.

Enjoying the mini game portion of these inquiries. Brings me back to highschool law. So much fun 😂

Talk around P3's and #Ottawa City and IO interactions - still not clear where this is all going.

It might be that counsel isn't looking for malfeasance,

but trying to paint the picture that IO injected itself into the City's project, and by using it's power and weight, it shoehorned the P3 idea though all its negotiations and convos

Weak, but interesting angle to flush out

Counsel: Did anyone at any given time raised any concerns about the fairness of the process?

IO: Nope

So now counsel is talking about the financing and how it can be used as a compliance tool by the city (owner).

Going over the monetary deductions from failure of service/key points.

and failure points, which are demerit points, that let you seek remedies for bad behavior.

Covering what we heard day one and two again.

IO again points out that if you're too punishing, people might not bid or if they do bid they're going to just price in the punishment.

It doesn't guarantee compliance or to shape behavior change.

IO states, the objective is to have a punishment that is big enough that it will get their attention, and give value to compliance.

But not so big that they decide to become adversarial and find ways to live with the punishment.

The project bidder was looking for a grace period because they were taking on 'so much responsibility'.

One of IO and The City perspectives, was that the, trains should be working day one - that there's no need for a 'trial period' where they wouldn't judged on performance.

IO points out, the contract already had clauses to handle causes outside of their control and it has language that clearly outlines the expected roles/performance for all parties.

Nice smart counter argument from counsel.
"So what happens when the operator is operating in a manner that causes damage"

IO John, unfazed said the contract had lines for that. People are not going to get punished, for others belligerency.

Riposte!

We're now on break. Not much transpired except for more communication about the contract and the process. Nothing much new.

I'm guessing the linchpin of this dispute from the commissions' perspective is the contact.

AFAIK I know it's RTG's primary argument.

And my favorite guy so far is back.

Now he's softballing to get the legal stuff out of the way.

Again pointing out that they had a contract, nothing was done unilaterally, they had plenty of time to complain and everyone expected them to be competent 🤣

There's the problem 😂

Rolling with the punches.

Everyone was confident, enough to lend and spend.

The city had every right to be concerned about costs, because no city has an infinite budget.

The city was in no way forced to take any bidder.

And poking holes in the early hypotheticals

No one raised any complaints and if there was a complaint it was addressed.

Everyone from lenders, infrastructure Ontario, two advisory groups, and all the staff on all every sides of this contract - tens to hundreds of skilled eyes - and the contract got signed without duress.

Which he goes on to say that this arguably, ' provides some level of guard against people being disingenuous'

He goes on to state, nobody here is can claim to be incompetent, there's no way to imply that somebody is misleading somebody, didn't understand or walked in blind.

Now a point of note. Just because complaints were raised in a dress doesn't mean that RTG got everything they wanted.

They had the ability/opportunity to leave the bidding process if that was unacceptable.

But they didn't.

Ottawa lawyer is trying to paint the picture that The City would be punished in being malicious and taking an aggressive stance against RTG.

There's limited benefit to becoming the lender and there's a limited benefit of having less oversight.

Which is a lot of RTG's claims.

And he gets to the point that RTG argues that this caused a power imbalance and thus put RTG at the disadvantage.

Accurately points out it's the City versus three of the largest construction companies in Canada and one that is worldwide.

Accurately also follows up that even if there was a power imbalance as implied, the city never exercised it.

Which is a weak argument - because power flows from threats and potential, as much as it does from direct action.

But the point is valid. Perception =/= actuality.

RTG group counsel, is again, trying to point out that because The City of Ottawa is withholding money from RTG is not able to function and provide the maintenance because they don't have any money

Although she's pointing out, the city is limited in punishment to RTGs benefit

I don't know where she's going with this unless she's going to say but the city broke their contract. If it was not cut and dry we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Right now she's just proving the city's point.

And there's the point. She asked that the city took the position that "they thought they could carry forward punishment".

IO states: Yes, it was his perception that the city did think that.

But that said, someone thinking at the City of Ottawa (I know that's a rarity) is not acting, nor representation of the everyone.

If the City did breach contract, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We would have been in trial.

So, into the garbage can with this argument.

Here's the confidential scorings for Line 1 #OttawaLRT #Ottawa

Note to self. See if you can read the full Deloitte article.

And we're on break till 2:00 p.m.

A little delayed in posting this message as I was responding to some tweets & working a day job.

Only point of note is that Alstom legal does not seem friendly to RTG.

And we are back with Nancy Schepers from the City of Ottawa till 4pm.

ottawalrtpublicinquiry.ca/public-hearing…

Nancy background is that she's an engineer and that her role is to provide advisement to the city. The conversation is going to be heading towards details about the trains.

Counsel: 'Was the train proven?'
Nancy: [Kinda]

C: Was this most costly and most complex project the city has ever done?
N: Correct

Now the chat is all about the LRT causing grief of commuters.

Nancy confirms the City was well aware, the service transit plays and the the problems that arise when it fails.

Nancy confirms the City sought out advisors because they were lacking in knowledge in the scope of the project (not to mention just good due diligence)

So they're just going over the benefits of the P3 policy again.

Reiterating that the major benefit is if the builder decides to focus on short term problems - it would harm the maintainer.

Thus if the builder and the maintainer are the same person, it reduces risk.

Counsel: "The city really saw the contract as the vehicle to [ensure it got what it wanted]"
Nancy: As it should be.

Counsel then directs to these two images.

Counsel then notes that last line that "the city's role is to hold contractors to performance"

It looks like counsel's trying to paint that the city is bent on enforcing the contract - but everyone here agrees, that's because that's their role of the city - or as counsel alluding to - so they were told, by advisors

Nancy retorts, that the city knew about P3 and wasn't led

Cost estimate of the LRT was 2.1B in 2009 dollars - not including inflation or any added costs after doing geo technicals, prelim engineering and there was over 150 stakeholder groups involved in this project.

This page again. Directing her to the second paragraph middle.

Counsel is hammering down the path that the 2.1B cost estimation at this point of time was plus or minus 25% (+/- 500M)

Nancy points out that it's obvious it was an estimation - because it is all very preliminary. No one was committing to a budget.

Counsel is now leading the witness, basically talking about how this budget, if they were a stickler for this price point, would have misled City council - because it was too early.

He (Counsel) is now using as evidence that some counselors ran on the idea is that we can bring the LRT in 2.1B.

Which is a flimsy argument because counselors rarely represents the will of the city (or reality) - but he's really hammering home on it.

Now he is trying to cast dispersions on the Mayor and City Hall that because what transpired on paper did not match what politicians say in their verbiage.

Now he's trying to get the witness confirm that making a budget estimate was a mistake and irresponsible.

I'm thoughly confused, how he thinks political types are anywhere accountable to the words the say during elections.

At the end of the day, this the mismatch doesn't matter anyways, because the end contract, is all that matters is the end.

Now he's trying to point out that City Hall did not have the experience or the ability to deal with challenges and challenges causes challenges.

Nancy properly retorts [that's why we hired experts]...

😂

He's really getting hung up on this number. It's all clearly written in black and white and all these reports "THIS NUMBER IS AN ESTIMATE".

He's getting upset that the politicians/city staff didn't convey this messaging to the public.

He didn't like the on time, on budget.

Yeah I think this guy doesn't understand the subject matter at all.

You're getting upset over a marketing slogan. It's like you can't say "I will do a good job fixing your house" because at some time in my entire career that's "good" isn't going to be accurate.

Now he's just making statements of opinions and telling us how to do our business.

Nancy's disagreeing. I'm with Nancy here.

I don't know what this guy is doing at this point - I think he's trying to establish that the city set unreasonable deadlines/expectations.

Except the is whole freaking point of a P3.

In what world do you buy something and expect nothing to be on budget and on time - aside from government work 🤣

The whole P3 system enforces this and they paid extra for it to be on time and on budget.

Ah, okay so he's looking at existing testimony.

He's trying to paint the picture that an adversarial nature is proof that the integration/synergy of a P3 didn't exist because they were too busy disagreeing.

So the philosophical argument is 'a P3 isn't a P3 if your fighting'

Whatever you call it, it's still a contract and everyone still has clearly defined responsibilities in black and white.

It seems like he's trying to work the angle the city looking for things to be on time - put pressure on the people to deliver.

The way this guy is talking, it sounds like he expects that no one should have expectations when they get into legal agreements with people.

To paraphrase yesterday, what's point of a contract & bid. If everyone just bids a dollar and best efforts it.

Now he's trying to get Nancy to say that, when the P3 system breaks down and you start to withhold money, it works against you to getting the project finished.

Aka: So, hey, ok - I bulldozed your house, while putting in your windows. Pay me more to fix it. I have debts.

Nancy's pushing back on the idea that these multi-billion dollar companies were somehow hard pressed to execute the bid.

Even more so that the idea that they are under financial pressure because they screwed up, is something they couldn't (see: didn't want to) cope with.

He's now strawmanning the P3 and jumping to conclusions by oversimplifying the P3 process.

He's arguing that p3s are built to be so financially punitive that it would crush non-compliance

Which at least 3 people have testified the dead opposite of so far.

Nice try homie ☺️

Now he's leading by saying the city can't take an aggressive role and beat down their partner.

He is trying to get Nancy to say "the city can't be a stickler to the contract" she is rightfully refusing.

He's now trying to say that a contract should not get in the way of doing what's best for the public.

Nancy properly retort saying the contract (and enforcement) can be used for good

- and that's the purpose of doing this whole process, to protect the public purse.

Yeah I definitely don't know where this guy's going. He's professing virtues, and I don't understand why.

I'm very confused. He is all over the place in trying to get wins on weird questions.

Now yet another counsel for RTG. Asking questions about her role.

Good questions to pointing out she was quite the gate keeper/key role till 2015, for this project to complete.

Looks like he's fishing to prove she was biased.

Scratch that previous statement. It looks like he's trying to prove that RTG was a good faith actor.

Right now he's just asking a bunch of questions softballing asking for her to basically say RTG was good people/good partner.

And he actually just asked that directly right now

Counsel for RTG is trying to lead the witness into saying that OC transpo was not ready for running this train set.

They were chosen early and never given a second thought.

Nancy retorts that it made logical sense and of course they're going to need training.

Did finish off with a few attacks on her credibility. That you liked credentials and she took some money from boxfish.

My initial hunch was true, he just held it to the end.

Infrastructure Ontario is now calling out the counsel silliness from earlier basically what I typed earlier, but with nicer words 😂

She is "talking to the witness" but really just giving a monolog for the record.

Doesn't seem happy 😁

It should be added that because this is a custom train, on a custom system, in a unique city that never has had this system before - to imply that anyone in the world would have been pre-certified to drive/operate this train - is likely a fallacy.

We're just on a short break due to a missing document and the fact that it's the afternoon.

Just reread what I wrote pretty decent summary. *Give self pat on back*

One point of clarification below

When I say leading, for those not watching, what I mean is that they're basically saying something like:

"Based on damning evidence that clearly proves the person's a bad person. Would you agree he is a bad person?"

It's asserting their 'already decided conclusion' as truth.

And again I don't know the rules of procedure here, but it looks like they can state opinion as fact and there's no objections to leading a witness to a conclusion - regardless of the established truthiness.

Which to me is just a little jarring.

And we're back and Infrastructure Ontario is explaining the lending agreement and how the initial statements we're out to lunch.

Also explaining that: hardships that a business has in delivering what they say they're going to deliver is not really the problem of the city ❤️

As she properly points out, the city was charged for foreseen risks. They paid for a train, you said you would deliver at a certain time for a certain price.

If they're struggling to do that, then that's a failure on their promises.

But I think is going on in the background here and why we're splitting hairs .

I think RTG is not stating that they got royally screwed by subcontractors and it nuked them and their ability to preform, beyond anything they could have planned for.

I have insider information and I hear a lot of things, and this is all lining up with what I heard in the early days.

It's like staffing a ship and you're the captain. You promised to deliver the goods to India, then your crew turns out to be crap and the ship wood was rotting.

Argue that you should have doubled and tripled checked and vetted everyone - and ultimately that's true you're on the hook for your choices.

Whereas the ship captain (RTG) is arguing that look this is ridiculous and have mercy on us.

And I can understand that.

But the key takeaway is that, again the City in this case, paid extra to ensure that the shipment will be delivered on time.

All of this was priced in and you said "okay I can do this".

That's what infrastructure Ontario (everyone) is basically saying.

Now the transit Union is talking about value of OC Transpo and its staff.

There is a bit of grandstanding here, but he's getting to a ok points to the value of in-house than, it is to have third party with less control. As well as the problem with for profits.

Though I'm sure non-city-union workers, cost fractions less and thus give value 🤣

But as Nancy points out it's irrelevant as long as they're meeting the service standards they said they are.

But of course to a Union, that's basically trying to defend how they grow and generate revenue - it's not going to fly.

He went over time and that was the end of that.

My second favorite interrogator. Now seemingly just asking questions of curiosity.

Ha, David I think is doing a better job at selling OC Transpo's credibility than the union did.

He mentions they have a state-of-the-art training center that any consortium would have been using anyways and they had 10 years of operating the Old LRT.

He is back. now soft balling Nancy's credentials which are impressive.

Points out that the complaint of "on time, on budget" being a political pressure is trash.

Points out that the city didn't strong arm her or ignore her judgement or advice to follow the contact.

Now that said the true 'hostility' of the city was after her time in office.

But the complaint about the mantra was during her time.

And now we're getting the cross examination from the John the commission counsel earlier.

He's still getting very passionate about this contract being belligerent and that it should be so flexible for the best service of the city.

Nancy is still not agreeing.

Nancy continues to state that we all agreed what our roles would be in the contract and that there is provisions for non-compliance and when problems arise - don't throw the contract in the garbage you work within the agreements that everyone came to and signed about.

Counsel backed off and that is it for today. We resume tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.

That was quite the spicy beginning today. Ramped up really hard but the remainder of the day was pretty negligible. No hostility but definitely some very directed questioning.

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