Doug Ford should fire Metrolinx CEO over delays to Eglinton Crosstown LRT, New Democrats say
As commuters await a completion date for the long overdue Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the New Democrats are increasing pressure on Premier Doug Ford to fire Metrolinx chief executive Phil Verster.
As commuters await a completion date for the long overdue Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the Official Opposition New Democrats are increasing pressure on Premier Doug Ford to fire Metrolinx chief executive Phil Verster.
“They are the conductors, sadly, of Phil Verster’s gravy train,” NDP MPP Joel Harden (Ottawa Centre) charged Tuesday following the government’s decision last month to extend the transit executive’s contract despite continuing delays in opening the light rail transit line.
“Commuters are suffering, transit workers are suffering, hundreds of small businesses have had to close,” added Harden. “Why are you rewarding failure?”
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Verster told a news conference last Wednesday that the provincial transit agency has a “very good understanding” of when the line is likely to open, but repeatedly refused to reveal it until more testing and commissioning work is completed.
The lack of information was a letdown for thousands of commuters after he pledged in August to reveal a date by the end of the summer.
Ford’s new associate minister of transportation — who was promoted to the post two weeks ago in a cabinet shuffle sparked by the government’s $8.28-billion Greenbelt land swap scandal — rose to Verster’s defence in the legislature’s daily question period.
“Since 2018, the scope of Metrolinx has significantly expanded,” Vijay Thanigasalam said in a feisty exchange with Harden.
“We are focused on building the Ontario Line (subway) and have more shovels in the ground for the Scarborough subway.”
Thanigasalam, who came to Canada from Sri Lanka as a teen and is the province’s first Tamil cabinet minister, was given a hearty ovation by his Progressive Conservative colleagues for his first answer as a minister.
“That’s what happens when you give somebody from another country an opportunity,” Government House Leader Paul Calandra said in a taunt at the opposition that drew awkward glances.
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“All I can say with Mr. Calandra today is he’s desperate, he’s throwing everything at the wall, and I frankly couldn’t make sense of most of what he was responding with today,” said NDP Leader Marit Stiles, who had previously questioned Calandra — who is also the new minister of municipal affairs and housing — on the Greenbelt scandal.
At the news conference last week, Verster and other Metrolinx officials said the Eglinton Crosstown line is back on track after concerns the construction consortium building it did not have a “credible” schedule to finish it.
The line, whose original completion date was in 2020, is in its “testing and commissioning” phase, with technical issues and defects still being discovered and remedied to make sure it runs safely and efficiently when opened to the public.
Construction on the $12.6-billion line began in 2011.
Rob
Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics
for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @robferguson1.
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