Save Union Station

Bulletin

SAVE UNION STATION, Special Bulletin No. 12, January 30, 2003.

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In this issue:

Union Station goes to Toronto City Council on February 4, 2003.

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE RIGHT NOW

It is critical that all members of council receive phone calls and letters indicating concern about this issue. Please phone or write four or five members of council (maybe three you know, and two you don’t know) and tell them you support the proposal of an independent review of the process by some independent person and that you support deferring any decision on the future of the Station until there is a lot more information. Please make these contacts before the end of the day on Monday – since the City Council meeting starts on the morning of Tuesday February 4, 2003.

Councillor names and contacts can be found on the city’s web site, http://www.toronto.ca

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Important new information emerged at the Administration Committee on Wednesday, January 29, 2003, including decisions about Union Station that will go to City Council when it meets on February 4. The likelihood is that the Union Station item will probably be delayed until later on February 5 or 6, although this in the hands of City Council.

1. Mayor Lastman declares a conflict of interest

As the Administration Committee was meeting, Mayor Lastman announced he would not be participate further in discussions about Union Station because of a conflict of interest resulting from his son Dale Lastman’s involvement with Borealis Capital Corporation. On December 5, Dale was appointed a director of Borealis at the same time Larry Tanenbaum was appointed director and vice-chair of the company. Tanenbaum’s private investment company, the Kilmer Group, which is leading the Union Pearson bid, became a shareholder of Borealis on that date.

Mayor Lastman said his conflict-of-interest declaration was back-dated to December 6. He indicated there hadn’t been an occasion for him to make the declaration between December 6 and January 29.

Then, having declared his conflict, the Mayor went on to say that the city process in respect to Union Pearson’s bid was “clean” even though statements about the issue are prohibited by conflict-of-interest legislation. As well, he had apparently not informed his staff that he would be making this declaration. At least one of his staff was seen to be talking to members of the Administration Committee during the Union Station debate after the Mayor’s announcement. Who knows what those staff have been doing during the last few critical weeks.

Without the Mayor’s office lending support to Union Pearson the job of lobbying will be left to Union Pearson itself, since no other members of council have adequate staff to talk to the mayor’s coterie of councillors. However, the lobbyists for Union Pearson are a formidable crowd, including Paul Godfrey, David Smith (recently appointed to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Jean Chretien), Stephen LeDrew, president of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Peter Van Loan, a leading Conservative party member.

2. Union Pearson Support Still Strong

In spite of the decisions made at the committee (they are reported later in this bulletin) the chair of the committee, Councillor Doug Holyday, and Councillor Paul Sutherland both stated that the staff report awarding the 100-year lease to Union Pearson should be approved. While it seems there is some reluctance on the part of other councillors to support this position one must be very wary when two leading politicians make it clear that in spite of the public outcry they will go ahead with an odious course of action.

It will be very important that as much pressure as possible is put on all councillors to find a course of action other than approval of this deal.

3. More Information on Evaluations

The most spectacular news that broke this week was that the forms filled out by the Evaluation Committee had been destroyed. It appears that this was done by Patricia Simpson, the City’s lawyer who leads the staff team on Union Station, and that the shredding occurred last summer (not after November 15 as had been assumed in Bulletin No.11). Ms. Simpson assured the committee that there was an accurate transfer of information from the documents that had been destroyed to the summary score sheet, although the names of those who provided these specific evaluations are not attached to the summary score sheets.

Ms. Simpson indicated that the LP Heritage bid, which had proposed a widening of the train platforms in order to meet current safety standards, was penalized for making this proposal. She indicated that GO Transit’s opinion was that it could not afford to widen the platforms and therefore a proposal to do so received fewer points than Union Pearson’s proposal to leave platforms as they are and not install escalators.

It seems strange that a bidder should be penalized for thinking ahead, but nevertheless that is what happened. It shows how short-sighted the City’s approach to Union Station and its transportation function has been in this process.

Councillor Rob Ford said that his memory of the evaluation sheets was that “Someone gave LP Heritage three zeros.” It will be fascinating to see what these forms actually look like.

4. A Long Day at the Administration Committee

The question of the flawed process and destroyed documents was not something that the Committee discussed until the very end of the day. When the meeting began at 9:30 a.m. on January 29, Chairman Doug Holyday made a ruling that questioning of staff would not be permitted until after all the presentations and deputations had been made. Thus, the morning was taken up with a presentation by Union Pearson, followed by two deputations from citizens. The afternoon saw another eight citizen deputations. Questioning of staff did not get underway until 4:00 p.m., and was followed several hours later by hard discussion by politicians. The Committee adjourned at 8:00 p.m. after the votes had been taken.

It was a classic case of a council committee being given too short a period of time to do its work. This timing problem was caused by the fact that the key documents had only been made public four working days earlier, and the matter was scheduled to go to City Council only three working days later. The situation was also complicated by rulings of the City Solicitor that since Council had decided already to award the contract to Union Pearson in principle in July, issues about the process could not be talked about in substance unless the matter was re-opened at City Council. The solicitor indicated that would require the support of two-thirds of City Council.

The debate was led by Councillor David Miller, and supported by Councillors Anne Johnston, Rob Ford and Brian Ashton. Councillor Frances Nunziata indicated she wanted the matter reviewed by some independent body such as the City’s Auditor General, but she had to leave the meeting before motions were discussed. Councillor David Solnacki was present at the meeting for no more than ten minutes. As noted above, Paul Sutherland and Doug Holyday supported the Union Pearson bid.

The committee decision was lengthy, but the key points are:

1) Make both of the bids public, and make the Evaluation reports public.

2) The process of this Request for Proposals should be reviewed by some independent party such as the city’s Auditor General or the province’s Ethics Commissioner to ensure it is fair and appropriate.

2) Further consideration of the recommendations awarding Union Station to Union Pearson for 100 years should be deferred to a special meeting of the committee called by the chair.

3) Staff should report on the many questions raised by councillors and deputants about the design, financial matters, and the length of the lease.

The precise motion passed by the committee will be posted in the Background section of our web site, http://www.saveunionstation.ca by noon on January 31.

These recommendations are going before City Council when its meeting begins next Tuesday. Council can then do what it wants, including adopting the staff recommendations to complete the contract with Union Pearson in spite of all the objections raised. Apparently Councillor Doug Holyday is claiming the objections are without merit, and he plans to push the Union Pearson case.

Decisions of the city’s Administration Committee, January 29, 2003

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