Mayor Jim Watson was accused of lying under oath and withholding key information about the latest LRT trial run from council members during his appearance Thursday at the Ottawa Streetcar Inquiry.
During his more than five hours of testimony, Watson remained calm and denied many of the allegations.
The Commission’s Joint General Counsel John Adair immediately joined a WhatsApp group created in mid-July 2019 by former Transportation General Manager John Manconi and a number of city officials, including Transit Chair Alan Hubley, to keep them updated on the LRT’s progress in the weeks leading up to its handover.
While Watson himself didn’t join the chat group until October 2019, several of his employees were on it from the start, apparently communicating with the mayor.
They would ask for almost daily updates on how the trains are doing during the 12-day trial run of the line.
Commission Joint Chief Counsel John Adair challenged Mayor Jim Watson on his claim that he did not receive daily briefings during the trial testing of the Confederaion Line. (Renault Patri/CBC)
Adair suggested that Watson was even offering his own ideas, pointing to a message sent by Manconi on August 1, 2019, which discussed a meeting held by the transport GM with senior teams at the consortium building the Confederation Line and train manufacturer Alstom.
“We talked to them about the mayor’s idea of starting Friday as a Sabbath service, etc. and although everyone agreed it was a good idea, it was not workable,” Manconi wrote.
Specific data about the LRT’s performance was shared in the application, such as the fact that only four of 15 vehicles were on the track the day before the line was deemed substantially complete. The messages also discussed daily trail running results, information that was not shared with other council members.
On August 1: Manconi describes the “mayor’s idea.”
Adair to Watson: You suggested that Friday be treated as Saturday because it had a lower threshold.
Watson: It was just a suggestion – why don’t you restart the trial run with fewer trains. It was deemed impossible, so we moved on. pic.twitter.com/TsBoVPMF0D
—@KatePorterCBC
On Thursday, Watson defended using the app as an “efficient” and “sensible” way to stay informed.
But in earlier sworn testimony given before the public hearings, Watson told commission attorney Kate McGrann that he did not believe he received daily updates from staff.
“Why didn’t you tell her it existed?” Adair asked Watson about the WhatsApp messages.
“First and foremost, I’ve never been asked that,” the mayor replied. “I suppose if they wanted to know if there were other forms of communication, I would have answered that.”
“I’m sorry Mr Watson, is it your evidence that you knew there was a WhatsApp chat at the time you were interviewed, on [April] 28th — when you said you were informed and the board was informed and you were not getting updates daily from staff — that you knew this WhatsApp chat existed but you didn’t disclose it to the committee because it wasn’t the right one question?”
Watson testified that WhatsApp “is not a decision-making body” but rather “a communication tool to try to make our work more efficient when we’re asked to make decisions – probably a few dozen over the course of a few hours – on a wide variety of issues.”
A central topic for sharing information on inquiry
The question of whether all council members were properly briefed on how the Confederate line worked just before the city took control of it has been a central theme in recent days of the investigation.
On Wednesday, the committee heard from longtime Coun. Diane Deans that it was “disappointing” to learn about the chat group – which was only revealed at the inquest this week – and that it was confirmation for her “that there is more to it than meets the eye, that all information was not shared publicly.”
Watson, who characterizes his leadership style as “over-communicating,” said on a number of occasions that the board ended up getting the same information, even though he may have had more details. Such was the case when it came to the trial run, during which the Confederate line had to work almost perfectly for 12 consecutive days.
In fact, the mayor had vastly different information than the rest of the council – or the public.
The inquiry found that the Confederation Line failed in the first three days of the process, and when it became clear that the LRT would not pass easily, an easier 2017 scorecard was adopted — apparently at the suggestion of the city.
Manconi had drafted a memo on July 31 to tell the council the trial run was on hold for 48 hours, but that memo was never sent. The reason? The Council was told it would receive an update when the trial run was complete.
Mayor Jim Watson touts the Confederate line. (Alistair Steele/CBC)
‘Council not given the right goods’
Yet a memo was sent to the council on August 16 stating that “RTG has made significant progress” in implementation. The memo was sent on the same day the pass criteria were changed, but Adair said any reasonable person reading it would have assumed everything was going well.
“You knew there was a restart … which caused you concern and the council doesn’t know,” the commission’s lawyer said. “You knew there had been five consecutive unsuccessful days straight away and the council didn’t do it. You know the city agreed to the criteria and then agreed to change it and the council didn’t. And you knew about the day-to-day reliability and maintenance issues of the vehicle and the council didn’t.
“And I’m going to suggest to you that you actually had very different information and the council didn’t get the right goods. Do you agree with this?”
The mayor replied, “No, I don’t.”
Watson said an Aug. 23 memo relayed the information to the council, but she don’t explain what happened behind the scenes.
The lawyer representing the city of Ottawa, Peter Wardle, said his team had previously discussed what records to produce with the light rail commission’s lawyers — the city turned over half a million — and was encouraged to “narrow down” what they sent so that they did not request messages from private devices.
Watson testified that he now looked through an entire folder of messages from his staff and “his eyes glazed over” because they were mostly short phrases like “thank you” or “look at this.”
“Every question basically won’t go on WhatsApp,” the mayor said.
The inquest is scheduled to resume Monday morning with testimony from City Manager Steve Kanellakos.
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