My question is to the Premier. Last week, I asked the committee on government agencies to call Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster to answer questions about the failing Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Unfortunately, the government members voted against that motion.

The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is a billion dollars over budget and three years late. It has at least 260 deficiencies, right down to the rails. Taxpayers have spent over $500 million as the partners building this project have been suing each other under Mr. Verster’s watch, but we found out this morning, through disclosure, that his contract has been renewed for three years. Why?

Wasn’t this the government, Speaker, that said the party with the taxpayers’ dollars is over? If that’s the case, if they believe that, then why are they rewarding Metrolinx executives who are failing the province of Ontario? Why can’t we ask them questions at the committee and why, for heaven’s sake, are they putting up ministers to defend a failing executive? Why is Mr. Verster still employed by the province of Ontario?

Interjections.

Back to the transportation minister: 16 months ago, the transportation minister said she would investigate consultant Brian Guest and his firm, Boxfish. Mr. Guest was a key adviser to Ottawa’s LRT, a former vice-president of Metrolinx and the key leader in most of Toronto’s LRT contracts, including the Eglinton Crosstown. Boxfish earned millions for contracts in LRT systems that are failing or don’t work. The minister at the time said she was “extremely concerned about any perceived or potential conflict of interest” with Mr. Guest and pledged to investigate him and Boxfish.

Speaker, we have done our own investigation, and we have confirmed that Mr. Guest has never been investigated; neither has Boxfish.

If the Minister of Transportation was truly extremely concerned, why did she break her promise to this House and the people of Ontario and fail to investigate Mr. Guest or Boxfish for any of these contracts?

So, very clearly, to the minister: The investigation that she claims to have done—will you make that internal investigation public? Will accountability be brought to the Eglinton Crosstown, to stage 1 of Ottawa’s LRT, and to every other transit project being done under this government?

Interjections.

Back to the Premier: The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is a mess. Sadly, I’ve seen this movie before. Its budget has doubled, using the same P3 consultants that built Ottawa’s struggling LRT. Phil Verster from Metrolinx noted 260 deficiencies in this project at a press conference with the minister this morning but gave the public no details at all. That is not acceptable. The newly built Sloane station had to be ripped apart this week. Metrolinx has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to the P3 consortium building this project already, but the project is falling behind and creating deficiencies. Will the government tell this House and the public what is wrong with the Crosstown LRT, yes or no?

Back to the Premier: We’ve talked to the neighbours around the Sloane station of the Eglinton LRT. Do you know what they tell us, Speaker? There’s a smell coming from that station, and it’s not construction dust. The smell is corruption. So what about some specific questions?

What about some specific questions? What about Brian Guest, the disgraced consultant who helped build the Ottawa LRT, who this government fired in January? The Minister of Transportation promised this House there would be an investigation into Mr. Guest? Well, I’ve FOI-ed it, Speaker. There has been no investigation into Brian Guest.

The costs keep getting racked up, so the question we need to have answered in this House is, how many more consultants like Mr. Guest are going to get rich while Crosstown costs go through the roof? How many more deficient projects are they going to build? And more importantly, Speaker, will this government today, as it did when we demanded it from Ottawa, declare a public inquiry into this mess? Simple answer to the question: yes or no?

A loud thud was heard yesterday across Ontario at 11 a.m. It was the dropping and the introduction of the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Commission report. It was a 650-plus-page document detailing the problems we’ve had with our LRT system. It’s something I have fought for in this place—thanks to residents and community members back home, who I want to thank for their work.

Sometimes, the truth hurts, and it certainly hurts this morning for advocates of public-private partnerships in infrastructure, because Justice William Hourigan, who led this report, said the following: “The P3 model caused or contributed to several of the ongoing difficulties on the project ... the city traditionally had a hands-on leading role in projects, given the lesser role it played under this mode, the city was left in a position where it had limited insight or control over the project.”

P3s are an accident waiting to happen. They will not offer the transparency the public deserves. That is the lesson, I believe, from Ottawa’s LRT failure.

But right now, as I speak, the same P3 consultants and contractors who made a mess out of Ottawa’s LRT are building the Eglinton Crosstown.

I call on this government to read Justice Hourigan’s report, to learn the lessons, to not waste the public money, and to make sure the mess that happened in Ottawa never happens again.