Metrolinx’s track record isn’t great. Bloated budgets and botched deadlines have plagued the transit agency for the past decade.
So what gives? And why is Metrolinx even responsible for transit projects that will be run by Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and other transit agencies?
The Grind is here to shed light on the real decision-makers at the transit agency responsible for $75 billion worth of current transit investments.
The origin story
Metrolinx is meant to be the independent transit agency responsible for coordinating transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).
Prior to its creation, transportation issues were fragmented among the 11 municipal transit agencies in the region, with many of the region’s transportation issues crossing municipal boundaries. So in 2006, the Ontario government — led at the time by Dalton Mcguinty’s Liberals — created Metrolinx to unify transit in the region and to bring a more cohesive regional transit plan.
Initially, 11 board members directed Metrolinx. There were two members appointed by the Ontario government, four from the City of Toronto, and one each from the municipalities of Hamilton, Durham, Halton, Peel, and York.
David Miller was the mayor of Toronto when Metrolinx first formed. He tells The Grind that when Metrolinx was initially proposed by the provincial government, the city was worried it would be used to neutralize the effectiveness of the TTC by taking away its planning powers. So the mayor’s office ensured the city had enough representation at Metrolinx.
The province appointed the chair and vice-chair of the board — so the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) was able to steer Metrolinx’s vision — but the elected representatives ensured that the provincial government could be held in check.
“By virtue of having the mayor of Toronto, the chair of the TTC, chair of the planning committee, and [Toronto’s] chief planner [on the board], and having the regional chairs, it required the same standard of openness that cities practice,” Miller says.
Because board members were city officials, open meeting laws applied to any Toronto elected official sitting on the board. That meant most of Metrolinx’s board meetings were open to the public, which isn’t the case for provincial meetings.
Outside of board meetings, Miller met for lunch once a month with the regional chairs and other mayors on the board. He says that this helped with the governance of Metrolinx as it gave them an opportunity to speak about regional issues informally.
The province brings in the suits
Metrolinx’s initial mandate was to plan the entire region’s transit network. But after the $50 billion roadmap for the GTHA’s transit future was completed in 2009 — called The Big Move — the Liberal government purged the elected officials from the board and replaced them with business leaders.
Metrolinx was shifting its focus from planning to overseeing construction of all the projects outlined in The Big Move.
The province argued that Metrolinx needed a corporate board to bring stable project management. Also, free from the pressures of pleasing voters, board members could act independently, purely in the best interest of the regional plan, the province claimed.
So for the past 15 years, the Metrolinx board of directors has been appointed by Ontario’s MTO.
“The pretext that [the province] wanted to bring private sector experts was nonsense,” Miller says. “They wanted political appointees who would do what they were told by the government of the day.”
The Ontario government was worried that Metrolinx’s board was getting too powerful, according to Fanny Tremblay-Racicot, professor of Urban Affairs at L’École nationale d’administration publique in Quebec City. The province felt that if left unchecked, the municipalities — particularly Toronto — would have more influence on the region’s transit plan than the province itself.
So the province gained control of the board.
But, Tremblay-Racicot told The Grind, it’s hard to believe the Metrolinx board is now more independent than when it had elected municipal officials.
“It’s just moved from political involvement from the mayors to political involvement from the MPPs [Members of Provincial Parliament] and provincial government representatives, and to a rubber stamping board,” Tremblay-Racicot says.
Political controversies
Since the change, Metrolinx has repeatedly been entangled in controversies involving provincial politicians.
In 2017, Liberal Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca pressured Metrolinx to approve a new $100 million GO station in his own riding of Vaughan before the agency had decided to go for it.
In 2018, the Toronto Star reported that the newly-elected PC government gave written requests forbidding Metrolinx employees to speak publicly about key issues without ministry approval.
In 2023, the Star found emails showing the ministry told Metrolinx officials to exclude two NDP MPPs — Kristyn Wong-Tam and Peter Tabuns — on a tree removal notice that was required for Ontario Line construction, even though these notices were in their ridings. The two MPPs have been critical of Metrolinx’s Ontario Line plans and argued that this was another example of the lack of transparency at Metrolinx.
In April of this year, Metrolinx tried to bury Union Pearson (UP) Express service cuts and play it off as a more “direct” service from Pearson Airport to Union Station. They walked back the announcement a few days later after public outcry.
And in August, the Star reported that Doug Ford directed Metrolinx to withhold announcing an opening date for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, initially scheduled to open in 2020. Metrolinx was going to release an estimated completion date for Eglinton but Ford’s office ordered Metrolinx to say nothing.
“It’s very clear the only reason for the switch and the board structure was so that the province could tell Metrolinx what to do and the various ministers at Queen’s Park could feel free to interfere with what should have been an independent agency,” Miller says.
The Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sakaria has been called the “Fiscally conservative crusader in Doug Ford’s cabinet” by the National Post. Sakaria swapped roles with the previous transportation minister Caroline Mulroney — another former banker and daughter of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney — after Doug Ford’s Greenbelt fiasco prompted a cabinet shuffle.
Meet the current board members
Currently, Metrolinx’s board is made up almost entirely of people with finance and banking backgrounds, with many having direct ties to the Ontario government. “Political seat warmers,” as transit critic Steve Munro called them.
Vice-Chair Bryan Davies is a career politician who served as Ontario’s deputy treasurer in the early 90s. James Dodds served as the Chair of the Conservative Fund, the sole fundraising arm of the Conservative Party of Canada. According to the Star, he led former PC leader’s Erin O’Toole’s campaign fundraising efforts.
Deb Hutton is the wife of former Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak and is the only woman currently sitting on the board. There are zero people of colour represented on the board.
Independent board members will likely agree with the person in charge, according to Tremblay-Racicot, and there are signs that board members can’t speak critically about the Ontario government.
Last September, Janet Ecker, who had served on the Metrolinx board since 2012 and has deep ties to the governing Conservatives, wrote a frank editorial in the Niagara Independent about Doug Ford’s handling of the greenbelt scandal. She wrote how the entire plan was flawed and warned readers about the Conservative government’s internal culture.
She was subsequently canned from the Metrolinx board. The Toronto Star reached out to the ministry, who responded by saying that Ecker’s dismissal was part of a “refresh.” But June 2023, Metrolinx appointed the newest board member, Mark McQueen – another old white guy in finance.
Board meeting malaise
Metrolinx, unlike cities such as Toronto, does not need to record and make its board meetings available to the public. Tremblay-Racicot explains that most of the tough conversations happen behind closed doors.
Metrolinx holds a limited portion of the board meetings publicly, but board members don’t seem interested in keeping Metrolinx accountable. Instead it looks like a public relations exercise.
Board members ask very little of the Metrolinx executives. If questions are asked, it’s usually to ensure Metrolinx staff mention an important announcement or promotion.
During a year-end-review presentation, for example, executives Steven Levene and Barclay Hancock failed to mention Metrolinx’s PRESTO fare integration plans. Board member Paul Tsaparis asked if one of them could “Perhaps speak to the value of this to our customers, and people who go between two zones,” and if someone could talk about this “exciting development.” After Levene and Hancock covered their tracks, board chair Donald Wright reiterated that this “Saves our customers about 90 million dollars a year.”
During its June 2024 board meeting, Metrolinx shared its 2023-24 annual report to the board members. Deputy CFO Justyna Witek announced that Metrolinx missed their budget target for the year, but didn’t disclose by how much (the 2023-24 annual report is still not available on their website).
Witek said that Metrolinx budgeted for 91 per cent ridership, but only achieved 76 per cent — a 15 per cent variance in expected fare revenue. Expenses were also high, driven by the new construction of the Ontario Line and other large capital projects. Despite the major financial shortfallings, there were no questions from the finance-heavy board. Donald Wright thanked them for the “excellent report.”
Metrolinx spent 3 minutes talking about the annual report and over 20 minutes for presentations from Metrolinx’s communications and marketing teams.
Board members seem to avoid mentioning the Eglinton Crosstown debacle. During the board meeting on February 14, aside from Phil Verster’s CEO address, Metrolinx waited until the last two minutes of the 76-minute meeting to give an update about Crosstown LRT. And when they did, Chief Capital Officer Andrew Hope took 40 seconds to show a picture of the Eglinton and Yonge intersection clear of construction stating how, “life is getting back to normal and we’re very pleased to see that.”
(Read more about CEO Phil Vester and his $856,000 salary in The Local.)
The only comment about the construction was from Donald Wright, who joked that they should have included a “before” photo of the intersection just to show how bad it was. But the video was edited right after Wright made the joke, cutting to the end of the meeting. Whoever edited may have been worried about the board chair making fun of the Crosstown LRT.
Vincent Puhakka, a spokesperson for TTCRiders, an advocacy group in Toronto, said that it has been difficult to put pressure on Metrolinx since they can’t directly get in touch with the transit agency or have one-on-one meetings with board members. When dealing with the TTC, the advocacy group can meet with city councillors who have regular public meetings. Six Toronto city councilors sit on the TTC board, and city council can have a say on the city’s contribution to the TTC’s budget.
But if TTCRiders wants to put pressure on Metrolinx, they have found that bypassing Metrolinx altogether and meeting with MPPs has been the only way they’ve been able to advocate for improvements and changes.
What next?
David Miller thinks that Metrolinx as a construction agency has been a “disaster.” According to the former mayor, the agency should revert to its original role, which was solely to coordinate between the municipalities in the GTHA to properly plan transit.
Puhakka mentions Oakland, California’s regional agency as a good governance model. If you have an issue with transit, you can go directly to the elected official in charge of your ward, because every board member represents a different ward in the Oakland area. Or like the New York Transit Authority, which has six rotating seats held by public representatives which, while they are non-voting positions, at least bring voices of New York transit commuters directly into the boardroom.
Tremblay-Racicot thinks that independent revenue sources and input from municipal mayors would help with Metrolinx’s governance. She says Translink in Vancouver is a great example of this. Translink is controlled by the mayors of the greater Vancouver region but it has independent revenue sources for their investments.
But without Metrolinx, the province wouldn’t be as willing to invest in transit because it wouldn’t be in control of how the money is spent.
“When the funds are controlled by the state or the provincial government,” she says, “they control where the funding goes.”
There are many benefits to having an effective, integrated regional transit system — as we’re seeing with fare integration of GO and TTC services. And with construction of the Ontario Line well under way, many of us are bracing ourselves for another decade-long construction project.
With a lot of work and some luck, we might get more transparency and accountability along the way.
This article appeared in the 2024 Oct/Nov issue.