Independent certifier had no input on changing scorecard for LRT trial

For many years, Ottawa residents have been told by city officials they could feel confident in the fact the Confederation Line had been approved by an independent certifier.

It was no different at the Ottawa light rail public inquiry Monday, when the city manager testified they'd never succumb to pressure to launch the LRT prematurely.

"At the end, I was relying on the independent certifier and the independent safety auditor to give me the certificates that basically said that that system was fit, ready-to-go and safe," Steve Kanellakos, the city's manager testified.

"That's what I had to rely on. I couldn't rely on what was happening in the making of the sausage."

It's not clear whether councillors, or the public, fully understand those oversight roles, but witness testimony over the last few days has shed some light on their true nature.

Altus Group's Monica Sechiari, an engineer with decades of experience, was the leader of the independent certifier team hired by the city and LRT builder Rideau Transit Group (RTG). Her role, she told the commission conducting the inquiry, was to certify specific milestones in the project were met.

She did this by looking at reports and other documentation — Sechiari's team are not technical advisors, nor engineers of record. 

Sechiari testified that when the contract between RTG and the city was changed in 2019, her team was not consulted. Instead, she changed her scorecard to match the revised contract.

The independent certifier acted as a mediator when the city and RTG couldn't get along. This occurred in May 2019, when RTG said the LRT system was substantially finished – which would have triggered a $59-million payout – but the city disagreed.

Sechari took the requisite five days to review both sides' argument and documentation, and agreed with the city that the LRT wasn't done.

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But if both sides agreed on new requirements or changes to the contract, Sechiari says that, as the independent certifier, she'd generally agree with what the city and RTG wanted to do.

"It would be highly, highly unlikely" that an independent certifier would interfere in an agreement between two sides, she testified.

In July 2019, three months after the disagreement over whether the LRT was substantially finished or not, the city agreed to accept RTG's claim that the Confederation Line was substantially complete, even though a long list of unresolved items remained.

The city was willing to waive the requirement that certain shortcomings — including a "failure to meet fleet requirements due to ongoing defects/deficiencies" — be met by substantial completion.

The understanding was the remaining work would be be finished by the time the LRT was handed over to the city.

"We weren't consulted in the preparation of that substantial completion agreement," Sechiari told the commission. "We didn't do any independent investigation [and] that wasn't our role to do that."

No role in trial running criteria

In his four hours of testimony on Monday morning, Kanellakos was questioned about why the criteria for what was supposed to be 12 consecutive days of trial running the LRT was changed mid-way through the final testing, and why council wasn't told about it.

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The inquiry has heard that after a disastrous start to the trial testing, which included seven days of failures in the first 11 days, the city and RTG decided to revert to an earlier, and easier, version of the criteria. 

Kanellakos testified that he had told council members  he'd only report to them once the trial run was completed and that the final testing was "a process … It's not about what happened one day, one hour or one week."

What was important, he said, was whether the system successfully met the requirements of the "independent certifier, the independent safety officer, the RTG engineers, their own independent engineers."

Sechiari testified that while she was part of the trial run review team, she had nothing to do with formulating the actual criteria for the test run or changing it.

"We weren't consulted with that, we weren't given sign off or approval on that and that's not our role," she said. 

Sechiari said that even if the criteria "was low," she would not have objected, so long as the requirements matched what was in the contract – even if the contract had been changed.

Her role was to understand the agreed-upon criteria, "witness some of the conduct of the trial running" and attend the daily meeting where the results were discussed. If there was a disagreement about whether the day was a pass or a fail, the independent certifier would step in.

However Sechiari herself was away during the trial run in the summer of 2019, and a junior member attended the testing instead.

The independent certifier also signed off on the official handover of the Confederation Line on Aug. 30, 2019. Like at substantial completion, there were still outstanding items that needed to be addressed by the time the system was publicly launched in mid-September. The inquiry heard that it was not the independent certifier's job to make sure that work had been completed.

Safety auditor's role paper-based

Last Friday, before Mayor Jim Watson testified, the inquiry heard from Sergio Mammoliti, of consultant firm TUV Rhineland, hired by the city in 2017 as the independent safety auditor.

Mammoliti testified his role was to make sure safety-based processes and procedures were being followed. His role did not involve inspecting the system – indeed, he based his work on the assumption the LRT was being built to its specified design – nor was he involved in any way in the trial running.

His work was "almost entirely" document-based, the commission heard.

The inquiry begins its 16th day of testimony on Tuesday with STV Inc. consultant Larry Gaul, followed by OC Transpo's director of operations, Troy Charter.