Judicial probe enters final phase

Public hearings should wrap up by March

The judicial inquiry into the “slippery” Red Hill Valley Parkway mystery is entering the final leg of a four-year marathon.

Council asked for the inquiry in 2019 after discovering troubling friction test results on the east-end parkway had been inexplicably buried for years — despite hundreds of crashes revealed in a Spectator investigation and long-standing rumours that the road was slippery.

The revelation spurred emergency repaving, cuts to speed limits and lawsuits — many of which are waiting on the results of the estimated $26-million inquiry.

Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel has just wrapped up the first phase of public hearings looking at who knew what and when about that infamous Tradewind Scientific

report — and whether its suppression represented a public safety risk.

It featured tens of thousands of documents and 69 witnesses — including several days of testimony from Gary Moore, the former city engineering head who said he did not share the friction report he received in 2014 with council because “it made no sense.”

The first inquiry phase stretched over three years in part due to pandemic delays — but also legal wrangling over what municipal information should be released to the public.

The second and last phase should be quicker, said inquiry co-counsel Emily Lawrence in an interview, with public hearings ideally starting in January and closing statements made as early as March. It is impossible to guess how quickly WiltonSiegel will issue a final report with recommendations — but Lawrence pointed out other public inquiries have resulted in 1,500-page reports that took months to publish.

“Certainly the commissioner is eager … to start writing the final report and complete it as quickly as he can,” she said.

Lawrence said the final slate of public hearings, which will be livestreamed online, will focus on expert reports and testimony on “technical issues” like road friction and asphalt quality, traffic safety and municipal governance.

Inquiry participants — including the city, province, road builder Dufferin Construction and design consultant Golder Associates — have the chance to propose their own expert reports or witnesses in a hearing slated for Dec. 13.

Even if you’re following the inquiry, it is hard to keep up with months of testimony. Here’s a selection of what we’ve learned so far:

■ There were worries about parkway construction before traffic ever hit the Red Hill in 2007. And a lawyer later consulted on the friction controversy by the city confidentially told council the use of experimental stone mastic asphalt on the parkway — which at one point won awards — “in hindsight, may have been inappropriate.”

■ The city official at the centre of questions about the buried report, former engineering director Gary Moore, testified he chose not to share the Tradewind report with anyone at the city because it “made no sense whatsoever.” Emails show he also rejected a consultant followup suggestion of “microsurfacing” to improve friction on the roadway.

■ A Spectator freedom-of-information request for friction testing helped force the release of the Tradewind report to council and the public. But formerly confidential legal emails also show city lawyers discussed whether they could withhold the conclusions of the report.

■ The city’s own auditor-general office was stymied in its efforts to gain access to critical reports about Red Hill Valley Parkway friction and asphalt safety in the fall of 2018. One retired manager said the city could not respond in a timely way because bureaucrats were stickhandling an “unprecedented” number of scandals at the same time.

■ City politicians, including former mayor Fred Eisenberger, have universally testified they had no idea the critical friction report existed until after it was uncovered in late 2018. Formerly confidential legal notes show some councillors were incensed, with some floating the idea of a criminal probe.