City needs $9.5M to finish St. Lawrence Market building
CBC
The City of Toronto is poised to drop $9.5 million in emergency spending to keep construction of the St. Lawrence Market north building on track — and a serious internal management issue is partly to blame, a document obtained by CBC Toronto shows.
Mayor Olivia Chow said Friday the situation will be looked into and details about what's happened will be made public. "Every dime that we spend needs to be accountable," she said when CBC asked about the situation.
Her council will be asked in late July to approve the additional spending so the facility can begin opening to the public this fall and city staff can move into the brand new glass and orange metal building, complete with a green roof.
The spending is also needed to stop the contractor, the joint venture Buttcon-Limited/The Atlas Corporation (BA-JV), from exercising its right to terminate the deal and delay the project indefinitely.
That delay, the document warns, would cost the city millions.
"An Emergency [non-competitive procurement] is the only course of action available that would allow the City to meet its immediate legislated payment obligations, while mitigating the threat of a stoppage in work and legal action from BA-JV," the document from June 10 states.
Cost overruns on government construction projects won't surprise Torontonians, but this time CBC Toronto is able to show a clearer picture of the internal problems, caused by an unnamed former employee, than staff are disclosing to the public.
A public-facing document says the need for emergency funding is "primarily driven" by costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, evolving needs for its court services division and "errors and omissions" from the prime architect.
In an email statement, the city said the money is needed to get the project done on time. "A number of changes to the General Contractor's scope of services were accelerated on an emergency basis," it said.
"All changes were validated by the project's Contract Administrator and were determined to be legitimate and required to support evolving building needs."
However, the internal document and recent comments from the executive director of the city's real estate division, paint a different picture.
The document shows a city staffer working on the project was not following "proper change management processes."
Change orders are costs that arise during a construction project that are above and beyond what was initially contracted.
The staffer's error has left management and the city's legal team scrambling to keep the contractor on the job, the document shows.
A Calgary dentist who defrauded five insurance companies over a decade should spend up to three years in prison, the prosecution argued Friday.
B.C. Conservation Officer Service says it has called off its search for a bear responsible for an attack on a group of school children in Bella Coola, B.C. on Nov. 20.
The union president called it a rally for solidarity as Iqaluit Housing Authority employees gathered Friday while negotiations are ongoing between the Nunavut Employees Union and the employer.
The federal government is stoking Quebec separatism by walking back its climate commitments — including in its recent deal with Alberta — Liberal MP and former cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault says.
Four more Alberta MLAs are facing recall petitions organized by their constituents, including the first NDP representative to be caught in the province's ongoing wave of recall efforts.
Frank Gehry, the Canadian-born renegade architect behind some of the world's most recognizable buildings, has died at 96.
Hundreds of P.E.I. parents can't find child-care spaces, especially for infants. The provincial government says expanding those spots remains a top priority — and it recognizes the concern.
An Alberta judge says a referendum proposal on Alberta separating from Canada goes against Charter and and Treaty rights, in a decision given less than 24 hours after the provincial government introduced legislation that would have ended the court proceeding.
The architect of Alberta's politician recall legislation says it was never meant to be used as a political weapon, but as an "ultimate tool of accountability" if a politician engages in illegal or unethical behaviour.
The Government of Saskatchewan has introduced its long-promised involuntary treatment legislation on the final day of the fall sitting.
The Law Society of Ontario has suspended the licence of Deepak Paradkar, one of seven Canadians arrested in connection with alleged drug lord Ryan Wedding’s cocaine smuggling ring.
London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is getting rid of unlimited mental health benefits for staff, blaming ballooning costs and former administrators for implementing it without proper due diligence or oversight.
Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's TV and film studios and streaming division for $72 billion US, a deal that would hand control of one of Hollywood's most prized and oldest assets to the streaming pioneer that has upended the media industry.