Ford: Ottawa LRT project 'stunk to high heaven'

Fallout from the damning Ottawa LRT public inquiry report continued on Thursday, with Premier Doug Ford saying the project "stunk to high heaven" and that senior city of Ottawa officials did a "terrible job."

Fallout from the damning Ottawa LRT public inquiry report continued on Thursday, with Premier Doug Ford saying the project "stunk to high heaven" and that senior city of Ottawa officials did a "terrible job."

Ford's government called the inquiry headed by Justice William Hourigan, which released its final report on Wednesday. The report said the construction and maintenance of the Confederation Line was plagued by persistent failures in leadership and saw "egregious violations of the public trust" by senior city staff and Rideau Transit Group.

On Thursday, Ford called a lot of the findings of the report "frustrating."

"We saw Mayor Watson not being transparent with his councillors. We saw the city manager having to step down. It was just absolute in shambles, and stunk to high heaven," he told reporters in Toronto. "Thank goodness we did the inquiry."

"I think they did a terrible job," he added. "Mayor Watson—I'm being very frank here—wasn't transparent, he didn't oversee the project properly, and he's gone and so is the city manager and some other people that worked on it. They high-tailed out of there because they knew it was a disaster. And the people of Ottawa knew it was a disaster.

"The people of Ottawa finally have an answer."

Hourigan's report listed myriad reasons behind the problems with the $2.1-billion project. But he singled out former city manager Steve Kanellakos for what he called a "deliberate effort" to mislead council, and Watson and former transit chief John Manconi for hiding information from council.