Cost overruns and oversight with the Herb Gray Parkway project were discussed in Queen's Park again today as Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Percy Hatfield charged that the government has made major mistakes in its construction.
“Rules were ignored. This was a complete failure of oversight and quality control by this government,” says Percy Hatfield, MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh.
He says that while the Minister of Transportation finally announced that deficient girders will be removed from the Parkway, other issues needed to be addressed, such as contracting out $1 billion privatized projects to foreign construction firms, without oversight.
Ontario Transportation Minister Glen Murray acknowledged the government is learning from its mistakes.
“The premier has asked me and other ministers to get on top of files. If we are cancelling projects, it should be done early. If we are making adjustments, we should be the aggressive watchdogs of capital projects. This is a government that learns from its mistakes and this is an example of that learning,” he says.
He says the girder problem is a “minor delay.”
“It will come in on budget, it will be entirely safe, and it will meet engineering standards.”
About 500 girders were deemed questionable and are being replaced.
