He worked as a VP for Metrolinx while the agency awarded his private consulting firm contracts worth millions

Metrolinx appointed a personal marketing consultant to an government function on the transit company and awarded his agency invaluable authorities work whereas he was within the job, the Star has discovered.

​​Brian Visitor, a director on the Boxfish Infrastructure Group consulting agency, held vice-president titles at Metrolinx between March 2018 and Could 2020.

Over that interval, the general public transit company issued two contracts to Boxfish, one in every of which was sole-sourced. Metrolinx refused to reveal how a lot taxpayer cash it agreed to present to Boxfish by way of these offers. However in response to two sources with information of the association, Visitor’s firm is presently set to earn between $20 million and $30 million from Metrolinx over a two-year interval.

Visitor, who appears prone to be drawn into an inquiry a couple of burgeoning scandal involving Ottawa’s troubled LRT challenge, declined to remark for this story, saying the phrases of his engagement with Metrolinx didn’t permit him to talk publicly about his work there.

Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins mentioned there's nothing improper in regards to the group’s relationship with Visitor. She mentioned it’s commonplace for Metrolinx, which is the publicly funded Ontario Crown company in control of delivering main transportation tasks throughout the GTHA, to assign consultants to roles throughout the group in an effort to make use of personal sector experience to ship the massive portfolio of labor it oversees, though they’re usually appointed to much less senior positions.

“Often contractors are usually not appointed to government roles — this circumstance was distinctive and short-term” in an effort to hold work on the provincial subway program transferring, Aikins mentioned. “At no stage was there a battle of curiosity” involving Visitor or his firm.

She mentioned Visitor had no affect over Metrolinx awarding contracts to his agency, and though he held vice-president titles on the company, he has by no means straight acquired a wage from Metrolinx or concurrently drawn salaries from the general public company and his non-public agency.

As an alternative, Metrolinx paid Boxfish, and the non-public agency was liable for paying Visitor.

Three sources who spoke to the Star, who're separate from the sources with information of Metrolinx funds to Boxfish cited above and who embrace two former senior Metrolinx staff, mentioned Visitor has been an influential determine on the company since he began doing marketing consultant work for it nearly a decade in the past. They mentioned that whereas consultants are typically restricted to giving recommendation, it typically appeared Visitor had the authority to make vital selections about Metrolinx’s business technique, which includes growing the phrases of advanced agreements for firms constructing transit tasks.

In accordance with the sources, some staff at Metrolinx and elsewhere within the Ontario public sector have been alarmed by the affect Visitor and different Boxfish staff embedded on the company exercised. They fearful that a non-public marketing consultant who isn’t straight accountable to authorities may have enterprise relationships at odds with public pursuits, and that permitting a marketing consultant decision-making energy at a Crown company undermined transparency and will result in conflicts of curiosity.

The three sources mentioned Visitor and Boxfish have grow to be so entrenched on the transit company that it could be troublesome for the group to enact insurance policies to efficiently insulate him from procurements his personal firm may participate in.

“It will be extraordinarily troublesome to consider,” mentioned one former senior Metrolinx worker, who like the opposite sources spoke on the situation of anonymity for concern of the profession repercussions of talking about an influential determine on the company. “He’s embedded. He’s a part of Metrolinx now.”

Boxfish is registered to an workplace on Spruce Road in Ottawa and payments itself as offering “management, advisory and supply providers” on infrastructure tasks. In comparison with among the contractors Metrolinx works with, Boxfish is comparatively small, and in response to its LinkedIn web page has fewer than 50 staff.

Earlier than changing into a marketing consultant on provincial transit tasks, Visitor, 55, labored in politics for outstanding Liberal figures. Within the Nineties he was an aide to Bob Chiarelli, who was then regional chair of Ottawa-Carleton and later turned an Ontario Liberal cupboard minister. Visitor was additionally deputy principal secretary within the prime minister’s workplace below Paul Martin within the 2000s, and served on present Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson’s transition workforce in 2010.

Visitor performed a number one function in early phases of Ottawa’s $2.1-billion Confederation Line LRT, first whereas an aide to Chiarelli and later when Boxfish took marketing consultant work in that metropolis’s rail workplace within the early 2010s.

His work on the LRT, which opened in 2019, has just lately come below scrutiny after the problem-plagued line needed to be shut down for nearly two months following a derailment final fall. As requires a judicial inquiry into the LRT grew, the CBC reported in November that Visitor complained in a leaked private electronic mail that requires a proper probe may danger “screwing” him.

Visitor advised the broadcaster he was involved an inquiry would do little to make clear the technical the reason why he believed the non-public firm that constructed the LRT had didn't ship a dependable system, and can be disruptive. The Ontario authorities has since known as an inquiry into the LRT.

Visitor left Ottawa’s rail workplace in 2013 to work as a marketing consultant at Metrolinx, which was then overseen by the Ontario Liberal authorities. In accordance with the Ottawa Citizen, he mentioned on the time that he would assist the company discover a contractor for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the $5.4-billion challenge that now faces delays and rising prices.

Boxfish was initially a subcontractor to a bigger marketing consultant contract at Metrolinx. Visitor and his firm have gone on to supply business recommendation and program administration providers on a spread of main Metrolinx transit tasks, together with the $17-billion GO Transit Enlargement plan.

Whereas working as a marketing consultant to Metrolinx, in March 2018 Visitor was assigned the title of vice-president of capital tasks business administration on the company, after which held the title of government vice-president of economic administration from October 2019 to Could 2020. After that, Metrolinx employed a everlasting worker to fill the vice-president function.

Visitor’s tasks whereas “briefly” serving as vice-president included “constructing a powerful business workforce to assist help challenge supply” and “serving to to co-ordinate the general business method of the group,” in response to Metrolinx.

In 2019, whereas Visitor was vice-president, the company gave Boxfish a sole-sourced contract to supply “strategic recommendation” for Ontario’s $28.5-billion subway plan.

Work on the subway plan was ramping up on the time, and Aikins mentioned Metrolinx wanted to award “some short-term, decrease worth” contracts on a sole-sourced foundation in an effort to “transfer the subway program ahead expeditiously.”

After it obtained the subway consulting contract, Boxfish was one in every of 4 profitable bidders on a aggressive tender Metrolinx issued in 2019 for “emergent business necessities” to supply recommendation on “business and enterprise operation issues associated to (capital) tasks, insurance policies, negotiations and operations.” The work was awarded in April 2020, and successfully changed Boxfish’s 2019 contract, which Metrolinx closed.

Metrolinx refused to say how a lot the 2 contracts have been price to Boxfish, or disclose how a lot the publicly funded company has paid Visitor’s agency over time, saying it doesn’t talk about values of professional service contracts in an effort to guarantee it will get aggressive bids.

Whereas the salaries of executives at Metrolinx and different public companies who earn greater than $100,000 a yr are routinely printed by way of the province’s public sector wage disclosure, the rule wouldn’t apply to Visitor or different consultants embedded at Metrolinx as a result of they’re in a roundabout way employed by the company.

Aikins mentioned all bids for the contract Boxfish received in 2020 have been evaluated and chosen by Metrolinx staff in numerous components of the group from the place Visitor was embedded, “with none communication with him or anybody else related to a bidder.”

She mentioned the group recurrently makes use of an “built-in workforce construction” wherein staff of Metrolinx, different public companies like Infrastructure Ontario, and contracted non-public companies “work facet by facet in the identical places of work.” She mentioned that is obligatory as a result of Metrolinx has an enormous workload that may require constructing $80 billion price of transit tasks over the following 10 years, and the built-in construction ensures the company can appeal to high worldwide expertise.

She mentioned “it isn't unusual for non-Metrolinx staff to be assigned related titles” throughout the group, and though these titles “assist make clear their function throughout the built-in workforce,” all last selections “in the end relaxation with the Metrolinx senior administration workforce and its board of administrators.”

Boxfish nonetheless holds the Metrolinx contract it received in 2020 and Visitor now has the title of lead, strategic initiatives group at Metrolinx, reporting to its chief authorized officer. He stays at Boxfish.

Visitor’s March 2018 appointment to an government place precipitated alarm inside Metrolinx, in response to the previous senior Metrolinx worker who spoke to the Star and is quoted above.

“How do you appoint a marketing consultant to a vice-president function inside a corporation? We thought that was odd,” the supply mentioned.

“What was unusual about it was he was influencing the route of the group (in business issues). So we'd have conferences and until (Visitor) was in settlement, it wouldn’t occur.”

A second supply, who's a former senior public sector worker, agreed.

“There was concern (about) his space of affect throughout the group,” they mentioned. “His place as vice-president business allowed him to make the ultimate choice on approaches.”

A 3rd supply, additionally a former senior Metrolinx worker, mentioned they felt the quantity of sway exercised by Visitor and different Boxfish staff embedded on the company was inappropriate.

“No marketing consultant ought to have that stage of authority in a authorities group,” they mentioned.

The sources mentioned they discovered it arduous to consider Metrolinx may devise efficient measures to maintain Visitor and different Boxfish staff remoted from procurements that his agency may participate in.

“What (Metrolinx says) is believable, that there have been firewalls in place. However (the connection with Boxfish is) so built-in, I can’t see the firewalls as being efficient,” mentioned the general public sector supply.

The sources mentioned that they had no direct information of Visitor or different Boxfish staff doing something mistaken or improperly influencing contracts.

Aikins denied that Visitor or Boxfish had decision-making authority inside Metrolinx.

“Mr. Visitor and colleagues current their evaluation to the chief government officer and different members of the senior administration workforce,” who're “unambiguously accountable for them,” she mentioned. “Mr. Visitor’s recommendation is of constantly prime quality however it isn't at all times taken. Such a job is fully acceptable for a marketing consultant.”

Wayne Petrozzi, professor emeritus at Ryerson College and a former nationwide board member of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, mentioned publicly funded companies ought to solely be appointing their very own staff to government positions.

He mentioned that whereas it might be difficult for a public company to compete with the non-public sector for experience, the reply “is to not let individuals proceed to attract a wage from their non-public sector consultancy whereas ostensibly working for you.”

“That’s past ludicrous,” he mentioned.

Tony Dean, a Canadian senator and former head of the Ontario public service, mentioned that though it’s potential Metrolinx had a legitimate motive to nominate a marketing consultant to a vice-president function, “there would understandably be a public notion of there being a difficulty” by way of the marketing consultant “tipping the scales in favour of the corporate they nonetheless work for and who's paying their wage.”

Dean mentioned that along with erecting firewalls between Visitor and decision-making and contract awards, a powerful battle of curiosity coverage would come with Metrolinx consulting the provincial integrity commissioner over the marketing consultant’s function, and alerting its board of administrators of the potential for conflicts.

“At no stage was there a battle of curiosity,” Metrolinx’s Aikins mentioned. “The Metrolinx procurement coverage ensured there was no battle of curiosity.”