New deal and port for ONTC?

• Author: Cowan, Liz
• Position: NEWS

A "new deal" for Ontario Northland has been proposed by the association representing unionized employees at Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC).

The proposal calls for transferring ownership of the railroad and other assets of the provincially-held ONTC to a new ports authority to be operated under the Canada Marine Act. The first step in this process was recently completed with the creation of The James Bay and Lowlands Ports Trustee Corporation.

"Not only will we save transportation services and hundreds of existing jobs in the North, but our plan will also create thousands more jobs by providing access to the Ring of Fire," said Brian Stevens, representative of the General Chairperson's Association (GCA).

The Canada Marine Act allows the federal government to create port authorities which are a Federal Crown corporation.

"So we created a trustee corporation and when we meet with the provincial government, we will ask them to hand over the assets of the ONTC, and in trusteeship, to continue to operate the rail, bus, and telecommunications, until the port authority gets incorporated by the federal government," Stevens said.

The ports trustee corporation is currently under CEO Roy Haim, a former board member of the ONTC in the mid-2000s. According to news reports from 2003, he was also a consultant hired by the ONTC in 2001 for about two years who came under fire for making more than $770,000 in 22 months. He was working on the implementation of Ontario Northland Railway's service improvement plan. He was also lead negotiator with Canadian National Railway when it put a bid to purchase the ONR.

Work on the plan started in April, following the March, 2012 provincial government announcement that it would divest the ONTC, and Stevens said a lid was kept on the behind-the-scenes work.

The GCA was initially offended by Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci's statement, made during the...