Yeah, I read that chapter of the Auditor General’s report and I was surprised that their only source of information was Metrolinx itself and they didn’t seem to talk to any of the other parties involved. Seems pretty one-sided IMO.
I don’t have any direct knowledge of the Pickering bridge project, but I have worked as a sub-contractor on a few Metrolinx projects over the past several years. Without specific details- my company was a sub-contractor retained to design a small component of larger new building projects. Each time, it was a total pain to get our part of the work done. The specifications for the design work were vague (at best) at the start of each project, and would change dramatically and multiple times as the work progressed. And these specifications were the type of things that would/should have been pretty much set before the work started, i.e. the size of a new building, what it would be used for, approx. occupant loads, that sort of stuff. Very frustrating to deal with as a consultant; I remember for one project I had to do a complete re-design four different times because the requirements kept changing.
In fairness, for the projects that I worked on I don’t know if these problems were caused by Metrolinx or by the contractor that we worked for because I mostly dealt with the contractor and not directly with Metrolinx. And (of course) I don’t know either way if that Pickering bridge contractor is competent or not. But I do think that the Auditor General should have gotten both sides of the story for their report. As that report stands now, all we see is the Auditor General pointing their finger at Metrolinx, and Metrolinx just passing the blame on to their contractors. Not terribly useful in the long run, as far as I can see.