Watson himself told lawyers under oath in April that he was “in the crow’s nest looking at 30,000 feet” and did not go into the details of the Confederate Line. Now, a chain of hundreds of messages sent on WhatsApp in the fall of 2019 — released in full this week as evidence for a public inquiry investigating the LRT’s many breakdowns and derailments — fits Manconi’s description of the mayor’s style and gives an unprecedented look at the town hall run by Watson. During this particularly difficult period after the opening of the light rail system, Watson was incessantly demanding information. He even contributed to details, suggesting that Manconi take the red vest attendants to the platforms to call out bus schedules when the LRT was struggling, or asking if there were snow shovels. The WhatsApp chat group was created a few months before he joined. At the public inquiry, lawyers turned to that and other text messages as they delve into the crucial final test run for the LRT in the summer of 2019 and who may have led the push for a return to the easier rating after a rocky start. Prior to Watson’s arrival on the panel, City Manager Steve Kanellakos, transit committee chairman Coun. Allan Hubley and staff in the mayor’s office discussed critical test scores and milestones and remarked about spilled blueberries on an escalator on the LRT’s opening weekend. After problems arose when OC Transpo made the full switch from bus to rail, Manconi texted the group asking the mayor’s chief of staff Serge Arpin and aide Mathieu Gravel for “help” because “the mayor directly messages me often ». They decided that Watson should be getting his updates from this WhatsApp channel — one of several in the city of Ottawa, as evidenced by the odd messages destined for different threads — and Manconi added him to the conversation on October 23. So began a barrage of messages from the mayor, often misspelled and suggesting he didn’t use autocorrect, as he asked for updates on every aspect of the LRT and worried that “our reputation is in tatters.”
“We’re drowning in message overload”
Once on the WhatsApp thread, Watson seemed fixated on the messages the OC Transpo Twitter account was sending out to passengers about the delays and how they didn’t match what he was hearing directly from Manconi. “Why is the twitter account still saying delays? It’s been 20 minutes but you’re telling me it was fixed in five minutes,” he wrote. “CFRA gets their information from your feed so hard to blame them when we still have old tweets.” The mayor also chimed in as Manconi worried that transit commissioner Sarah Wright-Gilbert was “destroying us with misinformation” during an interview on the same private radio station. Watson suggested he be removed from the committee and urged it to “use attacks on staff as an issue”. Wright-Gilbert hit back last week after that piece came to light during Watson’s testimony at the public inquiry. All in one day10:10 Transit commissioner responds to Ottawa Mayor Watson’s LRT testimony As we learned when Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson testified last week at the LRT inquiry, he and some city officials complained about Transit Commissioner Sarah Wright-Gilbert in a private WhatsApp group where they received updates on the LRT before it was delivered . Wright-Gilbert joins us with her reaction. On October 27, which was a Sunday, Watson heard of multiple train failures. “This is ridiculous. I want parallel bus service ready to run all next week as a backup. We have zero reliability at this point,” he wrote. He then directed staff to set up a meeting with Rideau Transit Group and Rideau Transit Maintenance employees in his office. “Keep all payments to them and they are not going to get a cent until I give you permission in person,” Watson continued. Just five days after adding him, Manconi wrote: “Mr. Mayor, please, I’m getting so many messages from you on multiple channels and your staff. I’ll answer them all. They’re all being acted upon. We’re drowning in message overload.”
Watson the LRT rider
Watson persisted, checking updates on installing non-slip flooring on station stairs and straps for passengers to grab on to trains. When the mayor would ride the LRT that fall, he would tell city officials about what he saw. For example, he sent this series of messages on the morning of November 11:
Watson at 9:35:13: I’m eastbound on trembly and it says hold. Watson at 9:35:43: Anyone? Watson at 9:36:46: Ok the train is moving again. Watson at 9:41:40: Can the driver yell stop until fixed. He would know it doesn’t work. Watson at 9:49:24: The PA system is now working! Watson at 9:51:31: Not working. Watson at 9:51:52: Just announced St Laurent and we’re in Tremblay. Watson at 9:54:32: Can anyone. Turn off the PA system calling the wrong station every station. Watson at 10:03:44: Reply and remove the PA system. Calling all the wrong stations!!!! Coun. Hubley at 10:04:18: Mr. Mayor, I will call. Watson at 10:04:56: Very disappointing. Especially if a blind person gets on the train. Manconi at 10:07:15: The system must be reset at the end of the line.
On another ride, Watson told Manconi to have support staff in red vests tell riders to remove backpacks because OC Transpo could fit more riders in train cars if they put them between their legs. Watson even made several suggestions about train switches and rail yard operations that Manconi had to shoot down. Watson also wanted a “rope barrier” to prevent riders from holding the doors when a train was departing. Dozens of streetcar riders wait for a bus to arrive at Ottawa’s Blair LRT station on October 22, 2019, a day before Mayor Watson joined a WhatsApp chat group in which he asked for continuous updates from city staff. (Gilles Taillon/Radio-Canada) “It’s 100% non-bootable. That’s against all safety rules,” Maddoni replied. “You had the option during the planning and bidding phase to implement it [sic] platform doors designed to do exactly what you were asking for, but that wasn’t within your budget.” Meanwhile, Manconi often asked the mayor where he got his information about transit problems and had to tell him when other people’s Twitter posts didn’t accurately depict the train’s condition.
‘Blasting’ RTG
The mayor did not reserve his frustration in conversations with top city staff. On November 22, 2019, the group heard Watson wanted a call with Peter Lauch, then CEO of Rideau Transit Group. “I am furious,” Watson wrote. “I start the morning with a break and end the afternoon. With another.” Manconi then passed on Lauch’s cell phone number, and 12 minutes later the mayor responded: “I’m just blasting Peter. This tech needs to be fired and replaced.” Some of the senior people looking after the Confederation Line in Ottawa. Left to right: former OC Transpo general manager John Manconi, city director of transit operations Troy Charter, city director of transit customer systems and planning Pat Scrimgeour and then-RTG CEO Peter Lauch at a news conference in February 2020. (Jean Delisle/ CBC) Manconi himself did not mince words when he referred to Alstom and Rideau Transit Maintenance staff in the WhatsApp threads, referring to them as “clowns”, “idiots” and “idiots” and described “bad” meetings. All along, Manconi promised to get information about the mayor, but on December 7 — a Saturday — Manconi told the mayor, “Today I’m trying to have quality rest time and do things for myself that I can’t I’ve been doing for months so could I ask if we talk about all of this in our weekly?’ On December 13, the mayor asked, “What happened in Cyrville that you no longer notify me on this forum?” It is clear from other message chains that Manconi continued to receive texts and instructions from the mayor afterward, such as an order to stop publicizing how few trains were on the line that winter.
Texts do not equal “pressure”
Those threads were not among the half-million documents the city of Ottawa initially provided to the public inquiry. The city’s outside attorney Peter Wardle argued that the commission said it did not want records from personal devices. Wardle described the messages as transient and disposable under the city’s records policy, and Watson said his “eyes glaze over” reading informational messages shared among city staff. The committee’s co-lead counsel John Adair, however, called out Mayor Watson on June 30 for not mentioning their existence to the affidavit during his interview ahead of the April 2022 hearing. “I’m going to suggest, sir, that you knew… those WhatsApp messages were important and you specifically chose not to disclose them, correct?” “No,” replied the mayor. “I didn’t think it was that important. It was tidbits here and there. It wasn’t substantial at all. The most substantial information came from the meetings we had with our suppliers and our staff.” Riders pack themselves onto a packed LRT train in Ottawa on November 1, 2019. The lack of straps to hold on was a concern for Watson at the time. (Andrew Lee/CBC) Manconi did not tell the committee about the messages or in his interview. During his testimony on June 28, he told Adair that he “completely forgot about the WhatsApp conversations.” Adair was more concerned about the period leading up to the City of Ottawa’s takeover of LRT and what the two men might have exchanged via text when the mayor was not yet on the WhatsApp thread. Adair had seen reference to these texts, but none were delivered. “I will suggest if the mayor of your city is texting you non-stop… it puts pressure on you to succeed[theLRT[τοLRT[theLRT
