The Tribulations of OMERS

In case you had not guessed, the OMERS/Borealis name was conspicuously absent from the list of short-listed candidates to build the DRIC road.

Does that mean they lost out on this massive project after their attention to Windsor for so many years with DRTP and now the proposed new train tunnel.

Just as mini-Gord said about Coco Paving, we can probably say the same about the Pension Fund who wants to be a big player in Infrastructure:

"Cocos still a player in Windsor-Essex Parkway

Members of the local construction industry were shocked last week when the Coco Group of Companies was knocked out of the running to build the multibillion-dollar Windsor-Essex Parkway...

But don't go crying for the Cocos. They're going to make millions on the Parkway project anyway. They would have raked in the profits had they won the grand prize to own half of this gigantic contract, but they'll do just fine as subcontractors to whichever international consortium is chosen to helm the job."

And if you want to see how the game is played, decide on the criteria that will allow you to eliminate projects or RFP candidates just as DRIC did. Hey, Infrastructure Ontario even had their own equivalent of the Afghan election monitor to make sure everything was on the up-and-up just like DRIC too. Now isn't that re-assuring except the monitor seems to have missed the obvious:

• "The local company was knocked out of the running for the contract because of its lack of international linkages, says David Livingston, president and CEO of Infrastructure Ontario.
  The provincial agency -- one of the world's biggest project agents, having awarded more than $10 billion worth of work since 2005 -- is under orders from cabinet to produce the best, most environmentally friendly roadway of its kind in the world.
  
  Not the best in Canada or the best in North America. They wanted the best, period. That's what cost SNC/Coco the main prize, Livingston told me. While both companies are at the top of their fields in Canada, they didn't demonstrate enough international connections under the points system devised by Infrastructure Ontario.
  
  The points were awarded under the supervision of an independent "fairness monitor" hired by the provincial agency, to head off complaints about the outcome of the selection system.
  
  "SNC was the most vertically integrated" of the bidders, Livingston said, and that worked against them. Their plan was to staff every aspect of the project with internal people rather than engaging outside experts as subcontractors. Infrastructure Ontario wanted international design experience, international construction solutions, global financial expertise, and world-class maintenance."

It is so predictable who will win and why. I don't know why the other candidates even bothered.

One other interesting point. Now you know why Macquarie got rid of its role in the Tunnel to Alinda. They were one of the short-listed companies. That could never have happened if they had an interest in the Tunnel. They might be considered to be creating a monopolistic border crossing regime which Canada could never allow.

Back to OMERS. They have their own woes these days as this story points out:

• Mississauga council votes for probe of Mayor McCallion
  
  Mayor Hazel McCallion’s supporters turned out in droves, pleading, imploring, berating and even threatening Mississauga council.
  
  It didn’t work.
  
  Councillors voted 7-4 to push ahead with a $2.5 million judicial inquiry into the mayor’s presence in private meetings about her son’s downtown land deal and broadly related issues...
  
  It will also investigate how OMERS managed to quietly obtain controversial veto powers in its agreement with the city for a 10 per cent stake in Mississauga’s its hydro utility, Enersource. The veto, discovered long after the fact, has been a source of contention within council.
  
  Critics claim lawyers added the veto to the documents after council voted to accept the agreement, without council’s knowledge - or that of the mayor, according to McCallion herself.
  
  The probe will also look into how and why the minutes of a council meeting last year stated that the mayor had declared a conflict of interest in matters involving her son’s hotel project, while video footage showed she had not...
  
  But the majority - councillors Nando Iannicca, Carolyn Parrish, Sue McFadden, Frank Dale, Eve Adams, Carmen Corbasson and George Carlson - held firm, insisting the inquiry wasn’t about the wildly popular mayor alone, but the need to untangle the truth and clarify some complex relationships.
  
  “I do have a problem that official government documents got changed with no satisfactory explanation,” said Corbasson, adding she also has “difficulty” with a council member attending off-site meetings on a city-related issue that would financially benefit a relative.
  
  Defending the inquiry, Parrish said that, besides the propriety of those meetings, there are questions about the city’s relationship with OMERS. Besides the veto, there is also the cash settlement World Class got from OMERS following the collapse of the deal - and the city’s purchase of the same plot of land for a new Sheridan College campus.
  
  Peter McCallion and partner Tony DeCicco won the settlement after taking OMERS to court. It was DeCicco’s affidavit in that filing that revealed the mayor’s presence at two private meetings, one of them last December in a last-ditch attempt to rescue the deal...
  
  The December meeting came five days after council voted to buy out OMERS’ interest in Enersource. McCallion was opposed to the buyout, as was OMERS"