Response to deadly crash raising red flags

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/08/2023 (802 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government’s guarded approach in responding to one of the country’s deadliest highway crashes is raising red flags for critics and access-to-information experts.

Among the issues they deem concerning: the premier received no formal written briefing notes or memos about the Carberry bus crash in the month following the June incident that left 17 people dead; the province was reluctant to name the external consultant it had hired to conduct a safety analysis of the crash site (and only did so after a week of inquiries); and the government is refusing to commit to making public two safety reports — an internal one by the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure and the consultant’s. They will only say a preliminary investigation is complete.

“It’s part and parcel of how the Progressive Conservatives run the province — they try to keep people in the dark they try to reduce information flow as much as possible because they see information access as a kind political liability,” said Kevin Walby, director of the Centre for Access to Information and Justice at the University of Winnipeg.

“In a democracy, information access should just be a pillar or cornerstone of the way things work regardless of which party is in power.”

Neither Premier Heather Stefanson nor Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Doyle Piwniuk were made available for an interview. The only comment came through unnamed government spokespeople via email.

In July, the Free Press filed a freedom of information request asking for all memos and briefing notes prepared for Stefanson relating to the crash in the month after the collision. Briefing notes and memos are typically created for elected officials by staff to ensure politicians have up-to-date information and key background knowledge of matters affecting the province.

The Free Press request via the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act was refused — the province said no responsive records exist.

“As with any critical incident unfolding in real time, the premier was verbally briefed by officials across levels of government as details were being made available of the tragic event,” a government spokesperson said when pressed on the absence of a paper trail.

It’s an explanation the opposition NDP finds hard to accept.

“It defies belief that they wouldn’t have a briefing note on the tragedy in Carberry,” said NDP finance critic Adrien Sala.

“The accident was a national tragedy and it’s clear that the premier must have been briefed on it.”

Just before noon on June 15, a mini-bus carrying 25 people, mostly seniors, collided with a transport truck at the intersection of Highway 5 and the Trans-Canada Highway, just north of Carberry. A total of 17 people were killed at the scene or later died in hospital. As of this week, Shared Health says three patients remain in hospital. None are in intensive care. An RCMP investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Immediately after the crash, people who live near the intersection spoke out, saying it is unsafe and in dire need of upgrades, such as traffic lights or an overpass. A petition launched in July by the Town of Carberry called on the province to make long-term improvements at the “extremely dangerous intersection.” It has amassed more than 3,000 signatures. Weeks after the fatal crash, another collision occurred at the intersection, sending three people to hospital with serious injuries. Since then, the province “refreshed” rumble strips and repainted lines.

In the wake of the June mass-casualty crash, the province pledged to conduct an internal review and hire an external consultant to conduct a safety analysis of the intersection.

The government initially refused to say who was tapped for the consulting job. It took a week of repeated inquiries before a spokesperson revealed late Friday that the contract went to WSP Canada Inc., an internationally recognized engineering firm. Their Winnipeg office is undertaking the review, formally called an In-Service Road Safety Review.

The cost of the project is expected to be $60,000. Asked if the contract was part of a public tender, the spokesperson said: “Due to the urgency to undertake the PTH 1 and PTH 5 In-Service Road Safety Review, this work was a change in scope on an existing competitively tendered contract.”

Still, the province won’t commit to making the consultant’s report, or their own standard internal review, public.

“These kinds of reports shouldn’t be kept private, they should immediately be posted on an open government platform so that everyone can see it,” Walby said. “We’re paying for the salaries of these workers we’re paying for whatever kind of private (review) there is going to be.”

He questions whether the government is trying to stem the flow of information relating to potentially contentious issues in the leadup to the Oct. 3 provincial election. The consultant’s final report is expected in the late fall.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, a Canadian non-profit advocating democratic reform, said Manitobans have a right to access the reports and information surrounding the crash and understand how decisions are being made.

“What governments know across the country is: you keep it secret, then there’s no media coverage, or very little,” said Conacher, noting transparency is a key part of a healthy democracy.

“Sunlight is a good disinfectant. Secrecy is a recipe for corruption, waste and abuse.”

This isn’t the first time questions have been raised about the Manitoba government’s access-to-information opacity and how it documents decisions.

Last year, the Free Press sought correspondence regarding communication between senior elected officials and the Winnipeg police, RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency that included mentions of the trucker convoy protests that disrupted traffic in various locations and movement across the Canada-United States border in January and February 2022.

The FIPPA request was rejected, with the province saying no responsive records exist.

Briefings did happen — verbally, a spokesperson said at the time. They said the “duty to document” fell to law enforcement, as they were in charge of operational decision-making. However, they also acknowledged Manitoba’s Public Service Act requires public servants to “be transparent to enable public scrutiny.”

» Winnipeg Free Press