Area bus companies devastated by a provincially-imposed bus route tendering system are awaiting the outcome of a court case involving a bus company in eastern Ontario before continuing to proceed with their own lawsuit.
The ultimate decision to proceed with the case involving Epoch’s Garage in Kenilworth and Cook’s Bus Lines in Mount Forest, will hinge on the eastern Ontario case.
Named in the local lawsuit were the provincial government, the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB), the Wellington Catholic District School Board and Wellington-Dufferin Student Transportation Services, the consortium in charge of buses for the two boards.
Epoch’s, a family-owned bus operator with several decades in the business, has been devastated by the request for proposals (RFP) system since it was introduced in 2009.
The company’s routes have dwindled from 12 to one, said co-owner Ruth Anne Staples.
“Right now it’s helping us pay our bills,” she said of the business which is augmented by a garage for vehicle repairs.
Last July the company received a favourable ruling on its claims that the provincial government was directly involved in the RFP process that favoured large bus operators.
The company’s problems started when the first RFPs were issued, causing confusion among small bus operators about how they should be filled out. A second RFP process followed within a year.
“In one year we lost everything,” Staples said.
It was a similar scenario faced by Cook’s Bus Lines in Mount Forest, which lost 15 routes.
Two other local bus operators – Doug Akitt Bus Lines in Belwood and a numbered company owned by Alma’s Dave and Anna Langdon – are also part of the lawsuit even though the businesses are closed.
They were among 30 small bus operators across the province that went out of business since the RFP system was brought in.
Karen Cameron, a director with the Independent School Bus Operators Association (ISBOA), said the process has devastated the industry and its small, rural operators.
The association also claims the government is spending millions to fight lawsuits launched by rural operators.
“The Liberal government has paid private law firms $1.6 million to fight small, rural bus companies who are trying to stop unfair and unlawful RFPs,” the association posted on its website.
“The government is using taxpayer money to fund litigation, even though school bus operators have won in court five times, the courts have issued injunctions against RFPs mandated by the government, and most (school) boards didn’t want to implement this policy in the first place.”
Last month, a judge determined the Ministry of Education was directing RFPs to the exclusion of other competitive procurement options that are fairer to small business, ISBOA stated in a press release.
Bus drivers planned to attend a Guelph all candidates meeting on June 3 to confront education minister Liz Sandals.
“When Premier Wynne was education minister, she personally promised that the new system would be fair to companies of all sizes,” Lesa McDougall of Cook’s Bus Lines said in the ISBOA press release. “It has been anything but.”
In a telephone interview with the Advertiser, Cameron said, “It’s a David-and-Goliath type of fight.”
The ISBOA press release stated that, “When school boards have wanted to withdraw unfair RFPs and negotiate fair contracts with operators, the government has prevented them from doing so and agreed to pay private law firms so that the consortia would resist the cancellation of unfair RFPs.”
Current provincial education minister Guelph MPP Liz Sandals declined to comment when contacted by the Advertiser because the matter is before the courts.
Cameron said concerns raised by small operators show the provincial government mandated the RFP process, taking it out of the hands of trustees at the local school board.
In an initial ruling on the local claim “the justice found the ministry acted in ‘bad faith’ when issues were raised from the pilot RFP and operators were told the issues would be corrected in a second RFP, something that did not happen,” Cameron said.
She told the Advertiser operators ran “a stable industry that had marginal profit margins,” but, “Small business can’t compete in these RFPs.”
The eastern Ontario trial is expected to start on June 24 in Kingston.
