Your Questions Answered

The short answer is any additional steps to ensure that the challenges that led to the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry are not repeated. These steps will include developing an action plan that will address the Judicial Inquiry's recommendations, with all actions and their outcomes being publicly reported.

While there is much work ahead, the City has already begun addressing issues in City operations that were brought to light during the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry, such as issues with document management, how and when information is shared with City Council and the public, and how information from third-party consultants is dealt with.

Throughout the last few years, the City has implemented a number of changes, including:

• The development and ongoing implementation of a Records and Information Management Policy.
• The development and ongoing implementation of an Active Disclosure and Dissemination Policy, which makes clear how and when information such as consultant reports are to be made available to the public.
• Creation of a temporary Chief Road Official position to create improved operating procedures for staff to encourage improvements in planning, design, construction and maintenance operations for City roadways.
• Development and implementation of a Council Staff Relationship policy.
• Implementation of a Quality Management System in the Public Works Department that will ensure staff meet and exceed regulatory standards.
• Creation of materials and training policies to improve project management activities, including regular reporting.
• Creation of a Parkway Management Committee to ensure better information sharing and workplan alignment among City divisions.
• An improved tracking system for consultants’ reports.

The Hon. Herman J. Wilton-Siegel, Commissioner of the Red Hill Valley Parkway Inquiry, has released his final report. 

Report of the Red Hill Valley Parkway Inquiry Released November 29, 2023

The City knows the work is not over and that there is still much more work to do.

Members of a previous City Council passed a resolution in April 2019 requesting that a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice be appointed to investigate the issues related to the Red Hill Valley Parkway. That request is detailed in the Terms of Reference of the Judicial Inquiry. The request was made after City Council was informed in 2019 of the existence of a consultant report from 2013 detailing the results of friction testing completed on the Red Hill Valley Parkway that was previously undisclosed to Council.

Hamilton City Council asked that the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry examine, among other things, why the Tradewind consultant’s report was not previously disclosed, how and why it was eventually brought to their attention after it was received by City staff in 2014, and whether any users of the Red Hill Valley Parkway were put at risk as a result of a failure to disclose the Tradewind Report’s findings to City Council in a timely manner.

After requesting the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry, the City of Hamilton became a participant in the Judicial Inquiry, which was run independently.

The City was also responsible for paying for the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry.

As a participant, the City provided more than 72,000 documents to the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry for review. It also provided more than 55 witnesses (out of 107 total witnesses) to give testimony and participated in 89 days of hearings where evidence was reviewed and witnesses and experts were questioned.

A Judicial Inquiry is a very big task. In the case of the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry, there was a significant amount of preparation that had to be done and information that had to be reviewed.

Before public hearings, a significant amount of work had to take place, including collecting more than 4.4 million documents from over 100 current and former City employees, organizing logistics and staffing, conducting a standing hearing, and conducting over 100 interviews of potential witnesses.

In addition to having more than 80 days of hearings over almost a year, the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry reviewed the relevant evidence and made findings and recommendations in a final report.

The Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry had a total cost of $28 million, which was paid for by the City of Hamilton and covered all legal expenses, salaries, materials, communications. and office-related expenses.

Because of the serious nature of this matter, the City opted for a Judicial Inquiry to ensure a transparent, comprehensive analysis of events as part of our efforts to rebuild public trust.

City staff will present an action plan to address the findings and recommendations coming from the Red Hill Valley Parkway Judicial Inquiry and publicly report to City Council regularly.

The City will also maintain a dedicated tracking system available to the public on the City's website, which will provide the status of each recommendation and what the City is doing to address it.

Yes. City staff apologized to members of City Council and the public for how the Tradewind consultant’s report was brought to their attention, for not meeting Council's expectations around openness and transparency and for the failure to bring to Council and the public’s attention a consultant’s report related to issues of public safety.

Judicial Inquiries allow governments to examine issues and problems outside regular legal processes. Unlike a court or other legal proceedings, a Judicial Inquiry does not result in findings of criminal or civil wrongdoing.

The main purpose of a Judicial Inquiry is to allow for a public investigation of issues of community interest and to provide recommendations to improve public policy and procedures to ensure mistakes of the past are not repeated.