Metrolinx report on electrification deemed misleading

Metrolinx report on electrification deemed misleading. A GO Train on the Lakeshore Line leaves Union Station heading west. Staff photo/IAN KELSO

Doug Bennet received the four-page spring mailout from Metrolinx in March.

"The headlines and the articles, the whole tone of them, was that electrification was going to happen and it was going to happen first on the Air Rail Link," Bennet said.

Metrolinx, the provincial body responsible for GO Transit, is the developer behind the expansion of the Georgetown South rail line and the new Air Rail Link connecting Pearson airport with Union Station.

Technically the information in the mailout Bennet received was correct in that Metrolinx was talking about the board agreeing to study electrification, but several weeks earlier Bennet said he was at the Metrolinx meeting where the board had voted to buy diesel trains.

Bennet has been following the issue for some time and although he was aware of the situation, he feared people who weren't following the issue as closely might be mislead.

"I thought, 'This is spin, this is propaganda.'" Bennet said. "I was really upset."

Initially he didn't do anything about it and tossed the flyer in the blue bin. But a few weeks later when Bennet, who lives in Parkdale near the rail line, had some neighbours over and several of them mentioned how pleased they were the trains running were going to be electric.

"I thought, 'Oh my, that flyer has created the perception among my neighbours, who are intelligent people, that the train is going to be electric,'" Bennet said.

Bennet went back to his blue bin, dug the flyer out and decided to do something about it.

"I just wanted to hold them (Metrolinx) to account," he said. "What they did was wrong and they shouldn't be able to get away with it. That was my motivation."

Advertising Standards Canada (ASC), the national not-for-profit advertising self-regulatory body, has The Canadian Code of Advertising Standards that sets the criteria for acceptable advertising in Canada. Bennet said he looked up the code and there is a clause, 1(b), that states: "Advertisements must not omit relevant information in a manner that, in the result, is deceptive".

Bennet wrote a complaint to the ASC under that clause in April, and in late July the National Consumer Response Council of ASC unanimously voted to uphold Bennet's complaint the advertising was misleading and deceptive.

Bennet then received an email from Metrolinx that indicated it would not be appealing the decision and Metrolinx would issue a clarification in an upcoming communication.

"They issued a clarification in one of their regular email newsletters about the Georgetown line and I am assuming there will be another one in a printed mailer coming in the fall," Bennet said.

Bennet said how Metrolinx plays the printed clarification is important. "If they bury it on the bottom right hand corner of Page 4 and it is one paragraph, that isn't very effective when the original advertising was the lead item on the original flyer," Bennet said. "So we will see."

According to Metrolinx staff, the clarification was published in one of their regular email updates, which is sent to about 3,300 people along the Georgetown South corridor. It clarifies that "the Air Rail Link service will begin in 2015, using Tier 4 Diesel Multiple Units, which are convertible to electric propulsion". The clarification will also be reprinted in their upcoming quarterly mailer, which is sent to 65,000 people along the Georgetown corridor.

In an email to the Villager, Metrolinx explained it does not believe the March 2011 quarterly newsletter gave residents the wrong impression about electrification.

"Our quarterly newsletters and monthly emails have been an ongoing dialogue with Georgetown South corridor residents, and in that dialogue we have continuously stated that the Air Rail Link will begin in 2015 with Diesel Multiple Units," the email said.

Metrolinx has had ongoing communication with the residents of Georgetown South corridor about the Air Rail Link in the form of emails, newsletters, flyers, website updates and on-site staff at the Strachan and Weston community offices for more than a year. On numerous occasions, Metrolinx said, ongoing communication has informed residents that the Air Rail Link service will begin in 2015, using Tier 4 Diesel Multiple Units convertible to electric propulsion, as well as notifying residents about the staff recommendation to the Metrolinx Board to electrify the Georgetown and Lakeshore lines and phased construction time lines.

Rock Ciccarelli, the co-chair of the Clean Train Coalition, said that organization will continue to try to inform residents of the facts, as they know them.

He said the coalition wants to see electrification happen quickly and Metrolinx is making it sound like it is happening quickly when Ciccarelli said it is not.

"The province has not given formal approval to the electrification program," he said. "The Metrolinx board approval is subject to further studies and a report back."