Bus Crash Inquest Will Create Political Storm

Published 07/25/2024 · Updated 07/25/2024

A tornado is forming over Ottawa but it is nothing that Environment Canada would track.

It’s the Transpo Tornado. A judicial tornado and a political storm.

Ottawa abounds in rumours about why an OC Transpo double-decker bus crashed into a steel awning at Westboro Transitway station sadly killing Judy Booth, Bruce Thomlinson and Anthonia Van Beek and injuring 23 others, some of them horribly with life-changing wounds. Others left the crash scene with mental scars that might not show but are real and devastating. It is a horror for those who lived through the crash to this very day and beyond.

This inquest will be much bigger news than the provincial inquiry into Ottawa’s failed light-rail project which in itself was a blockbuster.

Why?

Because this involves real people. People with tragic ends. Trauma. Misdeeds. Any city editor worth his or her salt will tell you that a human story is much more interesting and important than a recitation of billions of dollars of LRT waste, untoward acts, lying and incompetence … interesting as they are. A good reporter will tell you how difficult it is to turn a turgid government report or massive spreadsheet into something the public will read.

And remember, many of the same people who gave us the lrt fiasco were in charge when the Westboro crash occurred. The tale of the tape is not good.

But this is a human tragedy? It is a story that writes itself. The biggest fear of a journalist in this situation is letting words get in the way of a gripping story told straight. Doing the people in the drama justice. Don’t screw it up.

Your agent has heard so much about the circumstances surrounding this crash … some of which is true, might be true, or is pure fallacy … that if half of it comes to the fore, it will rock this community to its foundation.

The biggest fear in this process is that all the information will not come out and that people, who need to be exposed for what they have done, won’t pay a price. And there is a price to be paid.

Recognize that a coroner’s inquest makes recommendations unlike a criminal trial though the inquest in format is much like a trial.

That said, the police and Crown usually follow these inquests very closely as does the media, what little of it is left. We hope the Ontario Provincial Police and the Crown examine this inquest very closely and do what they feel, in their wisdom, is correct. Certainly the public will be watching.

Here are some unanswered questions:

Why now? Why did the coroner wait five years to hold an inquest? Did new information appear? Was there a need for civil cases to conclude? Was there a legal requirement which we don’t know about? Did a long lobby victimes, friends and relatives finally succeed?
Why did the City of Ottawa initially refuse an offer by the Transportation Safety Board to help investigate the cause of the crash? Why did the city not want some of the best investigators in the world working on this. Instead, before the city relented to allow the TSB to be part of it, the municipality chose to keep the investigation of its transit company OC Transpo, which it funds and for which it is responsible, in the hands of the Ottawa Police Service, which the city funds and with which it has a close relationship through the Ottawa Police Services Board where city councillors, the mayor and independent people play a role;
The driver of the Westboro bus had an unrelated accident shortly before the tragedy. That meant an automatic review of her driving record, training and re-testing? Did these measures occur? What were the results of that process? What were the recommendations? What happened to all the documentation immediately after the event? Who was told about the documentation and its contents? How far up in the city executive pecking order did that information go? Is that documentation still available? If not, what happened to it?
Did OC Transpo driver shortages have any effect on the crash?
Were there any concerns before or after the crash about the deadly awnings at the Westboro station which cut through the double-decker bus like butter? Those awnings are still in use at OC Transpo stations today. Are they dangerous? What was done to mitigate the risk of those awnings post-accident?
Why are OC Transpo’s fleet of double-decker buses is being auctioned off now and not being replaced?

The driver of the bus, Aissatou Diallo, 44, was acquitted in September 2021 of any criminal responsibility for the crash.

This inquest matters. It matters to put a sense of urgency about safety, above all else, into OC Transpo where that urgency has been lacking in bus and rail transit. It matters to prevent this kind of crash from happening again. It matters to discover misdeeds before, during and, importantly, after the event.

It matters to honour the living from the crash and the dead with justice.

Ken Gray