Small school bus companies buoyed by court decision

Jeff Green | Dec 06, 2012

In a court room in Kingston last Friday, another group of small bus drivers have stopped a bussing consortium from changing the way bussing contracts are awarded.

Last month, we reported about Tri-board Transportation Services, the consortium that handles school bussing for students for the Limestone Board and the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic Board. Faced court proceedings challenges the Request for Proposal bussing contract process they had undertaken, Triboard decided to withdraw the RFP to give the court challenge a chance to play out.

In the case that went before Justice Tranmer in Kingston last week, Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario (STEO) which provides service to the Upper the Upper Canada and Eastern Ontario Catholic Boards in Lanark and Leeds Grenville Counties, faced off against some of the small companies that have been bussing their students.

The same lawyers were involved in this latest case as in the Tri-board case, but STEO put forward a motion asking the court to dismiss the law suit out of hand, claiming the procurement process STEO is pursuing is shielded from prosecution by Ontario's Broader Public Sector Accountability Act. After hearing both parties argue their case on Friday, November 30, Justice Tramner released his decision on Monday afternoon.

“I cannot find that it is plain and obvious that the Plaintiff’s [the bus operators] claims are certain to fail. It is not plain and obvious that the Act bars the claims being made. These sections have not been considered judicially and the issues raised are important, novel and complex …”

Justice Tramner then said he would like to see “a complete evidentiary record” and is prepared to hear from both parties about scheduling for further proceedings in the case.

Speaking for the Independent School Bus Operators Association (ISBOA), the umbrella group whose members include the bussing companies that have launched the suits, Karen Cameron said, “The court soundly rejected the notion that operators are required to go through the RFP process, suffer damages and then sue for compensation … this means that the operators will have their day in court and that during the litigation process the lawyers will be able to examine the way the RFPs have been imposed on operators, and whether boards have properly or fairly examined alternatives and the features of local markets.”

For several years, local school bus operators have been waging a political battle over the new method of contracting out bussing contracts, arguing that it is skewed towards large bus companies, and will inevitably push small bus companies into bankruptcy.

Attempts to sway the government through public action have been unsuccessful, and a wave of RFPs has been rolling across the province.

Now that the small operators will indeed have their day in court, the bus operators finally see a way out of what until they had until now seen as certain doom for their businesses.

“We now feel that we finally have the momentum, and that the full picture of how we have acted in good faith over the years and are now being shunted aside will be heard,” said Steve Dunham of Dunham transportation in North Frontenac, one of the plaintiffs in the Tri-Board case.

According to Karen Cameron, the court is going to be pressuring all sides to bring the Tri-board, STEO, and maybe some of the other court cases together to deal with all the issues in one test case.

The school bus operators will need up to $1 million to fight the case, (they have raised $300,000 so far) and while they will be seeking compensation for court costs as part of their statement of claim in the law suit, they are continuing to fund raise.