Independent Bus Operators Stage Rally at Queens's Park

Jeff Green | Mar 01, 2012

Local bus operators expressed solidarity this week with their colleagues from the Independent School Bus Operators Association (ISBOA), who staged an 80-bus convoy to Queen’s Park on Monday, followed by speeches and a rally.

The event was timed to coincide with the Rural Ontario Municipal Association meeting in Toronto this week, in the hopes that municipal politicians would take a supportive message with them to the private meeting with provincial ministers that are a feature of the conference.

ISBOA has been asking the province to reconsider a Request for Proposal (RFP) policy for school busing contracts, which has been coming into force incrementally across the province since 2010.

ISBOA says that the RFP process, which has been employed on a widespread basis in other jurisdictions such as the United States, leads to market dominance by three large multinational busing companies, and puts independent operators out of business.

According to information that has been gathered by ISBOA, savings in transportation costs that resulted from the first round of RFPs were lost when the RFPs were re-negotiated a few years later, because only the large companies are left in the market.

On the eve of last October’s provincial election, a moratorium on further expansion of the RFP process was announced by then Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky to allow for a task force to look into the process further and make recommendations to the ministry.

The task force, headed up by former Integrity Commissioner for Ontario, Coulter Osborne, has just submitted its report to the current Minister of Education, Laurel Broten.

Two events have brought some urgency to the activities of ISBOA, however.

The first is that the moratorium on RFP processes has already been ended. School boards in the London/ Thames Valley area are pressing forward with an RFP process before waiting for the Coutler Osborne report to be considered.

Secondly, the recently released Drummond report into overall government spending recommends that the government accelerate its implementation of the RFP process, citing a 34% increase in transportation costs since 2002.

In response, ISBOA charged that Drummond’s findings were based on incomplete information about costs.

“The 34% increase has nothing to do with how student transportation is procured,” said ISBOA Executive Director Steve Hull of Hull Bus Lines in Petrolia. “A quick look at the three main costs of the industry: wages, bus costs and fuel, tells the real story. The minimum wage in 2002 was $6.85. In 2012 it is $10.25 – a 50% increase. Bus costs in 2002 were $81,802, in 2012, $93,503. This increase was largely due to increased safety and emission standards, regulations that were mandated by government. The average price of fuel in 2002 was $0.63, in 2011, it’s $1.05, an increase of 67%.”

Hull concludes that the increase in costs since 2002 has little or nothing to do with the way contracts are arrived at.

Frank Healey, of Healey Bus Lines in Smiths Falls, addressed the media at the rally at Queen’s Park on Monday. He asked that the moratorium on new RFPs be reinstated at least until the Coulter Osborne report is released to the public and is fully considered by the Ministry of Education.

“I am here today, on behalf of nearly 200 school bus businesses in Ontario, to ask for the release of the Coulter Osborne Report, a report which we believe supports our 3-year plea for a procurement policy appropriate for our unique industry. Out of frustration and fear for the future of their family businesses, companies from across the province have sent 80 buses to Premier McGuinty’s front door to ask for his support,” Healey said.