Canada-based engineer-builder SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. finds itself in a still-unfolding Ottawa munnicipal bid controversy after recently published evaluation documents appear to show its team won the $1.1-billion Trillium light-rail expansion despite a less-than-stellar technical score. The document dump came after months of political controversy following a CBC report last year that city officials awarded the public-private contract to the SNC-Lavalin-led consortium despite a technical score below the minimum 70% requirement.
The furor comes with the firm already in the spotlight for its work in Ottawa as part of another team that completed initial phases last fall of the Confederation light-rail system, on which myriad problems, including frozen switches, have been reported. Still, there is no indication of any issues with SNC-Lavalin’s work on the 9-mile Trillium Line project that began last year, with city officials having mounted a spirited defense of the contract. The consortium’s Trillium bid was at least $71 million below the second lowest bid and hundreds of millions below the third and highest bid among three big consortia, city officials say.