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Ontario announces members of Hamilton Transportation Task Force

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A former politician, a civil engineer, a former journalist, and a government relations specialist will join Hamilton’s city manager Janette Smith as members of the Hamilton Transportation Task Force.

During Wednesday’s city council meeting, it was announced that Smith would be the first member appointed to the local-based task force of non-elected representatives.

In a statement issued Thursday, the province revealed Tony Valeri, Anthony Primerano, Dr. Saiedeh Razavi and Richard Brennan will round out the panel.

Valeri is currently Vice President, Corporate Affairs at ArcelorMittal Dofasco. He served as the federal Minister of Transport and was a Member of Parliament for four consecutive terms, beginning in 1993. Valeri will be chair of the task force.

Brennan is a former journalist who retired from the Toronto Star in 2015. He has reported on politics, including Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill, for most of his 40-plus-year career.

Primerano is the Director of Government Relations for the Labourers International Union of North America (LiUNA). He previously served as Chief of Staff for the federal Ministries of Veteran Affairs, National Defence, Civil Preparedness and Canadian Heritage and advised corporations on corporate affairs, communications and reputation management.

Razavi is Director of the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics, Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, and the Chair in Heavy Construction at McMaster University. Razavi has a multidisciplinary background and specializes in improving safety, mobility, environmental sustainability, and productivity of transportation systems and infrastructure projects.

Smith was named City Manager at the City of Hamilton in March 2019. She previously worked for the Region of Peel for 30 years where she served as Commissioner of Public Works and Commissioner of Health Services.

The province vowed to create a task force after Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney announced last month the province would no longer honour a $1-billion commitment made by the previous Liberal government to build a light rail transit (LRT) system in Hamilton.

Mulroney said the Liberal’s cost estimate for the LRT was off by billions of dollars.

The proposed system was a 14-kilometre rail line that ran from McMaster University through downtown Hamilton to Eastgate Square in Stoney Creek.

Construction was supposed to begin this year and be completed by 2024 but had been delayed.

The newly appointed task force has been assigned to report back to Mulroney before the end of February with a preliminary list of alternative transportation projects that can be delivered quickly and in a fiscally responsible manner.

Hamilton mayor Fred Eisenberger released a statement regarding the task force.

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