Small bus companies taking Tri-Board Transportation back to court

Jeff Green | Dec 18, 2014

A number of bus companies that serve students in Frontenac County are joining with other members of the Independent School Bus Operators Association (ISBOA) in taking Tri-Board Transportation to court. Tri-Board, which handles busing for students in the Limestone, and the Hastings and Prince Edward public school boards, and the Algonquin and Lakeshore Separate School Board, was ordered to negotiate contracts with the operators by Justice Scott of the Ontario Superior Court in 2012.

Over two years later a deal has not been signed and now 29 operators are seeking damages for breach of contract in excess of $2 million, and punitive damages of $500,000, in addition to other costs.

The operators, which include Dunham, Cox and the larger Martin's Bus lines, filed their statement of claim on December 1. A response from Tri-Board is due by the end of January, and a court date will follow.

When Justice Scott issued his order in 2012 there were eight months remaining in the contract between the drivers and Tri-Board, but in their statement of claim the bus companies allege that Tri-Board stopped making payments for capital payments that were called for in that contract soon after the order was issued. Negotiations stalled, and the contract ran out, but the buses kept running.

Negotiations began in earnest in the fall of 2013 and a draft contract was being considered at a meeting in early February of 2014.

“Tri-Board represented to the Plaintiffs through the negotiating committee that Tri-Board generally agreed with the terms and that the draft would form the basis for a multi-year contract with the Plaintiffs” says the statement of claim.

Two weeks later, everything had changed.

“At the outset of the [next] meeting,” the statement goes on to say, “Tri-Board completely reversed its position. It said it refused to consider a multi-year contract despite its earlier representations and instead would only sign a contract for the 2013-14 school year, which by that time was only three months from finishing.

“When asked why a multi-year contract was no longer being considered, the CEO of Tri-Board, Gord Taylor, explained that the Ministry of Education (“Ministry”) had directed Tri-Board to take this position.” (item 89)

Negotiations have continued since then, and the bus companies presented a proposed contract on October 10, 2014, by which time they were in their second year without a contract.

Again, according to the bus companies' statement of claim, “Tri-Board responded on November 7, 2014, by presenting a brief document outlining general changes to the contract, but again without providing any of the underlying detail on the amount stipulated for fixed and variable rates (including driver wages, capital costs, maintenance, etc.). Without this information, it was impossible for the Plaintiffs to assess Tri-Board’s proposal and it certainly could not form the basis for a contract between the parties. Tri-Board presented this to the Plaintiffs in a 'take it or leave it' letter.”

Karen Cameron, the President of ISBOA, sees the hand of the province in the way Tri-Board has been handling the negotiations.

“Part of the problem for these small operators all the way along is that the Ontario government says they are not involved in this, but now three judges have independently come to the conclusion that the province is directing this. The issue is really with them, with Tri-Board as their proxy,” she said when interviewed by phone this week.

Under the ISBOA umbrella, independent operators have had success in court in recent years, as they have been resisting a province-wide initiative to put all busing contracts onto the open market, a move they say favours large national and international busing companies.