Item - 2021.GL21.8

The General Government and Licensing Committee recommends that:

1. City Council receive the report (March 12, 2021) from the General Manager, Toronto Water and the Chief Procurement Officer for information.

The purpose of this report is to advise Toronto City Council, pursuant to Chapter 195 of the Toronto Municipal Code (Purchasing By-law, Section 195-7.4), of a non-competitive contract with OJCR Construction Limited to procure emergency general contracting and construction services to repair two damaged culverts and four failed sections of the 1200 millimetre (nearly four feet in diameter) East Don Sanitary Trunk Sewer in the East Don Parkland near Finch Avenue East and Alamosa Drive for a total value of $2,832,827.03 ($2,882,684.79 net of Harmonized Sales Tax recoveries).

The issuance of this non-competitive contract was a matter of extreme urgency. The damage to the trunk sewer indicated a high probability of complete failure of the sewer potentially resulting in 17 million litres (per day) of sewage spilling into the Don River East Branch. This would be a significant health and safety hazard to the public and contravene public legislative requirements for maintaining the integrity of this critical sewer. The damaged sections of the East Don Sanitary Trunk Sewer have now been repaired as well as the culverts that were identified to have been the cause the failure.

In consultation with the Purchasing and Materials Management Division, this emergency procurement could not be reported to the General Government and Licensing Committee and Council in the required timeframe. This was as a result of the requirements for Toronto Water to investigate and undertake the critical emergency construction work and to properly reconcile and approve all payments to the contractor/subcontractors – a process that was finalized in December 2020. Reporting back to City Council is required in accordance with Municipal Code Chapter 195, Purchasing, where the potential value of the non-competitive contract exceeds $500,000 as per Article 7, Section 195-7.4(B) of the Purchasing By-law.