By Tammy Flores
October 9th, 2013 Edition
In the past 3 years it has been discovered that neither the Ministry of Transportation nor 407ETR has been transparent in informing us of our right to independent arbitration when we have a dispute over charges. Many of us that have tried to dispute charges with this company were not given any documentation or proof of charges claimed against us and were told to call 407’s Customer Service to discuss our issue. Then Customer Service put us through the Office of the President and then from there we were put through the 407’s own internal, bias Ombudsman.
According to Jodie Parmar, the lead executive when the 407 Act was created, Section 19 of the Act creates the legal obligation for 407ETR to pay fees & expenses of LGIC-appointed dispute arbitrators. These arbitrators are completely independent of 407ETR and are supposed to be able to handle our disputes. Problem is that nobody knows about them or how to access them.
Jodie Parmar informs us that these LGIC-appointed arbitrators have the authority to advertise their services and charge back the costs to 407ETR. So the question is, after 14 years, why hasn’t this been done?
Since the Minister of Transportation, Glen Murray, and the Premier, Kathleen Wynne, have not responded to repeated requests for an answer to this, the only answer we have is from Jodie Parmar. As lead executive, he knows the intent of the Act and says the only answer he can give is that there has been incompetence or interference as to why the public is in the dark with respects to these independent arbitrators.
We have to hold this government accountable and make sure this problem that has been allowed to exist for far too long gets corrected once and for all.
Please enlist your family and friends to sign & share this petition http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/change-the-407act . Change the 407Act!
