Road feud raises questions about Tory veteran's political comeback

A former Conservative MP attempting a political comeback in this fall's provincial election says his main motivation is not a feud with the Liberal government over its refusal to take over maintenance of the private road he lives on.

But Greg Thompson acknowledges that his frustration with incumbent Liberal MLA John Ames over the issue was "running in the back of my mind" when he decided to run against Ames as a Progressive Conservative.

In March 2017, Thompson and fellow residents of Birch Forest Road in Bayside thought they had persuaded the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure to turn the private road into a public road if residents upgraded it first.

But in the end, despite the upgrades, the department refused to do it.

In an interview with CBC News in St. Andrews, the veteran Tory politician insisted he's not running to punish Ames for that despite accusing Ames of breaking a promise he made about the road.

Thompson saidhe's motivated by other issues, including what he calls Ames' failure to save the St. Stephen courthouse and to champion the Charlotte County Hospital.

In a subsequent telephone interview, however, Thompson said the road issue contributed to his conclusion that Ames is an ineffective MLA.

"There would be a connection in the sense of his inability to back up a commitment he made," Thompson said. "It's more a reflection of his weakness in Fredericton."

Ames responded: "Isn't that unfortunate we have someone running for politics for personal reasons."

Thompson endorsed Ames

Thompson is a former six-term MP. He sat in the House of Commons from 1988 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2011, and was veterans affairs minister for four years in the Harper Conservative government. He'll be nominated Saturday as the PC candidate in the St. Croix riding.

Despite his deep Tory ties, Thompson wrote a public letter last June praising Ames, a first-term Liberal MLA.

"I am very proud to have you as my MLA and without hesitation or reservation want you to know that I will be voting for you in the next election," Thompson wrote in a letter read at the June 22, 2017, Liberal nominating convention in St. Croix.

Ames pointed out that both the courthouse and hospital issues Thompson is raising now "were long, long discussed before he wrote that letter."

Thompson's endorsement came three months after a March 25 breakfast meeting at the Algonquin Resort, where Thompson saidAmes and Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Bill Fraser made the promise. "They didn't invite me down there to say no," he said.

Thompson said the road commitment did not lead to his glowing endorsement of Ames in June. "I meant it at the time," he said, "but the erosion of that support was something he brought on himself, not me."

Thompson also said if elected as a PC MLA in a PC government, he would not use his position to get his road taken over. "It's not on my agenda, if you will," he said.

Liberals say they made no promises

Both Ames and Fraser say they don't make promises about roads without consulting staff. "I don't make any commitments to anything unless it's a sure thing," Ames said in an interview.

Ames refused to discuss Birch Forest Road specifically, but said he often gets requests about private roads and he always points residents to the provincial standards that must be met.

He said he's never encountered a case in his time as MLA where the specifications were met and the province took over a road.

Fraser said he follows the recommendations of staff engineers on road issues. "I'm not an engineer, so I don't have the expertise to make those decisions," he said. "Any of these technical decisions would be based on a technical process, not based on politics."

A document summary obtained by CBC News shows that DTI staff visited the road last Aug. 2. Thompson says they agreed the required upgrades had been done and would recommend the province take over the road.

The province's 75-page "minimum standards for the construction of subdivision roads and streets" lists criteria for the province taking over a private road. They include road width, maximum gradient, proper drainage, and culverts, among others.

Back in Fredericton, the documents say, senior official Jules Michaud "casts doubt" on whether the upgrades met the standards. Another civil servant, Colleen Brown, said there were "a number of remaining deficiencies," including no second entrance to the road.

'Connection'

In his first interview for this story, Thompson blamed "higher powers" in Fredericton for the decision. "I think that Mr. Ames had a hard time overturning those decisions," he said. "I'll just leave it at that."

In the subsequent telephone interview, though, he said the outcome reflected on Ames and that played a role in his decision to run for the PCs.

"If John wants to pretend that's why I'm running, you could say yes, it's government's incompetence to execute on a promise that was made."

He said it would be "stupid" to claim the road dispute had no role in his candidacy because "it's running in the back of my mind."

Many attempts on road

Planning for the Birch Forest Road subdivision began in 1994. It was built on private land off Route 127 between the St. Croix River and Chamcook Lake.

DTI documents show repeated references to the road not meeting minimum requirements for the province to take it over. In 1997, officials noted that a road of that length might require a second entrance.

There's a lot of things in life you have to put behind you, and this road is one of them.- Greg Thompson

Residents, including Thompson, began pushing for provincial servicing in 2008. They were turned down, tried again in 2013, and were rejected again.

Ames promised to look into the issue after he was elected in 2014, Thompson said. "I have to say that I was impressed that he would meet with me and talk this through even though I didn't vote for him."

To-do list

Thompson said after his March 25, 2017 meeting with Ames and Fraser, he received "a to-do" list of necessary upgrades that residents would have to pay for out of their own pockets.

DTI staff estimated the cost at $526,000, based on an initial costing from October 2016. Another estimate at the same time put it at $479,000.

Thompson said the residents did the work for much less than that, thanks to one resident donating heavy equipment and others pitching in with manual labour.

In a June 11 email, however, district engineer Alan Kerr said residents had been given "the impression" that the department was now "expected to carry out the work or accept the road as is."

The next day, another email from Kerr said Ames still believed "that the residents will perform the upgrades but they want assurances that when the work is done the road will be taken over."

Ten days later, Thompson wrote his letter praising Ames.

'Significant political storm'

By July 2017, Thompson said,the upgrade work on the road was largely done. In early August, Kerr and Alan Acheson, superintendent of DTI's St. Stephen office, visited the road and declared the upgrades satisfactory, he said.

The next step was a DTI survey of the road. "Mr. Kerr also stated that he would not be upset if our Minister, John Ames contacted his cabinet colleague Bill Fraser to speed up the process," Thompson wrote in an Aug. 3 email to Ames that he shared with CBC News.

Instead, Thompson said, DTI officials in Fredericton raised a new requirement for the road that he claims they did not mention before: a second entry point.

In fact, the province's document listing the road standards, available publicly on line, says there must be "at least two points of access to each street." Fraser provided CBC News with a copy of the document, which is dated May 2017.

Discussions continued into November, when Ames made "a series of technical inquiries" to DTI, including about the possible second entry point.

But later that month, according to a Jules Michaud email, Fraser told Thompson that "no compensation or consideration is due Mr. Thompson or the residents. It is noted that this issue has become a significant political storm."

Lawyer hired

The Birch Forest Road residents also hired Moncton lawyer Mike Murphy, a former Liberal minister whose spouse is now a PC election candidate, to sue the province to force it to take over the road.

But Murphy said in an email he was instructed to drop the case before Thompson announced he was running for office. No lawsuit was ever filed.

Thompson said residents are resigned to the fact they paid to upgrade the road and did not get what they expected in return.

He said if he's elected this fall, he will advocate for a better policy on private roads. "There's got to be a policy established that makes sense to people."

But he said he would not use his position to get his own road serviced by the province. "There's a lot of things in life you have to put behind you, and this road is one of them."