Canadian Lawyer InHouse

17 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JANUARY 2016 Q Q Q Q SANDRA STRANGEMORE What are your major projects for the legal team at Infrastructure Ontario in 2016? Our projects are all transit related, and the legal department is involved from begin- ning to end on each and every project. That is really where Ontario is going right now. Essentially, Infrastructure Ontario wants to do for transportation what we did for social projects, such as hospitals and long-term care centres, over the last 10 years. We want to do the same push with light- rapid transit and highways. The large highway projects include Highway 407 phase one, and two is under construction right now. Highway 427 is in the planning stages, while Finch light-rail transit is in the works and construction is also underway for LRT in Ottawa and Wa- terloo. Construction is also about to begin on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. In the real estate management group, my legal team is very busy with the acqui- sitions and dispositions of properties for the government of Ontario. The real estate portfolio is second only in size to the fed- eral government. For 2016, one of the big projects will be the sale of surplus lands such as the LCBO headquarters at the wa- terfront in Toronto and the division and sale of the Seaton lands. The funds that will be acquired from the sale of these properties will be used to fund transit-related projects. How do you work with external counsel on these projects? I am so fortunate to have a tremendous in- house legal team. We have experience and expertise in-house that is really second to none, but because of the complexity of each of our projects, we tend to use an external law fi rm on each of them. We have a vendor of record and it has a list of qualifi ed, national fi rms that are capa- ble, with the necessary expertise to do these complex transactions. Once we have a fi rm on board, they work with us at the project development stage right through to comple- tion of construction on a project. It's really important for us to have the right external fi rm working with us on these complex projects because we have to ensure we have the right support to make sure we have fair and competitive procurements, that our documents carry the strength need- ed to make sure our billion-dollar projects are carried through to completion without any problems in the documentation. Every alternative fi nance project has an external law fi rm on it. Every three years we put out an RFP to get vendors of record — law fi rms to become vendors of record — and that is equivalent to issuing an RFQ. We don't go to the whole legal world every time we have a project. We use national fi rms on projects that range from $100 mil- lion to $10 billion — those projects require project fi nance, risk transfer expertise, etc. These are probably the most complex trans- actions the law fi rms do. How important is protecting the Infrastructure Ontario brand? Protecting the brand is paramount to us; it is our key to success. Our reputation is that we are fair, open, and transparent. We are recognized as world leaders in infrastructure development, alternative fi nancing and pro- curement transactions, and real estate man- agement. We want to maintain that stellar reputation of fairness and transparency be- cause if we don't have that we have nothing. If people don't believe that we abide by our documents, then they won't bid on our proj- ects and get the best value for money for the province. If there is not trust in the market- place about us, then we really have nothing. We have seen that happen in other jurisdic- tions where the procurement agencies were not believable and [it] affected the bidding community. We are an agency of the govern- ment of Ontario, and to protect the integrity of our brand we really have to fi nd the right balance between providing transparency and the need to protect our intellectual property. Our brand is so well known that we have had more than 40 countries visit us over the last 18 months to learn about the way Infrastruc- ture Ontario delivers projects and that is be- cause of our reputation. Is social media and communications part of your responsibility? Social media and communications are very much a part of my role as executive vice president. The communications team is one of the groups under my legal services divi- sion. I took on this role in April and part of this is to fulfi l our commitment to transpar- ency. Social media now forms a big part of the way we are communicating to the pub- lic. We use social media to engage the com- munity and people we work with so the com- MARNI DICKER Executive vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, Infrastructure Ontario Years as GC: 3 Department: 34 lawyers

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