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Mayor Jim Watson knew that SNC-Lavalin didn’t meet a technical threshold in the procurement process a day before council was denied answers about the scoring before being asked to approve the $1.6-billion Trillium Line expansion contract, councillors heard Monday night.

City manager Steve Kanellakos told the finance and economic development committee that he and other managers briefed the mayor on March 5, 2019 in preparation for the next day’s council meeting.

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The committee on Monday night was discussing the Stage 2 project in the wake of the city’s unprecedented release of internal procurement documents last week.

Kanellakos was answering questions from Coun. Shawn Menard, who wanted to know when Watson was told about the procurement results.

Kanellakos provided the timeline.

On March 4, 2019 the city received a media question asking about SNC-Lavalin not achieving a minimum technical score in the Trillium Line procurement, forcing management to decide how the city would respond if the issue came up at the council meeting. CBC Ottawa was first to report the issue about SNC-Lavalin’s technical score.