Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster tenders resignation after 7 years

Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster is stepping down.

Verster tendered his resignation on Monday in order to take a new position and will leave his role as CEO of the provincial transit agency as early as Dec. 16. The province has already named his interim replacement as Michael Lindsay.

“With his many years of service helping to build our great province as President and Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure Ontario, no one is better positioned to take on this role than Michael,” said Premier Doug Ford. “I have given Michael a clear mandate to open Eglinton Crosstown as soon as it is safe to do so. That is his top priority.”

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The announcement comes on the heels of Metrolinx's seemingly positive update on the troubled Eglinton Crosstown LRT last week, when it announced it is moving towards an opening date sometime in 2025. The new transit line, connecting east and west Toronto, was slated to open in 2020, but has continually faced cost overruns since construction started 13 years ago.

Verster was named CEO of Metrolinx in 2017, after his tenure as managing director of ScotRail Alliance, a rail firm based in the United Kingdom. He replaced Bruce McCuaig, who unexpectedly resigned after six-and-a-half years in the role.

Verster earned $838,097 in 2023.

Speaking to CTV News Toronto on Monday afternoon, Ford called Verster's resignation "unfortunate," noting he was one of the CEO's biggest supporters.

"What he has done in the last five-and-a-half years, it's nothing less than a miracle. Building four lines, $70 billion in transit. We're gonna miss him, but we'll have a steady hand there," the premier said.

While Ford acknowledged Eglinton Crosstown LRT's delays were "terrible," he pointed to the amount of work that was being done throughout the last few years.

"In the last five years, we're building four transit systems, subways, largest expansion in North America, the Finch LRT, we're getting the Highway 10 LRT, working on Hamilton LRT, and then, on top of all of that, all of the transit-oriented communities," Ford said.

"How can you criticize someone because there was a problem, and everyone knows there was a problem?" 

Responding to the news of Verster's resignation, Ontario Green Party Deputy Leader Aislinn Clancy said he cost the province billions.

"His decade of delays impacted millions of residents and businesses, whose tax dollars have been paying his million-dollar salary while LRT stations on Eglinton sit empty," Clancy said in a release.

"Mr. Verster's departure is an important first step toward delivering the accountability that people of this province deserve. But let's remember that the buck ultimately stops with the Premier, who has been propping up Metrolinx's failures for six years now."

Earlier on Monday, Ontario's NDPs issued a call for Verster's removal, as well as a full public inquiry into "the ongoing Eglinton Crosstown LRT fiasco."

"When governments hire private corporations to finance and control public infrastructure, taxpayers pay more and the projects tend to go off the rails," MPP Jill Andrew said in Monday's release.

"We've lived through years of shuttered small businesses, flooding, residential road closures, ongoing construction – with no clear plan."

With files from CTV News Toronto's Queens Park Bureau Chief Siobhan Morris