The opposition New Democrats at Queen’s Park are calling for Phil Verster to be fired after the Metrolinx CEO failed to provide a new opening date Wednesday for the much delayed Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

Verster is one of the highest paid public servants in Ontario with a salary of close to $900,000.

Toronto City Councillor Mike Colle, who represents Eglinton-Lawrence Ward 8, is also calling for Verster and the whole group at Metrolinx to be fired.

“This project started out at $5-billion. It’s now up to $13-billion, and they can’t find out what the problem is?” Colle asks in exasperation, “They should be all replaced and bring in some outside people to find out what the problem is, fix it, and get the darn line operating.”

Colle calls the Eglinton Crosstown LRT the most embarrasing construction project in the world.

The Metrolinx CEO did tell reporters there would be an opening date announced “once the high risk commissioning work has been completed but not before that time. Any prediction of an opening date at this time in the project will just be an estimate and I’m not comfortable giving that to you as an estimate.”

Construction began on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in 2011 which was originally supposed to open in 2020.

The most recent opening date was a year ago but it has been without a new target date for completion since.