Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use my Member’s statement to again draw attention to this Cabinet’s increasing practice of awarding lucrative contracts to former senior public servants without any competitive process.
In a reply to a written question asked by Mr. Bromley and tabled in this House earlier this session, the government highlighted an alarming number of contracts that have been awarded to former senior bureaucrats on a sole-sourced basis. The Premier told us in the House that such contracts are justified because they are a way to ensure that our most talented people earn a living and stay in the North.
Many of the contracts in question have been awarded to former senior bureaucrats who no longer live in the North. Many have been awarded to former deputy ministers who were terminated by this government shortly after coming into office. In one case it would appear that a contract was awarded to an accounting firm to teach a basic accounting course to the Department of Finance. The principal of that firm that the contract was sole sourced to is the partner of a current deputy minister.
What exactly is going on here? There is a sense of entitlement that seems to have come over this Cabinet and the bureaucracy that does nothing but erode public confidence in how our money is spent. We’re not talking about negotiated contracts with legitimate companies here. We’re talking about individual service contracts that any number of northern companies are qualified to bid on.
I’m not suggesting that the people who have received these contracts are not competent. I’m not suggesting that they’re not offering a fair price. What I’m saying is that there’s no way to be sure of either of these things if we do not use a competitive process like a tender or an RFP. This is particularly true when we are sole sourcing contracts to individuals with very close ties to government. If you look closely behind some of the more controversial issues surrounding this government, be it the Deh Cho Bridge Project or behind-closed-doors loans to Discovery Air, former senior bureaucrats with close ties to the government are always seen to be lurking in the background.
The time has come to end this sense of entitlement and restore public confidence in our contracting processes. I call on this Premier and this government to put an end to this practice. In the meantime, they can rest assured that I will be paying very close attention to the contracting reports that will be tabled in this House for the remainder of this Assembly.
