Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow up to my Member’s statement, I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services a few questions on a process that brought this situation down to the floor. I’d like to ask the Minister what the steps and processes that the Department of Health and Social Services takes in awarding service contracts and is it a common practice between all contracts throughout the regions.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The standard process is that if it’s a tender, then it’s evaluated using the Business Incentive Policy for just the tendered cash value. If it’s an RFP, it’s evaluated as an RFP by the Business Incentive Policy.
My second question is: How does a local contractor lose a contract that he previously had for four or five years to a southern company, and most likely through the BIP process? Can I ask the Minister to explain that one to me? Thank you.
In this particular case it was an RFP, which evaluates the certain categories of the RFP through experience, methodology, cost, northern content and so on. It was determined that the southern bid had higher points in certain areas of the RFP including areas in the fees and costs. And because the southern bidder had all local employees at the particular location of the job, they were, after the BIP evaluation was done, the southern contractor had more points. Based on that, the award was given to the southern contractor.
When the contract was awarded out to the southern company, our local contractor in Inuvik was already told that he had got the contract after the BIP was awarded to the southern company. It’s pretty mindboggling. Anyhow, how can the department justify signing off on a contract when the initial contractor, the one who had it before, is appealing the process? During the appeal process, how can this government sign off on a contract, especially when it’s going to a southern company and our northern dollars are going south? Thank you.
The contract, there was a bit of a timeline between when the bid was out and when it closed. The evaluation process is that the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority did the BIP evaluation. It was initially determined that the northern contractor had a better score, but after consultation with ITI, who are the keepers of the Business Incentive Policy, they determined that, no, in fact the southern contractor had the higher bid, so they allowed the appeal to the Public Works, which is our quality control for the Business Incentive Policy. After that appeal, Public Works supported the original decision of the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services and ITI that definitely, in fact, the points issued on the second evaluation was correct. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After the initial awards were brought forth, it had come to the headquarters here and it was headquarters that had made the recommendations that they review the BIP policy. I believe that’s the process, according to my sources dealing with this guy. What it comes down to is we want answers. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s willing to make public the original proposals with the date received stamp on them as well as the contract scores in detail. Not the final scores. The scores in detail of the contracts made public to this contractor and to everybody so that contractors out there know how this government is awarding contracts and why some of our small local contractors are losing out. Thank you. I’d like that commitment.
I don’t think it’s an issue with the department to review with the losing contractor in this case. No problem. We can provide the information. I think the information actually was provided on the BIP evaluation by Public Works after the original BIP evaluation was done and also provided to the contractor. But making these forms public, I don’t have the information to make that decision at this time to make this public information. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
