Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to pick up a little bit on one of the subjects Member Dolynny raised with the Deh Cho Bridge. Of course, I’ll be directing them, obviously, to the Minister of Transportation.
More than a year ago, I was raising with the former Minister of Transportation a concern about the electrical contractor, how he was quite proud about the fact that the southern contractor met the expectations of the contract, and of course, we had to award it to the southern contractor because they were cheaper. Of course, they met the standards of everything that they had asked for in the contract. But my understanding is they never met those expectations on safety and installation process. Of course, their community commitment, from my understanding, was nothing and I think that proved itself out by itself.
I would like to get some details on how a southern contractor fulfilled their obligations when they won the electrical contract on the Deh Cho Bridge. My questions are to the Minister of Transportation to explain how that rolled out and how they met every obligation that they won that contract under. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a commitment to the House, the department did a retrospective analysis of the bridge and also accepted all of the recommendations of the Auditor General. The specific work that was done in detail, the contract that the Member speaks of, I don’t have that detail here with me and I am not able to speak on that at this time. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the former Minister proclaimed quite adamantly and passionately about how much money they were saving, but it seems like we may be just redoing all that work that that southern contractor lowballed the bid so that they can get the job. Now I want to know, is this electrical work that they did last year under the conditions that we thought we were being led down the garden path that they would be obliged to meet and would meet and promised to meet haven’t been met.
Can the Minister explain, has the electrical work fully been signed off as lawful and safe for Northerners and are a fulfilled their contract in the eyes of the Department of Transportation?
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, I don’t have the details of the contract that the Member speaks of. It would be difficult for me to determine or indicate whether or not all the work has been signed off as good work by the department. My understanding is that these individuals that were doing the work are professionals. I know that the staff that are inspecting the work are professionals. My assumption is that if the staff is signing off on work on the Deh Cho Bridge, then the work is done to proper standard. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what the Department of Transportation is going to do when it comes to finding out if we have any holdbacks on this particular work at this time and what are we going to do when we need to address these in the future. Quite frankly, a northern company that has investments here, that has employees hired here that wanted to do this particular work lost the job because the southern business lowballed them and it seems like we are going back to fix the work that they lowballed a northern company.
Are we at a financial risk or a legal risk in this situation because we accepted a low tender but we allowed a change order to sneak well beyond the original expectations?
Mr. Speaker, I don’t have the details of that specific contract. I don’t have the details of the change order to that contract, but there are regulations in place, there are holdbacks on all contracts to accommodate any potential issues on the contracts, so those are our standard. They are laid out in the contract. Depending on what the price of the overall contract was, then the holdback would be there. The appropriate amount would be held back to ensure that the work is completed to a standard that’s acceptable. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we need to boil it down to who is responsible for this mismanagement of this electrical contract. Frankly, it seems as if they were all too excited to save all this money, but it turns out that it has turned into an interesting boondoggle all over because oh, my goodness, we are going to save money from a southern company, but it turns out if we have to redo the work, it’s going to cost us more. I, quite frankly, think we are in a situation of liability here that we may rightfully, if not morally, owe money or some type of responsible action towards the original northern company that bid on the work, could have done the work or we wouldn’t be talking about it today. I would like to hear what type of accountability this Minister is going to hold somebody to account. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the department doesn’t mismanage projects. I don’t believe that this is one that was mismanaged. I will check into the allegations made here by the Member. I’m sure that everything is done according to the regulations, according to the standards. There are certainly a lot of regulations surrounding any sort of electrical work. We will ensure that is done within that. I don’t believe there is mismanagement.
I can advise the Members if there are any issues out there, but I don’t believe there are. It’s difficult for me to respond to a question when the Member is assuming that things are mismanaged. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
