Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I will speak to the recently awarded GNWT medical travel contract. Apart from the slap in the face that our local travel companies received as the contract was moved south, the decision has had a negative effect on our economy. A local northern small business will close its doors and three employees will be left without a job.
Mr. Speaker, as a government, we should be doing everything we can to encourage and increase our economy, not reduce it. In all likelihood, Mr. Speaker, as a direct result of this contract award, the NWT government will be losing revenue; from lost business and income taxes and from lost federal transfer payments as some of the employees and their families move out. We’ll be increasing expenditures as we pay income support for the others.
I need to express some of the concerns that I have with this contract award. Firstly, I was appalled to learn that it was let as a tender, not as a request for proposal. A tender does not allow for any creativity on the part of the supplier. It is low price no matter what. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that this government is trying to reduce our medical travel costs. If that’s the case, why would we not tap into the creativity and knowledge of travel professionals? Give them the opportunity to present a proposal, to think outside the box, to help us find solutions to reduce our costs?
Secondly, through the tender process, bidders struggled to get timely responses to questions, had to resubmit bids because of an error in the first request for tender document, and had to deal with numerous addendums to the tender. At every step, the changes indicated that Stanton was opening things up to accommodate southern bidders; unknown southern companies and an unknown system change.
I think it highly unlikely that Stanton considered the effects that using an out-of-territory agency would have on medical travel operations. There are unanticipated costs that will be borne by the medical travel office under this new system: the cost to get authorizations to the South by fax or scanning and e-mailing; the cost to print invoices, itineraries, and other documents that come back from the South; and the cost in staff time to educate southern agents about our northern carriers and our unusual routings.
I’m no stranger to the travel industry. Booking northern travel is not like the South. Travel from many of our communities requires much more than point-to-point computer bookings, knowledge a Toronto-based agency would certainly not have.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
The medical travel contract is a service and people-oriented agreement. The buyer -- that would be Stanton Hospital -- should take that into consideration when evaluating bids. A tender can’t do that because the tender has only one criterion: the price. On the other hand, a proposal is judged on many things: service, track record and competent staff being three of them. I suspect that we will soon be hearing of difficulties in the medical travel office: inefficiencies, delays, extra workload for staff. I don’t wish for it but when it happens, I will try not to say I told you so.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
