Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got some questions today and I guess I’ll give the Minister of Finance, who happens to be the Minister of ENR, a bit of a break and ask my questions to the Premier. It goes back to my Member’s statement from earlier today when I talked about government contracting and the fact that in 2008-2009 the Government of the Northwest Territories sole sourced a total of over $53 million in contracts. In the Department of Executive, for example, out of 39 contracts, 26 of them were sole sourced and some of these to former bureaucrats. I’d like to ask the Premier what strategy he has to address the fact that we’re relying so much on former bureaucrats and consultants in trying to do the work of the people in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of sole-sourced contracts, that is one of the tools that the government has available through our Contracts Policy, whether it is negotiated contracts, sole-sourced contracts, public tenders, requests for proposals, requests for qualifications. In the area of the Executive itself, this has been a practice that’s been in place for many years of sole-sourced contracts when we feel that it is necessary to hire an individual who we feel can get the work we need done. Whether it is in Ottawa or another provincial jurisdiction or whether it is in fact working with our own aboriginal partners in the Northwest Territories. It is a tool that we have available to use when we do this. We follow the guidelines that we have in place.
When you do go to a sole-source way of acquiring goods and services, like I said in my statement, the transparency and accountability take a back seat to hiring whoever you want. I think the people in the Northwest Territories deserve a better way of doing things. I know there are times when sole-sourcing is required. But, for example, in the Department of Executive there is a communications firm, and I won’t mention any names. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to that one outlet. Why wasn’t that put out to RFP? There are many communications companies here in the Northwest Territories that could have bid on that work. Why was that sole-sourced?
The Member talks about a contract with a firm. I’m not aware of this specific issue that the Member has or the company and will appropriately not address it at this forum. I will be prepared if he wants to sit down with me over this issue and provide him information on that. Right now, without knowing the specifics, I don’t have it at my hands here to make any proper response to.
I will take the Premier up on that and give him the name outside of this forum. I wanted to ask the Premier whether or not the Government of the Northwest Territories is monitoring the level of reliance that this government has on consulting services. In my mind, it’s getting worse and whether or not we can try to rein in the spending that this government does in the area of consultants and hiring people to do the work on behalf of the government. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, on a regular basis, as we go through our process of approving contracts, there are guidelines that are used, whether they are low-level amounts that the authority has within a department’s authority spending levels or if it a director or even to the deputy minister and also to the Cabinet table. We do look at that, as right now ITI pulls all of our contracting information. We look at that information at times and look at what we’re doing and question department’s on some of the initiatives and why it was needed to go in that area. So we do do that review, yes.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, going through the contract book, I’d just like to ask the Premier: do former bureaucrats, deputy ministers, have any preferential treatment when it comes to being given sole-source contracts by this government? Thank you.
Speaker, there is no preferential treatment given to anyone in the Northwest Territories. They have to bring their qualities and qualifications to the table. Now, as the Member has pointed out, there has been a history, whether it’s this government, previous governments, that use either past senior managers, and again, departments, Ministers have that authority to enter into some contracts. Being a small jurisdiction, at times if the Minister or a department is comfortable with the work that has been provided, at times you need to use those people and those resources to continue on some work that may have been started and bring it to conclusion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
