Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last March, this House passed a motion asking the government to clarify the government's position on government-wide non-competitive contracts by providing a draft policy to this House. We asked for this because there is no single policy to govern non-competitive contracts across this government. Subsequently, a draft policy was provided on negotiated contracts only, but as mentioned in our motion, this government has a number of ways in which to awarded non-competitive contracts, such as sole-sourced, construction management and site superintendent services. These were not addressed in the draft policy released to the Premier. Mr. Speaker, this is not acceptable.
This House asked for a package addressing all the contracting procedures other than the normal bidding and tendering processes used by the government. Also last October, we passed a motion for the government to clarify the use of requests for proposals. Now we are told the government is dealing directly with private industry on this issue. That is all fine and dandy, but did they produce a draft document to show these companies in order to get meaningful feedback?
There has been a lot of talk in this House lately about transparency in government. Nice buzz words, Mr. Speaker. People have a right to see and understand how decisions are made and under what rules. Potential contractors have the right to know why they lost out on government contracts. Clearly defined policies can resolve this shortcoming, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you.
---Applause