Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have some questions for the Minister about a tender that was issued earlier this year, and subsequently re-issued. It has to do with highway painting. The first time the tender was issued, there was only one respondent. It was a northern firm. This contract has for four or five years gone almost exclusively to southern firms. Earlier today, we had some discussion in this House about the importance of supporting northern business. The Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development did confirm that his department spends an awful lot of money supporting the development of northern business.
I would think that if we have a philosophy that we want to encourage northern business, we would do what we could to try and get northern businesses involved in being successful in contracts.
In this instance, Mr. Chairman, even though there was only one tenderer, the tender was rejected by the department and re-tendered. I know I have talked to people who are familiar with contracting practices in this government and have been told that it is not unusual when there is a single tenderer, if there is something that is open to interpretation or if the tender is missing one line or something, it would not be unusual for the department or the contracting authority to approach the tenderer and ask them to either supply the number or work with them to finalize the price.
Clearly there was not a lot of interest if we only had the one tenderer. However, in this case, after the tender price had been published, the department chose to go back out for tenders. I suspect that we are going to be looking at a southern firm doing the job here.
Why would the department, in an instance like that, not follow a practice that has been followed quite often, and approach the individual tenderer and ask to have the number supplied that was missing from the tender document? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.