Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would hate to be in the contracting industry knowing that if you get your bid in on time, and if somebody else is late, your bid does not count. It makes it awfully hard to run a business. I think a good example is that yesterday, in regard to another issue, a bid price had been published. The department chose to go back on the tender. It was already published in regard to knowing what the bid was, so you go back out to public tender. There is definitely something wrong with the process of allowing a fair and equitable process.
There are timeframes that people have to meet. There are bids out there that set exactly the time and hour that these bids are going to close. If you miss the boat, you miss the boat. I think that as a government we either stick to the criteria that we put out in the public tender documents saying that there is a deadline, this is what it is.
The thing that gets me is that is exactly why we cannot attract industry to the North. That is why a lot of businesses will not bid on government contracts, because they have been burned so many times that they do not trust the system that is in place for public tenders. Like you say, you have to be fair. There is a point of being fair but there is a point of being clear on how you put out these bids and how people understand the bid documents that are out there. There is a specific time that is listed on all tender documents. If you do not meet that requirement within that timeframe, someone must have a heck of a lot of influence where they can come in the next day and say, "Hey, I did not get my bid in so I missed the boat. I want you to put it back out to public tender," so you do. I do not know who is dealing with what here, but that to me, should send shock waves out there to the business community that this is how this government is operating. I feel that this government has to take more accountability for the tender documents that they do post, that they follow the timeframe, and that we allow contractors, people from the industry making tanks, to have the same opportunity to build these tanks in the North. They did not.
The point that I am trying to make is that this is an essential element of concluding the water treatment facility in Fort McPherson. They have to get these tanks built in the treatment centre this year in order to access water that is going to be delivered to it, hopefully by next spring. If this is the process that we are going to go through, there is definitely a lack of communication. I think, as a government, we definitely have to establish a clearer role, in these tender documents that we do put out, that we do stick to the timeframes and deadlines that are in place. We do not allow for them to be continued open. We have seen it in the Department of Transportation, now we are seeing it again here in Public Works and Services. I would like to ask the Minister, when will you ensure that the department follows the direction on the timeframes set out in these tender documents?