Michelle d’Auray, deputy minister of Public Works and Government Services, told the Commons’ government operations committee Tuesday that the department plans to launch a competition for a new contract in 2014, which is when the existing contract with Brookfield Global Relocation Services expires.
She was being pressed by opposition MPs on its plans for the current contract in the wake of an Ontario Superior Court decision that ordered the government to pay nearly $30 million in lost profits to the losing bidder of the 2004 contract, which Justice Peter Annis found was intentionally steered by bureaucrats to Brookfield as the preferred supplier.
The ruling raised questions in the relocation industry as to whether the government would re-tender when the current contract — awarded in 2009 — expires or exercise the contract’s option for a two-year extension until 2016.
“It strikes me the most contentious procurement contract the government has faced is not the F-35s or shipbuilding but it’s this relocation contract which keeps popping up like some kind of a bad rash,” said NDP MP Pat Martin, who chairs the committee.
“We just … settled a $30-million lawsuit we have to pay out and that’s the largest commercial settlement I ever heard of on contractual basis. What could have gone so terribly wrong and what are we doing to preclude this nightmare from happening again in 2014?”
The relocation contract is one of the biggest of its kind in North America, and Brookfield, then known as Royal Lepage Relocation Services, has won the contract successively in 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2009. Under the contract, Brookfield manages the relocation of some 18,000 military, RCMP and bureaucrats who are uprooted each year to take new postings in Canada and abroad.
D’Auray offered few details on whether the upcoming contract would be changed or carved among more than one supplier. The deal is currently divided into two contracts, one for the military and the other for public servants and the RCMP. She said the contract could go to three suppliers or to one.
She said the department still has plenty of time to manage a “transition,” which proved to be a contentious issue in the awarding of the 2009 contract. No other suppliers other than Brookfield even bid on the contract.
The judge’s ruling is a major blow to the integrity of Public Works procurement system, but d’Auray said the department is still reviewing the massive decision and has yet to settle with Envoy Relocation Services, which the court decided should have won the 2004 contract.
The government has until Monday to appeal the ruling.
But Bruce Atyeo, co-owner of Envoy Relocation Services, said Public Works only has 13 months left to have an RFP ready, which, based on its past track record, is simply not enough time. It had two years to be ready for the 2009 contract and it became so squeezed for time that it couldn’t give would-be bidders enough time to ramp up an operation that could compete with RLRS, which as the incumbent already had a national operation up-and-running.
“It doesn’t sound like they are changing anything about how these contracts are being let … and furthermore they are running out of time,” he said in an interview.
Since winning the lawsuit, Atyeo has appealed to MPs on both the government operations and public accounts committee to investigate the mishandling of the 2009 contract awarded by Conservatives to RLRS. He argues the 2009 contract, which was supposed to fix all the problems and favouritism of previous contracts, was also “rigged” so RLRS would win.
But the opposition MPs want to get to the bottom of what went wrong with the contract over the years, and NDP MP Linda Duncan proposed a motion calling for Ambrose to appear to explain and answer what has been done to fix the procurement process so it doesn’t happen again in 2014.
That motion will now be debated in secret when the committee meets to discuss future business.
“When there’s a $30-million penalty dangling here, whether they appeal or not, something went terribly wrong,” said Martin.
The committee’s meeting was originally scheduled to discuss Public Works’ Estimates and opposition MPs were already piqued that Ambrose, who had long been booked to appear to defend the department’s spending plans, failed to show up without an explanation.
The government has been all but silent on the contract since the ruling. Ambrose’s office has noted that it was the Liberals who were in power when the fiasco over the rigged 2004 contract began and led to an auditor general report, which concluded the bidding process was stacked to favour RLRS.
Martin said Ambrose’s no-show was particularly disappointing because the committee spent months of studying ways to improve the Estimates process so MPs can do their constitutional job of holding the government to account. Her Conservative colleagues said she had a “scheduling conflict” that couldn’t be changed.
Martin said he couldn’t imagine what could be more important — other than “death in the family or a severe health crisis” — that would keep the minister from her yearly appearance to defend her department’s spending.
“It is so fundamental to our Westminster parliamentary democracy,” he said. “it was bad enough when ministers used to come for two hours and then we’re told they will only stay for one hour and now they don’t come at all.”
Ambrose, who is also minister for the Status of Women, attended an anti-bullying event and launch of a new website at Lisgar Collegiate just prior to the 11 a.m. committee meeting.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: KATHRYN MAY
No comments:
Post a Comment