GN will spank Rankin health centre contractor

After throwing their tendering rules out the window in 2003 to hand-pick a contractor to build Rankin Inlet’s recently opened health centre, the Government of Nunavut is now preparing to penalize that same contractor for failing to meet its agreed Inuit hiring target.

“Unfortunately, the contractor did not meet the specified 32 per cent Inuit labour and therefore has been informed that there will be a monetary penalty as per the relevant clause in the NNI policy,” said Levinia Brown, Minister of Community Government and Services, in a recent letter to Hunter Tootoo, MLA for Iqaluit Centre.

The contractor, a partnership formed by the huge Clark Builders firm of Edmonton, and the much smaller Sanajiit Construction Ltd. of Rankin Inlet, won the job after a controversial cabinet decision in June of 2003.

At the time, cabinet rejected the advice of Public Works officials, who recommended that the job be awarded to the lowest bidder, Ninety North Construction and Development. Ninety North had submitted a bid of $12.098 million.

Instead, cabinet awarded the job to the Clark-Sanajiit partnership, even though its bid was over $500,000 higher, at $13.439 million,

Public Works officials were then directed to negotiate a $200,000 reduction in Clark-Sanajiit’s price, and to increase the level of Inuit employment on the job site from 25 per cent to 32 per cent.

At some point in June of 2003, around the time of the contract award, the name of Sanajiit Construction — the smaller firm in the winning joint-venture — was added to a registry of “Inuit firms.” It’s not clear whether that was done before or after the contract award.

Sanajiit Construction is owned by the Evaz Group Ltd., which is based in Grimsby, Ont., Rankin Inlet, and Iqaluit.

GN officials defended their 2003 decision by saying the Clark-Sanajiit partnership is a “local” Rankin Inlet company, and that their aim was to create more construction jobs and training for Inuit.

“What we would like to signal to the people of Nunavut is that we support you if you are locally based. We will do our part in trying to make sure that you get your share of the contracts and that is the message that we deliver,” Premier Paul Okalik said in October of 2003, in the legislative assembly.

But at the time, Tootoo asked numerous questions about it in the assembly, and has continued to write letters to relevant cabinet ministers seeking more information.

This past July 14, just before the health centre began operating on July 19, Tootoo wrote a letter to Levinia Brown, now the minister of the department that used to be called Public Works, requesting Inuit employment numbers for the project.

Brown’s reply, sent Aug. 22, says staff and residents of the new health centre appear to be “pleased with the new facility,” but that contractor did not meet their Inuit hiring requirement.

The GN’s Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti, or “NNI,” policy, allows the government to penalize contractors who fail to meet Inuit labour provisions written into their contracts.

Tootoo said last week that he will ask more questions about the issue when the legislative assembly resumes this November.