Critics question fairness in how A New Day contract was awarded

It's a done deal, but the decision to award the contract for the A New Day men's violence reduction program to the John Howard Society of the Northwest Territories wasn't handled the way it should have been, says one MLA.

Kevin O'Reilly said he and other regular MLAs only learned of the decision during question period in the legislative assembly earlier this week.

"It came as a surprise to hear a contract had already been assigned by the minister's department," O'Reilly told CBC. "We found out about this on the floor of the house during questioning.

"That's not the way this could and should have rolled out."

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The GNWT had originally issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the contract in April. When that RFP received no bidders, an extension was made, which in turn received no bidders.

Facing a possible lapse in service (the contract for A New Day expires at the end of the month), Justice Minister Louis Sebert said the department approached undisclosed NGOs to take over the contract, without issuing a new RFP.

The John Howard Society took on the contract, but was awarded a four year term. Although the details of the new contract have not been made public, Sebert's comments since then reveal it to be substantially different than the original RFP.

Sebert said the John Howard Society was given four years in order to providean assurance of continuity. The exact amount of the contract was not disclosed, but Sebert said its value approaches $600,000 over the four year term.

Robert Hawkins, executive director of the society, told CBC the society had not considered running the program until the GNWT approached it.

Fatally flawed process

The short contract time for the original RFP nine monthsas well as the absence of stable funding that would have allowed a bidder to make its own counsellor hiring decisions, was a sticking point for some involved with the process.

Community advocate Lydia Bardak, who was part of the development of the program, agreed that the original RFP was fatally flawed. Had the original tender, or a revised tender, contained terms similar to what the John Howard Society appears to have signed on to, the whole process could have turned out differently.

"They [the GNWT] would have done themselves a huge favour if they would have issued an RFP based on an exclusive service provision for four years at $600,000. A number of organizations would have bid on that," Bardak said.

This would have given the GNWT more options for program delivery, and it would have been more fair.

"It would have been far more appropriate for the minister to reopen the RFP process even if it meant extending the current contract with the [current] service provider for another several months to make sure we had an appropriate arrangement in place and a fair process," O'Reilly said.

"Unfortunately, that's not the way the department proceeded with it."

Minister defends decision

Sebert did not say who the other NGOs were that the department approached, and whether or not they were offered a similar, four year contract as well.

He defended his department's decision by saying the original RFP included an "indication that there could be an extension to the contract," and so offering four years to the John Howard Society wasn't a significant departure from what was offered under the initial tender.

Sebertalso told CBC the John Howard Society was right to demand more certainty in funding than the original RFP stipulated.

"The John Howard Society quite properly wanted a longer period of time so they could gear themselves up for the project, so therefore we decided to award the contract for a longer period of time," he said.

"We wanted certainty.We also wanted to give the bidderthe ultimate bidder, the John Howard Societycertainty about their administering the contract over a longer period of time than one year."

But why that certainty was excluded from the original tender has not been made clear.

CBC has learned that at least one qualified organization would have been interested in bidding on the original RFP, if it had been for a $600,000, four-year term and under the conditions the John Howard Society seems to have agreed to.

Bardak is not surprised.

"A four year contract is quite lucrative for the NGO sector," she said.

"They [the government] would have had the benefit of seeing a number of agencies with different philosophies, [or] maybe similar philosophies and different strengths."

Process ultimately excluded organizations that developed the program

Sebert said that the lack of bids on the original RFP "freed" the government to negotiate the contract directly with potential NGOs.

"Nobody bid, so that gave us the freedom to go out and... seek arrangements with other NGOs," Sebert told CBC.

But in the process, the government may have excluded organizations and people directly involved with the development of the program and its current implementation. Bardak says the government appeared to be intent from the start on ignoring the recommendations and concerns of those people.

"Individuals and organizations, the Coalition Against Family Violence, everyone did as much as they could to reach out and help the department and there was no response from them [the government]," Bardak said.

"Everybody else did everything they could.The department [of justice] just wasn't willing to make any concessions at all."