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INUVIK
For the past four years, Inuvik business owner Ray Massey held the contract to manage programs and services at the Billy Moore Community Group Home in town, which provides 24-hour services to people with disabilities.

Ray Massey stands outside the Billy Moore Community Group Home on Stringer Road on March 23. He has been managing the home for adults with mental disabilities for the past four years through his company Sunray Enterprize Inc. and is currently appealing a decision that the new contract for managing the home goes to a southern-based company. - Katherine Hudson/NNSL photo

However, when he put in a request for proposal (RFP) to renew his contract through the Beaufort Delta Health and Services Authority, Massey discovered his business was out and a southern-based company had moved in.

The purpose of the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment's Business Incentive Policy (BIP) is to encourage the development of Northern business by providing some incentives through government procurement, Massey said.

The amended BIP provides for Northern business while trying to maximize benefits, such as employment and local investment, for residents as well.

There is a five-part scoring system for RFPs based on team, people who are going to work on the project, methodology, how a contractor will deliver services the government needs, past relevant experience, fees and expenses equalling 80 of the 100 points. The final 20 points is set through BIP, allocating 15 points to Northern content and five to local content.

"If (the BIP) is applied in the spirit in which it was written, then in fact, it would give me an edge over a large southern contractor," Massey said. "There's all these other scores that come into play so it doesn't mean that you win, but it gives you an edge."

Red Deer, Alta.'s Parkland Community Living and Supports Society (CLASS) entered the competing RFP – a company Massey used to work for before resigning four years ago to start his own business, Sunray Enterprize Inc. Once he broke apart from the company that held the contract for the Billy Moore Community Group Home, he acquired the contract for his own Inuvik-based business. He has thus had four years of service to the home under his own company and seven years previously under Parkland CLASS. Massey said Parkland CLASS, which currently holds the contract for the Charlotte Vehus Group Home in Inuvik, applied fair and square for the contract, but Massey said he takes issue with the BIP process. The awarding of the contract was carried out without input first being solicited from the group home residents or guardians, which Massey thinks should change.

Just before Christmas, Massey received a phone call from one of the two selection committees that scored both proposals. Massey said the committee prematurely told him that he was going to win after only three of the five scoring sections were marked, leaving only fees and expenses and BIP.

"Because of the way BIP should be scored, they picked the phone up and called me and said I had the high score because BIP used to be scored to assist the local contractors," said Massey. "They were so confident that I was going to win that they phoned me. That's pretty confident."

Once the scores were finalized, Massey received another call, this time it was an apology for the committee's premature conclusion.

Although the decision has not been made public, Massey believes the contract will be signed soon and all he knows now is that he is out of the home, along with his staff, March 31.

He hired a lawyer and has put in an appeal through the Department of Public Works, which will go to the comptroller general for a decision.

"To be quite honest, I don't expect to win because it's a classic case of David and Goliath," Massey said.

The public consultations that were carried out by ITI in 2009 and 2010 were not clear or, "it would never have sold here," he said.

"In my modest opinion, I don't know what good BIP is to any Northern contractor at all," he said.

Kevin Todd, director of investment and economic analysis with ITI, said the amendments to BIP in 2010, which were the first in 20 years, are reflected through a broader definition of Northern content.

"Basically the way to look at it is, if you're a southern-based business and you come up here and you're bringing all your labour, all your supplies, everything from the south, you're not going to get any of these bid adjustment points. If you come up here and you're a southern company, and you say, 'You know what? It makes sense to do this project using local labour, purchasing from local BIP businesses,' well, you're going to get close to full points," said Todd.

He said under the previous version of the BIP, a Northern company could be hired based on it being from the North, but then it could turn around and hire and gather resources from the south.

"It's kind of a bit of a tradeoff. Maybe with the new BIP we've gone more to saying, if you use Northern content, you're going to get more points. So it's a little bit away from the old one, which is you just have to use Northern business."

Massey said the amendments to BIP nullifies the value of it to small, Northern contractors, especially in his line of work delivering human service programs.

"What good is it to Northerns if it's going to level the playing field?" asked Massey.

"The reason BIP was brought into play was to give Northerners an edge because we're small Northern contractors. It's nullified that."

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