Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 12/02) - Public Works Minister Vince Steen was a marked man as the legislative assembly reconvened for its summer session yesterday.

MLAs told Steen and other cabinet ministers that their phones were ringing off the hook from angry construction contractors, furious over cabinet's recent decision to kill the government's Business Incentive Policy.

Cabinet decided on May 27 to rescind the BIP in seeking tenders for Phase II construction of the Adult Correctional facility in Yellowknife.

Questions over the BIP uproar alternated between Steen and Deputy Premier Jim Antoine, but it was the public works minister who turned up the heat when he suggested contractors routinely inflate their bids by 20 per cent.

He added that while it remains unknown whether cabinet's decision to kill the BIP will result in lower bids, the government wanted to wait and see if this scheme will work.

North Slave MLA Leon Lafferty rose from his seat and told MLAs of his recent visit to Ottawa to talk about the virtues of consensus government.

Lafferty said he felt disillusioned upon returning, and finding out that cabinet went ahead with their decision without consulting regular MLAs.

"Members became aware of the agenda through the radio and local newspapers," said Lafferty. "I think your're doing consensus government a disservice."

Steen said he doesn't know whether the change in government policy will have the desired effect. "I don't know what to expect, to be honest with you," the minister told the assembly.

"My department is hoping by publicizing our tenders more actively down south that we're going to receive a larger amount of bids than we've received in the past."

Only two bids were received for Phase I construction of the juvenile correctional facility, said Steen.

Steen will meet with members of the NWT Construction Association tomorrow.

He said he expects a rough ride from contractors, but hopes they will understand the government can no longer afford to tender locally for the project -- A tender which started at $35 million, but has since ballooned to more than $40 million.

"There's no doubt that the [NWT] Construction Association are going to feel we're pulling a fast one on them, but we're hoping they'll be realistic in realizing that the BIP... would be suspended regionally," said Steen, noting he could not speak on behalf of the minister responsible for BIP, Jim Antoine.

Steen would not elaborate on whether he thought there could be justification to remove the BIP permanently.

Range Lake MLA Sandy Lee was one of several MLAs who took shots at Steen during yesterday's opening session.

Lee said she found Steen's comments in the legislative assembly disturbing.

"The government, as far as we can see, have no idea whether or not they will save any money by cancelling this BIP policy, because they have no idea what the bidding will be," said Lee.

"They just want to throw it out the window with all these negative implications, and see what might fall before them."