Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 23/02) - Owners of Yellowknife aviation companies are crying foul at news the GNWT didn't put its contract for aerial firefighting out to tender.

The territorial government is pursuing a sole-sourced contract with Buffalo Airways for water bombing in the North.

"When you take into consideration that in the air charter business, any trip over $1,000 we have to bid on, I deem the government of the Northwest Territories irresponsible for sole-sourcing the $30 million contract," said Air Tindi owner Peter Arychuk.

The actual value of the contract isn't clear. RWED deputy minister Bob McLeod said the new contract will come out somewhere in the low $20-million range.

There are two contracts at issue: one for water-bombing which expires March 31, 2003; the other for land-based air tankers, which expires Oct. 31.

Arychuk said he has spoken with his MLA, Joe Handley, and began making inquiries of the minister responsible, Jim Antoine, about the contracts.

Buffalo Airways has held the contract since it went out for a request for proposals in 1995.

Antoine said the contract was worth about $3 million a year, adding that the department avoided a tender process in part to keep southern firms from bidding.

"Back in 1995, this government began a process of further developing the Northern capacity for aviation industry related to forest fire management," he said in the legislature Monday. "Since that time Buffalo Airways has made significant progress in developing the service needed by RWED."

Always on call

Buffalo has 13 planes it can use for firefighting. Those planes are at the beck and call of the GNWT, which also profits from their use in locations outside of the NWT.

McLeod said the Buffalo contract will include a stipulation of at least 50 Northern jobs, plus a Northern aircraft maintenance program, a school of aviation, increased taxes stemming from Northern ownership and employees, and "value-added benefits" including increased manufacturing of maintenance tools and parts.

He also said the new contract will be cheaper than the old one.

But MLAs accused the government of hypocrisy.

Yellowknife South representative Brendan Bell said he's had "a number of concerns about this," especially given the GNWT's perceived avoidance of Northern firms when it suspended the business incentive policy for contracts on the North Slave Correctional Centre.

Arychuk called Antoine's logic "absolutely nonsense."

"I just bid on a $12-million medevac contract that I had for five years, and it came out for tender. There's no reason after seven years this wouldn't come out for tender," he said.

Arychuk and Summit Air owner Jamie Tait both said their companies would bid on the contract if it came out for tender.

And, they said, not having water bombing planes on hand is not a problem, since aircraft are easy to lease, and part of any contract would include lease rights to a four CL-215 water bombers owned by the Government of Canada and stationed in Yellowknife.

The government, however, wants the water bomber company to own its aircraft so that lease dollars do not trickle south. One of the criteria for Buffalo, said McLeod, is "They would reduce the leakage of contract dollars from the North into Southern Canada."

Air Tindi bid on the contracts in 1995, and said it has purchased a hangar it could quickly erect if it got a new contract.

Meanwhile, Bell said if other companies are interested in the contract, the government should tender it out to competition -- even if that means an invitational tender where only Northern companies can bid.

McLeod said the department has no plans to stop negotiations, although Antoine told MLAs Tuesday, he would look into the legalities of suspending the talks. Negotiations began in August.

Buffalo Airways did not return Yellowknifer phone calls yesterday. Owner Joe McBryant was travelling in the United States.