Stephan Burnett
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 28/04) - Two electrical contractors in Yellowknife have noticed a marked drop off in the amount of business they are doing with diamond mines.

Philip Rogers with Gap Electric is unhappy that Northern contractors are losing market share to southern businesses. - Stephan Burnett/NNSL photo

Keith Houghton, managing partner of Ryfan Electric, and Philip Rogers of Gap Electric both say business with the mines has dropped off considerably.

"It appears some of the work is going to southern contractors as opposed to Northern contractors," Rogers said.

The problem comes down to price. Southern contractors have cheaper wages than Northern contractors and they're able to come in and grab one job and leave, said Rogers.

"I'd like to see more of this work going to Northern contractors, that's for sure," said Rogers.

Last year, Gap Electric was running 16 employees and now they are running 10. While Rogers expects it to pick up with the summer season, he doesn't expect to get back to 16 employees.

At Ryfan Electric, Houghton said his company is also having problems securing business from the local diamond mines.

On April 1, 2003, Ryfan merged with J/T Electric.

One intention of merging the companies was being able to successfully bid for work with the mines.

"We had been unsuccessful in getting a lot of the work that was going on. We found them going to the southern companies with a little bigger resources base. We felt that by merging it would meet the size requirements of the mines," said Houghton.

Ryfan is still not seeing extra work.

"There's been some work out there that we have tendered on and been unsuccessful. There are others that we haven't even heard about," said Houghton.

Houghton says that Diavik Diamond Mine is doing a lot of subcontracting work through the Dogrib First Nation.

"Diavik is using Northern people. It just doesn't happen to be us. I'm not going to cry about that," he said.

But while Diavik is utilizing Northern contractors, Houghton says, to a degree BHP may not be.

"Reese Construction is out of the south," he said.

Ekati Mine president and chief operating officer Wayne Isaacs says 85 per cent of the company's contracting budget goes to Northern companies. "I'm not sure what their specific issues is to be honest. I guess all I can say is we spend 85 per cent of our total spending with Northern contractors. I couldn't say more without knowing more details about what their issue is.

"But at the end of the day we're committed to the North and Northern contractors whenever that's appropriate and they're cost effective supplying the best service for the work," said Isaacs.

Staff cut back

Last summer Ryfan was running with close to 75 workers and now they are running with only 45 employees. While some of the difference is seasonal, Houghton was optimistic they'd eventually get back to last year's employment levels.

Ryfan has considered forming its own joint venture with a First Nations group.

"Our only problem with that is we're a small subcontractor and it's not quite as easy as if you're a bigger general contractor to get these joint ventures going. We don't have as much to offer.

"But we're not whiners or crying the blues. You have to get at it and do your own thing," he said.