SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A company official with a Vancouver-based bridge building company says it was never given the opportunity to bid on the Deh Cho Bridge project, even though it was offering to do the work for $13 million less.

Mark Smith, vice-president of Surespan Construction Ltd., said his company could have kept the total cost under $169 million, close to the original price agreed upon with the bridge's previous contractor, ATCON. Smith said he gave the Department of Transportation a proposal outlining this in December.

"I've been begging them to let me provide a price and my methodology to build a bridge," he said.

Smith said he was stonewalled by the GNWT for the past three months.

"The government has seen it but they're won't entertain it, even though it's much lower," Smith said. "I keep being told they're in exclusive negotiations with Ruskin, and if it falls apart, then they'd speak to us."

The GNWT has chosen B.C.-based Ruskin Construction Ltd., the company originally subcontracted by ATCON to complete the remaining work.

"They're being given a gift," Smith said of the sole-source contract. "This is closed-door negotiations on $165 million worth of work. There's not another contract in Canada that's been negotiated like this."

Asked why the project was sole-sourced, Transportation Minister Michael McLeod repeatedly said there wasn't enough time to consider other options and still meet the March 1 deadline to secure a new contractor.

The former project managers pulled New Brunswick-based ATCON Construction as the contractor last December after the company couldn't complete the remaining work for the agreed price of $165 million. McLeod has since replaced the project management with people from his department.

On Tuesday, the legislative assembly approved $15 million in supplementary money to finance the project. The total cost of the bridge is now pegged at $181.4 million.

"We agree that projects of any given size and nature should, if the opportunity is there, go to a public tender," McLeod said.

He acknowledged that other companies had expressed interest in the project, but said, "the decision is to move forward."

Smith said his company could have produced a proposal within a week and still have completed the work on time. The way the territorial government has handled the bridge project was hotly contested in the legislative assembly Tuesday as MLAs demanded more information about what money has been spent and who would be running the project.

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay said the GNWT should have learned from the ATCON "fiasco" and looked to more companies to secure a competitive price.

"Why we didn't go to tender, I guess I'll never fully understand the logic that the government's using on that," he said, adding he wanted more assurances the project would be managed effectively.

Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation, broke down the additional $15 million saying the one-year delay will cost $5.5 million in interest payments on the $165.5 loans from lenders. The rest of the money goes to $2.5 million for equity and $7.5 million in claims. Claims are paid out when companies incur unforeseen costs, such as wages paid to workers during delays.

Ruskin is still completing work from the first phase of construction. McLeod said the company will complete eight piers in the next week and $4 million worth of outstanding work will be carried over to next year.

After nearly two hours of debate, MLAs approved the supplementary funding, giving the green light for the GNWT to sign off on Ruskin as a contractor.

Smith said he thought it was irresponsible for the GNWT to proceed with the sole-source contract and said he would still enter a bid if he could.

The privately-owned Surespan has done small projects in the North and numerous projects in British Columbia, Alberta and the U.S. Their website, which spells Nunavut as "Nunavit" and incorrectly identifies locations on a map, lists a $784,00 contract for a girder bridge on the "MacKenzie" (sic) winter road in 2001. It recently worked as a subcontractor on the 472 metre-long Athabasca River Bridge in Fort McMurray, Alta., where it was contracted to complete almost $6 million worth of work on a $127 million project.

Surespan also owns Infinity Engineering, the company that completed the new design for the bridge's superstructure. It was contracted last summer after the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation discovered flaws in the original design. Smith said the construction company has never headed up a project as large as the Deh Cho Bridge, but said it has the technical expertise required.

"We have some of the most relevant experience, plus the synergy with our own engineering company," said Smith. "It would be a really good working and fitting arrangement, an efficient way to do work," he said.