'Support your local business or we're going to leave,' says Polar Tech owner
Gord Olson miffed after learning there's no incentive for city to buy local; National trade agreement ties municipality's hands
James Goldie
Northern News Services
Friday, October 23, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Local businesses hoping for an advantage when bidding on city contracts are still out of luck, and it doesn't appear that will be changing any time soon.
Gord Olson, owner of Polar Tech Recreation, said he was shocked to learn that that the City of Yellowknife has no incentive policy to give preference to local businesses when awarding contracts. However, the city is governed by a Canada-wide trade agreement that prohibits it from giving such preferential treatment. - James Goldie/NNSL photo |
When Gord Olson, owner of the Yellowknife company Polar Tech Recreation, recently learned the city is looking to buy a new fire truck, he saw an opportunity for his company. Although Polar Tech is a recreational vehicle dealership, he wanted to consult manufacturers and the city about the possibility his company could receive the contract and, through a local business incentive policy, train staff to do future maintenance on the fire truck.
However, it took just one call to the city to learn this would not be possible because Yellowknife has no such incentive to support local companies.
"It caught me off guard because I thought (having an incentive program) would be a no-brainer. Why would you not want to support your local business?" said Olson.
He had assumed that like the territorial government, the City of Yellowknife would also have policies in place that give preference on government procurement to businesses owned and operated within the territory.
"It's not (just) about fire trucks, it's about everything," said Olson. "It's about park benches, street signs. It's about everything the city consumes."
While the news came as a shock to Olson, this is not the first time the issue has arisen.
In 2013, the City of Yellowknife awarded a $30-million contract for the construction of the city's new water treatment facility to Ontario-based NAC Contractors Ltd., prompting outcry from members of Yellowknife's business community who felt the city should have done more to keep contracts from going to southern companies.
According to city spokesperson Nalini Naidoo, the same legal restrictions that governed the city's procurement process two years ago still apply today.
"We are subject to the Agreement on Internal Trade," she said. "That means we can't use geography to differentiate between supply, goods and services. We're not allowed to establish a local procurement process."
The AIT is an inter-provincial trade agreement signed by all Canadian provinces and territories in 1995 with the goal of reducing and eliminating barriers to free trade within Canada. The reason the GNWT's business incentive policy was grandfathered into the AIT is because it was created to level the playing field for Northern businesses by compensating contractors for the higher costs of operating a business in the North.
In an e-mail to Yellowknifer, Mayor Mark Heyck stated that because of the AIT, it would be very difficult, from a legal perspective, to develop such a policy for Yellowknife.
"Having said that, I strongly support local purchasing whenever we can, and in an average year the city will typically spend between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of its budget locally," he said.
Deneen Everett, executive director of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, said the issue is nothing new for her organization.
"After the water treatment plant, the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the NWT chamber of commerce and the NWT & Nunavut Construction Association wrote a letter to the City of Yellowknife, letting them know we had concerns and that something needs to be done," she said.
Everett was not with the chamber at the time and could not say what response the letter received.
She said complaints like Olson's are not frequent, but she knows the issue "is important to the business community in Yellowknife," adding that it's also something her board of directors is interested in.
Everett said she thinks it's unlikely that changes will be made to the AIT and would not lobby the city to try. Instead, Everett said she would rather the city come up with other options for the business community, and with ways the chamber of commerce can help.
As for Olson, he wants to ensure that newly elected city officials get the message the loud and clear that something needs to change.
"Support your local business or we're going to leave," he said. "There's no incentive for us to stay here."
