March 6, 2008

Canadian Construction Association Conference

Experts share views at New Methods of Public Procurement seminar

BRADLEY FEHR

editor

Ensuring that public private partnerships remain fair and transparent is a priority shared by two experts involved with government procurement in different provinces.

Larry Blain, CEO of Partnerships BC and Jim Dougan, executive vice president of Infrastructure Ontario were two of the featured speakers at the New Methods of Public Procurement seminar, which helped kick off the 90th Canadian Construction Association convention in Victoria.

Public private partnerships dominated the discussion during the session.

Blain described Public Private Partnerships (P3s) as long term, financed-based contracts between the government and a private partner to deliver infrastructure and/or services.

“At the end of the day, it’s about value for dollar,” he said, adding that the private sector takes on the risk of construction in those partnerships.

He said that B.C. is leading the way with a P3 framework and that the government has an excellent record of finishing projects on time and on budget using the model.

The B.C. government requires that all major infrastructure projects include an analysis of delivering the project on the P3 model.

“We must demonstrate consistency to the market,” he said, adding that not all projects will be best delivered using P3.

“We don’t want to get in the way of government doing its business,” he said.

He described his department as an organization that attempts to be a procurement manager with the government as its client.

Blain said that transparency and fairness are integral to the process and that those bidding must know they are on a level playing field with other contractors. That transparency involves two components, he said.

Information on the procurement process must be clearly posted so that non-winning bidders can understand the process and understand how the winning bid was selected.

This includes the involvement of a fairness auditor in the entire process. Blain said the public also needs to know that the process is being carried out fairly, even if they don’t fully understand the P3 model.

Dougan expressed a similar view on making sure the process is fair for everyone involved. “We look at ourselves as a private-sector company doing public-sector work,” he said.

Private Public partnerships, as they are called in B.C. and in some parts of the world, are referred to as Alternate Financing and Procurement (AFP) by Infrastructure Ontario. Dougan said Infrastructure Ontario works with a large number of general contractors and it vitally important that the bidding process remain open and transparent.

“Standardization is key to us,” he said, but added that an AFP contract is not the standard CCDC2 contract. “We have to make sure that we’re consistent on how we deal with the industry,” Dougan said.

Information about each stage of the process is posted and made available to those involved in the bidding. Dougan said that third party validation is an important part of the process that gives the awarding of contracts legitimacy.

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