Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to return to the question I was asking earlier here. And I'm concerned about natural justice when we have five bidders, four have been disqualified, and ends up with only one. It's not about the fact that the individual company got it. It's about the process, Mr. Speaker.
So my questions now are directed to the Minister responsible for procurement Services asking about particularly around natural justice. Where is the fairness in having an appeal process that doesn't allow the individuals to actually appeal the contract that the government refuses to consider them as a wanting opportunity -- or sorry, a willful opportunity to be involved? Thank you.
Thank you, Member Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is -- one of the things we are working on right now is actually to have an improvement to our vendor complaint process. The process that we have right now is a review process, and anyone that goes through a procurement and is unsuccessful at the end of that procurement can go through the review process, and it would be explained to them where they may have been unsuccessful or why they may have been unsuccessful, and procurement shared services can work with potential proponents so that they can improve bids going forward.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to what is obviously a very specific circumstance that is being referenced here, housing does take on most of its own procurement when it services but for large contracts, they do have the benefit of working with procurement shared services, which they did in this case. And in this case, they also had a fairness advisor involved from the very beginning because it is a large procurement. So in this particular instance, again, I won't speak much more into the details of it, but I will assure the public that a fairness advisor was involved throughout the process and that there is one of the -- at least one of the disqualified parties is going through the review to understand the decisions that were made. Thank you.
So, Mr. Speaker, it seems clear there is no appeal period. There's a 'let's complain and whine period', but there's no appeal period. So, Mr. Speaker, if there's an error in the review process, the bidder, this unsuccessful bidder, is the one that ultimately gets punished. So how can we fix that, that their bid has an appeal period that's actually an appeal period where it gets reviewed with the eye that maybe an error was made and considered in the fulsome ability that it was worthy to submit and have the chance? And if it's still found wanting, that's okay too, Mr. Speaker. Where is that chance? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if a fairness advisor, for example, were to identify that there was any irregularity or concern raised, a procurement can be paused and a procurement certainly can be -- we can make a decision not to continue. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we certainly want to ensure that fundamentally that the reputation of the government to follow through with procurements when they've put out is maintained and that they continue to do so in a transparent fashion. So there are quite a number of rules that are associated to conducting a procurement and to conducting a public procurement in particular. I can say that there certainly has been work over the last few years in terms of improving that process, starting with the procurement review of the last government, and bringing forward a number of changes, not the least of which is to our vendor engagement systems, vendor performance management on the side of the government, and vendor inquiry processes on the other side. And we're going to continue to refine that process but in the meantime, Mr. Speaker, that is why there's a review so that vendors do have an opportunity to raise a concern if there is one and the government would have an opportunity to determine whether or not the concern is one that warrants interference with the procurement, the otherwise transparent and public procurement process. Thank you.
Correction, that was the Minister of Finance, not the Infrastructure Minister. I apologize. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, would the Minister be very clear to this House that there is no appeal period; it's simply a whine, complain, and lick your wounds process? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, public procurement processes are one that the government takes very seriously. It is very important to ensure that when an RFP goes out that it is adhered to, it is put out publicly. The very nature of the process is that there will be a successful bidder and there will be not successful bidders. And what we do at that point, Mr. Speaker, is to ensure, again, as I've said, that we throughout the process are monitoring what's going on internally, that when there's a large procurement, there's a fairness advisor from outside of the government to monitor that process, and if there are concerns raised that suggest that the underpinnings of the process are not adhering to the standards that we expect of them, then we certainly can look at whether or not to cancel a procurement or pause a procurement. But, Mr. Speaker, when there's an unsuccessful bidder, they can participate in the review process to understand why they were unsuccessful. The fact that someone's unsuccessful does not necessarily mean that the process was not adhered to or that the process was unfair. Notwithstanding the specific circumstances, but because we believe in good process, we are going to continue to improve that process and make the ability of vendors to come forward in different means better. That review process right now is one that continues to feed in so that going forward public procurement adheres to the highest standards. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
