TransitPolicyChanger
Active Member
An article pointing to issues with our procurement philosophy:
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...t_lowest_bids_should_get_government_work.html
That said, I do think we need to insert penalty clauses into contracts - recall how the York U station was left as a hole in the ground until it hit the news?
AoD
I agree the policies do need to change but penalty clauses may not be the way to go. The primary issue with a penalty clause is that Canadian contract law makes it hard to enforce such a clause without an equal bonus clause. x days late = $x penalty, x days early = $x bonus. The other issue is it is hard for a public company not to select the low price, as it may appear biased or that some other back door dealing may be happening.
In working with government contracts (primarily with SNC/City of Toronto), the pre-qualification and design phases need to change. There are too many holes in the documents when they go to the Contractors or they go to Contractors which are simply not capable to complete the work (in terms of schedule or performance). A lot of the work is moving to PPP and to design-build now. I know there are other issues this type of work brings up, but an important factor is Owners (Government), designers and Contractors are all on the same team working together. While I am not trying to excuse the poor performance on the Spadina Extension - I am hopeful that future work will have less issues.