2024 Report of the Auditor General of Canada to the Yukon Legislative Assembly—Procurement and Contracting—Government of YukonOpening Statement to News Conference

Normand Lanthier, Senior Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada—26 November 2024

Good morning. My name is Normand Lanthier and I am a Senior Principal with the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. I’d like to begin by respectfully acknowledging all Yukon First Nations and recognizing that we are meeting on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.

I am pleased to be in Whitehorse today to discuss our audit of procurement and contracting in Yukon. Our report was presented to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly earlier today.

Procurement and contracting are used to support the Government of Yukon in delivering programs and services to all Yukon residents. The government purchases goods, like auto parts and road signs, as well as services, including building construction, roadway maintenance, and transportation to remote locations.

In this audit, we wanted to know whether the Yukon government created a competitive procurement environment and made decisions that resulted in value for money for Yukoners. We examined a representative sample of 53 contracts across 16 organizations and an additional 10 contracts with values of $250,000 or more. We also examined whether the Department of Highways and Public Works reported on the outcomes of the procurement policy.

Overall, we found that the government was not monitoring the results of its procurement and contracting activities, including whether value for money was achieved. It also had not identified the information needed to report on outcomes.

Furthermore, the 16 organizations fell short of creating a competitive environment for Yukon First Nations and local businesses despite the Yukon government’s commitment to increase opportunities to access government contracts.

Prioritizing a competitive environment creates local opportunities and drives competitive pricing, which could increase value for money. Just over half of the contracts in our sample did not create this competitive environment.

We also found instances where work had started before a contract was signed. Of the 10 high dollar‑value contracts we looked at, we found 1 contract valued at $2 million where work started almost a full year before the contract was signed. This contract was also awarded without a competitive process. In our sample of 53 contracts, there were 4 instances where work had begun before a contract was signed.

In addition, none of the 16 Yukon government organizations were monitoring their procurement and contracting activities to determine whether they were supporting the government’s commitments to create a competitive environment and value for money.

As part of its oversight role, the Department of Highways and Public Works provided Yukon government organizations with advice on planned procurements that had the potential to contravene the policy. During the period of our audit, the department was consulted on almost 300 procurement processes. Its advice was rejected by departments in over a third of these consultations. There was no mechanism to allow the department to analyze outcomes or report on instances where its advice was not followed. This is a concerning finding because these were instances where organizations contravened the procurement policy.

Ultimately, the Government of Yukon has committed to key principles of transparency and accountability as part of its procurement policy. These principles are sound but have yet to be used to achieve fairness and a stronger economic future for local businesses and Yukon First Nations.

Thank you. I am now ready to answer your questions.