FREDERICTON – A cancelled contract that left two companies without tender deals has also left New Brunswickers without the extra snow plows.
In May, the province awarded a contract to manufacture 27 plow blades and 39 plow wings to Les Produits Métalliques, a manufacturing company in Matane, Quebec.
Their winning bid was $246,000.
Craig Manufacturing of Hartland, New Brunswick bid $247,608 – a difference of $1,608.
In June, the province cancelled the contract with Produits Métalliques, and called for a review.
READ MORE: N.B. government cancelling Quebec snow plow contract, calling for review
Ben Craig of Craig Manufacturing said Tuesday that as far as he knew, the contract wasn’t re-tendered and he isn’t aware of any new tenders for the plow blades.
A Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed there’s no plan to re-issue the tender and buy the new blades and wings.
“The Department determined it could do repairs to the current inventory of plow fronts and wings and continue to use the equipment,” said a statement to Global News Tuesday.
“If the snow plows were needed in the spring and tendered, how come they’re not needed now?” said Jeff Carr, MLA and the province’s Transportation Critic.
In April, Transportation and Finance Minister Roger Melanson said he was increasing the winter maintenance budget to $69 million for the upcoming 2015-16 year.
READ MORE: Liberals increase winter maintenance budget to $69M
It’s $2 million more than was spent on the past winter, which cost the province $67 million. But Melanson said that at the time it was about having the money there just in case.
“We need to have more appropriate equipment, that means more appropriate funding to be able to respond to the winter conditions we’ve been having over the past four to five years,” Melanson said on April 29.
On Tuesday, the province said that the districts are preparing the existing inventory of plow fronts and wings to use for the upcoming winter season.
Carr says it’s not enough.
“I know first-hand from visiting a lot of the sheds and talking to a lot of the operators, they’ve had a lot of trouble over the past few years with the snow plows being wore out,” he said.
There are some who suffered a bit more than others last winter.
Mike Mullin had to dump 1,000 litres of his milk because the road hadn’t been plowed for his milk truck to get through for deliveries.
READ MORE: N.B. dairy farm dumped 1,000 litres of milk after storm, first time in 47 years
On Tuesday, Mullin said he’s disappointed to hear the contract isn’t going to be filled.
“You try and run a business of any kind and you have to have equipment to work with and it has to be reliable equipment. It can’t be some that’s 30-40 years old,” he said.
According to the Department, the province has a fleet of 434 plow trucks and about 450 blades that connect to the plow trucks.
Melanson has said the province’s jobs board is reviewing what happened in regards to the issued tender.
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