They have filed a court application over Alberta Transportation鈥檚 deal with Emcon, announced last week. The five companies that currently maintain Alberta鈥檚 provincial highways have joined forces to take legal action against what they describe as a costly and potentially illegal deal, approved by the Alberta Minister of Transportation, in the matter of Carillion Canada鈥檚 bankruptcy proceedings.
Alberta Highway Services, Carmacks Maintenance Services, LaPrairie Works, Ledcor Highways and Volker Stevin Highways said that they are competitors 鈥渂ut we share a common concern in this case鈥�.
The court application requests judicial review of the government of Alberta鈥檚 role in an agreement that was announced by the Alberta Minister of Transportation last week. The agreement assigns highway maintenance contracts covering 40% of Alberta highways to Emcon Services, a British Colombia company. 鈥淓mcon was reportedly granted better terms than those of the previous owner of the contracts, Carillion Canada,鈥� said a statement from the companies.
鈥淲e have no objection to Emcon or any other company entering Alberta under a fair, competitive and transparent process,鈥� said the companies. 鈥淲e ask only that experienced, proven Alberta maintenance companies be given an equal opportunity to compete for business in Alberta.
鈥淲e are therefore asking the Court to review whether the Alberta Minister of Transportation, Brian Mason, violated his government鈥檚 legal requirements by granting contractual concessions and extensions in favour of one company, effectively sole-sourcing contracts worth over half a billion dollars of public money over several years.
鈥淎s Carillion is under creditor protection, its assets were sold as part of a court supervised process in Ontario. Carillion鈥檚 Alberta and Ontario road maintenance contracts were marketed as a single package of assets. Our group鈥檚 smaller members were thereby shut out because they operate today only in Alberta. Our larger members were blocked by the Minister鈥檚 own rules around reducing the number of maintenance contracts that any one firm can hold in Alberta. We did recommend a made-in-Alberta solution to the Minister many weeks ago; it is disappointing that he did not stand up for that solution.鈥�
The contractors go on to say that this is not just an asset sale as the minister has claimed, as it is apparently on more favourable contract terms for Emcon than previously existed. They call on the minister to disclose details of the new contracts, rather that waiting until the deal is finalised, 鈥渟o that Albertans can assess whether this deal is in the public interest鈥�.
The contractors said that they agree with the need to ensure Carillion鈥檚 Alberta employees. 鈥淎s we have told the Minister consistently, our companies are prepared to hire those workers,鈥� said the Ledcor statement. 鈥淥ur five companies collectively employ nearly 1,000 Albertans in our road maintenance businesses.鈥�
They concluded: 鈥淲e struggle to understand why the competitive playing field has suddenly been tilted so sharply toward one non-Alberta company.鈥�
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