Frequent readers of this commentary will know that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation applauds governments that embrace alternate service delivery (ASD) as a means to effectively deliver services at lower costs to taxpayers.

One of the key areas where several local governments are embracing ASD is in the delivery of parks and recreation services. But there is a right and wrong way to do this as a recent tender from Parks Ontario clearly illustrates.

Parks Ontario, which falls under the umbrella of the Ministry of Natural Resources, is looking to engage private sector providers to operate and maintain over 25 access points into Algonquin Park. Duties include having on-site staff to sell camping permits (about $400,000 of business per season), issue fishing licenses, minor grass cutting, sign furnishing and replacement, selling park publications and provincially sanctioned memorabilia, and other related activities.

The problem with this process is not the overall desire to engage private providers; it's the details of the tender that all but assure that no money is saved.

To begin, the tender in question is for the operation of the access point at Canoe Lake. Given the template, cut and paste, approach that is usually employed in putting together government tenders, it is safe to assume that the problems with this tender are not isolated.

This author's previous experience in the private sector with these matters leads to the conclusion that this has to be one of the worst documents ever put out by a government department or agency. This 40 plus page document is riddled with numbering errors … poor document configuration management hardly inspires faith in perceptions of the contracting authority.

Of more substantive concern is the staged nature of the tenders. Instead of offering all access points up for a simultaneous tender to encourage large providers to bid and bring economies of scale to the process, Parks Ontario has staggered these tenders over multiple years. As well, word coming back from one of the bidders conferences held in September indicates that Parks Ontario prefers to deal with mom and pop operators instead of larger corporate entities. Of course this bias is indicated nowhere in the tender document which could encourage large firms to bid with no chance of actually winning.

Also problematic is the contradiction between the tender document and verbal information provided at one of the bidders conferences. The tender clearly states that contract award "will not be based solely on price" yet the responsible contract officer at a bidders conferences stated the opposite.

Other problems in this whole farce of a tender include termination (Clause 17.7) without cause. Specifically, it states that "the Contractor agrees the Crown may cancel this Agreement without cause upon ten (10) calendar days notice." The legality of such a condition is highly questionable. Of course, with a bias toward small businesses Parks Ontario has little to fear in a lawsuit from the injured party.

Then there is the clause (47.2 which should be 29.2) where Parks Ontario reserves the right to purchase (read: confiscate) any stocks, furnishings, equipment, supplies, etc. at cost or fair market value, whichever is less, in the case of default by the Contractor.

All in all this tender belongs on the "how not to save money nor engage new service providers" list. But then again this is the same agency that launched a website last spring to take camping reservations for its various parks (including Algonquin Park) … the season is almost over and the website is still not working!