Provincial ministers flag ‘faux controversy’ over mask contracts to ethics watchdog

Education Minister Adriana Lagrange and Municipal Affairs Minister Kaycee Madu “proactively” flagged what Lagrange called a “faux controversy” over government mask contracts in Monday letters to Alberta’s ethics commissioner.

Lagrange issued a statement last Saturday that the province had placed two orders worth $4.2 million for 1.7 million reusable masks as part of its requirements aimed at slowing the spread of COVID -19 in schools.

Old Navy, a multinational owned by the Gap, will be producing approximately 1.55 million masks while Red Deer business IFR Workwear will be producing approximately 150,000 masks, according to the government.

Lagrange wrote in her letter to the commissioner that neither she nor her staff had a hand in awarding the contracts, and she had no personal connections to IFR or the family that runs it in her riding of north Red Deer. Lagrange said her office only learned of the winning vendors the day of the statement.

“I hope this letter assures you there is nothing untoward in the selection of vendors for this project,” she said.

Instead of doing a standard request for proposals that could take weeks, the government said it found the two companies to urgently fill the orders in a process steered by the Provincial Operations Centre (POC), which is co-ordinating the province’s emergency COVID-19 response. The POC operates under the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

Timothy Gerwing, press secretary to Madu, said in a statement Monday neither Madu nor Lagrange played a role in selecting the companies.

“I hope you can understand that ordering 10,000 masks from one small company, 20,000 from another, etc. all the way up to 1.7 million wasn’t realistic given we have weeks to deliver to school divisions,” said Gerwing.

The decision sparked suspicion on social media that the move might have been politically inappropriate, and because the province’s Bits and Pieces program, first announced in April, seemed tailor-made to gather small local proposals for pandemic supplies.

Leslie Brooks, owner of Calgary-based manufacturer Hippo Hug, said her company, if given proper notice, could have contributed close to 50,000 masks before school starts.

While filling orders totalling between 60,000 and 70,000 masks for the City of Calgary, Hippo Hug was producing 2,000 per day at its peak, Brooks said. The government’s decision to give the bulk of the order to Old Navy was an “unfortunate” missed opportunity to support local businesses, she said.

“We don’t have to all fight over the same piece of the pie,” she said, adding there are at least 40 businesses in Alberta making masks.

Hippo Hug applied unsuccessfully twice to the Bits and Pieces program in April, she said.

Gerwing said in a statement Friday the Bits and Pieces Program has been used deliver masks to non-ahs groups but is not meant to be a primary procurement tool.

In the 1.7-million-mask order, the program was used by Provincial Operations Centre staff through its request for quotes process, and Old Navy and IFR were chosen for their capacity to fill the orders, he said.

Lyn Radford, spokeswoman for IFR workwear, said in a Tuesday interview the family-owned company got the contract through a third-party distributor, and doesn’t communicate with end-customers during the procurement process.

IFR had stockpiled supplies and retooled to produce masks for other jurisdictions they expected would place orders.

While company head Reg Radford is a longtime conservative donor, having contributed to the Progressive Conservative party and $2,000 to Lagrange’s election campaign in 2019, Lyn Radford was confident the company’s ability to produce large amounts by the end of August is what got them the contract.

“We are a business, so we would support the UCP. But we feel it’s our product, and the integrity of our product and our delivery process that might have given us an edge,” Radford said.