Insurer won’t say how it picked firm for waste removal
Conteneurs Rouville registered to the wife of ousted entrepreneur
The insurance company that provided a performance bond to debarred contractor Mélimax refuses to say how it selected a company belonging to the wife of the ousted waste container entrepreneur to finish his contracts with the city of Montreal.
Intact Financial Corporation refused to answer the Montreal Gazette on how it selected Conteneurs Rouville, which is registered to Bianca Freeman, the wife of Mélimax owner Mario Landry. It also refused to answer whether anyone working for the insurance firm knew about the familial link between the owners of Conteneurs Rouville and Mélimax.
“As the surety bond provider for Mélimax, Intact is bound by its contractual obligations to ensure a contractor takes over the job from Mélimax so services to residents are not disrupted and residents are not inconvenienced in any way,” the insurance company said in a statement emailed to the Montreal Gazette on Tuesday.
“Conteneurs Rouville was selected as a solution as they were the only contractor at that point that could take over all Melimax’s contracts immediately without causing any service disruption to residents.”
On Jan. 11, the province barred Mélimax Transport Inc. and Centre de Tri Mélimax Inc., which have contracts with several municipalities in the Montreal region to transport construction waste and other large debris, from doing business with public bodies for five years. The debarment of the companies was over alleged waste dumping violations that La Presse revealed in 2018.
Last week, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante’s assistant chief of staff, Guillaume Cloutier, told the Montreal Gazette that the city is “extremely uncomfortable” but had to accept Conteneurs Rouville as the new contractor replacing Mélimax because Intact Financial chose the replacement company. The city has written to the Autorité des marchés publics, which oversees the authorization of contractors to win public contracts, to complain that it has no legal power to challenge the bond holder’s choice to replace the debarred contractor.
In an earlier statement sent to the Montreal Gazette, Intact Financial Corporation said it “has been in constant communication with the city’s representatives” since Jan. 22, the date when Montreal notified the insurer of a default notice for Mélimax.
The city, meanwhile, says it made use of the insurance bond after it received no bids in response to a public call for tenders in February to award what remained on Mélimax’s multi-year contract to haul away the containers of trash at two city ecocentres in the boroughs of LaSalle and St-Laurent.
Mélimax also had several other contracts with Montreal, both to transport and to receive construction waste from mostly west-end boroughs and suburbs.
The Mélimax firms had to cease working on all their existing public contracts 60 days after they were placed on the Registre des entreprises non admissibles aux contrats publics. The grace period expired last week.
And while the city received no bids from container companies in response to the call for tenders to re-award the contract for the two ecocentres, it appears the city also encountered problems on two more calls for tenders to reaward other Mélimax contracts in late January and February.
The city wound up cancelling a second call for tenders, which was for a contract to receive, sort and market wood collected at the LaSalle ecocentre. Three companies presented bids, but the city disqualified two of them and judged the third bidder was going to haul the material too far from the ecocentre. It’s unclear when the city will launch a new call for bids.
The third call for tenders, for a contract to receive, sort and market wood collected in six boroughs and suburbs, elicited four bids from firms. However, the city disqualified two of the four bids, and then awarded the contract last week. For the two remaining offers, the city added “indirect costs” to the bids for hauling waste, such as labour, wear and tear, and maintenance of trucks and gas consumption, which rendered the lower bid higher than the other.
Of the two firms that were disqualified, one failed to provide a bid bond and a letter of undertaking. The other was disqualified for providing different Quebec business registration numbers on its bid form and when it purchased the call for tenders package.
Meanwhile, the fate of several other Mélimax contracts in Montreal to haul away containers of construction debris in public works yards in several boroughs and suburbs remains up in the air.
Marco Viviani, vice-president of Excavations Vidolo Ltée, said last week that a Montreal civil servant phoned him on Wednesday morning to say the contract he had been told he had won and was supposed to start that day was off because Mélimax’s insurer had chosen Conteneurs Rouville to do the work. Viviani said a few other would-be contractors got the same message.
Cloutier, in the mayor’s office, said last week it was probably a misunderstanding because he was told the contracts were being awarded to different companies through one-on-one negotiation and calls by invitation.
However, Intact Financial’s statement says Conteneurs Rouville was chosen for all of Mélimax’s contracts, and says it’s now discussing other options with the city.
“We are however continuing our efforts to find a more permanent solution,” the statement says.
“We are reviewing the seven remaining contracts Mélimax has with the city and are in discussion with the city on options, including identifying contractors who could take over and maintain service delivery to residents.” lgyulai@postmedia.com twitter.com/ CityHallReport