The Yukon government has announced it will encourage contractors to begin planning capital projects before it has set aside a specific cash amount for new buildings or public works.

The move, which will also see companies alerted earlier in the fiscal year to upcoming projects, attempts to establish a more fluid relationship with the construction industry and more efficient use of the Yukon’s limited building season.

“By knowing what opportunities exist in the upcoming year, contractors can start their planning several months earlier, source materials and anticipate human resources and equipment needs,” Premier Darrell Pasloski said at a press conference Friday at the F.H. Collins Secondary School building site.

“The process will benefit all Yukoners, by helping support a robust economy and a healthy private sector.”

Lois Moorcroft, the NDP Highways and Public Works critic, said she was “not particularly impressed” with the announcement.

“I’m not convinced that announcing capital projects without announcing a budget is going to be of much advantage, (though) that’s a refrain that’s been repeated from the contracting industry for many years,” she said.

“It doesn’t really give a contractor much to go on. The contractors are still going to be waiting for the aggregate amount based on cost estimates before putting their initial bids out there.”

Moorcroft agreed with the government’s goal of getting “tenders out early enough” to allow “contractors on site early in the spring as soon as the ground has thawed.”

She also highlighted the apparent “irony” that the government hosted the press conference at the F.H. Collins site.

“If there’s any project that’s been emblematic of this government’s failure to manage capital processes, it’s right up there — along with the arrest processing unit and Whitehorse Correctional Centre,” Moorcroft told the Star.

“The Yukon government has thoroughly mismanaged the F.H. Collins building project. It’s gone back to the drawing board several times, changed the scope of the building project,” she added.

Originally, two independent estimates for the new high school construction pegged the cost at $36.8 million and $37.8 million in June 2012 — bumped up to $41.6 million after the government added a temporary gym and geothermal energy to the tender.

No local company came within $10 million of the original tenders, and the government did not disclose the later cost upgrade.

It scrapped the plan when no companies could come close to meeting the budget demanded, ultimately opting for a pre-designed school imported from Alberta.

Wade Istchenko, the minister of Highways and Public Works, added: “Yukon government provides greater certainty for contractors on upcoming opportunities as well as when and what the scope of each project is.”

Workers strode back and forth along the incomplete roof of the school structure, several joining members of the broader contracting sector and business community for the announcement Friday morning.

“The Yukon Chamber of Commerce believes the new capital budgeting process proposed by the Yukon government will more effectively advance public infrastructure projects in the territory,” said Kells Boland, who chairs the chamber’s transportation committee.

He said the announcement emerged from a transportation workshop held earlier this year in collaboration with the Silver Trail and Dawson chambers of commerce.

Josh Clark, chair of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce, said: “We are happy to see the government is listening and responding to the business community.

“The chamber had requested adjustments to the tendering process, on behalf of business, that would provide more certainty and opportunity for industry,” he said.

“The chamber believes these changes will help accomplish that.”

In October 2013, when the revised tender for the F.H. Collins building was sent out, the NDP questioned why the government included a requirement that bidders have experience building three projects in the last five years that were “similar to the new F.H. Collins Secondary School.”

The Opposition suggested this excluded local contractors from bidding.

The premier said in November 2013 that the project required a $40-million bond, which local companies alone would not qualify for.

He insisted there were opportunities for local contractors to partner with companies from Outside and still benefit from the project, like Ketza Construction and EllisDon Corp. have done.