With the Yukon Liberals’ self-imposed deadline for tendering seasonally-dependent construction projects having come and gone for a second year, Peter Turner, the Yukon Chamber of Commerce president, is giving the government an “A for effort.”

Turner told the Star Tuesday he thinks this government has identified “the challenge and the need” to get contracts out ahead of the construction season, and that “they’re making best efforts to do it, or at least that is my impression at the moment.”

In the 2016 territorial election campaign, the Yukon Liberals promised that their government would “tender construction projects that are seasonally dependent no later than March of each year.”

As Highways and Public Works Minister Richard Mostyn noted in the legislature Tuesday, the Liberal government’s first spring in office saw 12 contracts worth $19 million tendered before the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year last March 31.

The average between 2013 and 2016 was 18 tenders worth about $27 million, he said.

“Admittedly, we didn’t do that well last year,” Mostyn told the house. “I vowed to do better, and the Department of Highways and Public Works, in conjunction with the other departments, has done that.”

The 2018-19 budget, tabled March 1, promised $46 million in seasonally-dependent contracts to be tendered by March 31, 2018.

That number actually rose to a total of $61 million by the close of the 2017-18 fiscal year, comprised of 37 projects. Those included building and road work, power supply upgrades, and water and sewer upgrades, according to a government press release.

“We heard contractors asking for more lead time for these complex projects, and we’re taking action to put out more tenders earlier,” Mostyn is quoted as saying.

The release says the government plans to post more tenders worth a combined $4 million in the next few weeks.

Cabinet spokesperson Janine Workman told the Star by email this morning that this $4 million is for crushing, which requires the ground to thaw.

“These tenders are typically released later in the year for that reason, so this is not unusual,” she wrote.

These tenders have been forecast on the tender management system “to allow contractors to prepare for them,” Workman added.

There are also a number of as-yet unposted tenders, she said, that are waiting on federal funding approval or have been pre-planned for phased release as part of a Whistle Bend continuing care facility two-year plan.

After Mostyn announced the final value of seasonally-dependent projects tendered by March 31 in the house Tuesday, the government and the official Opposition debated whether the Liberals’ campaign commitment had been satisfied.

“The Liberals promised to tender all seasonally dependent contracts by March of each year; they broke that promise two years in a row,” official Opposition house leader Scott Kent told the legislature.

“Can the minister tell us when the final seasonally dependent contract for this year will be tendered?”

Mostyn didn’t provide a date.

“I will continue with my narrative. I think it has been well-established,” he told the house.

“Now we have a commitment to tender seasonally dependent contracts earlier in the year and we’ve done that, tendering more than $61 million in seasonally dependent contracts before March 31, doubling the number that this government has ever put out in the last five years, since 2013.”

But for Turner, the satisfaction – or not – of the Liberals’ election promise isn’t his primary concern – he sees improvement and hopes it will continue.

“I like to believe that we’re headed in the right direction, essentially, and a year from now I’d like to hope that we’ll see progress from where we are today.”

He also said it’s worth keeping in mind that “the side of the equation that we don’t have as much visibility to is the contractors themselves.

“How much work can they take on and ramp up to?”