The Grey Mountain Housing Society says the Yukon government's failure to tender the 2007 Canada Winter Games athletes' village to the group is another example of its unwillingness to work with first nations.

'People who really need housing will likely not see any changes in the near future,' Nelson Lepine, Grey Mountain's chair , told a press conference Wednesday.

The society had proposed creating modular units for the athletes' village that would have been able to be taken apart after the games and transported to communities needing housing.

The building of the village would have worked as a catalyst for the creation of a housing manufacturing plant the society has been planning since 2002.

The plant would be used to provided skills, training and jobs to both first nations and non-first nations.

'The ripple effects of this project was huge for the economy, and now the territorial government are saying they aren't working with us,' said Lepine.

The government has recently been criticized for its unwillingness to work with first nations in the area of economic development.

Ten representatives from first nations groups recently sent a letter to Economic Development Minister Jim Kenyon. It indicated there are a number of upcoming economic projects in the Yukon that could provide opportunities for improved housing and meaningful employment for all Yukoners.

'It was also our experience with your department that a clear mandate was not and is still not forthcoming, and there are serious concerns with timely opportunities being lost in a process of never-ending analysis, study and final expectation of no further commitment from the Government of the Yukon,' says the letter.

Lepine said the society was short-listed for the construction of the athletes' village and were told the project would be tendered, but then never heard back from the government on the next steps.

'After the bid closed, the negotiations went behind closed doors and the company was never even invited to the table,' says a press release from Grey Mountain.

Lepine said the application process for the project is flawed.

'My concern is that policies being drafted within the territorial government now are designed for interpretation,' he said.

'As far as I'm concerned, policies should be written up in such a way that there is no room for interpretation. So, when you go after something, if you follow the guidelines that the territorial government sets, you then have a strong understanding that that project will either go through or it won't go through,' he added.

Premier Dennis Fentie said earlier this month the society had not met a list of 16 conditions put in place by the federal government to receive funding.

'According to the Grey Mountain manager, all the conditions had been met, except for a few small areas this is their opinion which the society believed could have easily been addressed,' Opposition Leader Todd Hardy told the legislature on May 5.

Lepine said he's frustrated with the lack of communication from the government.

'As far as we were concerned, we were working with the territorial government for the last two years and no response officially,' he said.

If the government did not believe Grey Mountain Housing should be allowed to bid on this type of project, the organization should have just been told that, instead of having volunteers waste hundreds of hours of their time, he added.

'The government has been dragging their feet on this project,' Steve Cardiff, the NDP MLA for Mount Lorne, said in an interview today.

There is now the possibility most of this project will be contracted to Outside interests, said Lepine.

If Grey Mountain had been involved in the project and had been able to use its proposed manufacturing plant, 100 per cent of the work would have been done by Yukoners, he added.

Cardiff said the Fentie government has been aware of the manufacturing plant idea for several years and has had little movement on the project.

The manufacturing plant has received start-up money from the federal government, a buy-in from first nations groups and money for training, Cardiff added. Proponents obviously felt they'd be able to build the athletes' village, he added.

The plant would also provide sustainable, high-paying jobs and training for Yukoners, he said.

The government had lots of time to plan for the building of the athletes' village, the New Democrat said.

Its own delays are now causing it to rush into a $31-million project so quickly, it doesn't even have the time to give Grey Mountain the courtesy of telling the society where in its proposal it went wrong, added Cardiff.

The government should, at the very least, explain to the group why its proposal wasn't accepted, he said.

The government announced May 17 that two permanent buildings for the estimated 1,800 athletes will be erected near Yukon College.

The modular units will likely be built Outside and hauled to Whitehorse, the government indicated.