An open-ended $45 million contract between the provincial government and the Tervita Corporation is under the microscope following the Canadian Taxpayer Federation’s (CTF) investigation into the organization’s political donations.

“This leaked contract was very strange to us because it’s an open-ended contract,” said Derek Fildebrandt, Alberta director of the CTF. “It’s not a contract for specific items to work on. It’s not a contract to do ‘A, B & C’, it’s a contract that says ‘send us bills up to $45 million and we’ll pay you’.”

“It’s also very concerning because the government claimed that they had to sole source things without a competition because it was an emergency. This was signed after the flood and expired in January. Other documents we obtained separately through Freedom of Information requests show that a lot of the work was actually done in late October and late November. That’s not emergency stuff. This is demolition done long after the fact.”

The CTF has obtained documents indicating Tervita Corporation $36,486 per house for the demolition of nine High River homes between October 28 and November 29, 2013, more than four months after the Highwood River receded.

“There’s no reason that medium and long term work should not go through a tendering process so that it’s competitive. So that we’re getting the best person for the job and we’re getting the best value for money. We have no confidence that this was the case here because this was signed in a panic mode.”

“They should have, at the very least, understood that the optics are not above board here,” said Fildebrandt in an interview with CTV Calgary. “Tervita Corporation has donated $36,000 since 2012. A lot of that after the flood and a lot of it going directly to former premier Alison Redford, who oversaw the flood, and to her minister for flood recovery in southwest Alberta, Kyle Fawcett, a guy who dealt with Tervita on nearly a daily basis for some period.”

“$36,000 sure looks like a lot of gratitude.”

The CTF wants Premier Hancock to immediately order the PC party to refund the $36,000 in donations they’ve received from the Tervita Corporation and to ask the Auditor General to investigate Tervita’s billings.