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CANADA

September 21,2011
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DISPUTE RESOLUTION BOARD

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AND TO THE ATTENTION OF:

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SNC-LavaJin Construction Inc.

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99 Lincoln Road P.O. Box 1462, Station "A"

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Fredericton, E3B502 NB
Re: Contractor Notices of Referral to Dispute Resolution Board dated August 24, 2011

DearSirs:

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I confessmy considerabledisappointmentat SNC Lavalin's letter of September 20,2011 to the Dispute Resolution Board and the Province regarding my letter of September13, 2011.

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My letter includeda request SNCLavalin"please that confinnyour agreement the with Province'snewposition",this beingthatthe Provincewaswilling to havetheir referrals brought beforethe DisputeResolution Board(DRB) on the condition they wouldnot behearduntil that afterthe bridgehadachieved Traffic Availability; accordingly, Province Full the wouldnot be submittingits response until afterthe 1O-business-day timeline.No suchconfinnation is

apparent SNCLavalin's in letter, I wouldaskthatSNC and Lavalin provide nolater it thanthe

closeof business tomorrowifit is still their desireto proceed with these referrals.
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'. . . dateJor,;tnelillRB .;~,',Wi1'"i,i~~;]\~f~':~! "'."",, SNC Lavalm's letterfalsely claImsthattheyrespected submIssIon the

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Transportation/Transports

P.O, Box/CP. 6000 FrederictonNew Brunswick/llouveau-Brunswick5Hl Canada 88

www.gnb.ca

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Dispute Resolution Board Page2 September 21,2011 In fact, SNC Lavalin made their submissionto the DRB regarding eachof the threeNonConformanceNotices (NCNs) under discussion(DBNCN 0173,-0177, and-0179) on August 24, 2011, which was one day after the expiry of the 1O-business-day period specifiedby Section 25.4(c) of the Project Agreement, SNC Lavalin's failure to meet this deadline extinguishedtheir right to have thesereferralsheard by the DRB, andit is only through the courtesyof the Provincethat theseitems will be heardat all- and then only upon SNC Lavalin's agreement the position noted above, In light of this to and assortedother missed deadlinesby SNC Lavalin it is ironic, indeed regrettable,that they "prevail on the Province to make every effort to respectsubmissiontimelines", I am further disappointedthat SNC Lavalin have characterized NCNs that they have incurred the as being "unnecessary and unfair, or relat[ing] to matterswhere less onerousor punitive alternates were available". Each and every NCN that hasbeenraised by the Provincehas been in

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response afailure thepartof SN Lavalin actin accordance theterms the to on C to with of

Project Agreement. It has been,at all times, within SNC Lavalin's control to completethe work in accordance with theseterms and SNC Lavalin have repeatedlyfailed to do so. The Province has,always acting in accordancewith the Proje~tAgreement,assess.ed NCNs that ,were ,,-

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warranted. Indeed, there have been many occasions where PrOVInce exercIsed the has
forbearancein not issuing an NCN that would have beenwell within its right to issue. The Departmentof Transportation has a tremendousobligation towards the public to provide thISpurposem a responsIblefashion. Turnmg a blInd eyeto non-confonnmg work would constitutea gravebreach of the public trust in this regard andthe Departmentis unwilling to
sa~e and hi~-quality tr~sportati?n infras~cture ~d to manage the publi~ funds allocated to

contemplate commission such breach. the of a

Sincerely,

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Krista MacDonald, P. Eng. Project Manager

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