On the third day of the Nova Scotia election campaign, the agency that runs the election is making news. CTV News has learned Elections Nova Scotia has hired an Ontario company to print hundreds of thousands of voter information cards.
The contract for the voter cards was awarded without tender to a company called Gilmore Doculink, based in Kanata, Ontario.
For the last several election cycles, Gordon Russell and his 26 employees at Russell Marketing in Lower Sackville, were subcontracted to print and mail voter information cards for Elections Nova Scotia.
“I knew we probably wouldn't be doing it because I hadn't heard anything,” says Russell Marketing president Gordon Russell. “I just decided to ask where it was being done because there are lots of people in Nova Scotia that can do this work.”
The company that was awarded the contract in 2013 was based in Halifax, but it has since been bought out; Russell says he is among several local companies that could take over the work, but that didn’t happen.
“Sure you can get it done cheaper in Ontario, but you can get it done right here, and create jobs.”
Voter information cards cannot be printed ahead of the election call, but they must be ready quickly.
“We didn't have the amount of time available to prepare all of the documentation to go forward with a tendering process,” says Andy LeBlanc with Elections NS. “We had to find someone who has all kinds of experience in that.”
This year, Elections Nova Scotia is distributing more materials along with voter information cards than it has in the past. The contract for this year isn't finalized, but in 2013 it was worth just shy of $95,000.
Nova Scotians can expect to see a voter information card in their mailbox by mid-May.
The ballots to be filled out on election day will be printed in Nova Scotia.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Sarah Ritchie
