Executive Oversight and Program Assurance Services

The Vendor is required to provide full lifecycle project management, owner’s representation, and commercial assurance services.
- Project governance, owner representation and decision support
•    Act as the agency owner’s representative with authority to coordinate, review, and recommend decisions without displacing agency statutory or contractual authorities. 
•    Establish and maintain a governance framework, including (at minimum) an executive steering committee cadence, technical working groups, and a project controls working group. 
•    Create and maintain a map covering agency, marine contractor(s), survey contractor(s), terrestrial contractor(s), equipment suppliers, and regulators. 
•    Develop stage-gate review processes, decision logs, action registers, and issue escalation pathways. 
•    Provide decision-ready briefings to agency executives, including options analyses, cost/schedule/risk implications, and recommended decisions.3.2 executive oversight of complex programs (capital program leadership) 
•    Provide senior-level leadership for complex, multi-year capital program development and execution.
•    Integrate schedule, cost, risk, regulatory, and commercial considerations into executive-level decision support.
•    Establish “single-source of truth” project controls (baseline schedule, baseline budget, change log, risk register, and monthly forecast). 
•    Provide independent advice where material risks to scope, schedule, budget, funding compliance, or sustainability arise.
- Telecommunications, industry expertise and technical assurance
•    Provide specialized subsea fibre optic expertise to validate technical decisions and contractor submissions. 
•    Confirm technical decisions align with commercialization and long-term operations 
•    Support agency in understanding market norms for subsea cable manufacture, marine installation, and warranty and repair provisions.3.4 route engineering and marine survey oversight 
•    Review and validate desktop route studies, geophysical and geotechnical survey programs, and seabed hazard assessments (including ice scour, bedrock exposure, and sediment mobility). 
•    Oversee route selection, optimization, and approval processes, including development of route risk assessments and burial feasibility. 
•    Validate cable design and specifications, including armoring, protection class, redundancy approach, and burial depth requirements appropriate to arctic conditions. 
•    Ensure survey and route documentation is complete, auditable, and suitable for regulators and funders.3.5 marine installation oversight (construction management) 
•    Review and recommend approval of marine installation methodologies, including cable lay engineering, vessel selection, weather window analysis, and burial techniques (ploughing, jetting, and trenching). 
•    Implement a marine readiness and mobilization checklist prior to mobilization and verify critical prerequisites. 
•    Monitor offshore activities during mobilization, installation, burial, and demobilization (including daily operational oversight during critical windows). 
•    Validate compliance with technical tolerances, quality standards, and contractual requirements.
•    Monitor vessel utilization, day rates, standby costs, and schedule performance; provide timely escalation where performance deviates.3.6 shore-end and terrestrial integration (interface management)
•    Oversee shore-end landing works, including hdd, beach manholes, shore-end protection, and associated civil works. 
•    Implement an interface management plan and interface register, including handoff criteria between marine, civil, and terrestrial teams. 
•    Coordinate interfaces between marine contractors and terrestrial fibre contractors. 
•    Ensure successful integration with terrestrial backhaul systems in coral harbour and iqaluit, including commissioning sequencing and cutover planning.3.7 arctic risk, logistics and emergency preparedness 
•    Develop and maintain a comprehensive risk management framework and risk register.
•    Develop contingency strategies for weather delays, vessel downtime, and supply chain disruptions. 
•    Establish a critical incident and emergency response coordination approach for marine operations (in coordination with the marine contractor’s plans), including communications and escalation.3.8 environmental, regulatory and intergovernmental liaison 
•    Coordinate compliance with all applicable federal and territorial regulatory regimes.
•    Oversee environmental monitoring and mitigation during marine and shore-end works. 
•    Maintain a regulatory requirements register and a permitting and approval schedule integrated with the master schedule.
- Commercialization and commercial assurance oversight
•    Provide senior-level, independent commercialization leadership and assurance throughout planning, delivery, and transition to operations.  
•    Act as the single point of coordination for commercialization requirements across infrastructure design, delivery sequencing, governance, and operational readiness. 
•    Validate service concepts, demand assumptions, pricing logic, and revenue sustainability for a carrier-neutral, wholesale fibre system. 
•    Test infrastructure sizing, phasing, redundancy, and resiliency against realistic market demand and lifecycle affordability. 
•    Ensure commercialization objectives remain aligned with funding agreements and contribution conditions. 
•    Provide independent, written advice to agency executives where commercialization or funding risks arise. 
•    Support transition planning to commercial operations and confirm service readiness criteria at handover.