Seems she managed to find a contract announcement on 1 August 2007 by Exor, a multi-national software company, to deliver a new database management systems for the Newfoundland and Labrador works and services department to help John Hickey's crew share information on roads and road maintenance.
The release is full of techno-babble sure to cause a bad case of MEGO [My Eyes Glaze Over], but essentially the project will involve this:
The RNMS [road network management system] will eventually be used to evaluate and prioritise work on the network, manage road condition and evaluate the lifecycle of assets. The initial phase of the implementation will establish a maintenance environment for the Newfoundland and Labrador Road Network (NLRN) and associated departmental road physical features inventory.There's no mention of the announcement or the project on the provincial government website.
That counts as a major communications Hickey-up.
Interestingly enough, the system purchase appears to come from a joint federal-provincial funding announcement in 2005 by then federal natural resources minister John Efford and provincial roads czar Tom Osborne.
But was this project ever put to tender?
-srbp-