The Procurement Office

On March 3, 2022, Ontario’s Bill 84, entitled An Act to enact two Acts and amend various other Acts, received royal assent after being rushed through the provincial legislature in just ten days. Bill 84 creates the new Building Ontario Business Initiative Act, a one-page statute referred to by the government as “BOBI”, which will require Ontario public institutions to apply preferential treatment, as mandated by future provincial cabinet regulations, to Ontario companies in future public sector contract awards. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g32itJpT This and other topics are covered in our Canadian Law 2.0 Certificate program running again in April 2025. https://lnkd.in/eXADTmCf

As the decisions in this article illustrate, purchasing institutions should ensure that they clearly define the evaluation rules they will apply to the evaluation of non-price criteria and should ensure that they follow those rules during their evaluations since a lack of precision can undermine the defensibility of contract award decisions. https://lnkd.in/ggXvpBAH This and other topics covered in our Governance and Project Execution Certificate program running again in June 2025. https://lnkd.in/gJ4C42JV

As the case in this article illustrates, purchasing institutions, including their external advisors, should be careful to draft contract performance requirements that capture the full scope of anticipated work since out-of-scope work increases the risk of downstream performance delays and payment disputes. https://lnkd.in/gF-GsnMG This and other topics covered in our Precision Drafting Certificate program running again in May 2025. https://lnkd.in/gWYwK6H2

As the case in this article illustrates, scoping a contract to include multiple price categories with unknown future quantities creates significant evaluation challenges. While bid price calculations can be based on a representative sampling of anticipated future needs, the data used to create that representative sampling needs to be reliable to enable an accurate assessment of competing bid costs. When historical volume data serves to anchor a representative sampling, the scope of a contract should be limited to those categories that are supported by that data. https://lnkd.in/gt5mfq7n This and other topics are covered at our May 2025 Strategic Procurement Retreat: https://lnkd.in/gi6VQPqD

As the long line of cases in this article illustrates, purchasing institutions need to double down on their due diligence when it comes to the proper use of reference information since the failure to meet proper legal standards can undermine the defensibility of their evaluation and award decisions. https://lnkd.in/gsvkRRrp This and other topics are covered in our Strategic Procurement Retreat running again in May 2025: https://lnkd.in/gi6VQPqD

As this case illustrates, the misuse of public funds, even in relatively small amounts, can result in criminal sanctions against public officials. https://lnkd.in/ghrTBRGW This and other topics covered in our Canadian Law 2.0 Certificate program running again in April 2025: https://lnkd.in/gNdsHCQX

The use of references in public sector bid evaluations has been subject to multiple bid protests. This article summarizes leading Canadian cases and offers governing principles for evaluating references based on domestic and global rulings. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gcnumFpC This and other topics are covered in our Canadian Law Certificate program running again in April 2025: https://lnkd.in/eXADTmCf

As the case in this illustrates, the failure to properly screen for potential conflicts can undermine the legitimacy of a contract award decision. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eQGAin4r This topic covered in our Conflicts and Collusion Passport Program: https://lnkd.in/eH5Y5xv7

It is a broadly established rule under the trade treaties that public institutions should avoid imposing unnecessarily restrictive requirements in their solicitations that could undermine open competition. Public institutions should be prepared to defend the standards they impose in a solicitation process by showing that they are legitimate operational requirements that do not impose unnecessary burdens on bidders or create unnecessary advantages for some bidders. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gEqnEH9A This and other topics are covered in our Canadian Law Certificate program running next in April 2025: https://lnkd.in/eXADTmCf

As the examples in this article illustrate, treaty compliance continues to be a widespread problem across the Canadian public sector. Public institutions need to work towards updating their procurement practices or risk becoming the next non-compliance case study. https://lnkd.in/g-jE-ZCG This and other topics covered in our Canadian Law 2.0 Certificate program running again in April 2025. https://lnkd.in/eXADTmCf