Question Period Note: SOLE-SOURCE CONTRACTS AWARDED BY MINISTERS OR THEIR OFFICES

ESDC received a Parliamentary Question on April 30th, 2024 that reads: With regard to sole-sourced contracts entered into by the government related to products or services for ministers or their offices, including the Office of the Prime Minister, since January 1, 2019, broken down by each minister: what are the details of each such contract, including, for each, the (i) date, (ii) vendor, (iii) amount, (iv) description of goods or services?

Since 2019, ESDC’s minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages (EWDOL) has awarded 14 sole-source contracts for the minister or their office.

ESDC followed procurement regulations in the award of all sole-source contracts for the minister.

All 14 contracts met the bid solicitation exception for low dollar value, falling below $25K for goods and $40K for services. The Government Contracts Regulations states that a contracting authority may enter a contract without soliciting bids where the estimated value falls below these thresholds.

Per the requirements outlined in the Guidelines on the Proactive Publication of Contracts, ESDC proactively discloses all contracts when their value or that of their amendments is over $10,000; six of the contracts reported in ESDC’s response for the minister of EWDOL met these criteria and have been proactively published on the Open Government website, abiding by ESDC’s commitment to fair, transparent, and open contracting activities.

IF PRESSED (Contract Details):

For the sole-source contracts related to Ministers Offices which were proactively disclosed:

One contract was awarded to Children First Canada on February 16, 2023. 

The contract’s objective was to communicate with children about schools’ food programming and open a dialogue with students on how the program and policies affect them.

The contract supported the delivery of three consultation sessions for a total value of $27,150.

Two contracts were awarded to the Public Policy Forum, on
March 9th, 2021 and March 4th, 2022.

The objective of these contracts was to plan, manage, facilitate, and produce a summary of the discussion of a stakeholder roundtable on the core elements of Early learning and Child Care, in support of a vision to create a Canada-wide system of high-quality, affordable, and inclusive early learning and childcare legislation.

The two contracts, one for the facilitation of the roundtable and one for the summary, were awarded for $24,144.75 and $22,995.00, respectively.

Two contracts were awarded to Zoom Video Communications Inc., on October 15th, 2021, and January 4th, 2023.

These Net New Zoom Subscription Licenses for Employment and Social Development Canada procured Adaptive Computing Technology services, in order meet accessibility requirements in meetings for senior executive clients, for a value of $16,064.88 and $13,972.50 respectively.

One contract was awarded to Concentric Consulting Inc. on October 26th, 2020.

The objective of the contract was to provide the Minister and her office complementary expert and consultative services as they relate to the Minister’s responsibilities around disability inclusion, for the value of $10,886.66.

• EDSC n'a pas dépassé le seuil de l'exception à la concurrence pour les marchés de faible valeur, par conséquent les marchés ont été attribués à un fournisseur unique sur la base de l'exception 2 du règlement sur les marchés d'État.

• Étant donné que les 14 contrats ont été attribués à un fournisseur unique pour des raisons de faible valeur, il n'a pas été nécessaire de répondre aux sept questions du Conseil du Trésor concernant les contrats à fournisseur unique.

• Aucun des contrats n'a été présenté au comité de la revue d'approvisionnements - ils n'étaient pas considérés comme présentant un risque élevé.

• L'un des marchés, attribué à Children First Canada, comportait des exigences en matière de sécurité - toutes les autorisations nécessaires ont été obtenues et les noms des formateurs ont été indiqués sur la liste de contrôle des exigences en matière de sécurité.

Since 2019, ESDC has awarded 14 sole-sourced contracts under the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages (EWDOL) that fall within the scope of this question.

All 14 of the contracts are expired.

Six of the contracts were proactively disclosed per the Guidelines on the Proactive Publication of Contracts, they are identified as Minister contracts on the Open Government website.

Five of the contracts were for computer-related goods or services, as such they were awarded by Shared Services Canada on ESDC’s behalf.