Question Period Note: Integrity in federal procurement

In a constantly evolving marketplace, questions may arise as to the measures that Public Services and Procurement Canada has in place to protect the integrity of the federal procurement system and better understand who Canada conducts business with.

• To help ensure the Government of Canada does business with ethical suppliers, a government-wide Integrity Regime is in place. This Regime holds suppliers accountable for their misconduct, and also encourages them to cooperate with law enforcement and take corrective action
  • Public Services and Procurement Canada applies the Integrity Regime to all procurements in a manner consistent with the Ineligibility and Suspension Policy and no contracts have been awarded to a supplier that is ineligible or suspended under the Regime

The Government of Canada has a framework of laws, regulations and policies in place to protect the integrity of the federal procurement system. Public Services and Procurement Canada administers several programs under this framework, including the government-wide Integrity Regime, the Federal Contracting Fraud Tip Line, and increased oversight for the detection of bid-rigging.

The Integrity Regime is designed to help ensure that the Government does business with ethical suppliers and incentivizes suppliers to ensure strong ethics and compliance frameworks. Under the Regime, a supplier may be suspended or declared ineligible to do business with the Government if, in the previous 3 years, it, members of its board of directors or its affiliates, have been charged with or convicted of one of the offences listed in the Ineligibility and Suspension Policy in Canada or a similar offence abroad.

Under the current Regime, 5 companies are ineligible to do business with the Government of Canada due to convictions for a listed offence (Les Entreprises Chatel Inc., R.M. Belanger Limited, Les Industries Garanties Limitée, Sports Max and Canada Bread Company Limited (also doing business as Bimbo Canada). In addition, one supplier (Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.) has been suspended due to a charge related to a listed offence.

Currently there are three active administrative agreements with suppliers, two agreements are in lieu of suspension following the resolution of criminal charges in Quebec by way of Remediation Agreements (SNC-Lavalin and Ultra Electronics Forensic Technology Inc.); the other administrative agreement is with a supplier who had their period of ineligibility reduced to 5 years (Hickey Construction Ltd).

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