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How to eSign a document: e-signature lawfulness for Procurement in Canada

morning everybody my name is Marie boo I'm the executive director of the EU Chamber of Commerce here in Canada we are very happy to welcome you to this webinar which is the first one of the series we will dedicate to access to markets the focus today will be on government procurements and we organize this webinar and cooperation with procurement assistance Canada and regarding maybe a few words on the webinar I will have uh first so the opening made by our EU cans president Adrian Thomas then we'll have a presentation made by procurement assistance Canada and then we'll have a q a session for the Q a session in CUNY period I would ask to all the attendees to put that question in the Q a box we've got on the bottom of the screen there and I will get the and we have the pleasure then to um lead the moderation and to add the questions to the people and the the person of procurement assistance Canada uh thank you again to all of you and I give now the floor to Adrian well thank you Marie and uh welcome once again to our audience uh this is our access to Market webinar series that will uh hopefully support you in Canadian businesses with important useful Hands-On information on how to do business um in Canada and into and with the European Union under uh Ceta which is the comprehensive economic Trade Agreement uh the topic for this webinar is as Marie mentioned doing business with the Canadian government um so this is very much related to Federal procurements um why is this important the federal government or the government of Canada procures large amounts of goods and services um and um what we can see is that the expenditure in the Canadian government is somewhere between 12 to 15 percent of GDP which fluctuates from year to year but that's a significant uh amount of business um for those of you attending I think from from Europe uh what's uh interesting for for you is that government procurements are covered by the seat of Trade Agreement specifically chapter 19 which gives reciprocal access to uh government uh procurement for goods and for services and to make sure that those processes are open and transparent so um I think however uh we still need to understand how to do business uh with the federal contracts and and so this is some of what we're working here and I think this is also important for our small medium Enterprises so there are some new tools such as the Canada buys platform and some of this will be presented by our our guests today uh from the procurement assistance Canada so uh this should be a very informative webinar for all of you and without further Ado I would like to introduce our guest speaker um and uh just basically introduce procurement assistance Canada which is a public services and procurement Canada which has been working to reduce the barriers to simplify requirements for businesses that want to do business with the government our guest speaker today is going to be Manny who is the chief of the SME stakeholder engagement at procurement assistant Canada public services and procurement Canada um Manny has been working for public services and procurement Canada in the Ontario region since 1991 and I would say no it's pretty much everything you could possibly know about government accounting procurement so with that I will pass it over to Manny and Manny thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today well thank you very much for that warm introduction Adrian and Thomas and Marie thank you very much for hosting us here today and welcome everybody to this session my name is Menelaus Manny for short dropoulos and I am the chief of SME stakeholder engagement with procurement assistance Canada I do have with me today as well some colleagues of mine that will be helping out throughout the day posting some links in the chat and also Fielding some questions regarding procurement so Vincent vilaka our policy advisor or our policy analyst as well as Ronnie K Hill who is our procurement specialist is with me today so when we first approached uh ucan or they approached us about this session we we started to think about opportunities uh that we can provide awareness to businesses on how to navigate the federal procurement system and essentially that's what we're here to do today is to help guide you and that's what the role of procurement assistance Canada is I'm going to go into it very shortly as to what our mandate is but I want to be clear before we start that we are not actual procurement people we're not the ones that are running the procurements for the government of Canada we're experts in understanding the process uh how to navigate that process how to get involved and to provide that assistance to businesses any businesses for that matter but specifically small and medium Enterprises as they go through that journey through Federal procurement and we're also not the um uh department or experts on the Ceta agreement our colleagues at Global Affairs Canada are the ones that develop and Implement and control the uh Trade Agreement uh language that goes into it simply put procurement assistance Canada through public services and procurement Canada integrates the terms into our federal procurements to allow that reciprocal trade to happen in both regions so without further Ado I'm just gonna launch into my presentation here today which will take about 30 to 35 minutes well I encourage you to you know pose your questions in the Q a as Marie said this is going to be a high level General overview of the fundamentals of doing business with the government of Canada and what the role of procurement assistance Canada our office is all about um and and then we could take some questions uh from you that might uh that might need some answering if we can't answer them here today we'll take them back of course and and seek to uh find uh some answers for you so from the perspective of procurement assistance Canada we were created in 2005 uh nationally uh out of a need to make Federal procurement more open Fair transparent and accessible to all businesses but in particular through massive consultations the previous years with small and medium Enterprises and by definition we use the former industry Canada and now Innovation science Economic Development Canada's definition for small and medium Enterprises and that relates to the business size and how many employees they have doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the value the revenue they earn or any other aspects it's just employees so if you're a business that's less than 99 employees you're considered small if you're less than 4.99 you're considered medium if you're 500 and above you're considered large but again our office doesn't discriminate against anyone essentially we help any business that wants to learn how to do business with the government of Canada so we do that through engagement assistance and providing information through awareness sessions like these here today to you uh members or Affiliates of the you can organization but we we're all across our region here in Ontario region we're regionally based but all across Canada as well trying to help support and provide awareness to smes and particular to get involved because a lot of them don't even know that there is a Marketplace here for them it is quite a large Marketplace as uh uh um sorry I forgot the name uh Adrian mentioned earlier uh but uh you know there's a large contingents uh see where there's a lot of market for smes in particular and they're not even aware of it so that's what we're here to do and talk to you about we have a second mandate as well which is to reduce barriers for small and medium Enterprises and we're the voice for them we will kind of advocate on their behalf if they have issues or challenges that are not working out and they're consistently being closed to these opportunities then they have to come through our office otherwise if they don't uh we think the system's working fine and of course through feedback this is where we identify these barriers we have a barrier analysis reduction unit in Ottawa that looks to reduce these barriers and work with Federal procurement officials to change policies make impacts and improve the system for access to all Canadians and all businesses uh throughout the world now we're also looking for opportunities to advance Supplier Diversity and over the last half decade or even longer Canada has made a push to make the federal procurement system more accessible to diverse underrepresented businesses and by this we mean specific groups that are challenged in entering entering into our Market space these include underrepresented groups like indigenous businesses for example women businesses black or racialized businesses lgbtq2s plus businesses persons with disability francophone minority official language groups even social Enterprises businesses that are in the green and clean tech space and youth so those are the key areas that we're focused on but all in all we help every uh business out uh to help them navigate through the system and it is a process right and a lot of businesses when they come to consider Federal procurement really don't have the public sector perspective they're used to like private sector business opportunities where you meet and greet and you get a contract here in order to have a system that's fair and open and transparent and accessible and equal for everybody we need to compete it and there's a lot of competition in federal procurement and in all levels of government as well and you'll hear in a few minutes uh we're restricted by laws and regulations that govern how this is done then this is why sometimes it gets to be a little bit complex on the public sector side so this is where our office comes in and guides you so normally we do these sessions they last about two hours long they're very involved uh walk you through a lot of uh explanation but essentially the objectives even here for today are clear it's trying to help you understand what this procurement process is all about who are the players what departments buy how we buy why we buy what we buy so it's all about understanding the demand from the federal side as well as how you as a supplier can then get involved if you know that it's a Marketplace for you and you can use various tools that are available to you that we've created and we've uh put into play to allow you to determine if it's a Marketplace for you then if you do determine it's a Marketplace then how do you get started how do you register how do you look to connect and build networks or find individuals or end users um uh that are making the requests for federal procurement to Market yourself to them obviously that plays a pivotal part in how you move forward as well and then finally if you're looking to compete heat where are you going to find these opportunities you know where's the source where's the government electronic tendering service we're going to go over some of that and then our Pac services for support and for in your federal procurement Journey again I encourage you if you have questions to please post them in the Q a now opportunities for smaller and diverse businesses do exist within the government of Canada's Federal procurement system a lot of businesses are not aware of this Canada as Adrian mentioned is one of the largest buyers in all of uh Canada We Buy in the neighborhood of actually about 20 to 25 billion dollars annually we buy a wide range of goods services and construction uh well over fifteen thousand different types of products that we buy and these and in turn uh are spends in the billions and billions of dollars in many instances but there's also low dollar or smaller value purchases common every day things that the government buys to keep its operations going and these are contracts that could be valued less than a million or even less than a hundred thousand dollars so here's just some quick stats from 2017 to 2020 that indicates 75 percent of the contracts valued are less than one million dollars that we issue contracts on so understanding who the players are is important so as the government of Canada the main procurement arm of the federal government is public services and procurement Canada uh we're common service provider to all of government by that what we mean is we do some of the work that is needed by these departments so that they can focus on doing their job and serving Canadians and international uh groups as well for the most part we provide common services like paying pension uh we are the translators for the government of Canada we are also the real estate portfolio Management Group for the government of Canada so all government assets management of the facilities and office lease space is uh handled by the uh public services and procurement Canada but equally as important is the role we play in federal procurement as we are the main purchasers of good services and construction for the government our Minister has the highest delegated authority to purchase for the government of Canada other departments there's about 100 or 110 of them they also can purchase good services and construction for their offices and in a couple of minutes I'm going to tell you what their delegated authorities are but if they exceed those Authority is they then have to come to Public Service procurement Canada so again I reiterate it's important to understand that everything that we do must be conduct conducted in an open fair and transparent Manner and allows all suppliers equal opportunity to bid for contracts uh the most important piece that you should leave here today is that third bullet we are governed by federal laws regulations treasury board guidelines and government of Canada procurement policies uh in in the way that we do procurement but equally so we're governed by trade agreements that Canada has implemented and put into place to allow reciprocal trade to happen between our nation and other nations around the world and we'll get to some of that in a couple of minutes as well but that's how Government Contracting happens pspc's domain buyer other departments buy and in retrospect while Public Service procurement Canada is the main buyer we only do about 15 to 17 000 contracts annually and these are the bigger contracts of course as a higher delegated authority in the millions and billions of dollars on behalf of other departments those other 100 or 110 other departments Buy in the neighborhood of about or do about uh three to four hundred thousand contracts annually so a lot of opportunity to align yourself with the right departments with their requirements to see how you can become a supplier to them now we did talk about trade agreements impacting How We Do procurement uh and how we can uh put terms and conditions into procurements we're governed by those so I'm just showing you a couple of examples Ceta the most applicable one here for companies that may be outside of Canada you would need to consider the trade agreement implications so in excess of 238 400 for services and for goods those International companies could look to compete for those opportunities that are posted on our government electronic tendering service and if it's construction it would be in excess of 9.1 million dollars uh in retrospect other trade agreements and we have many many more the Canadian Free Trade Agreement impact is anything above 30 300 for Canadian companies that are part of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement uh through their provinces we must post openly for competition if it exceeds thirty thousand three hundred so if we had an 85 000 contract European or International companies that are outside of the jurisdiction here would not be able to compete for that because it doesn't exceed the goods threshold it would need to be over 238 for for those companies to bid on it on the open tender service and likewise for services and construction I just want to set that context up because there's one way to do business with Canada if you're a subsidiary or you have a company here in Canada and if you're simply from abroad then you have to take those considerations into effect uh as they're impacted by the trade agreements and whatever the trade agreement thresholds are that's how you can determine if you can compete for those opportunities or not moving forward these are the delegated authorities of some of the other groups or departments within the government of Canada they have the authority to buy up to 25 000 for goods up to 2 million for services and four hundred thousand for construction in most instances some may have a little more but most likely it'll be around uh these thresholds if they exceed these amounts then they have to come to public services and procurement Canada and we as the common service provider for procurement will act on their behalf and their interest to determine the best course of action to then procure those good services or construction they want now we may use already established methods of Supply or work with them to create a new one like a request for proposal or some other qualification that they may require but that's how the process works so at this point that's the contextual overview of who or how we do business and who buys why we buy and where the marketplace is obviously it's driven by demand and we buy in a lot of areas that our operations uh needed so if you want to really find out what departments are looking to buy or maybe where they're going or where they have budget I encourage you to look at all of the government of Canada's departments with their plans and priorities and as they issue them on an annual basis that indicate you know we have X amount of budget this year we're looking to do this that and the other thing over the next few years and on the procurement side we may be taking these steps so look at the plans and priorities to get direction as to whether or not there's potential Marketplace for you now how do you begin your journey if you're really looking to get involved with the government of Canada and and uh procurement we suggest you start as a registering in a supplier uh database that we have and there's two of them currently previously our government electronic tendering service was known as buy and sell.gc.ca and there's a registration system in there called the supplier registration information database SRI where you go in you register if you have a Canada Revenue Agency business number so you're in Canada you have that CRA number you put that information in plus your general business information and from there you submit it we check against crh database in a matter of minutes you get back a procurement business number mimicking your nine digit number not to make it complicated and instead of rt001 for your uh company you would get a pg001 so then you're in the system and then creating your profile as to what types of Commodities Goods services or construction based on a unique classification coding system the government used to use called goods and services identification numbers recently because of our obligations to certain trade agreements including Ceta but also for purposes of modernizing federal procurement we have moved to an electronic procurement solution called Canada buys.canada.ca it's based on sapariba platform and it's open for business now so we're transitioning from buy and sell over to Canada buys and we're requesting that businesses look to register free of charge to get an account on sapariba for Canadian contracts if you already have an account you don't have to recreate your account you just need to select Canada Buys so the government of Canada's purchases by filling out a form to indicate to us your interests in doing business with the government of Canada and then once you have that compliance form filled out then you can proceed with uh accessing and downloading our documents through your account that you may have if you're a new account uh um you need a new account then we could walk you through it or our colleagues over over at EPS electronic procurement solution with Canada buys can help you on that as well over the next little while you're going to be seeing some info sessions and awareness sessions that we are going to be providing as well through procurement assistance Canada to help guide you in the fundamentals of registration so keep an eye on that but I did want to let you know that we are transitioning to this new electronic procurement solution level uh for uh procurements moving forward now this is the explanation of the SRI you'll get a copy of this deck and you can use it as a guide for sure uh afterwards there's some useful links in here but as I mentioned is the SRI which is managed and maintained by public services procurement Canada our department mostly other departments can use it as well for low dollar opportunities to seek out suppliers that have indicated I can provide this Json or commodity code or that decent or commodity code and then Source out three of you to get pricing for example for low dollar if you're not in there they may not be able to Source you if they can't find somebody in their area they may use other sources to Source out suppliers maybe a Google search maybe other databases etc etc one thing I neglected to say as well here is that with Canada buys um registration is also free it's not it's not something that you need to pay for uh you may go need to go back afterwards to put in some Account Details if you're going to be submitting and if you're close to a contract award so um the other thing to note for Canada buys is that we are migrating in order to fulfill some of these uh Trade Agreement obligations to the United Nations standards products and services codes as opposed to our previous goods and services identification number uh coding for all of our goods and services that we buy so unspsc codes versus gsync codes I know there's a lot of other jurisdictions using different uh categories of coding for their purchases like nakes Codes North American classification coding but Canada has adopted the unspsc structure so moving forward I we have this slide in here just more for awareness because a lot of businesses don't realize that the government of Canada currently only has one real uh set-aside program and that is with our indigenous people here in Canada uh wherever Canada needs to do a federal procurement that's in a jurisdiction where there's 51 percent of the population of indigenous peoples we need to first and foremost look to award that contract as a competitive contract through an indigenous business and if you're not an indigenous business you won't be able to gain access to this and in order to help support on the capacity side maybe there's some indigenous businesses that want to take on the work but don't have that full capacity non-indigenous businesses can look to partner with them to present a joint venture ship or a partnership opportunity subcontracting opportunity to gain access to this with the introduction of Canada's new mandate to award a minimum of five percent of uh procurement spent to indigenous businesses this set aside is going to become a little bit more prevalent lint and should be looked at openly by a lot of businesses to look to collaborate and build Partnerships with indigenous businesses with sapariba and even in the past within uh with uh uh Canada with the buy and sell.gc.ca all of our procurements have an instrument inside of it a link that allow any business to self-identify itself to put their name forward uh for partnership opportunities maybe they can't fulfill the full uh um component they might want to work with others in a similar field to kind of come together as a group and then one will become a prime and then submit that uh proposal so take a look for those because that can help you in in creating those partnership opportunities for a Marketplace that was previously not accessible so keep that in mind and then you could also search and find indigenous businesses openly uh within the indigenous business directory is just clicking the link and going in and searching and seeing my commodity area or you know industry as to whether or not you may want to communicate or link up with businesses for opportunities that you see this set aside being implemented on the one thing you need to know about building relationships or networks within the government of Canada is that it's not like private sector so here you you you have to understand that a lot of government officials cannot have a direct one-on-one relationship with any business uh certainly there are individuals that are outward facing that can be approached to a certain degree for you to inform them about you know your competitive Advantage what you can provide whether you're qualified in a particular method of Supply that Canada has or you're looking for opportunities to price all of those things are possible but we recommend you come ready with a proper marketing strategy something like a one-pager but also understanding your pain points our pain points so that you can then maximize on that promotion so if you're qualified in two or three standing offers or Supply Arrangements that we have maybe perhaps you can identify those and say Hey you know by the way if you're looking in this area I'm qualified here here here or if you're doing low dollar opportunities I'm available for these types of Commodities or you know here's my brochure here's my pricing that will leave an impression and that could be the extent of the relationship they may reply back to you say thank you you know maybe we have a meeting I want to hear more about what your services are but maybe they don't maybe you've provided enough but do your due diligence and then let the process take shape certainly there's a lot of tools out there but the most common tool for you to use is the government of Canada's White Pages called gets the government electronic directory service which is um you know a registry of employees government employees that are outward facing so the other thing you need to do and develop in your marketing strategy is who to contact so you have you know you can't just look to find a EDM or a minister or Deputy Minister and send them details about what you do obviously that may hit home but they may probably most likely will percolate that down to the right business line or those front line people that may be looking for those requests so you can find those Frontline people uh previously I mentioned that you could search and find departments that have been historically buying information and there's contract history that I'm going to talk about but you can identify what your Marketplace is and if it's just two or three departments buying maybe you want to find like a regional manager in a business line or a unit that's purchasing what the what you're doing and focus your attention uh strategically on marketing to them now the gets uh White Pages doesn't really have outward facing Department of National Defense RCMP or csis individuals but they will have their General contact information and for DND the base commander or maybe even the general number for the base would be available to access and you can start if you want to promote to DND like that so just some things to think about and there's also pspc Regional Offices who understand their client needs uh but are not the ones that are actually doing the procurements but they can direct you as well and that's our people people uh within procurement Within pspc I mean I don't have a lot of time but I'm giving you this all in bulk and in high level you know please post your questions if you want some clarification but I'll just continue to let you know that you really also need to know who your clients are who the end users are but also know your strengths uh you know where you stand and how competitive you are ultimately what it may boil down to is how competitively you price and whether you can uh price better than others so these are some of the things that you need to consider and just like you know in most instances even in private sector they'll go out for multiple bids to get uh you know suppliers to provide pricing so in the government of Canada we do it at a minimum of three suppliers for low dollar simple procurements but it could be hundreds of people and businesses that are applying to uh win these contracts and in a lot of instances when we technically and uh you know financially review your proposals it's the most well written most well scored uh combination and pricing that will determine that award uh uh at the end of the day so it all depends on how you write your proposal um and that's how we keep it competitive and most of the time you know it could be as close as one or two or three points that's the difference so it is highly competitive and I want you to be aware of that and if you can't compete as a prime you need to determine that if you think you could do subcontractor work only how does that work you need to look and align yourself with the right primes when we do major major procurements the government of Canada usually hosts industry days where a lot of these large primes congregate to but also look to partner and bring on subcontractors and in some instances we may have terms and conditions within that larger procurement that indicates hey you know what if you bring on canadian-based subcontractors that you can get bonus points for that and that's the industrial technological benefit policy or other terms can be in there you might want to look to subcontractor to these primes so there's a lot of opportunities in that as well now where do you find these opportunities well for the longest time since 2010 uh the government of Canada has moved to an open source web platform to host our government electronic uh tenders it used to be buy and sell.gc.ca uh forward slash tenders and within the last couple of years for obvious obligation requirements and for modernizing procurement we have transitioned to a new electronic procurement solution which is Sapa rebar based and it's called canadabuys.canada.ca now the benefits of the registration it's free searching is plain language you land on Canada buys it's the authoritative Source right away you'll see the listing it's already filtered by awarded contracts and currently active contracts you can filter those out you can do keyword searches and narrow it down if you have your unspsc codes identified you can just go directly to unspc type searches bookmark those or send notifications to yourself to keep pure prize of any new offerings that might be coming down the pipe the other good important thing that's migrated from buy and sell over to Canada buys as well is our open government portal so the open government portal is actually on canada.ca the main government of Canada portal and it's a listing of all of the spend by all of the government departments of contracts that they've awarded on our on an annual basis to companies here and abroad that indicates to businesses potentially how larger Marketplace you're involved in so seeing how much that department may have been buying in your commodity who the current suppliers are maybe which methods of Supply are currently open for refresh to allow you to jump into it or how many are potentially coming down the road to be open so that you can bid on them and try to qualify as well so there's a lot of information that can be garnered from this open government portal and I encourage you to go search for it as well um yeah just you need to kind of figure things out and that's the Strategic business side of things we can guide you to the front door through our office but then you have to make those business decisions to take the steps that are required to move you forward um so researching can help you identify the Departments as I mentioned that are spending uh and other things uh associated with that uh who the client groups are and then who you could potentially promote yourself which I mentioned to you a few minutes ago now to reference it all together regardless of the direction that that that we take we always strive to achieve access competition and fairness in everything that we do so as the majority of the contracts are below 25 000 or goods for forty thousand The Government Can and still tries to do competitive Contracting uh but under those thresholds we could go non-competitive like sole source if it makes sense right if I have a need for something a widget to buy or maybe 10 of these widgets for my office I'm not going to waste a person's time to run a procurement seek out pricing evaluate that and award a contract that might take a week and a half two weeks of time costs maybe five to ten thousand dollars plus the cost of the good whereas I can go somewhere and buy 10 of these widgets on a purchasing card which the government of Canada has for uh two hundred dollars so it doesn't make sense where it makes sense we can do non-competitive and we still try to do competitive processing uh even for low dollar opportunities but for some of these levels and Below we do non-competitive as well but we strive to achieve competition essentially what we're trying to do is Achieve best value for Canadians it's taxpayers dollars that we're handling we have to be fiscally jurisprudent in the way we spend taxpayers dollars so it has to make sense and it has to be competed for in most instances so most of the time these are the common methods of Supply to Canada uses to procure Goods in excess of these thresholds and including thresholds that are above the trade agreements that some of you may be subject to the most common where we don't buy a lot of something often enough we use requests for proposals where we would put in certain terms and conditions in a proposal posted on Canada buys you review it you assess it all the terms or conditions are in that document as a guide all that are looking to respond to it have an equal review opportunity and from there you all respond back to achieve the best score and be the best competitive price to be awarded that contract so it comes down to Best Value so a combination of your technical may be scored and pricing But first you have to technically score to meet the conditions in order to then go to the pricing stage so there's variety of different opportunities or ways that we can set the selection method if you want to find out more about that our third seminar or our second seminar of the month uh every Wednesday we do these uh seminars online a webinar the first one's the fundamentals the second one's on bidding on opportunities how do we read a solicitation what sections are important how to visually see how a selection method is going to be implemented so that you can then determine how we do these things if we're buying a lot of something often enough and it's based on fixed price I have these widgets I want to sell it for uh ten dollars a widget fixed pricing can be determined we use a method of Supply called a standing offer and then if a fixed price cannot be determined and the pricing is fluctuating or volatile we use Supply arrangements and I'll go into each one of these very quickly so where we have a need uh for goods or services we may put the standing offer into place ask for uh proposals back through a tender that's posted on Canada buys you would respond and say I can meet all of your conditions based on what you're asking me and here's my pricing for all of the things that I'm submitting if you qualify then you get into the system as a qualified supplier under that standing offer so it's a not a contract award Canada is indicating that we are qualifying you for when and if we need you and depending on how you qualify within that method of Supply let's say it was a ranked standing offer we would go to the best qualified lowest price supplier first on the list and then all others would be ranked underneath them so if I had an order or a call up against a standing offer for two hundred thousand dollar order for these widgets I would go to the first on the list and if I use that example I did previously of the ten dollars I would go to that individual company first because they're number one on my list can you fill this 200 000 order by the end of December they may turn around and say Hey you know we're busy I can't do it so I will go to the next on the list the next on the list until I find somebody that can fill that order and then they would then uh uh provide the goods we would pay for that online obviously by direct deposit in that 30 days and now much sooner than that through electronic uh procurement uh so I hope that's clear that's the standing offer and then on Supply Arrangements we then pre-qualify you uh on technical Merit no pricing here uh just technically qualify so when we need these good services that we uh are requiring we would then uh invite uh a group uh of suppliers from a particular category depending on value of the contract that we're looking at so if it's up to 3.75 million dollars in some instances we would invite up to 15 businesses in a supply arrangement to do a uh um to do uh pricing at that time and then pricing would be the determining Factor if it's above 3.75 million if there's a hundred in the category all 100 would be awarded that particular opportunity to price and then we move forward so these are more common now as we're buying a lot of things so Supply arrangements are good for things like services like Professional Services like imit web designers web Architects um you know HR consultants and the like uh are using Supply Arrangements where if it's goods and widgets and prices are fixed on something we would use a standing offer type of method of Supply but rfps are the most common ones that we use here are some of the commonly established methods of Supply Pro services are for Professional Services there's 164 categories of Professional Services both I.T and non-it for low dollar opportunities less than a hundred thousand which is the trade agreement threshold with the Canada Korea Free Trade Agreement so anything above that needs to be posted openly and would be part of the task-based informatics or tasks and solutions Professional Services anything below the hundred thousand businesses can register Canadian businesses can register for pro services and then they would have access to the under 100 000 category range these all are discussed on the third Wednesday seminar on Professional Services I'm just going to tie it all together now and finish off to allow some time for questions we do have a new initiative that was introduced uh probably in 2012 2013 called the collaborative procurement initiative uh you can see the link below is canada.ca buying together the government of Canada has moved forward in working with our provinces territories and international jurisdictions to allow groups to utilize the established methods of Supply standing offers Supply arrangements soon to be added that the government of Canada has created to allow for synergies for these other levels of government so that they don't have to reproduce these in their jurisdictions and make it complicated for businesses as well to look to qualify in multiple you know qualification methods of Supply at different levels of government so all they need to do now is go in and qualify in the federal government's level the terms and conditions are at the highest level anyways so they can then access suppliers from that list so we're working collaboratively with the provinces territories uh municipality school boards hospitals here in Canada and in some instances uh with International bodies as well so there's a group in Ottawa under psbc that manages this and if we have further um you know events with your organization they would likely be integrated into this and uh will provide some advice on their program as well if you want more on this we could definitely set up uh communication or or respond back to you on it as well Ronnie you have a question or a comment okay thank you so so non-competitive approach as I said for under uh 25 000 for goods or 40 000 for services if it's a pressing emergency you know you know ice storms uh you know natural disasters am I going to spend time four weeks to do a process people's lives or at Stakes I'm gonna say company ABC here Canada is going to spend the money please go save these people's lives pressing emergency we can do sole source no no no of ends or buts uh low dollar value contract under a hundred thousand for architectural engineering services this is probably for project overruns I'm not going to hire a new company to finish a project that somebody needs 60 000 to finish off next year so I'm going to issue a sole source finish it off get it done um not in the Public's interest obviously National Security applies here in many of these so I have a heightened threat of uh terrorist attack at our airports but I have a deterrent a new product or solution that I can Implement that will help me Resolve that uh fairly thoroughly am I going to run a process to to let everyone know that this is the company and this is the product we've implemented not likely I'm going to go with the National Security not in the Public's interest and award a non-competitive contract for that and then there's only one supplier copyright would apply where you're the leading Authority I need you to do an analysis or report who am I going to go with you have the copyright you have the knowledge I would go with you but if there's some doubt we still try to achieve competition by posting what is known as an advanced contract award notice on the government electronic tendering service which is Canada buys now to allow anyone we say hey we're coming into a sole source with company a these are the terms and conditions that are met if you so deem that you have the same capabilities please write to us within 15 days to allow us to review and if you do meet some of the all of the conditions then we'll do a modified proposal and not award on on uh direct source so keep that in mind as well the one thing that you should all look to help um you know with providing input to shape Federal procurement our requests for information rfis are pivotal for businesses to get input into the federal procurement process so a couple of years before we go into a procurement we may post our RFI to solicit feedback from industry this is your opportunity to come back to us and say hey you know what I'd like to make this aware to you you obviously are not doing it this way I think you may want to consider this or the industry currently is at this level and you guys are maybe behind a schedule or or you're using you you're using old technology or something like that this is what our procurement teams need to hear so that they can work with the client authorities the Departments that are asking for the for the stuff to happen and be certain that we're accounting for everything that's current and and appropriate to to put in the terms and conditions so rfis are important they're also known as letters of Interest or Lois we have talked about transitioning to procurement um uh through electronic procurement Canada buys and all of that uh I don't have time here but just put it in Canada barge.canada.ca is very user friendly we can walk you through it as well if you'd like uh follow up with us more than happy to do one-on-one sessions as I'm going to get into so these are the seminars available by procurement assistance Canada across all of Canada we have six Regional Offices I'll go into that in a second but doing business is the fundamentals finding opportunities for the government of Canada and Electronic tendering Services being introduced bidding on opportunities is the one we offer second week of the month on reading a solicitation supplying Professional Services and the last one is some security clearances a lot of Canada contracts if you're doing work in our buildings are using our equipment or material would require some form of security clearance and it takes time to get this so if it's in a document you'll need to execute the process that you need to do to get cleared otherwise you can't be awarded that contract so these are the seminars we offer uh throughout the month we encourage you to take the first Wednesday it's actually happening right now uh if you miss it now we could you could take it in January um if you're versed in some of the aspects of government procurement you can then go into some of the others but you want to get the context first but you can always follow up with us through the one-on-one meetings that we have they're online in our our calendar um you know Vincent if you want to post the calendar on the chat for people to go and follow uh or our email contact to book uh appointments for one-on-ones that would be appreciated as well these are the Regional Offices both in Pacific uh it's Yukon and British Columbia western or all the Western provinces Ontario here we cover a very large space uh just with some communities outside of Ottawa falling in national capital region Quebec is five and all of the Atlantic provinces are out of Halifax but we cover the the region equally and we are consistent in in the information we provide wherever you're located there's a Pac office to help you next steps I'm going to provide this to you click on some of these links get registered as a supplier on buy and sell SRI but get registered on Canada buys as well consult the service guide that we have to help you guide you on how to register find seminars uh you know get a requests or call back and follow us on canada.ca forward slash pack I've said a lot and it's a lot of information unfortunately the condensed in 30 40 minutes but that's my excuse me that's my presentation and I just wanted to give you that high level overview as it is a process everybody needs to be understanding of how to get involved and taking the right steps so that you don't get confused and discouraged uh and not take part but it is a very large Marketplace Thomas and Marie if we have any questions be more than happy to take some yeah thank you very much many for this presentation I think you provided many many formation it was really concrete and helpful and useful so thank you thank you so much um we've got uh indeed some questions I will start with two uh the first was in maybe it's also um it's on story it's about uh tools and platforms um and so maybe you could say a few of these you mentioned it but to give some additional details the question is are there any tools or platforms that aggregate Canadian procurements both Federal and provincial and the second one is about a more specific one about competition and no competition and the question is if you have a product with no competition how is that going to work out many of one of your colleagues yeah I'll jump in and then Ronnie could help out probably so on the first question um currently um as I mentioned the Canadian collaborative procurement Edition if this is a new initiative with the impacts of covid it's going to slow down but we're still moving forward with collaboration with the various levels so the tools that are available are currently standing offers in about 60 to 50 to 60 different types of Commodities that we have things like snowmobiles lab equipment are there that are used both by feds Province territories and even Municipal and school level boards that have signed up through the collaborative procurement initiative and they have access to them you can look on the buying together website and there's probably more information in there but that's how we integrate and collaborate with the different levels of government on some of these procurements and then when they come up for refresh at times there might be thought or input provided by the different levels to help improve how or what we go out for for qualification so I think on that one the collaborative procurement initiative is the one that I know that that works together with multi-levels of government to utilize our tools or methods of supply running anything else on that yeah I think you got everything ready there um like for any like rfps or some of the um different tiers of government also post on Canada buys as well so you can find Opportunities there all federal opportunities are there too so that's the way it's got to go but then for the ccpi it's um they're trialing out now the pro Services which is like Manny was saying it's a supply Arrangement that different tiers of government have access to as well perfect and on the second question um the non-competitive approach is sir well you should treat it as follows so under the 25 000 or 40 000 for goods and forty thousand for services if you promote yourself appropriately getting that SRI registration system you might be found you might be included in submission of pricing between you and two others so if you promote yourself you better your chances of opportunities to be called to get pricing in and then if you are successful and are awarded that contract you directly are awarded the value of that contract you provide us the goods services that were awarded and then we pay you um from the perspective of um the MasterCard purchases I could decide and say hey you know what it's two or three thousand dollars um it's easier for me to purchase by MasterCard I can go to company x uh they did previous work for me I was happy with them uh it's quick and the quality is great I can just go out there or I may decide hey you know what I use company a before I do know also uh because they promoted I'm gonna try company C so there's varying ways of how direct and Source Contracting can happen but again it's it's still um in Canada's best interest to look at competition but it may not necessarily need to be if it doesn't make sense I hope that answered that question Ronnie yes no I I think so Randy do you want to say something uh sorry oh no no I'm good thank you I think Manny got that we're good thank you okay great no thank you very much uh many uh we've got uh all the questions most specific those ones uh which are are there any statements you can make on timing length of procurement requests if there are minimum length a procurement will stay open before being filled right and for standing procurements how fast will an organization need to be able to provide a good or service yeah that's the magical questions right so it's not so this is where businesses kind of uh get a little bit lost because all of our procurements requirements are very they're unique every time there's a different length to some there's less complexity to others they're different products that would require a longer period of time like for example defense construction could take up to 20 years to complete right now staying open or keeping contracts open are determined by the Contracting Authority and the client Authority based on a variety of different aspects including uh timelines of budgets uh procurement uh timelines for putting it together and then what is an effective length of time to allow suppliers to respond in most instances most instances this is about four to six weeks for common procurement where we post allow for question period to hop in clarification people to download it and ample enough time for people to prepare their proposals for a somewhat uh regular type of uh of an offering and then we would take it people will evaluate it uh it could take weeks a month to do it depending on how complex it is how many evaluators there are and then an award would happen so you're looking you it depends you're looking at uh options that could be uh two to three months or it could be a lot larger like years or it could even be like four to five weeks but there's still a need to allow that contract or Tender to be open long enough to allow people to respond to it in some instances there are quick turnarounds because of pressures or priorities and it might stay open for seven days or five days but those are uh probably quick uh solution type of uh requests that we're putting on uh so the overall answer is it varies that's why we don't have templates for people to use because our procurements are different to Ronnie I don't know if you want to jump in yeah I just wanted to add that sometimes another consideration too for like award would be security requirements because that could take time for organizations to clear security requirements so that's another consideration however um uh I want to tell us the different supplier agents that we have for services sometimes in terms of like being open for different supplies we go through for the refreshers teams so sorry Ronnie you you broke up there but uh I think you you were indicating that it depends uh it could be a little bit longer for people to to get their proposals in um we missed the last the last part yes it's interesting I hope you can hear me okay that's better now yeah perfect now this is kind of referring back to supplier agents because sometimes different Supply Arrangements open up for Refreshers months so that's also not cheap it's considered for service providers yeah so like I said that as well uh the supply Arrangements do refresh uh um and uh we do take new intake for Supply arrangements for some of the common Supply Arrangements they Refresh on a quarterly basis every quarter you can look to download the latest document and respond to it and then uh four months later three months later they'll evaluate you and within a half a year you could be qualified those are the common ones like task-based informatics professional or tasks and solutions Professional Services that we talked about I.T and non-it and some other ones all right okay Greg now very clear thank you very much thank you Ronnie and maybe one of the last question because we are now a woman left before the end of the webinar and the first one and yeah maybe additional details about Canada buys you mentioned and present in many when Canada buys integrate integrate sorry all provincial and Municipal tender websites it will be a single point of access yes correct it will be a single point sap Ariba based right um although I got to be careful what I say here because I am not the authority on this one so essentially we want it to be uh I know that the province is uh got their own uh electronic procurement solution in uh oh it used to be Bravo Solutions but now it's another name but anyways um ideally for government tenders it's it's going to be uh EPS based sapariba uh one point and others are other jurisdictions are in there as well okay thank you very much maybe uh yeah still some last questions regarding the Sita because as you can work and promote also the Sita and we understood that we are not only focusing today on the Theta because it could be another topic but is a company um if a company is European but already registered in Canada and doing business through a subsidiary do the sitas visuals still apply that's a good question so if you are a business here in Canada you have a Canada Revenue Agency number and operating in Canada you have the flexibility of uh taking part in federal procurement as a Canadian based business uh so the trade agreement thresholds would not apply um you could do business under the thresholds as well but if you don't have that Canada Revenue Agency business number and established in Canada you would be considered an international company at which point you would need to consider the trade agreements if you're from the European Union Cedar would apply correct Ron yes you got it okay great and uh because of uh technology it's magic I just received an addition and so it will be the last question by email um so it's regarding European company so do I'm discovering at the same time and reading do European companies that want to enter the procurement Market in Canada have to be registered taxpayers here and it means they must have a branch office or representative office registered here before applying for an SRI number good point um so on that I think you need to consult with Canada Revenue Agency because the rules for businesses are through them in order for you to register an SRI we require you to have a CRA business number however if you don't have one you could still apply as a consultant or Sole Proprietor in a lot of instances businesses that are like that are not um uh registered with a CRA number but they are located in Canada so there are some nuances but Canada Revenue should be the one that uh lets you know of that but the SRI requires you to have a CRA number in order to get a pbn number unless your sole proprietor but still in Canada okay great thank you very much and the very last one we just received at the end right now it's usually that way right one starts and then it doesn't then that's okay oh it means it's used information you provide a file yeah so the last one will be and if an European company has its registered company in the USA can it participate in Canadian government procurements without registration of the company in Canada no uh so that one would then be even worse for the European company because they would be subject to the World Trade Organization thresholds as the U.S is so those thresholds might be a little bit higher than the Ceta ones um U.S companies uh so we no longer have NAFTA so NAFTA is not a procurement instrument uh Trade Agreement that's uh uh impacting procurement So currently it's the World Trade Organization AGP that governs that and those thresholds would then need to be met for that U.S based company to do business in Canada okay great so I think it's uh we've done that with all the questions it's time for me to conclude um or do you want to mess with it yeah I'm just going to say thank you very much to you Marie Thomas and uh Adrian the you you can and all of the participants here today uh we encourage you to connect uh with our office so I see Vincent on uh video as well our team is here to help support you in your journey whatever it may be in federal procurement uh we have Regional Offices all across Canada if you have concerns or thoughts uh uh I want to get more clarification on Ceda and the terms and conditions our colleagues at Global Affairs Canada uh are more than happy to help you out with that or you can go online and find out information about that as mentioned at the beginning uh procurement utilizes those trade agreements as terms and conditions to direct how and and businesses can compete so that's how we apply the trade agreements so looking for forward to Future collaborations on certain topics maybe Ceta being one of them but again thank you every everybody from my team that that was here today uh for this event great now thank you so much and thank you many and Ronnie and Vince Vincent for for all the work you you done for you did for for this webinar today we're very happy to to have the opportunity to organize it with you it was a real pleasure in really I think very very interesting uh thank you to all the attendees too um to the webinar today uh as you can so the EU Chamber of Commerce here in Canada we are going to continue our work uh to deepen the trade and Economic and Business relation between and the EU and Canada uh for your information to the presentation made today and the video will be shared also on our social media and websites and do not hesitate to reach us for any questions and I would like um to have a special uh thanks to my colleague Thomas who is connected and we both work on the organization the webinar today so thank you very much thank you all of you and looking forward to welcome you for new and next event soon thank you thank you good job thank you all have a good day bye