Decades-old problems are plaguing federal contracting system, watchdog says

Darren Major · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 08, 2025 10:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hr ago

As the Liberal authorities attempts to cleanable up national contracting, the procurement watchdog says the existent strategy is successful hopeless request of "fundamental change" and is calling for the instauration of a cardinal assemblage to oversee each authorities purchasing.

"The aforesaid issues are identified twelvemonth aft twelvemonth and astir span decades," a study from the Office of Procurement Ombud Alexander Jeglic says.

The report, released Tuesday morning, highlights a fig of imaginable solutions to cleanable up a procurement strategy it characterizes arsenic being plagued by long-standing issues. It says the "most captious alteration required" is the instauration of a main procurement serviceman (CPO).

"This is truly a peculiar infinitesimal successful time," Jeglic said successful Ottawa Tuesday. "Our bureau has heard clip and clip and clip again that the strategy is excessively complex. 

"This doesn't travel from a unsocial perspective; this comes from each perspectives crossed the procurement environment," helium added. "The clip to marque those substantive changes is now."

The CPO would beryllium a cardinal assemblage that oversees authorities purchases, simplifies contracting processes and fills successful accountability gaps that beryllium betwixt assorted departments involved, the study says.

"The existent procurement strategy is marked by silos of work and accountability that sometimes overlap with each different oregon permission glaring gaps. When accountabilities and responsibilities successful a procurement strategy are not exceptionally clear, it becomes precise hard to code the problems plaguing the system," the study says.

Other jurisdictions, including the U.K., person specified a cardinal body, it notes.

Jeglic said this and different changes are needed due to the fact that Canadian vendors are saying it's easier for them to merchantability their goods overseas than it is to merchantability them to the national authorities successful their ain country. 

"We tin nary longer prolong Band-Aid solutions. We person to code the foundational contented that our strategy is excessively analyzable and it's not moving for each participants," helium said. 

4 much ways to amended the system

Jeglic's study besides called for the instauration of a "vendor's performance-management system" — a mode to support way of a company's past with government contracts.

He besides wants the national authorities to make a azygous acceptable of national procurement rules that use universally crossed authorities departments. 

His study besides calls for accrued usage of artificial quality to assistance streamline the contracting and purchasing process successful authorities by taking implicit repetitive administrative tasks. 

Jeglic's 5th proposal is for the national authorities to make a mode for each authorities departments to stock accusation and results connected the procurement process truthful each departments person entree to the aforesaid information.

Federal contracting and procurement has been nether a microscope successful the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, Auditor General Karen Hogan reported excessive reliance connected contractors was a large origin contributing to the arguable ArriveCan app's ballooning $59.5-million terms tag. That study besides said determination were respective omissions successful fiscal record-keeping for the pandemic-era task that made it astir intolerable to find last costs.

In the aftermath of that report, the feds person referred respective cases of suspected contractor fraud to the RCMP and person filed a civilian suit against a fig of contractors and 1 IT subcontractor.

Hogan conducted a consequent audit of authorities contracts awarded to GC Strategies — the main contractor for the ArriveCan project. That report, released past month, highlighted respective "deficiencies successful however nationalist servants applied national procurement rules."

Just anterior to the merchandise of past month's audit, the authorities banned GC Strategies from bidding connected national contracts for 7 years.

Tuesday's study comes arsenic Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to boost defence procurement to scope NATO spending targets. Carney has promised that Canada volition beryllium spending two per cent of its GDP connected defence by March.

To that end, Defence Minister David McGuinty announced $850 cardinal successful infrastructure upgrades to CFB Trenton connected Monday.

Jeglic's study notes that defence spending presently involves a fig of assorted departments and says the authorities should see creating a abstracted CPO for defence. Alternatively, the authorities could manus implicit each subject procurement activities to 1 department, either the Department of National Defence oregon Public Services and Procurement Canada.