This article is an excerpt from Government Procurement, which is available for purchase.
In its September 2015 determination in Survival Systems Training Limited v. Department of Public Works and Government Services, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal upheld the government’s decision to reject a non-compliant proposal. The case dealt with an RFP issued on behalf of the Department of National Defence for ocean survival training. The complainant was approached to schedule a post-mandatory compliance assessment site meeting but was then disqualified as non-compliant. The complainant challenged this rejection. The Tribunal upheld the government’s non-compliance assessment and determined that the mere fact that the government had scheduled a site tour for the complainant did not change the non-compliant status of the proposal. As this case illustrates, the fact that a bid submission is not immediately disqualified as non-compliant does not preclude the purchasing institution from subsequently finding that submission to be non-compliant after conducting a more detailed assessment. Stated another way, a non-compliant bid cannot be rendered compliant by the passage of time or the failure to immediately identify the non-compliance in question.
