In its June 2025 decision in HP Consultants Inc. v. IIDI, the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island rejected a losing bidder’s judicial review challenge. The dispute dealt with an RFP for immigration agent services issued by Island Investment Development Incorporated (Office of Immigration) (IIDI).
The complainant alleged that the IIDI bid evaluators relied on a hidden “rural presence” criterion when scoring the competing proposals and that IIDI improperly awarded more contracts than originally contemplated under the RFP due to tie scores. The complainant also asserted that the provincial cabinet improperly interfered in the final contract award decision under the guise of providing “policy direction” in relation to the additional awards, alleging that the successful proponents had personal or political associations with the government or senior provincial authorities.
The court rejected the hidden criteria allegation after finding that the “rural presence” factor could be reasonably interpreted as falling within the regional development requirement under the terms of the RFP. The court also held that the award of additional contracts did not prejudice the complainant since it ranked too low to be eligible for any award. Further, the court ruled that the provincial cabinet did not interfere with the award decision since it did not make any changes to the recommendations made by IIDI in relation to the additional awards.
This decision illustrates why purchasing institutions should adopt formal contract award protocols to guard against improper interference allegations and formal drafting protocols to requiring clear and transparent evaluation criteria. This case study will be featured in the Establishing Institutional Oversight module of our new Fundamentals of Canadian Government Procurement certificate program that debuts in April 2026 and in the Disclosing Rated Criteria module of our new RFx Drafting in the Canadian Public Sector certificate program that runs in May and returns in November. Please see our current training schedule for more details.
