For those of you following the recent trade treaty intrigues, we are sharing a recording of a recent webinar where we did a deep dive into the impact of the Canada-US trade dispute on Canadian government procurement.
In this webinar we recommend holding the line on public procurement and avoiding an unnecessary escalation of the trade dispute since: (i) a US bidder ban would cause serious disruptions to the operations of Canadian public institutions; and (ii) Canada’s retaliatory tariffs create immediate price uncertainty in our current tendering processes and existing contracts.
More specifically, the topics covered on this webinar include:
- The parallels between the tariff dispute and the pandemic, including a discussion of the recent article Defending Canada from Trump’s Tariff Firewall and the risks created when improper decisions are made in reaction to “emergency situations”
- The need to hold the line on good governance in public procurement, with reference to recent newsreel highlights and audit reports highlighting governance lapses at the federal, provincial and local government levels
- The barriers to barring US bidders, including a discussion of the long-established risks of politicizing the procurement process and the complexities of trying to enforce Canadian content requirements in contract awards
- The immediate pricing pressures imposed on Canadian public institutions by Canada’s retaliatory tariffs.
