I understand your irritation with how this looks. But I find the language to be extremely flexible:
"This policy gives a clear and measurable advantage to companies with a real footprint in Canada: businesses that invest here, employ Canadians and contribute to local economies. Federal procurements will prioritize bids that feature greater Canadian content, which includes manufacturing, research and development, and other economic activities that occur domestically." Take this together with the very high priority put on "speed" when it comes to procurement goals as well as a new agency (DIA) with sole authority, and I would argue that this will work well with diversification. But we shall see. (and I am still waiting for confirmation of the percentage procurement cap under SAFE)
Big headline, but let’s look at the track record. The Auditor General’s 2024 report revealed that under the previous "Buy Canadian" framework (ITBs), requirements were actually waived or reduced for 1 in 6 major contracts.
The mechanism is tricky: often, foreign winners satisfy these rules via "indirect" offsets—like funding a university lab—rather than building sovereign manufacturing capacity. Unless yesterday’s policy explicitly closes those loopholes, we might just be rebranding the same flexible math.
HF - In the case of ITBs (defence-only), you're right, but they were waived primarily (but not uniformly) in cases where due to contract security clauses, the work had to take place in Canada by Canadians and so it would have been an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy (such as the ELMS contract).
In this case, its a broader policy touching all procurement above $25M and soon to be $5M.
It's a big change for government and those who supply it!
I understand your irritation with how this looks. But I find the language to be extremely flexible:
"This policy gives a clear and measurable advantage to companies with a real footprint in Canada: businesses that invest here, employ Canadians and contribute to local economies. Federal procurements will prioritize bids that feature greater Canadian content, which includes manufacturing, research and development, and other economic activities that occur domestically." Take this together with the very high priority put on "speed" when it comes to procurement goals as well as a new agency (DIA) with sole authority, and I would argue that this will work well with diversification. But we shall see. (and I am still waiting for confirmation of the percentage procurement cap under SAFE)
Big headline, but let’s look at the track record. The Auditor General’s 2024 report revealed that under the previous "Buy Canadian" framework (ITBs), requirements were actually waived or reduced for 1 in 6 major contracts.
The mechanism is tricky: often, foreign winners satisfy these rules via "indirect" offsets—like funding a university lab—rather than building sovereign manufacturing capacity. Unless yesterday’s policy explicitly closes those loopholes, we might just be rebranding the same flexible math.
HF - In the case of ITBs (defence-only), you're right, but they were waived primarily (but not uniformly) in cases where due to contract security clauses, the work had to take place in Canada by Canadians and so it would have been an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy (such as the ELMS contract).
In this case, its a broader policy touching all procurement above $25M and soon to be $5M.
It's a big change for government and those who supply it!
Very interesting- thank you!