Government Operations Committee on March 27th, 2018

[Mike Pacholok]

Yes, when we do a pre-qualification or request for proposal and there's an evaluative component, there will be points assigned if they have their own supply chain diversity policy. They would have to provide that to us to demonstrate and get the points, including if they're a certified diverse supplier. We do add points to the process that could often give someone an edge when, other things being equal, they're very similar in experience.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

How many companies manage to get ranked or make an effort to get those points? Do you have any statistics on that?

[Mike Pacholok]

There are approximately 600 certified diverse suppliers across all of the supplier organizations. The one challenge, and it's why this is still in its infancy, is that we have to help the supplier councils convince more suppliers to get certified. The city does business with about 4,000 to 5,000 vendors, so 600 is still a small pool.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I also note that you can award contracts to some invited suppliers in the case of municipal orders of goods worth from $3,000 to $100,000. I assume that the invited suppliers are pre-selected? How did you get to those amounts?

[Mike Pacholok]

To clarify, under $100,000, it's not uncontested; it's still a quoting system, so at least three people are competing for the work. The numbers that we landed on relate to the Canada free trade agreement, where for amounts of more than $100,000, we would be looking to put it to an open market.

We may still establish a pre-qualified list, but that pre-qualified list would still go first to the open market for consideration.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

How are the three businesses that bid selected? Arbitrarily? How do they know that they can bid?

[Mike Pacholok]

Well, in part this is where the diversifier list comes into play. Our staff will look at that list, find the diversifier that fits the goods or services they're looking to purchase, and contact them, as well as at least two others they might already know from past experience.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I don't have any more questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

If anyone has any questions they want to submit to the clerk, that would be appreciated. Second, we will be coming back because we need to give drafting instructions to the analyst, so we'll be back right after the vote.

Thank you very much for being here. It's life in the federal lane.

Thank you for your help and your presentation.

[Mike Pacholok]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

The meeting is suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]