That's a big and important question.
First and foremost, I agree with you that while there are cases where lowest price is a factor, that's obviously not always going to be the case. Introducing additional considerations to best value is natural, and I tend to be very supportive of national considerations and domestic content requirements, where they are also appropriate.
It so happens that Canada is not independent in this re-evaluation or recalibration of best value to match the moment. Obviously, the United States has done this since 1933. They also had “buy American” nine years before we did, so we have some catching up to do on that front. That has been evolving with each administration. I would say that if you really want to look at a jurisdiction, they're not always the best case on policy, but in this case, when it comes to buy national, the United States has one of the better approaches, especially when it comes to small business set-asides, which I believe is an intention for the policy down the line. I would look to the United States there. Their data regime is also fairly sophisticated as well.
The United Kingdom has taken an interesting approach. It's very possible that they're actually drawing inspiration from the Canadian government's approach as well. They're allowing ministers to have the discretion to use national security exemptions within trade agreements to potentially reserve contracts for national suppliers. There's some similarity there. What I really like with the United Kingdom is that for larger contracts—and this isn't universally the case—they require prime contractors to advertise subcontracting opportunities on the government portal. It's imperfect, and it may slow down the procurement process, but it does provide a bit more transparency to subcontracting, which you may not get in other bids.
The other approaches that are evolving right now—the European Union with the Industrial Accelerator Act, Mexico with plan México, and Australia with the buy Australian plan—are still in very early stages. We'll see where they go in terms of their approach.
I would look to the United States and the United Kingdom as the first and second examples if you want some inspiration.