It's not the process that's more expensive. It's that the process lacks the ability to ferret out all the products that exist in the marketplace to help spur a truly competitive process. For instance, in our case, in the water and sewer industry, the engineer determines which piping materials are allowed to be included in the bidding process. For instance, in Montreal they exclude PVC. In other cities in the country and in the United States, that's done with ductile iron, for instance.
On May 28th, 2013. See this statement in context.