It is Public Works and Government Services Canada, PWGSC, policy that bids be evaluated solely against the criteria set out in the tender document. In addition, all contracts issued are subject to compliance audit. In two recent audits of contracting, in both headquarters and the regions, and based upon a random selection of files, no cases were identified in which mandatory bid evaluation criteria were waived.
However, suppliers who believe that PWGSC has failed to comply with the stipulated criteria in a tender have recourse to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, CITT. Over the past 12 months, approximately 60,000 contracts have been awarded. During this time the CITT has found that on two occasions, PWGSC through error did not conduct the evaluation according to the criteria set out in the bid solicitation.
PWGSC strives continually to ensure that errors of this nature are not repeated. Systems and procedures are constantly evaluated and "lessons learned" maintained in order to improve our performance in this regard.