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Resources

Practical notes on finding, reading and winning Canadian contract work.

How to read a tender notice

Scope, evaluation criteria, mandatory requirements, and the three lines that tell you whether you are actually eligible.

  • Check the closing date and time zone before anything else.
  • Mandatory requirements are pass/fail — no amount of price beats a missing certificate.
  • Read the evaluation matrix backwards: it tells you what the buyer actually cares about.

Getting your paperwork ready

The documents that hold up more bids than any pricing question.

  • WSIB or WCB clearance certificate, current.
  • Commercial general liability, usually $2M–$5M, naming the buyer as additional insured.
  • Bonding capacity letter from your surety for larger public work.
  • A supplier registration on CanadaBuys and on your provincial portal.

Pricing a public contract

Public work pays reliably and slowly. Price for both.

  • Build in the cost of the submission itself — some bids take days.
  • Check the payment terms; 30–60 days is common and it moves your cash flow.
  • Watch for prevailing-wage or fair-wage schedules on municipal work.

Where the work hides

The portals most contractors never check.

  • Hospital and health-authority procurement pages run their own bid boards.
  • School boards and universities post separately from their province.
  • General contractors advertise subtrade calls on classifieds, not portals.

Stop checking thirty portals every morning.

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