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Institute on Governance

Public Procurement in the Spotlight in 2024

By Ryan Androsoff

This past year, procurement – which is normally considered to be a dry, technocratic topic – ended up regularly in the spotlight when it comes to issues involving technology and modernizing government. At its most basic level, procurement is about how the government buys things. From an office manager spending a few dollars on office supplies to a multi-billion dollar public works project, procurement laws, policies, and practices in a very real way define the heartbeat of public administration. Importantly, procurement is about more than just buying “things”. In fact in today’s digital world, it is often just as much about buying tangible items (i.e. pens and computers) as intangible items (i.e. consultants or software code)

That interplay between the layers of technology that underpin so much of our modern world, the need for government to have access to expertise that it doesn’t have in-house, and the complex and opaque rules around public procurement is a large part of why procurement issues in Canada have been increasingly in the public consciousness. The most notable example was the controversy surrounding the ArriveCan app, developed as part of the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While much has been discussed about ArriveCan, its costs, effectiveness, and alleged procurement irregularities, it also served to catalyze a broader conversation as to whether Canada’s approach to public sector procurement is fit for purpose in the digital age.

The Council of Canadian Innovators called 2024 the “Year of Procurement” and released an insightful report on the link between public procurement and innovation. Additionally, Professor Amanda Clarke from Carleton University released a new paper specifically looking at IT contracting in the federal government (building on earlier work parsing and analyzing the Government of Canada’s federal contracting data). All of these examinations, and many more, have a common theme: that the current approach to public sector procurement is not serving Canada well.

We’ve also been discussing these issues here at IOG, including through our Digital Executive Leadership Program. This past October, alumni from IOG’s leadership programs were joined virtually by experts from the UK who shared examples of how governments are adapting their procurement practices for the digital era to embrace the concepts of agile and user-centered product development. They also discussed the urgent need for governments to adapt how they work with vendors – particularly when it comes to technology-enabled projects – to provide better services to citizens and avoid high-profile project failures.

As we look ahead to 2025 we will be watching to see if issues around procurement stay on the radar, and what the political response will be as we move into an election year. Will procurement reform be part of party platforms? And if it is, will policy proposals take the form of a knee-jerk reaction that layers on more oversight and regulation, or will a more thoughtful response emerge that can strike the balance between protecting the public interest while encouraging innovation and agility? Time will tell.

Ryan Androsoff is a assiociate and the director of the Digital Executive Leadership Program at the Institute on Governance.