Buy Canadian: policy options for localizing federal public procurement

Globally and domestically, procurement localism is on the rise. This can take the form of a Buy Canada policy that favors local suppliers. Assuming the localism of a Buy Canada is preferable, how can federal procurement policies and guidelines be designed to maximize its local returns? This article profiles three potential policy design challenges that may undermine a federal Buy Canada policy’s implementation and evaluation. First, Canadian international trade commitments ensure nondiscrimination, putting many contracts out of the reach. Second, simplistic approaches to capturing a supplier’s origin, like a given address, would result in marginal change. Third, data gaps like subcontracting diminish policy renewal and enable leakages to unknown foreign suppliers. Using Buy America as a counter case, this article makes recommendations to address these design gaps and maximize Buy Canada. It suggests new federal trade derogations, employee-defined origin, domestic sourcing requirements and subcontracting data collection.