Transparency requirements
In addition to ensuring compliance with the various trade agreements, public sector is also accountable for more general transparency.
With Freedom of Information legislation in each province, it is fairly easy for taxpayers, disgruntled bidders and contractors, the media and anyone else who cares to apply to obtain significant detail about procurements and resulting contracts issued by government bodies. There is generally keen interest in how tax dollars are spent, and therefore public sector finds itself much more in the ‘fish bowl’ so to speak. Scrutiny comes from all angles, and public sector organizations need to demonstrate that their processes were not only fair, but that they were applied fairly and equally to all participants. Public sector must also be able to demonstrate that its procurement processes resulted in the maximum expected value for the tax dollars that have been expended
Private sector is of course accountable to shareholders and other key stakeholders, but the public scrutiny is far less.
You will find the attached paper “FOI-and-Procurement” interesting.
You also may wish to explore a few of the FOI provincial links:
British Columbia: www.oipc.bc.ca/
Alberta: www.servicealberta.ca/foip/
Ontario: www.ipc.on.ca/
Nova Scotia: www.foipop.ns.ca/
Other articles in this series:
