Quebec’s Public Procurement Strategy: Progress and Gaps for Scale-ups

By Jean-François Harvey
Director of Quebec Affairs

On June 23, the President of the Treasury Board, Ms. France-Élaine Duranceau, unveiled the Stratégie gouvernementale des marchés publics 2026-2030 – Conjuguer efficacité et retombées économiques au Québec. The announcement caps a broad public consultation in which CCI took an active part, landing just months before a general election. At the same time, our organization has released What Quebec Innovators Need to Scale, a blueprint for the province's political parties that identifies government procurement as one of the most concrete—and least costly—levers the next government has to help Quebec's technology companies grow.

With roughly $26 billion in public contracts awarded annually, the Government of Quebec is one of the largest purchasers of goods and services in the province. That is significant purchasing power, and it should logically serve as a springboard for our most innovative companies. Too often, the opposite happens: our tech SMEs consistently tell us that access to public procurement ranks among the top obstacles to their growth.

A strategy that moves in the right direction

Credit is due where it's earned. The new strategy commits to raising the share of goods purchased from Quebec companies from 50% to 60%, to assigning Quebec-purchasing targets to public bodies for the first time, and holding the leaders of those organizations accountable for the results.

The government also signals its intent to move away from lowest-compliant-bid procurement in favour of mechanisms that give more weight to quality, value for money, and competitive dialogue. The target of raising the share of contracts awarded on criteria other than price from 28% to 33% is a step in the right direction, even if it remains modest relative to the scale of the problem.

Finally, the attention paid to digital sovereignty through the new policy statement from the Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital Technology and reserved call-ups for Quebec or Canadian suppliers recognizes an issue CCI has long raised: the country's digital infrastructure shouldn't depend on foreign providers for data and services essential to the public.

What's still missing for scale-ups

That said, an ambitious "buy Quebec" strategy is not automatically an effective innovation strategy. That distinction matters. An established manufacturing SME and a fast-growing technology company face very different barriers in public procurement, and most of the measures announced are geared toward the former.

Four blind spots deserve the attention of parties on the campaign trail:

First, there is no dedicated innovation-procurement channel. The Strategy leans on general SME support and on the Espace d'innovation des marchés publics already built into the Act respecting contracting by public bodies. But it stops short of creating a dedicated office or mechanism that would let the state act as a "demanding customer", one able to articulate complex needs and commission solutions that do not yet exist on the market.

Second, administrative complexity remains largely unchanged for growth-stage companies. Simplifying bid templates and modernizing the SEAO (Quebec's electronic tendering system) are useful steps. But warranty, intellectual property, and exclusive-rights requirements remain a problem. The Strategy acknowledges these as irritants in the information technology sector, yet they will keep disadvantaging our scale-ups until they are addressed with tailored rules.

Third, success is still measured by contract value rather than by the diversity and quality of suppliers. A target of 60% of goods purchased from Quebec companies can easily be met by concentrating spending with a small number of large, established suppliers, without meaningfully improving access for young innovative firms chasing their first government contract.

Fourth, the Strategy does not define what constitutes a Quebec company. Without a clear definition, accounting for, for example, the location of the head office, asset ownership, or the origin of value added, the target of 60% of purchases from Quebec companies risks benefiting foreign multinationals' subsidiaries registered in Quebec, rather than companies that are genuinely rooted here. For this strategy to truly serve Quebec's innovation ecosystem, this definition is an essential prerequisite.

Procurement as a customer-access issue

In our work with Quebec's technology CEOs, one theme comes up again and again: access to customers matters as much as access to capital or talent when it comes to scaling a company. A first government contract can serve as a proof of concept, open doors to other markets, and give a young company the credibility it needs to attract investors. Conversely, an inaccessible public market closes a door that few other buyers can replace.

That's why CCI's What Quebec Innovators Need to Scale calls on parties to commit to replacing lowest-cost procurement with a total-value approach that explicitly recognizes innovation, economic impact, and local content; to create a dedicated innovation procurement office; and to simplify compliance requirements so that growing technology companies can compete on equal footing with established suppliers.

The 2026-2030 Strategy lays solid groundwork showing political will to turn public purchasing into a tool for economic development. Whoever forms the next government will be responsible for finishing the job — making sure public procurement helps grow the province's most promising companies into ones that, once established here, can compete anywhere in the world.

‍

About the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI)

The Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) is Canada’s business council for the 21st century economy. We are a collective of over 175 of Canada’s fastest-growing and most ambitious companies, and the founders, CEOs, and executives behind them, working together to improve the business conditions that help more homegrown companies scale, compete globally, and drive long-term prosperity.