Construction

Construction means work undertaken to construct, repair, renovate or restore a work, excluding a vessel. In Canadian federal contracting it is a distinct contract category, set alongside goods and services, and it also takes in specified related work such as supplying and erecting prefabricated structures, dredging, demolition and hiring equipment used in that work.

The Government of Canada's archived Contracting Policy defines procurement as obtaining goods and services and carrying out construction and leasing through contractual arrangements. Construction is therefore named as its own activity in the federal definition of procurement. The definition is published in the Treasury Board Secretariat policy library.

What the federal definition of a construction contract covers

The federal definition of a construction contract is specific about scope. A contract falls into the category when it covers any of the following:

• Construction, repair, renovation or restoration of a work, except a vessel.
• Supplying and erecting a prefabricated structure.
• Dredging.
• Demolition.
• Hiring equipment used in or incidentally to the construction work described above.

The exclusion of vessels matters. Work on a ship is not a construction contract under this definition, even when it involves repair or restoration. The category depends on the requirement in the solicitation, so a single tender may fall under construction while a similar-sounding one does not.

How construction appears on CanadaBuys

CanadaBuys classifies procurement opportunities under the notice category Construction, and the category includes competitive requests for proposals and construction-related notices. You can filter for it in the CanadaBuys tender opportunities listing. Buyers that post construction work include:

• Parks Canada Agency: design-build construction contracts, such as staff-housing projects.
• Defence Construction Canada: construction procurements and advance procurement notices for base construction programs, jetty upgrades, design-builder services and construction-management services, as shown in CanadaBuys notices.
• Department of National Defence: construction procurements such as general maintenance for armouries, listed on CanadaBuys.
• National Research Council Canada: opportunities such as an acoustic-floor facility.
• Provincial and territorial buyers: organizations such as the Nunavut Housing Corporation, Manitoba Transportation and Yukon entities also appear in CanadaBuys listings.

Construction in NATO and trade agreement usage

The word carries a related meaning outside domestic policy. In NATO infrastructure and logistics, construction is tied to fixed military infrastructure and engineering works, including facilities, roads, bridges and railways. NATO's logistics material describes turn-key construction of hard-structure facilities and the renovation of roads, bridges and railways, as set out on the NATO logistics page.

Trade agreements use their own terminology. A construction service is a service whose objective is the realization of civil or building works, and the referenced definition is based on United Nations product classification Division 51. This appears in the CUSMA procurement chapter reference.

What construction means for a supplier bidding on Canadian public contracts

A supplier responding to a construction solicitation must address the work and contractual requirements specified in that solicitation. Read the title and category closely. A design-build solicitation can require integrated design and construction services, and a construction-management solicitation asks for management of the work rather than the building itself.

Check the scope against the federal definition. Demolition, dredging, prefabricated-structure erection and related equipment hire can all sit inside a construction contract, depending on the requirement. Work on a vessel does not. Filtering CanadaBuys by the Construction category, and by buyers such as Defence Construction Canada, Parks Canada and the National Research Council, gives a supplier a direct view of the opportunities that match.