Contract History Letter

A Contract History Letter is an official letter that lists the contracts Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) has awarded to a business. A supplier can use it as evidence that it has done business with the Government of Canada. The term is not an abbreviation. It is the name CanadaBuys and PSPC give to this supplier document.

Suppliers request the letter when they need to show prior business with the federal government, including when bidding on opportunities. PSPC issues it through the CanadaBuys supplier-services process, and the supplier chooses which contracts appear in it. The official request page is on CanadaBuys.

What a Contract History Letter lists

The letter lists contracts awarded to the supplier by PSPC. It is not a complete record of every public-sector or provincial contract a business has held. A supplier whose past work came mainly from other federal departments, provinces, or municipalities should not expect those contracts to appear in a PSPC letter.

The supplier decides which of its PSPC contracts to include. The letter is a selected summary of awarded work, issued and signed by the government, rather than a self-prepared list of references.

How a supplier requests the letter

CanadaBuys publishes a step-by-step guide, Requesting your contract history letter. The process runs as follows:

• Search for the company's legal or operating name.
• Select the correct company record.
• Choose the contracts to include in the letter.
• Select English or French as the language of the letter.
• Preview the letter before requesting it.
• Submit the request with a company email address.

CanadaBuys states that the signed letter is emailed to the address provided within five business days. A bid team that needs the letter for a closing date should request it well before the deadline.

Contract History Letter compared with contract-history data

The letter is different from the federal contract-history dataset and from government-wide proactive-disclosure contract data. The letter is a signed document issued to one supplier on request. The datasets are published information sources that anyone can consult. CanadaBuys points to separate sources for each of these on its support page.

A supplier that needs only to review its own award history can use the published data. A supplier that must hand a verifiable document to a buyer or include one in a bid package needs the letter.

Older federal pages that point to the letter

Older Government of Canada procurement-data pages and standing-offer and supply-arrangement records direct suppliers to the newer CanadaBuys location for the Supplier Contract History Letter. One example is the standing offer record EN578-170432-446-EI on the Buy and Sell site. Suppliers who land on one of these legacy pages should follow the link to CanadaBuys and make the request there.

What it means for a supplier bidding on Canadian public contracts

A Contract History Letter gives a bid team a government-issued document that proves PSPC has awarded it contracts. It is useful when an opportunity asks for evidence of experience with the Government of Canada. Before relying on it, confirm what the solicitation requires, because the letter covers PSPC awards only. Experience gained under other buyers needs to be documented in other ways. Build the five-business-day delivery time into the bid schedule, and confirm that the company record and contract selection are correct before submitting the request.