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At the request of Industrial and Commercial Products and Standardization Services Sector (ICPSSS), this Notification replaces # 7 with additional information.
Legal counsel at Industry Canada has concluded that procurements which are subject to Comprehensive Land Claim Agreements (CLCAs) can also be subject to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT). Based on Article 1802 of the AIT, Industry Canada considers that the notification and other requirements in the CLCAs are "measures", as defined in Chapter 2 of the AIT, and, that, to the extent they are "severable" from the procurement as a whole, are excluded from the obligations of the AIT, but the procurement itself and all other aspects of it remain covered.
This means that provisions contained in the CLCAs, such as notification procedures or evaluation criteria favouring complainant groups, must be complied with despite the fact that they may appear to be inconsistent with corresponding provisions in the AIT. For example, if a CLCA includes a provision that procurement opportunities must be advertised in specific newspaper(s), then the Crown must so advertise, in addition to complying with the advertising procedures set out in Chapter 5 of the AIT. It would be appropriate in these procurements to explain on the file the course of action taken, with a reference to the corresponding provisions in the CLCA(s) and the AIT.
The above approach applies when a procurement is subject to only CLCAs and the AIT. The integrated approach, in which the most open procedures, e.g. the longer of two bidding periods, continues to apply for procurements subject to overlapping trade agreement coverage, such as when the AIT and NAFTA both apply.
The Supply Manual will be revised to reflect this change.
The Automated Buyer Environment (ABE) has been modified to include the option of identifying a procurement as subject to both CLCAs and the AIT.
Annex A
Article 200: Definitions of General Application
In this Agreement, except as otherwise provided:
measure includes any legislation, regulation, directive, requirement, guideline, program, policy, administrative practice or other procedure.
Article 1802: Aboriginal Peoples
This Agreement does not apply to any measure adopted or maintained with respect to Aboriginal peoples. It does not affect existing aboriginal or treaty rights of any of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.