The Ministry of Transportation in Canada Paper Example

Part 1: The Ministry of Transportation in Canada

This report will focus on research about the Ministry of Transportation in Canada as the selected subject of study. The information will be obtained from the ministry's website which includes www.ontario.ca and www. Buyandsell.gc.ca. These websites provides an overview of the organization, its functions, goals and responsibilities. Other sources of information that will be used in this report are journal articles and the organization's latest annual reports. The data gathered from these sources will then be used to compile a report on the Canada's Ministry of Transportation and the comparison between the public procurement and the private procurement.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Responsibilities of the Organization

The ministry of transportation offers transport-related and infrastructure services; executes transportation policies; administers regulations; and provides financial support to federal-related programs such as the Building Canada Fund (Kaya, Huffman, & Turek, 2017). The ministry is also responsible for Canada's infrastructure development through the provision of innovative and transportation policies for safe transportation of goods and people with the aim of building the economy (Edquist, Vonortas, Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, & Edler, 2015). The key goal of the ministry is to improve infrastructure by providing the country with a reliable highway system, reducing the emission of green house gases, and promoting competitiveness of Canada's transportation industry. Besides, the ministry functions to ensure that the national transportation system operates efficiently in the interests of all Canadians (www.ontario.ca).The organization is also responsible for protection of the rights of disabled individuals to an accessible transportation network. Lastly, the ministry is mandated to provide consumer protection.

Procurement Policies and Procedures

The procurement policies of the Canadian Ministry of Transport require that

The goods contracts with more than a value of about $ 25,000 and service or construction contracts with a value equal to or more than $ 100,000 must use open competition (Kaya, Huffman, & Turek, 2017). Equally, consulting contracts must use competitive tendering irrespective of the value.

The government must advertise, publish and authorize open competitive procurements

The organization, like any other ministry and agency in Canada must advertise any competitive procurement of goods worth $25,000 or services worth $ 100,000 through an electronic tendering system (www.ontario.ca).

The ministry is also committed to trade ties and agreements that give Canadian vendors access to procurement opportunities within and outside the country. For Canadian vendors to have equal opportunities outside Canada, the ministry must not apply any local preference in its procurements (buyandsell.gc.ca).

The employees of the Ministry of Transport who are responsible for managing procurements and contracts must not receive any kind of benefit from any vendor. Additionally, vendors should not have any conflict of interest that may lead to prejudice in bidding government contracts.

The ministry of Transport is committed to open, transparent and fair procurement process. Vendors biding on the ministry's contracts can ask for debriefings to understand the evaluation of their proposals and learn how to develop their prospect tenders.

The ministry is party to the trade and corporation agreement between Canada and international organizations such as World Trade Organization (WTO). The ministry continues to focus on promoting free trade and improving access for Canadian vendors to other markets. This act is reflected on other global trade agreements that are currently under review.

The ministry's procurement policies comply with the Ontario Municipal Act, a legislation that governs these procedures. The act emphasizes on open competitive procurements, the use of electronic tendering system and trade agreements between the country and International organizations (www.ontario.ca). In fact, most of the procurement policies and procedures were enacted from the Ontario Municipal Act. These policies and procedures are current with other treaties such as Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership taking effect in 2018. Also, the growth of Canadian economy and the agreement between the international trades has influenced the ministry of Transport to review the terms of the procurement. This also includes the tariffs which is a key factor in the procurement and supply of goods.

Dollar Limitations

According to Kaya, Huffman, & Turek (2017), the ministry of Transport in Canada includes dollar limitation in specific cases. This limitation depends on the type of services provided by the transport industries. The ministry also recognizes the charges for different modes of transport. This implies that the transport agencies are not allowed to charge beyond what the ministry has set.

Access to Information

The ministry often publishes information on the web for the public. This is to keep the citizens updated with the current trends and changes on the transport system. Annual reports, for instance, are available in the ministry's website. Other information about transport regulations, organization's expectations and the ministry's plan, and agenda are sometimes posted in the web for the interest of the public.

Procurement Request

The ministry often publishes buy and sell service request for procurement. Buy and sell is a new open information service that allows businesses to access government tenders. More specifically, it is the government electronic tendering service (GETS) where all ministries in Canadian government posts bid solicitations to enable suppliers look for bid opportunities through the web (buyandsell.gc.ca). The renowned website used by all sectors is buyandsell.gc.ca. This if the official site for the government to achieve its trade deals and tenders. It is also the platform where Canada's Ministry of Transport posts its procurement plans. The aim for publishing procurement request is to transact with the highest bidders and to avoid unethical practice by offering tenders to individuals with only government roots.

Effectiveness of the Policies and Procedures

From an individual view point, the procurement policies that guide the Canadian Ministry of Transport are effective because they offer open competitive procurement, and strengthen the relationship between Canada and international organization. As noted, the Canadian government requires all its ministries, transport included, to publish procurement requests. This policy is a move to fight corruption when it comes to procurement tenders. If publication of procurement projects is not restricted, some Ministry officials would take the advantage by giving tenders to their relatives or friends, which gives rise to corruption. Therefore, the policy of publishing procurement requests not only creates room for open procurement, but it also enables the organization to give tenders to the most qualified bidders regardless of their ties with the government.

An open tender was located at the website buyandsell.gc.ca where the ministry of Transport invited bidding of materials needed for maintenance and construction of infrastructural projects. This act was in line with the policies of the organization that requires all tenders to be published to allow bidding from the suppliers. However, no unique item was found in the procurement policies and procedures. These policies and procedures are also applicable in the private sectors because they play one major role: - to transact with the qualified bidders.

Part 2: Relationship between Public and Private Sector Procurement

Schiller & Kenworthy (2017) define procurement as the process by which an organization obtains goods and services to meet its internal and external needs. The private sector is made up of privately operated organizations whereas the public sector consists of government owned organizations at the local, state or national level. For that case, public procurement is a tender completed within the milieu of not-for-profit organization (NFP's) (Edquist, Vonortas, Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, & Edler, 2015). As a public sector, the procurement that is conducted is typically government-controlled. According to Schiller & Kenworthy (2017), public procurement is the purchasing, hiring and obtaining goods and services by the public entities. The primary goal of public procurement is to award cost-effective and timely contracts to qualified vendors and service providers for the supply of products and provision of services (Patrucco, Luzzini, & Ronchi, 2016). By meeting these objectives, public procurement support the government and public sectors according to the policies and procedures contained in the public procurement laws.

It is important to note that public procurement is a commercial process within a political arena, and has significant consideration of accountability, integrity, efficiency, and national interest. As much as public procurement has vital political and economic implications, making the process efficient and economical is crucial (Patrucco, Luzzini, & Ronchi, 2016). Perhaps, it demands understanding of the entire process by the actors and other stakeholders. A fundamental principle of public procurement is to offer equal participation opportunities to the qualified suppliers. By doing so, it ensures an effective and a healthy competition. Such a competitive environment allows the government to obtain the best procurement value at a minimum cost.

In contrast, private procurement is that which is carried out within the context of for-profit organizations (FP's) (Ross & Yan, 2015). This process is conducted by privately owned organizations or private sectors. The differences between public and private procurements often stand out although they share some attributes.

Differences between Public and Private Procurement

Characteristics

One may determine that private and public procurement are similar. Procurement serves one equal purpose in both sectors:-to source products and services from the supply market with maximization of money value (Schiller & Kenworthy, 2017). To achieve the above purpose, procurement follows three pillars which include: value-based experiences, understanding of suppliers, and being a facilitator (Johnson, Leenders, & McCue, 2017). Nonetheless, with close determination, private and public procurement have differing characteristics. For instance, stakeholders in public procurement include suppliers, customers, taxpayers and employees. For private sector, stakeholders are shareholders, customers, employees and suppliers.

The diagram above shows the presence of an important overlap in public procurement that is not available in private procurement. Firstly, it can be stated that the public benefit directly or indirectly from government services funded by taxpayers' money (Ross & Yan, 2015). Secondly, suppliers from the private entities, preferably, the taxpayers, provide these services. The reliance on the public funds gives the reason behind expectation of the people on public sectors to show frugality and debasing public funds.

Public procurement is also at a greater risk because it is funded by the government. Edquist, Vonortas, Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, & Edler (2015) posited that public procurement can easily attract the press because it deals with public affairs which affect every citizen.

Procurement Funding

Public sectors depend on the governm...