Canadian Procurement Pulse: Your Weekly Contractor Insider

February 16 - 23

This week we're going deep on British Columbia.

Between a provincial budget loaded with procurement signals, a housing pipeline that's accelerating faster than most contractors can retool for, active municipal funding streams with real deadlines, and $4.6 billion in municipal contract data we pulled apart piece by piece, there's enough here for an entire edition. So that's what we did.

The big picture: B.C. is tightening on the operational side (15,000 FTE cuts, $3.5 billion in savings targets) while simultaneously pouring billions into capital infrastructure. Hospitals, schools, transit, housing. The province is also sitting on one of the most competitive municipal procurement markets in the country, with an HHI of 67 across 3,907 vendors and $4.6 billion in tracked contracts. That's not a market dominated by a handful of insiders. That's a market where new entrants can win on merit, if they know where to look.

We've broken this edition into the policy signals you need to track, the funding deadlines you need to hit, and a standalone data deep dive showing exactly which municipalities buy what, from whom, and when. If you're selling to B.C. local governments, this is your playbook.

Here's your essential briefing:

What's Moving in B.C. Right Now

Budget 2026: Austerity on Top, Infrastructure Underneath

Source: BC Gov News | February 17, 2026

B.C.'s Budget 2026 pairs fiscal restraint with targeted spending. The headlines include $13.3 billion in projected deficits and plans to cut 15,000 public sector FTEs, but underneath that sits billions in new capital investment contractors should be tracking.

What It Means For You:

Publicus Data Deep Dive: B.C. Municipal Procurement

$4.6 Billion | 7,301 Contracts | 51 Municipalities | 2019-2025

February 2026

We pulled contract data from four source portals covering B.C. municipal procurement from 2019 to 2025. The result: the most comprehensive look at who's buying, who's winning, and where the opportunities sit for contractors targeting B.C. local governments. If you've ever wondered whether B.C. municipal procurement is an old boys' club or genuinely competitive, the data has an answer. (Spoiler: it depends which municipality you're looking at.)

The gap between average ($1.3M) and median ($222K) tells you something important: a small number of large contracts pull the average up, but most municipal procurement happens well below the million-dollar mark. If you're a small or mid-sized contractor who has been assuming municipal work is out of reach, the median says otherwise.

The overall HHI of 67 is remarkably low. For context, anything below 1,500 is considered unconcentrated, and below 100 means the market is essentially wide open. B.C. municipal procurement is one of the most competitive public sector markets in the country. Federal defence procurement, by comparison, looks like a cozy dinner party.

The Pareto distribution reinforces this:

Yes, 39 vendors capture 43% of the value. But 195 vendors capture 77%. This is a market where mid-tier firms can build significant practices without needing to crack the top 10.

By Total Value

Vancouver and Kelowna dominate, but in very different ways. Vancouver spreads $2.0 billion across nearly 3,000 contracts and 1,751 vendors. Kelowna concentrates $1.4 billion into just 468 contracts with 299 vendors, producing an average contract value of $2.9M versus Vancouver's $1.7M. If you're a larger firm chasing bigger individual contracts, Kelowna punches absurdly above its population weight.

The drop-off after the top two is steep. Metro Vancouver at $223 million is a distant third. Vancouver and Kelowna together account for roughly 74% of all tracked municipal procurement value in the province. For BD planning purposes, that's your starting point.

By Contract Count

A different lens worth examining. Some municipalities are far more active buyers than their dollar totals suggest:

*Township of Langley's contracts lack dollar values in the data, but 411 contracts across 288 vendors makes it one of the most active buyers in the province by volume. If you're ignoring Langley because it doesn't show up in value rankings, you're missing a very active buyer.

Abbotsford (143 contracts), Kamloops (69), and Regional District of Central Okanagan (80) are also worth flagging. Active buyers that don't get attention proportional to their procurement volume.

Construction and engineering together account for 73% of total value. No surprise there. But two things caught our eye:

Professional services leads by contract count (876) despite ranking 7th by value. This is the high-frequency, lower-dollar domain where municipalities buy constantly. If your business model works at the $100K-$200K range, this is where the volume lives.

IT at $189 million across 518 contracts is notable for one reason: CDW Canada holds 31.6% of the domain by value. That's the highest single-vendor share of any major domain, driven significantly by a single $49M VAR agreement with Vancouver. More on CDW's position below. For now, the takeaway is that B.C. municipal IT procurement has a dominant player and a lot of room for competitors underneath.

Infrastructure ($1.0B across 900 contracts) and civil ($733M across 509 contracts) are the core of municipal capital spending. Water mains, roads, bridges, utility projects. The bread and butter of local government procurement, and where the Budget 2026 capital plan ($38 billion over three years) will keep feeding the pipeline

Not all domains are equally open. Here's how concentration varies across the major spending categories:

Open Markets (Low Concentration)

Construction is wide open. The top vendor holds 4% of a $2.6 billion market. Even the top 4 combined hold just 13.2%. For a domain this size, that's about as competitive as public procurement gets.

Markets with Leading Players

IT is the most concentrated major domain. CDW alone captures 31.6%, and the top 4 hold 53.6%. Transportation is similar: First Truck Centre (17.7%), Dueck Auto Group (14.7%), and Metro Motors (14.7%) collectively hold nearly half the domain, though this is largely driven by Vancouver's fleet supply contracts.

Who Wins Each Domain: Top 3 Vendors

Construction ($2.6B)

Engineering ($743.9M)

IT ($188.9M)

The engineering domain is worth studying. Three firms hold nearly 30% of a $744M market, but they do it through relatively few, high-value contracts. The rest of the domain is fragmented across hundreds of smaller engagements. If you're not going head-to-head with Urban Systems on a $25M Kelowna panel, there's still plenty of work to chase.