Government Case

"Government tenders represented business opportunities that were open to the public. These tenders typically had a time frame of one to three months (after being published), during which interested parties could submit a bid to win the tender and provide the required product or service. The tenders ranged from providing a stated volume of product by a predetermined date to multi-year contracts for open-ended volumes. Typically, the bids were sealed; the organization that submitted the bid was known, but the bid price was not. The successful bid was not always the lowest price, since other factors were taken into account, such as the ability to meet delivery times, quality, reputation, and meeting ethical business practice standards. The most widely used source for government tenders was MERX, an online electronic tendering service. MERX was the official posting site for the Government of Canada, and it specialized in the posting of tenders from the broader provincial and MASH (municipal, academic, social services and hospitals) sectors, as well as crown corporations and the private sector.2 MERX posted over 60,000 public and private sector opportunities each year from across Canada. Once logged on to the MERX website, users could narrow their search to specific product categories of interest in order to find opportunities that matched their business capabilities.

THE TEXTILE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

In 2008, the Canadian textile manufacturing industry employed approximately 24,300 people, down from 44,700 in 2004, for a compounded annual growth decline of 9.9 per cent.3 Canadian textile exports dropped 17.7 per cent in 2008, mainly due to a decrease in exports to the United States (see Exhibit 2).4 The U.S. economic recession that followed this period served to further decrease exports levels to the United States. Along with the weak economic situation in North America, intensifying competition from offshore companies