A Q3 Torys Quarterly piece written by co-chair of the firm’s Strategic Procurement practice Philip Symmonds, partners Eileen McMahon and John Terry, and counsel Thomas Yeo and Adam Banack, has been republished by ReNew Canada.
The publication ran “Rewiring the supply chain: how the pandemic is shaping government procurement”, which explores the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the governments approach to procurement. An excerpt from the article is below.
An essential government activity that historically has rarely made front page news, government procurement has suddenly become a central focus for citizens around the world. Starting in early 2020, countries raced to secure personal protective equipment (PPE), vaccines, therapeutics and other critical supplies.
The crisis brought pressure to many of the long-standing presumptions underlying government procurement: the strong presumption in favour of competitive procurement and against sole source contracts; the presumption in favour of advance notice and of transparency in costing; and the built-in assumption that leverage would in most circumstances be with the government buyers and not with suppliers. All of these came under intense attack in the face of a life and death emergency where the rule book was being rewritten.
This piece was originally published as a part of the Q3 Torys Quarterly, which focused on cross-border business.
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