Last week we discussed the possibility the Liberal government may simply kiss firearm confiscation goodbye after Public Safety cancelled the tender for developing the program.
Public Safety spokesperson Tim Warmington said, “The bid evaluation process did not yield to the selection of a successful bidder. A revised Request for Proposal will be introduced in the near future.”[i]
It turns out Mr. Warmington told the truth.
A new Request for Proposal (RFP) was introduced on October 2nd.
The only reason we know about this is because a CSSA member works for one of the companies to which the government sent the new RFP, and they shared the document with us.
You can read the new Request for Proposal here:
Normally we would send you to the government website where the RFP would be posted. We can’t this time, because the government did not post the RFP publicly.
They kept it a secret.
People typically want to keep secrets when they have something to hide.
Governments are no different.
The big question is what is the Liberal government trying to hide from taxpayers this time?
Public Works is hiding a public expenditure of public money by a public agency on a (purported) public safety measure to be given as compensation to the public.
What’s the big secret?
Here’s the list of what we know about this new RFP.
- It was not issued through the normal procurement process using Public Works and Government Services Canada.[ii]
The list of what we don’t know about this RFP is a lot longer.
- Why was the new Request for Proposal issued privately?
- Who was the RFP sent to?
- Did Public Safety send it to the same 15 companies they hand-picked for the now-cancelled tender?
- Did they only send it to one company? Or did the WE Charity and SNC-Lavalin get it too? (sorry, we couldn’t stop ourselves.)
As soon as we find out more, we’ll let you know.
In the meantime, call your Member of Parliament and ask them what the government is trying to hide by issuing this new Request for Proposal in secret.
Sources:
[i] https://thegunblog.ca/2020/09/28/ministry-says-its-revising-bid-for-confiscation-work-after-failed-tender/
[ii] https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-data/search/site/Firearms%2520Buyback%2520Program?retain-filters=1&f%5B0%5D=ss_publishing_status%3ASDS-SS-008&f%5B1%5D=sm_facet_procurement_data%3Atender_notice
Guns Not So Easy to Obtain Legally, Canadians Discover