Federal work: CanadaBuys
The Government of Canada posts its tenders on CanadaBuys. It is free to search and you don't need an account to read a notice.
Federal notices cover the whole country. A federal job in your town is on CanadaBuys, not on your provincial site. Look for departments that build and maintain things near you, such as Public Services and Procurement Canada, Defence Construction Canada and Parks Canada.
Provincial work: a different site in each province
- Québec: SEAO, which also covers municipalities, health authorities and school boards.
- Manitoba: MERX.
- British Columbia: BC Bid.
- Alberta: Alberta Purchasing Connection.
- Saskatchewan: SaskTenders.
- Ontario: the Ontario Tenders Portal.
- New Brunswick: the New Brunswick Opportunities Network.
- Yukon: the Government of Yukon's tender site.
Each province can change where it posts, so check the province's own procurement page if a link stops working.
Municipal work: the part most people miss
Cities, school divisions, health authorities and utilities often use their own portal. Bids&Tenders, Biddingo, Bonfire and MERX carry most of them. The City of Winnipeg moved to MERX on 1 March 2025.
Make a list of the ten or twenty buyers you would actually work for, and find out where each one posts. That list is worth more than any search.
What it costs
Reading federal notices on CanadaBuys and Québec notices on SEAO costs nothing up front, though SEAO charges for some documents. Some portals charge a subscription, or a fee per document. Check the portal's pricing before you count on it.
Register as a document holder when you download a package. Buyers usually send addenda to the people on that list, and an addendum you miss can cost you the bid.
How to keep up with it
- Set up the email alerts each portal offers, using your trade's words and not just its category.
- Search in both languages if you work in or near Québec. A French notice won't match the word "plumbing".
- Check the source lists and standing offers too. They aren't jobs, but getting on one can bring you work without a full tender.
- Ask the general contractors you work with to put you on their invitation list. Much of a subcontractor's public work arrives that way.
Then the real work: which ones are worth reading
Finding tenders is the easy half. Most of what you find won't be work you can bid, because of a certificate you don't hold, a bond you can't get or a site too far away. You usually find that out after reading the documents.
BidCaliper reads the open federal, Québec, Toronto and Yukon notices, plus any you forward from other portals. It checks each one against your company and tells you which ones you can win, and why.