Procurement Restriction Policy
On Friday, April 4, 2025 the Ontario Government implemented a Procurement Restriction Policy. This Procurement Restriction Policy is designed to restrict United States (U.S.) businesses from accessing public sector procurements in Ontario.
This Policy applies:
- to all new procurements of goods and services (consulting and non-consulting) at any value.
- regardless of the method of procurement — invitational, open competitive or non-competitive.
- To existing VOR lists - U.S. based businesses listed on a VOR should not be used when Canadian vendors are available
- Optional year extensions of existing contracts
A U.S. business means a supplier, manufacturer or distributor of any business structure (includes a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or other business structure) that:
- has its headquarters or main office located in the U.S., and
- has fewer than 250 full-time employees in Canada at the time of the applicable procurement process.
Procuring from a U.S. business is allowed only when a U.S. business is the only viable source for the good/service and the procurement cannot be delayed. All procurements from U.S. businesses require CFO/President’s approval, regardless of dollar value. The Purchasing team should be contacted prior to initiating any new sourcing activity with a U.S. vendor or exercising an optional year of a contract.
Tariff Impact
The Government of Canada announced that effective March 4, 2025, it will be imposing 25 percent tariff on $30 billion in goods imported from the United States (U.S.). This will impact the purchase of goods made from U.S. based vendors and may impact goods resold through Canadian vendors.
In an effort to track these additional costs, Purchasing will advise vendors to separate the tariffs from the cost of goods in their quotes and invoices, and we ask you to do the same when sourcing.
When entering a requisition in Banner, a separate line should be created for tariffs and commodity code 697 and account code 7069 should be used. This will enable Purchasing to track and report on the impact of the tariffs to the institution.
We continue to work closely with Supply Ontario and our group purchasing partners to develop our procurement strategy to manage and mitigate the impact of tariffs.
Should you have any questions and/or concerns, please reach out to purchasing@humber.ca or myself.
Kelly Tsoumagas, CPA (she/her/hers)
Director, Financial Services