Whether it's goats to keep lawns tidy or felt hats to ensure Mounties look spiffy, Canada’s governments make many surprising and entertaining purchases every year.
And they all can be found in the IJF’s newest public-interest database. The procurement database, released Tuesday, shares both awarded contracts and tenders — invitations to companies to bid for upcoming contract opportunities — made by government departments and agencies federally and in B.C.
Procurement
Canadian governments spend billions of taxpayer dollars on contracts every year. The IJF is holding public institutions accountable by tracking where that money goes.
We scoured our procurement database to uncover some of the weirdest and wackiest contracts advertised or signed by these governments in recent years.
Read on for some of our best finds…
1. Kids these days
We’re not kidding: a surprising number of government contracts relate to goats.
Since 2018, the Department of National Defence (DND) has been working with Darci and Michael Penner, owners of Penner Goats and Custom Grazing, to provide a herd of goats for “vegetation control” at Canada’s fighter aircraft base at 4 Wing Cold Lake in Alberta.
In the past, lawnmower operators had suffered injuries when trying to cut down grass on the steep, sloped parts of the base, according to Lt. Samuel Deslauriers, public affairs officer for 4 Wing Cold Lake. But, on the goats’ trial run, “they grazed down the areas to meet the specifications required by the Federal and DND regulations in record time,” said Deslauriers.
Since then, the base has been using the goats roughly twice annually. The agreement was renewed again in 2020 and, currently, Penner Goats has a standing offer agreement with the DND base.
As per the 2020 tender, “herds must consist of a minimum of 70 percent goats (i.e. minimum of 175 goats) and up to 30 percent sheep.” DND evidently demands only the highest standards from their hooved hires as the documents also mandate that the grazing herds “maintain work in tidy condition, free from accumulation of waste products and debris.”
Otherwise, Deslauriers said the herds are “easy to maintain,” partially because they “don’t require security clearances to access DND property.” Deslauriers added: “To date they haven’t complained and seem to enjoy the various types of vegetation that we have growing around our Airfield.”
Last July, B.C. put out a call for 15 GPS-enabled collars to help “model and map mountain goat habitat selection.” Less than a month later, the province awarded the contract, totalling $35,438, to Lotek Wireless, Inc., a company based in Newmarket, Ont. experienced in tracking the location of a range of animals from small sea turtles to dragonflies.
Looking for a new college major? The B.C. Ministry of Forests published a curiously named tender for “goat science” in late 2021. The province sought bidders to study the goat population in central B.C.’s Bulkley Valley to help the government learn how best to balance goats’ needs with recreational activity in the area. A firm called Ardea Biological Consulting ultimately won the contract, worth $10,000 over three months.
2. Cheese, please
The IJF’s procurement database also sheds some light on the diets of public servants across the country.
Tender documents from 2017 estimate that the RCMP’s training depot in Regina consumes about 5.7 metric tons of cheese a year, roughly the weight of an adult African elephant.
According to a recent RCMP video, some of the most popular meals in the cadets’ mess hall include lasagna and pizza — offering a potential explanation for the high cheese consumption levels.
And back to Canada’s DND. In 2022, the DND contracted food supplier C.W. Shasky & Associates Ltd. to supply over $413,302 worth of hot sauce packets to the department for its dry rations packages. According to the tender documents, the hot sauce was evaluated by government officials on the criteria of appearance, flavour and texture and required to be both “of good quality” and “characteristic in flavor.”
3. Adorned Mounties
The RCMP is immediately recognizable in their uniforms, which consist of bright red coats and iconic brown felt hats.
Most Canadians would be surprised to learn the Mounties turn to a California outfit for their famous hats.
The IJF found that the RCMP awarded a contract for nearly $1.4 million for meticulously designed felt hats in 2020 to Dorfman Milano Company.
Design requests for the hats included a “quality mixture of rabbit and hare fur” and that the inner hat be stamped in 24-karat gold.
Dorfman Milano purchased Biltmore Felt Hats Corp. in 2011. Biltmore was founded in 1917 in Guelph, Ont. and combatted economic hardship in the late nineties by making official headgear for the Ontario Provincial Police and RCMP, according to archives from the Guelph Historical Society.
Today, over 70 per cent of Biltmore’s business is with the American hat market. However, they still produce hats for the Mounties as one of their few remaining Canadian business connections.
4. Off to the races
You’ve likely heard of athletes doping for enhanced performance. But what about our equine counterparts?
The IJF found Bureau Veritas Canada Inc., an inspection company based in Mississauga, Ont. was awarded a contract worth more than $13 million by the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency (CPMA), an agency within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) to test racehorses’ urine, blood and plasma for performance-enhancing drugs.
In an email, an AAFC spokesperson stated that Canadian provinces also use the private sector for equine drug-testing services.
“All of CPMA’s funding is from a levy on the dollars bet in Canada on horse racing,” AAFC media relations advisor Bronwyn Goodman said.
Approximately 20,000 samples are processed annually under this contract, which expires on March 31, 2025.
5. Pest problems
Embassies and high commissions abroad are typically high-security institutions.
However, the IJF’s database reveals that Canada’s High Commission in India may be facing a slew of unexpected intruders: cockroaches.
In May, the High Commission published a tender calling for pest control services for its representational spaces and staff quarters in New Delhi, India. The tender documents specify a need for services covering a range of pests including cockroaches, mosquitoes, rodents, wasps and lizards.
The High Commission did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
About the data
The award values used in IJF stories refer to the amount the government has committed to spending on a contract. It is not a record of funds paid out. Contracts under $10,000 are not always made publicly available and are therefore excluded from the data. At launch time, the IJF has standardized a subset of the 235,000 unique supplier names in the database to reflect name variations, subsidiaries and acquisitions. The standardization effort is ongoing. Read here for more information on how our database is organized.