In Centre-du-Québec, the least gré à gré, and public calls that stay contested
The lowest gré à gré share of the seventeen regions, tied with Abitibi-Témiscamingue, and few single-bid calls: the review in Centre-du-Québec.
By Philippe Dallaire, founder ·
The public procurement review measures, region by region, the size of contracts, the share of gré à gré and the competition on public calls for tenders. Two regions have the lowest gré à gré share in Quebec: Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Centre-du-Québec. In Abitibi-Témiscamingue, a call draws few bidders. In Centre-du-Québec, it is the opposite: calls stay contested.
The least gré à gré
The share of awarded processes given by gré à gré is 42%, against 62% for all of Quebec. Tied with Abitibi-Témiscamingue, it is the lowest share of the seventeen regions; Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and the Outaouais come next. A gré à gré contract awarded below the public-tender threshold is lawful, and the review does not say why the share is lower here.
Calls that draw competitors
Of the 900 public calls that closed in 2024 and 2025 on notices naming only Centre-du-Québec, 15% drew a single bid, against 18% for all of Quebec. Only Laval and Lanaudière have a lower share. A call drew 4.0 bidders on average, of the same order as for Quebec as a whole.
A median contract close to Quebec's
In 2024 and 2025, the median contract awarded in Centre-du-Québec was $66K, against $69K for all of Quebec. In the Outaouais, little gré à gré went with some of the largest contracts in Quebec, and a link seemed plausible: gré à gré contracts are mostly contracts below the threshold, so smaller ones. Centre-du-Québec shows that link is not automatic. The review does not say why: what a contract is worth depends first on what is being bought.
What the review does not say
The review counts bids; it does not say why single-bid calls are rarer here, and a single bid says nothing about how a contract was awarded. Distance may weigh. The region is within driving reach of the large centres, where firms are numerous: a firm from outside has less ground to cover than in Abitibi-Témiscamingue or on the Côte-Nord, and less travel to put into its price. The review does not measure it.
For a bidder
A larger share of contracts than elsewhere goes through a public call, and those calls draw as many competitors as elsewhere in Quebec. A firm that follows the calls in its trade in the region finds openings there, but rarely without a competitor across the table: its bid is compared with others almost every time.