Annual Report – April 2000 to March 2001

Highlights of the Year in Review

During 2000/2001, the Parties to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) continued their efforts to fully implement the Agreement by pursuing the negotiations mandated by the Agreement and necessary for concluding the outstanding obligations in the Agreement. In total, officials held over 25 meetings and over 100 conference calls during the year in pursuit of the objectives of fully implementing the AIT and of looking at the future of the AIT and at ways for improving internal trade

In terms of the specific activities undertaken, the highlights for this year were:

• continuing negotiations to reduce the number of government entities excluded from the procurement rules;
• implementing MARCAN, a website which lists and provide links to Canadian public sector websites that may publish tenders;
• continuing negotiations to clarify the Code of Conduct on Incentives;
• completing the work toward the achievement of full compliance with the labour mobility obligations of the AIT (Note: in the Social Union Agreement of February 4, 1999, First Ministers, except for the Premier of Quebec, agreed that entities subject to the AIT must be in full compliance with its provisions by July 1, 2001);
• initiating the implementation of an agenda for further cooperation on consumer issues beyond the now completed AIT requirements;
• continuing work with the Canadian Standards Association to develop a Canadian quality assurance standard for the procurement of computers by governments;
• continuing negotiations to resolve the outstanding issue in the Energy Chapter concerning the nature and extent of carve-outs for regional economic development programs;
• implementing the first phase of a major public consultations project on improving internal trade by holding 3 regional round tables in Saskatoon, Montreal and Moncton; and
• developing tables and charts showing reported government procurement since the coming into force of the AIT for inclusion on the Secretariat’s website;

In 2000/2001, 33 disputes were formally initiated using the dispute settlement mechanisms provided for under the Agreement. Of these, 19 had been addressed by year end and 14 were pending. In total, 122 disputes have been filed between the time the AIT came into force in July 1995 and the end of this reporting period, of which 96 have been resolved, 4 are inactive and 22 are pending. Further, the average length of time to dispose of a dispute has been steadily dropping, from 5.3 months in 1995/96 to 3.5 months in the current reporting period. This results in an average of 4.1 months over the time since the Agreement came into effect.

The following sections of this report provide details of the above and other activities undertaken under the AIT during the period 2000/2001.