Annual Report April 1999 – March 2000

Highlights of the Year in Review

In 1999/2000, the Parties to the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) continued to engage in negotiations mandated by the Agreement and necessary for its implementation and for concluding the outstanding obligations in the Agreement.

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

• the coming into force on July 1, 1999 of Annex 502.4 which sets out the procurement provisions that apply to the MASH sector (i.e. municipalities, municipal organizations, school boards and publicly-funded academic, health and social service entities);
• continuing negotiations to reduce the number of government entities excluded from the procurement rules;
• investigating the feasibility of developing a search engine for public procurement opportunities;
• finalizing guidelines on the content and format of Annual Reports on Incentives;
• continuing negotiations to clarify the Code of Conduct on Incentives;
• developing a detailed plan to support the achievement of full compliance with the labour mobility obligations of Chapter Seven (Note: in the Social Union Agreement of February 4, 1999, First Ministers, except for the Premier of Quebec, agreed that entities subject to Chapter 7 must be in full compliance with its provisions by July 1, 2001);
• approving an agenda for further cooperation on consumer issues that goes beyond the 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;
• developing a major public consultations project to commence in the fall of 2000;
• standardizing the type of procurement information reported by governments through the use of a common reporting template;
• streamlining the existing Chapter 17 dispute resolution process following a review of the first dispute panel process;
• carrying out a series of consultative meetings with business groups, labour associations and non-governmental organizations in New Brunswick and in British Columbia;
• initiating the development of a Agateway@ internet site which will list and provide links to Canadian public sector web sites where public tenders may be found;
• completing a report to the CIT. on considerations for the future of the AIT; and
• carrying out the necessary preparations to address potential Y2K issues.

In 1999/2000, 24 disputes were formally initiated using the dispute settlement mechanisms provided for under the Agreement. Of these, 14 had been addressed by year end, 2 are inactive and 8 are pending. Since the coming into force of the AIT in July 1995, there has been a total of 89 disputes filed to date of which 77 have been addressed. Further, the average length of time to dispose of a dispute has been steadily dropping from 5.3 months in 1995/96 to 3.4 months in the current reporting period with an average of 4.3 months over the period since the coming into force of the AIT.

The following sections of this report provide details about the above and other activities undertaken under the AIT during the period 1999/2000.