The Canada Revenue Agency awarded its national security guard contract to Universal Protection Service of Canada Corporation on June 16, according to the agency’s award notice on CanadaBuys. The contract is worth $11,916,604 and runs to June 15, 2028, and it was awarded through open competition on combined technical merit and price. Quebec business registry records list “Allied Universal” as another name the company uses, and Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley reported on Oct. 19 that it beat the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires, which has guarded CRA offices since 2012.
The move confirms criticism from detractors of the Liberal government's procurement policy, which treats a U.S.-owned company with a Canadian office as a Canadian supplier. A government that promised to become “Canada’s best customer” seems to be more interested in making promises than keeping them.
What the policy covers
The Buy Canadian Policy took effect on Dec. 16, 2025, and it “does not apply to solicitations published or contracts awarded prior to the effective date,” according to the policy text published by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The CRA’s tender was published on Dec. 4, 2025, 12 days earlier. At launch, the policy covered strategic procurements of $25 million and up, and this contract was worth about half that.
By the policy’s own terms, the CRA was not bound by it. Nevertheless, security services are listed among the policy’s strategic sectors, and departments are “strongly encouraged” to apply it below the thresholds “wherever feasible.” The threshold for new solicitations fell to $5 million on June 15, 2026, the day before this award.
Canadian on paper
The tender itself said: “This solicitation is open only to Canadian suppliers.” The policy defines a Canadian supplier by a permanent place of business in Canada, tax registration and filing in Canada, and staff or day-to-day business here, and its definition contains no test of who owns or controls the supplier. The winning bidder lists a Mississauga address on the award notice.
A Toronto Star analysis on Oct. 6 estimated that 31 per cent of $25 billion in federal contracts from March 2025 to July 2026 went to U.S.-controlled companies, against 20 per cent of $36 billion in the 16 months before.
The issue is not without its nuance. While Canadian-only procurement sounds good, it can be difficult to apply when the branches of American firms employ thousands of Canadians, contribute significantly to the tax base and our GDP, and sometimes hold unique IP or a superior product. Nevertheless, in this case, CRA was faced with a genuine Canadian supplier, and they opted for the American competitor.
The price and the parent
Lilley reported that the winning bid came in a little more than $80,000 below the Commissionaires’ bid, less than 1 per cent of the contract. The Borealian was unable to confirm this and takes this figure as he reported. This poses the question: is Canadian sovereignty worth the difference of $80,000?
Commissionaires was founded in 1925 as a non-profit with the goal of providing full-time employment to Canadian Forces veterans and helping them navigate the difficult transition back to civilian life. The Commissionaires remains a non-profit and is the largest employer of veterans in Canada.
Allied Universal (the parent of Universal Protection Service of Canada) is a for-profit US firm whose subsidiaries have taken US$290 million in Department of Homeland Security obligations to the U.S. and about US$84 million from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc., in the U.S. government’s 2026 fiscal year. As Lilley reports, the company is “tied to Trump’s deportation machine.”
The government’s case
Liberal MP Wade Grant told the House on Oct. 7 that the Commissionaires’ right of first refusal on federal guard contracts “was designed to respond to a very specific post-war context that has evolved considerably over the past 80 years,” according to Hansard. He said the requirement that veterans work at least 60 per cent of contract hours had been missed since at least 2013-14 and that the share fell to 27 per cent in the first quarter of 2025-26. Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight wrote to the Commissionaires on Feb. 27 that the right will end in April 2027, The Canadian Press reported, and the Commissionaires have filed a court challenge.
A PSPC spokesperson told the Star that 34 contracts worth $1.5 billion had been awarded under the Buy Canadian Policy since December. However, it is unclear what portion of those contracts were awarded to Canadian-owned firms vs U.S. firms with a Canadian office.
The choices ahead
Canadians should ask themselves and their government how serious they are about supporting Canadian-owned firms and whether the government should be excluding those that merely have a sales office here.
In this case, a Canadian firm lost by $80,000. I would argue that our government needs to re-examine its procurement policies if we are going to cede our sovereignty over an amount that is equal to the salary of a low-level bureaucrat. This country needs to do better, and we need to move beyond rhetoric and into action.
