CanadaBuys contract history

This dataset contains the history of contracts awarded by Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), published online since January 2009 on behalf of federal departments and agencies. It replaces and builds upon the original Contract History dataset, which has been archived and will no longer be updated.

CanadaBuys became the authoritative source of this information as of June 2023. Visit the How procurement works page on the CanadaBuys website to learn more. And to browse related information online, see the Contract history tab of the CanadaBuys Tender opportunities page. Additional supporting documentation was created for updates to the CanadaBuys tender notices and CanadaBuys awards notices datasets. This page can be referenced for additional context to the update of this dataset as well.

NOTE: While the CanadaBuys online portal includes contract history from across multiple levels of government, the data files in this related dataset only include contracts associated with federal government organizations.

This dataset is a compilation of information from multiple procurement systems. Not all of these data sources capture information in the same format, so some data fields will remain blank where a particular system does not provide that information. The following list describes the resources associated with this CanadaBuys contract history dataset.

(1) CanadaBuys data dictionary: This XML file offers a description of each data field contained in the contract history files linked below, as well as other related procurement datasets published by CanadaBuys. Use this as a guide for understanding the data elements in these files. This dictionary is updated as needed to reflect changes to the data elements.

(2) All CanadaBuys contract history, 2023-06-01 onwards: This file contains up to date information on all contracts awarded after the implementation of CanadaBuys. This includes any contracts initially awarded on or after June 1, 2023, when CanadaBuys became the system of record for the consolidated Contract History for the Government of Canada. This file is refreshed monthly, generally in the 3rd week of each month to include any updates or amendments from the preceding month.

(3) Contract history, YYYY-YYYY: These files contain the history of any contract initially awarded in a given fiscal year (and any of its future amendments). A fiscal year for the Government of Canada starts on April 1 until March 31 of the subsequent year. These files are refreshed monthly, generally in the 3rd week of the month, to include any new updates or amendments. Contract history records in these files can have any initial award date between April 1 of a given year and March 31 of the subsequent year (displayed in the field labelled “contractAwardDate-dateAttributionContrat”). This information originally began to be published in January 2009 so the earliest file only covers the final quarter of that fiscal year. New contract history data files will be added on April 1 for each fiscal year.

Note: A known data quality issue exists where in past years (predominately before 2021) records detailing contract amendments placed the amendment date in the contract award date field of that record. This was partially due to the fact that the previous version of the Contract history dataset (now archived) did not have a separate field to capture the amendment date apart from the initial contract award date. This issue unfortunately means that filtering on the contract award date field to produce the fiscal year specific datafiles does not properly capture the data, as intended. We are investigating this issue at present, and if there is a way for this to be corrected, we will do so in a later release and will provide an update to the description of this dataset accordingly.

(4) Contract history, 2009-01 to 2023-05 (prior to CanadaBuys): This file contains the history of contracts initially awarded prior to CanadaBuys becoming the system of record for contract history data, which occurred on 1 June 2023. This file will be refreshed monthly, generally in the 3rd week of the month, to include any new updates or amendments.