[CivicAccess-discuss] City list of provider: should it be open?

[Stéphane Guidoin]

Hi there,

I would like to submit a case to the wisdom of the list here :)

As you probably know, Montreal (and Québec in general) is struggling
with some corruption issue. As an effort to push govs to be more
"agressive" on the topic, Quebec Ouvert organized a hackathon about
corruption few months ago, asking govs to open data that can help find
corruption cases: contract attributions, etc.

One of the request for the City of Montreal was the list of the
registered providers. I guess it is the same in other place, but in
order to get some business from the city, you have to be registered as a
provider. When the City is doing some invitation-based call for tender
(between 25 and 100 k$ I think), they do the invitation based on this
list. For open call for tenders (100k$+), you have to be registered to
submit.

The request to publish this registry was rejected recently. Reason: it
would ease collusion. If, as a mafiosi-sidewalk builder I can see who
else is registered in the same category as me, it eases my work to reach
out all the other providers and set up a collusion/cartel schema.

Do you agree with this reason? Does anybody knows some cities that
provider registered provider list?  Comments?

Stéphane