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

[Glen Newton]

Criminals can get the information with respect to the other players by
various means (if they don't know already), whereas normal people
cannot.

Bribes, prostitutes, drugs, threats and extortion have opened up more
information to the bad guys than ATI has done for the rest of us (so
far!). The argument is vacuous. If the criminals want to know, they
will find out.

Open it up for all to (equally) see and collusion should be harder.
- make sure when someone opens up a new construction company and is
harassed/threatened/murdered by their criminal competitors, that the
police et al. take it seriously.
- make it easier to dig through shell companies at Industry Canada
- make it easier to see how many companies a person has created over
time (Industry Canada), to see patterns of abuse. It matters little
that there has been a "healthy" ecosystem of 200+ construction
companies over the last 40 years, if 90% of them have been owned by
the same 4 people or families.

-Glen

On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Stéphane Guidoin
<stephane.guidoin at gmail.com> wrote:
> During a meeting yesterday where we discussed this point, the head of the
> "greffe" (who is in charge of the ATI request) said that an ATI request
> would be refused for the same reasons. However, with ATI requests, it is
> always possible to appeal where the reason of refusal might be rejected.
>
> Yeah, GC publishes some data, but some might argue that the risk of
> collusion is lower because of the larger geographical coverage. Collusion is
> easier to setup locally although wide cartel systems exist.
>
> Steph
>
>
> Le 13-05-09 13:47, James McKinney a écrit :
>
> Wow, I was considering sending an ATI request to get the list of providers.
> I guess I can expect a "No"? However, the reason you explain below doesn't
> fall into any of the standard exemptions to ATI requests, so it may still be
> possible to get the list. Frankly, I think the reason isn't a good one - the
> construction companies already know each other. I think publishing the list
> would make it easier for watchdogs (who are less familiar with those
> companies) to more effectively research potential collusion.
>
> Canada provides a list on its data catalog:
> https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-data/standing-offers-and-supply-arrangements
>
> James
>
>
> On 2013-05-09, at 12:45 PM, Stéphane Guidoin wrote:
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
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