Name: Navigating Canada’s Evolving Government Market in 2026
Uploaded: 2026-03-14T09:36:05.099Z
Duration: 1 h 12 s
Description: Navigating Canada’s Evolving Government Market in 2026

Transcript for "Navigating Canada’s Evolving Government Market in 2026": Welcome, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. We're glad to have you with we we're glad to have you with us today for today's presentation, Navigating Canada's Evolving Government Market in 2026. My name is Brent Mitel. I'm the senior research analyst in the SLED side of GovWin Market Analysis, and I'll be the moderator for today's webinar. Before we start, I do have a few important information to share with you. To enjoy the best webinar experience, please use Google Chrome or Firefox as your browser. You can ask questions anytime during the presentation by typing them into the Q and A box, and we'll try our best to answer as many questions as we can at the end of the webinar. If you are a current GovWin customer, you can also submit inquiries to our research team of analysts through govwind.com. It's a great option if we don't have time to address your specific question on this webinar. You can also download the presentation slides and other resources from the resources panel on your screen. You'll also receive an email with the on demand recording of today's webinar within twenty four hours after the webinar ends. Next slide. And next slide. And so let me introduce our speaker for today's presentation. With us we have Bryn Bruder, Senior Research Analyst on the Canadian market analysis side of Govlin IQ. And before we jump into the material for today's presentation, we're gonna have a few poll questions that we're gonna run through and we will share the responses. Next slide. Oh, sorry, the agenda first. So we'll have an executive summary, giving you a high level overview of everything in today's presentation, followed by the Canadian government procurement spending forecast, and then the 2026 government contracting trends and market conditions, followed up with a spotlight on AI, and we will conclude with Q and A. Next slide. Alright, so the poll questions here are anonymous, but we will share the results, it'll be in a percentage form. And we're just asking in this first one here, compared to this time last year, are you feeling more confident or less confident about the state of the Canadian economy? So just select one. There's more confident, less confident, the same, or not sure. And we'll give, ten, twenty seconds here. Let some people time to see the question and respond, and then we'll just take a look at the results. Alright. So we'll just keep waiting a few more seconds here. Again, more confident, less confident, the same, or not sure. Alright. I think we can go ahead and see the results. We got most responses in. Alright. So, in the state of Canadian economy, the majority of you answered more confident. It's split between the same and not sure, and then Lois was less confidence with 18%. And then we just have one more poll question before we jump into the material. Next slide. So here we're asking the same question, but about The US economy. So compared to this time last year, how are you feeling more confident or less confident about the state of The US economy? And the same answers apply here. More confident, less confident, the same, or not sure. So again, we'll go ahead and give people some time here to respond and we'll take a look at these. Alright. Give it about ten more seconds. Most of the response responses are in. Alright. Let's go ahead and take a look at the results. So honestly, not surprising here to anybody on this presentation today, 76% less confident. That is, I mean, when you see it visually, it's it's pretty incredible, so but not a surprise. Alright. So now I will hand it over to Brynn, and she's going to go ahead and get into the material. Brynn? Alright. Thank you, Brent. No. And I agree with your take. It's not surprising, but, it's shocking to see the numbers actually on the screen. But I agree, not too surprising with the overall market conditions. So before we dive into our agenda today, I want to just talk about our new market report that we have available. It is our 2026 Canadian government market outlook. So a lot of what we'll be discussing today is going to be found in this report. So if you want to learn more about anything we discuss or dive in a little more into the details, I encourage you to download that report. It is free to download. All right, so as Brett mentioned, we're starting off with an executive summary, so just high level takeaways from today's presentation. We'll be going over Canada's market outlook, and then after that, we will be diving into some of the trends and conditions that are going to impact the Canadian public sector market in 2026. So beginning with the market outlook, we're seeing that Canada's public sector market will remain resilient despite some of the overarching economic conditions. We're finding that government procurement spending is projected to grow for the federal government as well as for the provinces and territories. We're also seeing that real GDP growth is expected to stabilize. For the trends and conditions that we'll be discussing later on in the presentation, we will go through how Canada is revitalizing its strategic defense capabilities. We'll look at how infrastructure is being used as a way to drive long term economic renewal. We will be looking at AI, which is really the biggest trend of the moment. And then we'll also be looking at some changes being made to procurement in Canada and how Canadian governments are shaping their procurements and their procurement policies. All right, so beginning with our economic outlook, overall, the broader Canadian economy is experiencing slow but resilient growth. This has, of course, been impacted by tariffs, by the ongoing uncertainty in regards to the relationship between Canada and The US, and then, of course, it has also been impacted by an overall challenging global environment. Some positives right now with the economic outlook, though. Right now, inflation and unemployment are cooling down. And then also, we're seeing that Canada still has strong consumer spending, and that's really what is driving a lot of Canada's economic growth at this moment. However, trade pressures continue to be a major drag on Canada's economic growth, and we expect that to really continue through the 2026, at least while we are still figuring out what the future relationship between Canada and The United States will look like. Now, in this graph, we are comparing real GDP growth between Canada and The US. So on the Canadian side, we see that in 2024, real GDP growth declined to about 1%. That was pretty much a plateau into last year with 1.1%, but in 2026, we're expecting that growth to rise a little bit to 1.3% and then more moderately to 1.7% next year. Now, this is actually a bit of a more positive outlook than The US, where we can see that real GDP growth is actually anticipated to plateau. Well, first, it shrank last year, and then it is going to be shrinking a little more and plateauing through 2027. So just kind of an interesting development. Usually, The US experiences more robust GDP growth than Canada, so even though the numbers are higher, the trend is not as strong as the one for Canada. All right, now we are moving into our procurement spending forecast section. A couple notes on our forecasting methodology just to begin. What we did with this research is we forecasted procurement spending for the period between 2025 and 2027. We did this for the Canadian federal government as well as for all of the provinces and territories. We did not do it for this is just we focused on those governments because that is where the data is readily and easily available, so that is why we won't be focusing on the municipal sector today when we talk about our forecast. So our research was conducted using Statistics Canada data sets on government finance. We used the historical data and spending patterns from these data sets to predict the most likely trajectory of government spending in Canada through 2027. Something to note is that all dollar amounts in today's presentation are going to be in Canadian dollars unless we note otherwise. So on this slide, we are seeing the forecast for federal procurement spending, which we can see has been increasing steadily every year since 2015. There was a little bit of a larger uptick in 2021, which was because of pandemic era spending, but overall, this long term growth trend we're seeing is projected to continue. So this year, that spending will come in at about $42,200,000,000 and then $44,700,000,000 next year. Here, we are looking at annual growth in federal procurement spend. We see that there were some particularly strong years, 2021 obviously, but then 2022 and 'twenty three also had very strong growth in the 6% range. Now, that did decline in 2024, but it is recovering to a moderate level last year, and then this year, it'll climb back to a pretty strong percentage at 6.3 and then next year coming in at around 5.9% growth. Here we are looking at total provincial and territorial procurement spend, So these numbers include all 13 provinces and territories. So this number has been climbing every year since 2008, so this is pretty strong growth, and we really don't see any signs of this slowing down. For 2026, the projected spending will come in at $106,700,000,000 and then that will rise to $111,700,000,000 next year. Here, we're looking at annual growth in that total provincial and territorial procurement spend. Since 2009, there has been moderate to high growth in this area. So this is pretty different from the federal annual growth graph because with the federal, we saw that there were some years with pretty low growth, and then there were even some years that were in the negative. So this is very strong on the provincial and territorial side. There was a little bit of a dip last year to 3.3%, but then we're getting back to some more moderate growth this year at 3.8% and then next year at 4.7%. So here, we're looking at a breakdown of all federal and provincial procurement spending and the forecast as well. This table is a little bit dense, but the reason I wanted to include it in today's presentation is because it shows how much money each province and territory is spending on goods and services, so it breaks it down. You can see which provinces are spending more than others. Year after year, there are four provinces who continue to spend the large proportion who continue to be representing the large portion of all provincial and territorial procurement spend. So Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec are consistently spending most of the provincial and territorial money that we see going out. So another thing I wanted to point out with this table is the compound annual growth rate columns. So the last two columns are showing those growth rates. We separated the growth rates. The first column is for the actual years that we know, 2021 through 2024. The second column is just for our forecasted years. The compound annual growth rate for the actual years, they're pretty strong. So if you look at the subtotal province and then the combined rows, we see that there is 6.2% growth and then 5.9. So those are pretty strong numbers. And then we're seeing that with the forecasted years, those do dip a little bit to 4.3% and then overall a 4.8% growth rate. So I think that just speaks to some of the market conditions, that even though government procurement spending is resilient and is growing, there is still a little bit of correction being made even in the public sector. All right, just a few more slides in our forecast section, but I wanted to focus on those four top spending provinces. So here, we're looking at Ontario, and we can see that Ontario procurement spend has been growing over time, but 2021 marked the beginning of a more robust procurement spending trend, which is projected to continue. So this year, we're looking at about $35,200,000,000 being spent on goods and services and then $37,300,000,000 next year. Quebec, which is the second largest spending province, we can see that their procurement spend plateaued in 2023. But since then, it has slowly ticked upwards. And so that spending number is going to come in at around $19,900,000,000 in 2026 and then $20,500,000,000 in 2027. Moving on to Alberta. Unlike with the federal government and many of the other provinces, procurement spend in Alberta actually shrank in 2021. And that, I think, can be largely explained because of the drop in oil prices, which likely affected other parts of the Alberta government and economy. But after 2021, we see that growth resumed. There was a brief plateau last year, but it looks like growth is anticipated to resume more modestly in 2026, so $17,100,000,000 and then next year, $17,700,000,000 All right, the last slide in our forecast section is for British Columbia. Procurement spend grew in British Columbia, had two significant years of growth. We see twenty twenty one was a pretty big jump, but then 2023 was another big jump as well. So a little bit of an up and down with the historical trend in British Columbia. But then after 2023, it's been pretty moderate growth or pretty moderate spending up until this so in 2026, we'll have $14,900,000,000 and then next year, 15,700,000,000.0. All right, before we move on to our trends and conditions for 2026, I am going to turn it back to Brent for another question for our audience. Thanks, Brynn. So yeah, we have another poll question here, three responses, you can pick more than one, so pick all that apply, And we're asking, in 2026, which type of Canadian government are you planning on doing business with? So there's the Canadian federal government, there are the provinces and territories, and the MASH sector, also known as municipalities, academic institutions, schools, and hospitals. So, again, we'll give, some time here for people to respond, and we'll look at these results together. K. Few more seconds here for last responses to trickle in. Alright. And we can go ahead and take a look at the results. And so, pretty even amongst the Canadian federal government and the provinces and territories and the MASH sector rounds up, 40%, around 40% with the rest of it. So And with that, I'll hand it back to Bryn to go ahead and jump into the next section. Bryn? All right, thank you. All right, so now I want to get into the trends and conditions that will be impacting Canada's government procurement market this year and likely for the next few years. Now, although I will say we'll be discussing a lot of federal initiatives today, but a lot of these initiatives do trickle down to the provincial and municipal levels. So the conditions and the market trends that we talk about today are really going to be applicable to all levels of government, especially when it comes to some of the issues surrounding The US Canada relationship. I think that the governments in Canada are looking to each other to figure out how to approach that. So again, these are really overarching trends that we're going to be seeing. So defense, of course, that's the topic of our first trend. That is more of a federal issue. So the first trend that we have is revitalizing Canada's strategic defense capabilities. So in 2026, Canada is really shifting towards having a more modernized military, military, expanding its capabilities. It's a new strategy for how defense spending will happen, how defense contracts will be procured. Part of this new strategy is going to be acquiring more cutting edge equipment, investing more in training, in recruitment and retention, and also in cyber capabilities. Over the next five years, about $80,000,000,000 in funding will be used to strengthen ties with Canada's domestic defense industry and also to bolster Canada's global defense posture. Now, a lot of that money had been announced before this fiscal year, but there was about $9,000,000,000 in new funding for this fiscal year that is being used specifically to boost Canada's defense expenditures to 2% of GDP. So 2% was the previous target set by NATO. NATO has increased the target to 5%, but the prime minister has pledged that Canada will reach 5%, having its defense spending at 5% of GDP by the year 2035. Reaching 5% of GDP is going to require a lot of additional defense spending. There isn't really a plan. It's a little unclear at this point how Canada will get to that goal, but 2035 is the current plan. So there are some new initiatives that are important for suppliers involved in the defense sphere to understand. One of those is the defense industrial strategy. That is a new strategy that is really in line with a broader trend in Canada boosting domestic manufacturing and domestic capabilities. So the mandate for this new strategy is pretty wide reaching, but one of the main things that it aims to achieve is developing Canada's sovereign defense capabilities, and that includes owning intellectual property. The strategy is also designed to secure Canada's supply chains, to foster innovation in technology through increased research and development. Canada will also be looking to expand its strategic global partnerships, provide more workforce training to be able to train people to be building the equipment and machinery that will be critical to expanding the military. And then a final and very important aspect of the strategy is that about $1,000,000,000 is being set aside specifically to support small and medium sized enterprises. So that money is going to go towards financial aid for small and medium businesses, providing expert advice, training, helping businesses that are developing technology or developing working in an innovative way. Canada wants to be providing funding for those companies to bring their designs to fruition. So that's what that money will go towards. Now, overall, the defense industrial strategy is going to help Canada reach that 5% goal. The idea is that this will help to increase defense spending and beef up the Canadian Armed Forces. Another key initiative that contractors need to be aware of is the newly formed Defense Investment Agency. This agency came about in response to a lot of complaints, just a general sense that Canadian defense procurement is very slow, very complex. Certain acquisitions, especially if they're on the larger side, can take decades to even happen. So to address that, Canada introduced this defense investment agency that is supposed to streamline defense procurement and increase transparency around the procurement process and the decisions that are being made. This agency is going to manage acquisitions valued at $100,000,000 or more. It was only formally announced in October 2025, but already they are starting to manage several procurements, so they've been able to stand this initiative up pretty quickly. Now, with each of these trends, we want to point out some areas of interest for suppliers, so some priority acquisitions that will be where bids will be released this year or within the next couple of years. So in the defense sphere, some of those acquisitions will include armored vehicles, counter drone technology, ammunition, cyber defense solutions, and military infrastructure. I believe specifically, too, the infrastructure will support various kind of training facilities for the armed forces. Our second trend for today is driving economic renewal through infrastructure. Infrastructure is an industry that almost always boosts the economy, but in 2026, we're seeing more of a shift towards leveraging infrastructure to foster long term economic growth and resiliency. Projects of significant national importance will be prioritized when it comes to this shift, and then we'll also see a focus on projects related to housing, to trade corridors, energy, clean tech, and Arctic transportation. That last one, Arctic transportation, is right now, the Arctic is this kind of goes back to the defense slide we were just on. The Arctic is a very contentious area right now. It's very important to Canada, to The US, to several other countries. It's important to bolster the Arctic for defense and security purposes. So Canada is really focusing on increasing transportation to be able to beef up the military presence there, to be able to bring more supplies to that area. So that is why that is being included as a focus area for infrastructure over the next several years. However, with this new shift in infrastructure, the cornerstone of that is going to be what the government is calling nation building projects. So nation building, you probably have seen something about that in the news if you follow Canadian news sources, but these nation building projects essentially are very large scale, lucrative projects that are designed to provide lasting economic impacts. So far, there's about a dozen projects that are under review, and those are all focused on the energy, mining, and electricity sectors, so that kind of gives an idea of what these projects will be about. These nation building projects will be fast tracked by the newly formed Major Projects Office. This office was stood up specifically to streamline the approval process for infrastructure projects, as well as streamlining and coordinating how these projects will be funded. Theoretically, the major projects office will be able to provide economic benefits quicker because of the quick nature of how they will be managed and approved. Another important thing to note going into 2026 for suppliers is that there are several new tax incentives that you can take advantage of. These were introduced in the 2025 federal budget, which just came out at the end of last year. One incentive that is getting a lot of attention is called the productivity super deduction. This is actually a cluster of tax incentives that allow 100% immediate write offs for investments in buildings, machinery, and equipment. So essentially, Canada is looking to make it less expensive to invest in construction in Canada to get started. However, it is worth noting that with the budget, there was no change to the corporate tax rate or no significant change, at least. When it comes to priority acquisitions that we'll be seeing in the AEC realm, we're going to see projects related to the mining of critical minerals. I mentioned before the dual military civilian Arctic transportation. Those projects are going to take the form of roadways, highways, and airports primarily. And then we'll also be seeing projects related to airport safety, so infrastructure projects to improve safety at commercial airports throughout Canada. The third trend we're discussing today is redefining governance in the age of AI. The tech landscape in Canada is rapidly evolving to keep up with advancements in AI, and this is in turn transforming the public sector. Canada is also looking to cement itself as a global leader in AI. There is a nearly $1,000,000,000 investment over the next five years to develop a large scale sovereign public AI infrastructure. Now, a lot of that funding was announced prior to this fiscal year, although I think about $100,000,000 of it was new for this fiscal year. But that is still a pretty significant investment. And developing that AI infrastructure is also going to involve the development of a sovereign Canadian cloud. So those will be done hand in hand. In addition to that funding, there's an additional $25,000,000 that is being put towards a program to explore how organizations use AI and what its impact is on the Canadian economy, workforce, and society. So clearly, there is a lot of strong demand for AI, and we're seeing that when it comes to government buyers as well. Near the end of last year, we did some research about AI opportunities and how many AI opportunities can we really expect to see coming out of the Canadian market. So we did some forecasting research very similar to the forecast we saw earlier in this presentation, and what we found is that in 2026, for all of Canada, there will be almost 2,000 bids and tenders related to AI solutions that will be released. And then looking forward to 2027, that number is going to climb to over 2,500. So that is pretty significant growth when it comes to the amount of AI opportunities that you can expect to see. Another important thing to note is the regulatory frameworks for AI that exist in Canada. Right now, there are a few voluntary frameworks. There is a policy that federal employees are expected to follow when they use AI. So there's a few different things like that, but there really is no formal regulation of the technology yet. There was some talk last year about there maybe being legislation released. That did not end up happening. So now market experts are hearing that 2026 will be the year where more formal legislation will be released again. And there was a formal bill that was on the table when Justin Trudeau was still the prime minister. But when that government ended, the bill also effectively, the bill was dead. So still waiting on that new legislation, not sure what quarter of the year it's expected in, but sometime in 2026. Similarly, the federal government is also expected to update its AI national strategy this year. Perhaps those two things will be released hand in hand, but that is also expected in 2026. One thing we've noticed with AI is that there's definitely and something that suppliers should take note of is that there's definitely a stronger demand for certain specialties. So there's a lot of different streams of AI, different sectors. But when government buyers are releasing bids and when they're looking for suppliers to award contracts to, we're noticing that there's a lot of demand for specialties in machine learning integration, generative and agentic AI, cloud based AI solutions, as well as AI compliance consulting. And then in terms of the priority acquisitions that we expect to see released this year, of course, an AI supercomputing system, although that could depending on how that procurement is undertaken, that could be broken down into several procurements. We'll be seeing opportunities for data center solutions and then also infrastructure upgrades, so upgrading existing data centers and other infrastructure like that. All right, last but not least, we have our building domestic strength Through Procurement trend. This is really focusing on some of the Buy Canadian movement that has emerged since last year, since the beginning of last year, when when US tariffs came into effect. I would say that this trend is a direct result of actions of The US tariffs and actions that have been taken by The US. But essentially, what is happening is that there is a new national procurement strategy that is going where the goal of it is to boost opportunities for domestic Canadian suppliers and invest in domestic manufacturing. The the strategy also does involve working with trusted international partners, but we'll get to that in a couple of minutes. So this new policy is called the Buy Canadian policy. It is a federal policy that prioritizes Canadian goods, services, and materials. The policy is there's an interim policy in place right now, but it will be fully implemented by the spring of this year. It applies to all federal departments, agencies, and crown corporations. Corporations. Concerning not so Canadian ownership. That's not really what the policy outlines. It's more about the value added for Canada. So when you're submitting your bid, how are you demonstrating that you are going to invest in Canadian employees, invest in Canadian content or materials? So it's really more about the investment being made in Canada, not so much about who owns the company. Like I said, there's an interim policy in place right now. So the initial focus has really been on defense and strategic infrastructure projects, as well as on the steel and softwood lumber sectors. And first, the steel and lumber sectors, those are two of the hardest hit sectors from US tariffs, so that is why those are such a focal point right away for Buy Canadian. However, this policy will be expanded to cover almost anything and everything that is being acquired by the federal government. One, a really interesting development with Buy Canadian is that there is going to be a new formal program to support small and medium sized businesses. The program is actively in development, so we'll be seeing more details about it likely in the spring, so not a lot to report there about exactly how small and medium businesses will be supported, but look for more details on that in the spring. Now, overall, the Buy Canadian policy represents a pretty fundamental shift in terms of how Canada is approaching procurement. Before, there was more of a when it came to supporting Canadian business, it was really more of a best effort kind of mantra. But this is really a shift from putting in your best effort to a clear obligation to be prioritizing Canadian companies and suppliers. The details are still being ironed out. There's a few details so far about how the ranking system will work, the point system, but because the details are still being ironed out about how this will apply to all different types of procurements across all different industries, so expect a lot more information to come out in the spring, I'm guessing. But one thing that suppliers should be prepared for is providing more documentation when you submit a bid, because now, in addition to just responding to the bid with how your services or goods can satisfy the bid, you will also be providing documentation and proof, essentially, of how your goods are manufactured in Canada, who you employ in Canada. Whatever the specific bid calls for, just expect to be providing more proof of your Canadian value add. So this is all what I've just discussed is all the federal policy, but other levels of government in Canada do have their own versions of Buy Canadian. I would say the most robust policy outside of this federal one is for the province of Ontario. They recently actually passed legislation that requires their provincial agencies to prioritize Ontario and Canadian suppliers. However, since that legislation was passed, we are still awaiting more guidance on that, so also something to be looking out for. Now, back quickly to the federal by Canadian policy, one other important aspect of it is that it calls for reciprocal market access. So what this means is that a foreign supplier will be able to bid on a Canadian federal bid or a Canadian federal contract if they are based in a country that provides Canada with similar market access. So this is where it does get a little bit complicated concerning Canada and The US, and we are going to provide some more analysis on this policy. So I would continue to check back with our Market Analysis page on GovWin because we are going to be doing some more analysis into this issue because there are a couple of different trade agreements that impact the reciprocity between Canada and The US, so it's a little too much to unpack in today's webinar, so we are going to provide some more information on that in the coming weeks. But in terms of the priority acquisitions for this trend or related to this trend, with Canada really wanting to beef up its domestic manufacturing and be supporting Canadian business and growing Canadian businesses, that is going to require more infrastructure, so we'll be seeing projects related to trade infrastructure coming out over the next few years. All right, the last major section of today's presentation is our spotlight on AI. I talked a little bit about this earlier, but we did some research into forecasting AI opportunities. We wanted to be able to tell you how many opportunities you can act. There's a lot of talk about AI, but how many opportunities can you actually expect to see and be able to factor into your business development pipeline? So much like our forecast earlier on in the presentation, we used similar techniques to predict how many bids and tenders are going to be released across Canada where it concerns AI solutions. So on the graph, on the left side of the graph for the years 2022, 'twenty three, 'twenty four, the bars look small, but they do represent significant growth. So going from a count of around two ninety to three ninety to almost five ninety, that is pretty strong historical growth. And so that does point to a more ambitious forecast when we're looking at the amount of AI opportunities. So in 2026, we're anticipating about 2,000 opportunities to be released, and then next year, that number is going to soar to almost 2,600. Right now, we really have no reason to expect that this trend is going to slow down. Of course, there could always be a burst in the AI bubble, a dip excitement surrounding it. But based on everything we're seeing now, and especially considering the growth, if you look at 2024 to 2025, that's almost essentially doubled the amount of opportunities. So at this point, we really have no reason to not look at this forecast and assume that that is what is going to happen. What we've also learned from this research is that, so obviously, governments are investing more in AI, but another important thing that we've learned from this research is that critical language about AI included is more and more in standard bidding terms. So governments are really looking for companies that are using AI responsibly, that are using it to make their operations more efficient, and that's becoming more of a key determinant in certain types of procurements. All right, here we're looking at the same forecast. We're just looking at it from a quarterly breakdown just to provide a little bit more nuance about how that growth is going to happen or how it's likely to happen. 2026 will be pretty straightforward, pretty steady growth throughout the four quarters. But in 2027, we're anticipating a little bit of a dip before we're back to that consistent growth through the 2027. All right, so that concludes the bulk of our presentation. There's a few things that I want you to take away from what you've heard today. The first thing is that there is a resilient public sector in Canada. And I think, honestly, a lot of you recognize that from your response to that very first polling question. You are more confident in the Canadian economy today. So what we're seeing is that government procurement spending is going to continue growing, and that is despite all of the challenging market conditions and the stagnant growth that Canada's economy has experienced over the last few years. Second, strategic acquisitions. What we're seeing is that Canadian governments are being more intentional about their purchases. These acquisitions are going to be serving a strategic purpose, and also governments are looking more into who they're buying from. And as we discussed with our last trend, procurement is now going to be supporting the Canadian economy. Lastly, AI is a top priority. Obviously, there are going to be a lot more opportunities for bidding on AI solutions, but on top of that, contractors should also be prepared to demonstrate how you have incorporated AI into your business. I assume that almost everyone is starting to incorporate AI into their business operations, but you will now be showing how is it making your business more efficient and how are you using it safely and responsibly. Alright. Brent, I'll let you take over this polling question. Thanks, Brynn. Alright. So here we have our last polling question. The responses for this one will not be shared. This is if you're interested in getting a personal demonstration of GovWin IQ and how it can help your businesses your business expand your government sales. Now for those that aren't familiar with GovWin IQ, here at Deltek, we help US and Canadian contractors manage and grow their government business by our using our platform, which is uniquely updated by market analysis and industry experts like myself and Bryn, who gather and analyze first hand information from government decision makers. We help our customers gain early access to opportunities, network teaming partners and buyers, and leverage powerful market intelligence along with support from our team of experts and to help you beat the competition and win more government contracts ultimately. Much of the content discussed here today was sourced directly from the Govwin IQ platform. So if you are interested in seeing, again, how it can help you reach your growth goals, please let us know on this screen, and, someone will be in contact with you at a later date. And then I think we have q and a now that Brynn's gonna go ahead and take over. Brynn? All right, thank you. Yeah, so we have a couple questions. If you do have questions, please submit them in the Q and A box. I'll go ahead and read our first question. Okay. Do restrictions on foreign countries that do not necessarily allow for reciprocity, such as The US, apply to national security capabilities where The US and Canada need to share technology built in The US by US companies? That's a great question, and I'm going to dive into this more when I put together some analysis on the Buy Canadian policy. But the answer is that defense and security contracts are exempt from the Buy Canadian policy at the federal level. That, again, is because of the sensitive nature of those. And also, as you mentioned, there is a lot of there are programs in place between Canada and The US currently that are specific to defense and security capabilities. So as of right now, I don't think there are changes to those programs. But when it comes to the federal Buy Canadian policy, it applies to non defense contracts. There is going to be some requirements around materials that are used in defense contracts, but overall, no, security and defense are going to be exempt from Buy Canadian. All right, another question. 2021 number seemed out of whack with all the others, what was the cause that made that such a banner year? I think I mentioned that, but it was because of pandemic era spending. So when the pandemic hit, governments were just spending a lot of money to help keep the economy somewhat on track, giving out a lot of contracts for various goods and services to specifically address the pandemic. So that is why and that took place in The US as well, that level of spending. So that is why 2021 looked so positive on a lot of those graphs. The only one that did not was Alberta. And again, that's because of the drop in oil prices. Alberta is a very oil rich province. That's their main way of making money as a province. So that really would have bled into a lot of other aspects of Alberta's spending. So that's why that one province did not have a banner year in 2021. A third question, let's see, do you have any perspectives on the breakdown of provincial spending by category, for example, on items like employment services or facility services. So I don't have that ready to talk about right now, but that kind of information can be found in GovWin, And if you wanted to set up a chat to discuss GovWin, you can do that. There should be an area for you to request a demo of GovWin or something like that. You can also do that on our website, and then they would be happy to walk you through how you can see a breakdown of the services, spending, and all that. So that would be my recommendation, see if it can help your business, get you that type of information. So I think that's all the questions we have. Brent, I'll turn it back to you for some final comments. Thanks, Bryn. So we wanna let you know that you will get an email with the on demand recording of today's webinar within twenty four hours. We would also appreciate your feedback on the short survey that's gonna appear at the end of the webinar. And we wanna thank you for joining us today, and please visit delltech.com for more upcoming Deltek events. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.