Public administration

The RCMP, the federal courts and the Correctional Service of Canada. 868 establishments, only 15% with fewer than ten employees and 73 with a hundred or more [A] — detachments, courthouses and institutions, not firms. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. What is sold to it is substantial and specialised: records and case management, digital evidence, body-worn cameras, inmate-management and court-scheduling systems, plus fleet, uniforms and facilities. The justice side is screened from the software angle at 912110, which found multi-year procurement and incumbents protected by their integration into police and corrections records. Security clearance of staff and of facilities is a further gate; the 9111 record screens the compliance software built around it, though on the US certification regime rather than the Canadian one. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

Employment and Social Development Canada's service delivery and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: 30 establishments, 11 of them employing a hundred or more [A]. Two departments, in other words. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. The adjacent private markets are real and sit outside this code — regulated immigration consultants and lawyers (5411), settlement agencies funded by contribution agreements (6241), and employment-services contractors (5613). Selling technology to the departments themselves means competing for a small number of very large, multi-year transformation contracts that go to global integrators. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

Global Affairs Canada and its missions: 12 establishments, half of them employing a hundred or more [A]. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. The enterable activity is downstream of the aid budget rather than inside the department — implementing organisations, development consultancies and evaluators that win contribution agreements and contracts. That is a specialised professional-services business with its own incumbents, long qualification histories and a single dominant funder whose priorities move with each government. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

The residual for federal departments and agencies not classified elsewhere — 244 establishments, 85 employing a hundred or more [A]. Central agencies, regulators, and the administrative core of government. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. Federal procurement is the market, and it has rules of its own: standing offers and supply arrangements that must be qualified for before any bid, security clearances, and set-asides. The Government of Canada awarded $66.9 billion in contracts for goods, services and construction in 2024–25 [A] — a large buyer, but one reached through those lists rather than around them. The 9111 record screens the compliance software that grew up around requirements of this kind, though on the US certification regime rather than the Canadian one. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

Provincial labour ministries, employment-standards branches and workers' compensation administration: 44 establishments [A], a few per province. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. What is enterable sits around it. Provinces contract out employment services to private and non-profit providers on outcome-based agreements (5613, and 6243 for vocational rehabilitation, where the record argues that contract rates are not set at a level that funds the service). Occupational health and safety consulting, training and compliance software are sold to the employers these ministries regulate rather than to the ministries. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

The residual for provincial and territorial administration — and the largest block in the sector: 1,597 establishments, 434 employing a hundred or more [A]. Ministries, agencies, boards and commissions. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. Ten provinces and three territories each run their own procurement with their own vendor-of-record lists, which makes this thirteen markets, not one. That fragmentation is an opening for a vendor with a regional base and a closed door for one without: reference customers inside the province matter more than price. Software sold here is screened at 912110. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

Municipal police services, bylaw enforcement and municipal courts: 309 establishments, 113 employing a hundred or more [A]. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. Each police service buys independently, under a board, which makes public safety one of the few genuinely fragmented government technology markets — hundreds of buyers with near-identical needs. It is also one of the most locked-in: records management and computer-aided dispatch sit at the centre of evidentiary record-keeping, so replacing them means migrating years of records held under retention rules. The 913910 record covers the wider municipal software market and found procurement running 12–24 months and structurally favouring incumbents. Private security, which is what an entrant can actually operate, is a separate industry at 5616. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it.

First Nations, Métis and Inuit governments: 835 establishments, only 13% with fewer than ten employees and 281 employing a hundred or more [A]. These are full governments delivering housing, education, health, lands and economic development, often as the largest employer in their community. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of government, carried out under statute by public servants, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. Work with Indigenous governments is done by partnership and on their terms — through community-owned development corporations, joint ventures and procurement policies that favour Indigenous-owned business. For a non-Indigenous entrant the honest path is as a partner or supplier to such an entity, and the relationship comes before any transaction. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it. The scale of what crosses that line is now measurable, and it is shrinking: Ottawa's mandatory 5% floor moved $1.04 billion of federal contracts to Indigenous businesses in 2024-25, 5.1% of eligible contract value, against $1.24 billion and 6.1% the year before [A], competed for by the roughly 2,700 firms in the Indigenous Business Directory. The other number that matters is $4 billion raised by the First Nations Finance Authority for 193 borrowing First Nations [A] — a nation that can issue debt against its own revenues is a counterparty, not a grant recipient, and it chooses its partners accordingly.

Foreign embassies and consulates in Canada and the offices of international bodies: 73 establishments, 55% with fewer than ten employees [A]. This is a buyer, not a market to enter: the activity is a function of a foreign state, carried out by its own officials under its own law, and no licence, acquisition or amount of capital lets a private entrant perform it. They are extraterritorial by definition — staffed, funded and governed from elsewhere, and often outside Canadian employment and tax rules. What they buy locally is ordinary: leased premises, security, translation, travel, catering, vehicles. None of that is a distinct market; it is a small set of customers for businesses screened elsewhere. The cut factor is recorded as entry cost and regulatory drag because that is the nearest the screening model comes to 'not available to private parties' — the barrier is not high, it is absolute, and everything interesting is in what gets sold across it. The buyer set is published, and it is not the 73 employers Statistics Canada records: Global Affairs Canada's Office of Protocol accredits 189 diplomatic missions — 133 of them resident — 480 consular posts, 26 international organisations and close to 8,000 diplomatic agents [A]. Even that overstates what is reachable, because a large mission's guarding, secure construction and IT are bought under its own state's global framework and its Canadian footprint is a lease and a handful of locally engaged staff. And the door is held from the Canadian side: a foreign state cannot open a post here without the written approval of the Government of Canada, granted on a stated justification, a two-year staffing plan and confirmation of no outstanding debts in Canada, including unpaid property taxes [A].