Other Federal Government Administration
The industry — Other federal government public administration
Base industry report for 9119 →- Establishments · CanadaA
- 244
- Under 10 employeesA
- 51%
Of 244 Canadian establishments with employees, 51% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
Structure decidesThe binding constraint is not executional. Being better than the incumbent does not, by itself, get you in — this one is cleared with capital, an asset, or a permission.
Raise or borrow the entry ticket, or buy an operator who has already paid it. The barrier is money rather than permission, so it yields to a balance sheet — and an acquisition is usually cheaper than a start.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 6
The binding constraint — entry cost + regulatory drag
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.
The relevant geography is that of the buyer: federal procurement, national. A supplier competes for that buyer's contracts under that buyer's rules, and a win in one jurisdiction does not carry to the next without a fresh qualification.
Who you would be competing with
The operators already at scale here, and whoever is buying these businesses. In most of these industries the competition an entrant meets is local, so this is who sets the terms rather than a list of everyone in the trade.
Financials & market size — sourced
Figures that came from a filing, a results release or reputable reporting, each carrying its evidence tier.
The field
Every operator named on this record, and what each one discloses. A private single-site operator discloses nothing, which is the normal case — the listed consolidators are the only window in.
Competitor set · 4 named · 0 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calian GroupTSX: CGYA | not disclosed | — | FY2025 revenue $774M, +4%, backlog $1.4B. Revenue is not scored as this market's floor: Calian's total spans defence, health, learning and IT services in several countries, and the release read for this record gives no federal-government split. |
| CGITSX: GIB.AA | not disclosed | — | FY2025 revenue $15,912.7M with a Canada operating segment of $2,090.7M. The large end of the same bench; no federal-government breakdown is published in the release or MD&A. |
| IBM Canada / Deloitte / AccentureC | not disclosed | — | Not researched for this record. Named because federal awards above the thresholds turn on prior delivery in the department concerned, which these firms have and an entrant does not. |
| Federal standing offers and supply arrangementsUNVERIFIED | not disclosed | — | The real gatekeeper, and the reason this record cuts. A vendor qualifies onto the list first and competes second; the list, not the customer, decides who is in the market. Its mechanics were not read for this record. |
Nobody here publishes revenue. The market is not sized for that reason — an estimate built on nothing would only look like knowledge.
Evidence
Evidence. The establishment count and its size bands are Statistics Canada, December 2023 [A]. The trade-agreement thresholds are read from Treasury Board Contracting Policy Notice 2025-8 [A], which covers federal entities only. The $66.9B of contracts awarded in 2024–25 is read off Public Services and Procurement Canada's own procurement pages [A]; a separate PSPC page dated July 2026 says the federal government 'purchases more than $37 billion in goods, services and construction each year', and both are shown rather than reconciled. The supplier side was researched for this pass: Calian's fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 release gives revenue of $774M, up 4% from $746.6M, and a $1.4B backlog [A], and CGI's fiscal 2025 release and MD&A give $15,912.7M of revenue, a $2,090.7M Canada segment and $17.57B of bookings [A]. Neither company publishes a federal-government revenue split in the documents read, so the 1.2% ratio is an upper bound on what a successful specialist takes from this buyer, not a measurement of it — it is arithmetic on two figures, tiered UNVERIFIED, and should not be repeated as a share. No vendor revenue is treated as this market's floor. Nothing was sourced for the activity itself, because it is not sold: the characterisation of what the count measures, and of how the supply arrangements gate a bidder, is analyst judgment — UNVERIFIED. No US figure is attached because County Business Patterns excludes public administration. The 9111 and 912110 software records carry the rest of the sourced material on selling to government.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
The professional body for public servants at all levels; runs the National Public Service Symposium and regional chapters.
Largest federal public service union; site states it represents more than 245,000 workers. Treasury Board bargaining is its main 2026 file.
Union of federal professionals - scientists, IT and engineers; the body most engaged on outsourcing and workforce adjustment.
The federal executive cadre's own association; runs a Leadership Summit and regular events, including on AI adoption in government.
Magazine, newsletter and podcasts aimed at public sector managers; updated through September 2026.
Ottawa-based digital government conference and year-round online events; where federal digital teams and their vendors meet.
Federal administration has no trade association; these are the professional institute, the unions and the executive association that federal public servants actually belong to, plus the publication and conference vendors use to reach them.