1.26M Government Contracts Scanned — 70,270 Anomalies Found
1.26M Government Contracts Scanned — 70,270 Anomalies Found. Sourced file on procurement deep dive — open the primary instruments cited on the page, not the summary alone.
01 — VENDOR CONCENTRATIONWhen One Vendor Captures a Department
Vendor concentration occurs when a single company receives a disproportionate share of a department's total contract spending. This creates dependency, reduces competition, and raises the cost of switching. The threshold for flagging is 15% of a department's total spend going to one vendor. Of the 57 concentration flags, every one exceeds that threshold.
| Rank | Vendor | Department | Vendor Spend | Dept. Total | Concentration | Severity |
|---|
Name-Variant Alert: Groupe Signature sur le Saint-Laurent
This entity appears under three distinct name variants in the proactive disclosure data, all within the same department (Infrastructure Canada / infc). The combined concentration of these three entries at Infrastructure Canada is significant. This pattern may indicate a single economic entity receiving contracts under multiple registered names, which fragments visibility and defeats concentration analysis unless the variants are linked.
Name-Variant Alert: MDA / MacDonald Dettwiler
MDA appears under at least two name variants at the Canadian Space Agency (csa-asc): "MDA SYSTEMS LTD." and "MACDONALD, DETTWILER & ASSOCIATES LTD." (plus a third corporate variant). Combined, these entries represent a dominant share of CSA's total contract spending. The fragmentation across corporate names reduces the apparent concentration of any single entry.
02 — AMENDMENT CHAINSContracts That Never Stop Growing
An amendment chain occurs when a contract is modified repeatedly after award. Each amendment extends the scope, timeline, or value without re-competing the work. A single amendment is normal. Ten is unusual. Forty or more is a red flag for institutional capture: the vendor becomes entrenched and competition is effectively eliminated. Of 70,213 amendment chain flags, 38,779 are high severity.
| Rank | Vendor | Department | Contract # | Amendments | Total Value | Severity |
|---|
Amendment Chains by Department
Which departments have the most amendment chains, indicating systemic over-reliance on contract modifications rather than competitive re-procurement.
| Department | Amendment Chains | High Severity | Total Value | Avg. Amendments |
|---|
03 — DEPARTMENT RISK MAPHighest Anomaly Concentrations by Department
Departments ranked by total anomaly count across both vendor concentration and amendment chain flags. Departments with anomalies in both categories present compounded risk: vendors that dominate spending and also hold contracts that are repeatedly amended.
04 — CRIMINAL CODE IMPLICATIONSApplicable Offences
The patterns identified in this analysis may engage several provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada. This is not a legal opinion. These are the statutory provisions that describe the conduct patterns observed in the data.
Frauds on the Government
Every one who directly or indirectly gives, offers, or agrees to give a benefit to a government official, or who, being a government official, demands or accepts a benefit, in connection with the transaction of business with the government. Vendor concentration patterns where a single entity captures 40%+ of a department's spending, combined with name-variant fragmentation, describe the kind of institutional relationship this section targets.
Fraud
Every one who, by deceit, falsehood, or other fraudulent means, defrauds the public or any person of any property, money, or valuable security. Operating under multiple name variants to fragment visibility and avoid concentration detection constitutes a form of misrepresentation in the procurement context. The three Groupe Signature variants at Infrastructure Canada and the MDA variants at CSA are patterns that match this description.
Selling Defective Stores to Government
Every one who knowingly sells or delivers defective stores to Her Majesty or commits fraud in connection with government contracts. Amendment chains where contracts are amended 40+ times transform the original scope beyond recognition. The original competitive basis for the award no longer reflects the actual work being performed, which constitutes a form of constructive fraud on the procurement process.
Private Prosecution Pathway
Any person who, on reasonable grounds, believes that a person has committed an indictable offence may lay an information before a justice of the peace. This is the mechanism by which the patterns documented on this page can be referred to the courts. The data comes from the government's own proactive disclosure records. The anomalies are algorithmically derived and independently verifiable.
See Criminal Code Analysis for the full 50-finding analysis with detailed evidence chains and source citations for each finding.
05 — METHODOLOGYData Sources & Detection Process
Data Source
All contract data is sourced from the Government of Canada's proactive disclosure CSV files published at open.canada.ca. These files are published quarterly under the Access to Information Act and contain every federal contract over $10,000. No proprietary data sources are used. Every anomaly on this page can be independently verified by downloading the same CSV files.
Detection Algorithms
- Vendor Concentration: For each department, total contract values are aggregated by vendor name. Any vendor receiving more than 15% of a department's total spend is flagged. High severity is assigned at 30%+ concentration. This is a standard procurement audit technique used by auditors general worldwide.
- Amendment Chain: Contracts are grouped by contract number. Any contract with more than 5 amendments is flagged. High severity is assigned at 20+ amendments. The amendment count reflects the number of times the contract was modified after initial award. Each amendment represents a decision to extend scope or value without re-competing the work.
Name-Variant Detection
Vendor names in the proactive disclosure data are not normalized. The same economic entity may appear under different legal names (e.g., trade name vs. corporate name vs. abbreviated name). This analysis flags cases where multiple high-concentration entries share obvious name similarity within the same department. Definitive corporate linkage requires SEDAR+ filings or Corporations Canada records, which are publicly available but not incorporated into this automated scan.
Limitations & Disclaimer
This is an algorithmic anomaly scan, not an investigation. Not every anomaly represents wrongdoing. Vendor concentration may be legitimate when the vendor is the sole qualified provider. Amendment chains may reflect genuinely evolving requirements. The purpose of this analysis is to identify patterns that warrant human review, not to make findings of fact. All data is from public government records. This analysis does not constitute legal advice.
Primary records on this file.
1.26M Government Contracts Scanned — 70,270 Anomalies Found.