Construction Materials Tenders in Québec: Why You Are More Often the Only Bidder Than in Civil Engineering

Josée runs a 28-employee aggregates business in Centre-du-Québec. She delivers crushed stone and sand to municipalities and to the ministry of Transport. She rarely responds to public notices, because she assumes the region's larger players will bid anyway. The sector's figures say otherwise.

We looked at 4,463 construction materials contracts awarded in Québec between 2021 and 2025: asphalt mixes, aggregates and crushed stone, concrete and precast products such as catch basins, manholes and culverts, water and sewer products, lumber, winter abrasives and de-icers, steel and posts, road marking paint, fencing and hardware. The buyers are the ministry of Transport and municipalities, from Québec City and Sherbrooke to Saguenay, Rouyn-Noranda and Rimouski.

On public notices, nearly one in four receives a single bid

Among the sector's public tender notices, 24.2% received a single bid. In civil engineering that share is 9.0%, and in building 11.8%.

In other words: nearly one public materials notice in four was decided without anyone else filing. In civil engineering, it is about one in eleven.

These three figures are measured on the same reference population, each sector's public notices, so they are directly comparable. You often sell to the same buyers as the firms that build the roads and the structures. The competition you meet is not theirs.

For a supplier weighing whether to price a job and prepare the paperwork, this is the most useful figure on this page. The calculation is not the same when a competitor is likely and when one is not.

The figure changes when invitations are counted

Across all of the sector's competitively awarded contracts, invitations included, 39.8% received a single bid.

The gap between the two figures comes from how bids are solicited. 42.1% of the sector's competitively awarded contracts are tendered by invitation, and an invitation tender is addressed only to the firms that were asked. In practice, it is far more often without competition than a public notice. In civil engineering that share is 8.6%, and in building 17.3%.

This is a clear difference from civil engineering and building: a significant share of what is contested in materials is not contested in front of everyone.

We publish both figures, because they answer different questions. The first describes the notices you can see and respond to. The second describes all of the sector's competitively awarded contracts, invitations included.

How many bids does a tender receive?

A tender in this sector receives 2.3 bids on average, with a median of 2.

Both figures are read across all competitively awarded contracts, invitations included. They do not compare from one sector to another: the share of invitations differs, and a lower average may say nothing more than that.

Not all products are contested the same way

Among public notices, the share without competition is not the same from one product to the next. It is lower on aggregates, crushed stone and winter abrasives, and higher on concrete, precast products and lumber.

That is consistent with what these contracts require. Hauling cost limits the radius of a sand pit or a quarry, but several may sit inside the same radius. On concrete and precast product notices, fewer firms show up.

A good part of the sector does not go through a call for tenders

Across all of the sector's contracts, 59% go through a call for tenders, and 40.9% are awarded by mutual agreement. In civil engineering, the share opened to competition reaches 86%.

Among the sector's mutual agreement awards that declare a reason in SEAO, 23.0% cite an amount below the public tendering threshold. 60.8% cite another provision, whose detail is entered as free text that we do not read. These shares are read on the 60.1% of direct awards that actually declare a reason; the others publish none.

What the price gaps say

The median gap between the two lowest bids is 11.3%. In civil engineering it is 7.8%.

Among tenders with at least two opening prices published, 28.7% are decided by less than a 5% gap. In the others, the distance between the two best prices reaches at least 5%.

This figure is read only on tenders with at least two prices published.

What this changes for your next bid

The notice you write off may not be lost. Nearly one public notice in four in this sector receives a single bid. The question is not whether you are the largest supplier, it is how many firms can actually deliver this product, to this buyer, on this territory and within this deadline.

A significant share of the sector's tenders does not appear as a public notice. They are addressed to the firms that were asked, and they appear in SEAO when they are awarded. Making yourself known to a municipality's purchasing department therefore counts as much as watching published notices.

The product matters more than the sector. Among public notices, aggregates and precast concrete are not contested the same way. Look at your niche, not at the average.

Do not set your expectations on those of the contractors. Firms bidding on civil engineering and building projects work in denser competition than yours. Reading your odds through theirs will make you respond less often than you should.

Method

These figures are measured from the open data of Québec's electronic tendering system (SEAO), covering contracts awarded between 2021 and 2025. A contract is counted once, whatever the number of lots or amendments. The date of last verification appears at the top of this page.

The "construction materials" class is the one the public body itself declares in SEAO when publishing its notice. We do not recode it.

The share opened to competition covers public tenders, invitation tenders, which are addressed only to the firms that were asked, and purchases made through a mandatary or a group of public bodies. When we say public notices, we exclude the last two. The public notice rate is measured on 1,469 notices, and the invitations included rate on 2,637 competitively awarded contracts.

The average and median number of bids are measured across all competitively awarded contracts, invitations included. The share of invitations varies widely from one sector to another, so we do not compare these two figures between sectors.

The breakdown by product, aggregates on one side, precast concrete on the other, is read among public notices, in the notice titles, which follow no imposed nomenclature. It describes a tendency, not an exact measurement.

The price gap is measured on tenders that received at least two published total amounts, that is 93.6% of the sector's tenders that received at least two bids. Unit prices, which are not comparable with each other, are excluded. SEAO does not publish the evaluation method used: our measurement describes the density of price competition, without distinguishing a lowest price award from a quality-price grid.

Sources

Further reading

This analysis is part of our sector series, published from our corpus of Québec public contracts. The full set is gathered in our analyses and data.