In Montréal, more than nine public contracts out of ten are authorized by civil servants

When an SME looks for public contracts, it watches SEAO. In Montréal, that shop window shows only part of the activity. From 2011 to 2026, the City has published 315,717 contracts in its open data. Nearly 92% were authorized by civil servants under delegated powers, not voted in council, and among the delegated contracts awarded to businesses, 93% are for less than $25,000. Here, in numbers, is the picture of a market that's less visible to the SMEs who focus their monitoring on SEAO.

TL;DR in 30 seconds

• Of 315,717 contracts published by Montréal from 2011 to 2026, 91.7% are authorized by civil servants (delegated powers), not voted in council.
• Delegated contracts awarded to businesses total $4.14 billion, with a median of $4,122: 93% are under $25,000.
• SEAO mostly shows contracts subject to the publication thresholds; these thousands of small mandates are in the City's open data.
• The award method for these delegated contracts isn't in the data: we're talking about contracts authorized by delegation, not presumed mutual agreement.

Who this article is for For Québec SMEs that want to do business with Montréal and that look only at call-for-tenders notices, missing the mass of small contracts.

Contents

1. What this analysis measures
2. A market of very small contracts
3. Where the money concentrates
4. The main suppliers by amount
5. What it changes for your SME
6. How we counted

Most SMEs looking for municipal contracts open SEAO and scan the public notices. That makes sense: that's where open calls for tenders are published. It's also a partial view. In Montréal, most contracting activity, by count, isn't there.

We gathered the contracts the City publishes itself in its open data: those awarded by city council, the agglomeration council and the borough councils, and those authorized directly by civil servants under delegated powers. In all, 315,717 records published between August 2011 and June 2026, after removing exact duplicates.

One figure stands out. Of these 315,717 contracts, 289,575, or 91.7%, were authorized by civil servants, not voted by an elected body. The remaining 8.3%, or 26,142 contracts, went through the borough councils (17,700), the agglomeration council (4,848) and city council (3,594).

1. What this analysis measures

The source is the contract lists Montréal publishes as open data, not SEAO. The City goes beyond the legal obligation: section 99 of the Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies, like the former Cities and Towns Act before it, requires publishing on SEAO the contracts of $25,000 and more, but Montréal also publishes a mass of contracts below that threshold. It's this local transparency that makes the analysis possible.

One limit to keep in mind. The file of contracts authorized by civil servants gives the amount, the supplier, the date, the department and the object, but not the award method. So we can't claim that each was concluded by mutual agreement rather than on invitation: we're talking about delegated contracts. What the data does establish, for the delegated contracts awarded to businesses, is their size: 93% are below $25,000, under the threshold for written invitation ($25,000) and for the open procedure ($139,000).

2. A market of very small contracts

Focusing on the delegated contracts awarded to businesses, we count 276,746 contracts from 2011 to 2026. Median of $4,122, average of $14,956, and 93% under $25,000.

The City signs a multitude of small contracts: repairing a pipe, repainting a room, supplying parts, engaging a one-off service. Taken together, these 276,746 contracts represent about $4.14 billion over the period. By count, the vast majority are below the thresholds of the mandatory formal procedures.

For an SME, that's strategic information. The reflex "I watch the SEAO notices" captures the big contracts but misses the raw material of municipal day-to-day life: these thousands of small mandates, often more accessible to a local business of the right size than a major call for tenders.

3. Where the money concentrates

Count and value don't tell the same story. Delegated contracts dominate by count but stay modest in dollars ($4.14 billion for the subset awarded to businesses). The contracts voted in council, far fewer, concentrate much more.

Applying the same "businesses" filter (so numbers a bit lower than the total count above), the agglomeration council carries 4,725 contracts for $15.3 billion, meaning more than $3 million on average per contract. City council counts 3,451 contracts for $10.8 billion. The borough councils, about 16,300 contracts for $4.3 billion. We never add these levels together: the same contract can be split between the agglomeration and the central city, and adding it up would count it twice.

4. The main suppliers by amount

Ranked by cumulative amount across the records retained from 2011 to 2026, all datasets combined, the leaders are the large firms in construction, civil engineering and environmental services. The amounts below are orders of magnitude (names normalized, exact duplicates removed); they should not be read as a sum of the institutional totals.

In the lead, Pomerleau (about $729 million across 37 contracts). Next come Les Entreprises Michaudville ($688 million, 94 contracts), Roxboro Excavation ($535 million, 68 contracts), Sanexen Services environnementaux ($502 million, 197 contracts), Loiselle ($459 million, 155 contracts) and EBC ($448 million, 11 contracts). Further down come Eurovia Québec, Environnement Routier NRJ, Demix Construction, Groupe TNT, Services EXP and GFL Environmental.

The concentration is real. Among the delegated contracts, after name normalization, about 1% of suppliers (on the order of 205 out of 20,547) concentrate more than half of the dollars.

5. What it changes for your SME

The message isn't "stop looking at SEAO". SEAO remains the place for open calls for tenders, where the big contracts are, and it also contains the list of contracts of $25,000 and more already awarded. The point is simpler: an SME that looks only at call-for-tenders notices doesn't see the mass of small contracts Montréal publishes in its open data. Three habits are worth adopting.

First, know that this list exists and that it's public. Montréal publishes its awarded contracts in its open data, and municipal bodies must publish on SEAO their contracts of $25,000 and more.

Next, spot the recurring contracts in your sector. If the same type of mandate comes back every year at a borough or a department, it's a permanent need. The right moment to position yourself is before the next cycle, through the official procurement channels.

Finally, calibrate your effort. A market where the median is $4,122 doesn't justify the same documentary effort as a major call for tenders. These small contracts reward proximity and reliability. One clarification: a municipality cannot split a foreseeable need into several small contracts to stay under the thresholds. Targeting small mandates, yes; asking a buyer to carve up a mandate, no.

6. How we counted

We gathered four City of Montréal open datasets: contracts of city council, of the agglomeration council, of the borough councils, and contracts authorized by civil servants under delegated powers. Coverage starts in August 2011 for the civil-servant contracts and a bit later for the other datasets; the extraction was done in June 2026. Exact duplicates were removed. Businesses are identified by their normalized name. For the "which businesses get what" analysis, we set aside disbursements that aren't competitive-market contracts (contributions between public bodies, public transit, pension plans, unions, financial services) using a keyword filter that is deliberately broad and imperfect. The City also publishes an "executive committee" dataset that we didn't include; our totals therefore don't count it.

We don't measure the exact award method of each delegated contract (mutual agreement or on invitation), which is absent from the data: we rely on the $25,000 threshold. We don't add up the amounts across bodies. The cumulative amounts by business are orders of magnitude. The analysis covers Montréal alone and doesn't presume anything about the practices of other municipalities.

Dated snapshot. Unlike our SEAO analyses, these figures come from a manual extraction of the City of Montréal open data (stopped in June 2026), not yet integrated into our automated ingestion pipeline. So it's a snapshot at that date, not a figure re-verified continuously. Its integration into the pipeline, under the same conditions as SEAO, is planned.

For a business that wants to do business with Montréal, SEAO shows only part of the market. The other part, much larger in count and much smaller on average, is public too, as long as you know where to read it.

Sources

• Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies, CQLR c. C-65.01 (in force April 1, 2026), ss. 27, 29, 30 and 99; Cities and Towns Act, s. 477.2 (delegation of powers to civil servants).

Going further

The provincial-scale counterpart to this article: in Québec, 42% of municipal contracts of $25,000 and more are awarded by mutual agreement. All our analyses and data.