Where Ontario Public Tenders Get Posted: MERX, bids&tenders, City and Hospital Portals

There's no single place to find Ontario public electrical work. A provincial ministry, a regional water plant, a school board and a hospital can all be buying lighting, switchgear or service upgrades in the same week, and each one posts on a different site. Shops that only watch one portal miss most of the market.

Here's where the notices actually go, and why.

Why buyers have to post somewhere public

Two sets of rules push public buyers online. Under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, Article 506, a buyer must publish a tender notice for each covered procurement on a tendering website or system designated by its province, and those notices must be free for suppliers to see. For municipalities, school boards, and publicly funded academic and health entities, the CFTA thresholds in effect from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027 are $139,000 for goods or services and $347,400 for construction.

Ontario's Broader Public Sector Procurement Directive adds its own rule for hospitals, school boards, colleges, universities and children's aid societies: calls for open competitive procurements "must be made through an electronic tendering system that is readily accessible by all vendors." The directive requires an open process for goods and services at $121,200 or more.

Below those lines, buyers can often invite a few suppliers instead of posting publicly. That's why it pays to be registered with the buyers you want, not just watching listings.

The Ontario Tenders Portal (provincial government)

Provincial ministries post on the Ontario Tenders Portal, run by Jaggaer for Supply Ontario. The province's vendor FAQ says anyone can search and view open opportunities without registering, while free registration is needed to download documents and get addenda. Set your UNSPSC codes (the commodity codes the portal uses) in your profile or you won't get email alerts. Some broader public sector buyers use it too; the buyer FAQ says Supply Ontario "highly encourages" them to adopt it, so many still post elsewhere.

bids&tenders (most GTA municipalities and many school boards)

Most GTA and Southern Ontario municipal electrical work runs through bids&tenders, with one site per buyer. Peel, York, Hamilton, Guelph and the Toronto District School Board all post there; for example, Hamilton's low-voltage electrical prequalification at the Woodward Avenue Water Treatment Plant and TDSB's stage lighting tender at Weston Memorial JPS.

Previews are usually free, but download rules vary. A Caledon electrical maintenance RFT shows the common setup: preview and award notices free of charge, while secured documents and bidding need a subscription or Pay-Per-Bid access plus the buyer's agency fee. Others, like Norfolk County, say no subscription fee is needed to create an account. Each buyer's site sends its own commodity-code alerts, so you register buyer by buyer.

MERX (Metrolinx, Infrastructure Ontario, many hospitals)

MERX is a commercial tender service that many Ontario agencies and hospitals use. Metrolinx says its initiatives are regularly posted on MERX, with a pay-as-you-go option per tender or an annual subscription for unlimited Metrolinx downloads. Infrastructure Ontario also posts on its own MERX page. The CFTA Secretariat's Ontario list names MERX for hospitals such as Sunnybrook, University Health Network and The Ottawa Hospital, and Biddingo for others such as Hamilton Health Sciences and William Osler. That list is dated (Hamilton's city tenders now run on bids&tenders), so confirm on each hospital's own purchasing page.

City of Toronto (its own system)

The City of Toronto doesn't use bids&tenders. It lists solicitations on the Toronto Bids Portal, and you bid through SAP Ariba. The City's supplier registration page says registration is required to view or bid and takes about three days to approve, so register before a tender you want appears.

Federal work

Federal departments post on CanadaBuys, which Public Services and Procurement Canada calls the official source for Government of Canada tender and award notices. Construction notices for the province may also appear in the Daily Commercial News, according to the CFTA's Ontario page.

The practical takeaway

For a GTA electrical shop, a workable minimum is an account on each bids&tenders site in your region, the Ontario Tenders Portal, MERX for Metrolinx and hospital work, and the City of Toronto's Ariba registration. That's a lot of inboxes, and alerts only fire if your commodity codes are right on every one.

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