As per Ontario Regulation 422/23, a business that meets the following requirements is considered to be an Ontario Business for the purposes of the Act. An Ontario Business is defined as any supplier, manufacturer, or distributor that:

1. Conducts its activities on a permanent basis in Ontario, AND
2. At the time of a procurement, either:
   1. Has its headquarters or main office in Ontario, OR
   2. Has a minimum of 250 full-time employees in Ontario.

The university may rely on a representation by the supplier regarding their status as an Ontario Business as defined by BOBIA. HINT: Ontario Businesses will be marked with the Ontario Trillium logo

BOBIA provides two methods for giving preference to Ontario Businesses when seeking quotes as part of the Non-competitive and invitational competitive Procurement requirements:

1. Only invite Ontario Businesses to quote (HINT: Vendors which have previously represented their status as an Ontario Business will be indicated with Ontario Trillium Logo in MacBuy ), OR
2. Allocate a 10% evaluation preference to any Ontario Business who provides a quote.

You are required to comply with BOBIA for any purchase under the Strategic Procurement SP-01 Policy.

If you don’t know whether your Supplier is an Ontario Business (look for the Ontario Trillium Logo in MacBuy ), you may choose to have them complete an Ontario Business Representation form. Remember, if your Supplier doesn’t have the trillium symbol that may mean they haven’t had the opportunity to represent their status yet and does not necessarily confirm they are not an Ontario Business.

If you have any questions about a supplier, please contact supplier@mcmaster.ca.

When completing the Non-Catalogue form in MacBuy, you will be required to choose one of the following options to demonstrate compliance. (see chart below)

All purchases must be made from an Ontario Business unless an exception applies.

In Price Only evaluations, there are two criteria, as follows:

Criteria 1: Price

You will evaluate these criteria based on the total price indicated on the quotes received. The lowest price receives the highest score, unless otherwise clearly indicated on the quotation. To calculate the Price score:

1. Determine the lowest price from all quotes received (“Lowest Price”).
2. For each Supplier, calculate their price score as: 90 x (Lowest Price / Supplier Price).

Criteria 2: Ontario Business Preferential Margin

This criterion is evaluated based on the supplier’s response to the acknowledgement.

• Any Supplier who selects “Yes” receives the full 10% allocated to these criteria.
• Any Supplier who selects “No” receives 0% for these criteria.

In the following example, Supplier A should be selected based on the total score. Demonstrate compliance with BOBIA when completing your purchase.

Determining your Rated Criteria

Rated Criteria demonstrates how quotes will be evaluated when price is not the only factor in how a Supplier will be selected. These criteria will vary depending on the nature of the purchase, but might include:

• Company profile and project team,
• Experience and qualifications,
• Approach and methodology, or work plan,
• Understanding of scope,
• Technical conformity with specifications,
• Support and maintenance,
• Schedule or delivery timelines,
• Warranty,
• Reporting,
• Health and safety,
• Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG), or
• EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion)

These are only examples – you will decide what criteria are important to you in determining how a supplier will be selected and assign a weight (%) to each criterion based on its relative importance.

See Price Only Evaluations for the steps required to evaluate price and the Ontario Business Preferential Margin. Remember that Ontario Businesses always receive a preferential margin of 10%. This does not change regardless of the use of Rated Criteria.

For all Rated Criteria:

1. Evaluate each Supplier on a scale of 1 (lowest) through 10 (highest) for each Rated Criteria
2. Calculate each Rated Criteria score as: “Score out of 10” / 10 x Weight.
3. Add all the weighted scores for all Rated Criteria to get a total score for each Supplier.

In the following example, Supplier A should be selected based on the total score. Demonstrate compliance with BOBIA when completing your purchase.