In a recent move, officials who are behind the new Buy Canada procurement strategy by the federal government are to visit Windsor-Essex in the week starting May 18, 2026, in order to help local businesses compete for contracts.
According to the former long-time Windsor MPP and Ontario Liberal cabinet minister, Senator Sandra Pupatello, “Bringing federal officials to us to talk to us about new opportunities, I think, is key, especially now, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
She is in a way encouraging Windsor-Essex businesses to go ahead and register for the two-hour information session on May 21, 2026.
Adds Pupatello that “Federal procurement, it’s taken on a whole new life because of the Buy Canada procurement strategy that was embedded in the last budget. That budget finally got passed at the end of March. So, the officials are now rolling this out to say how we’re going to get more Canadian companies to participate in the supply chain of government itself.”
“It’s something that we don’t often talk about down here at the bottom of the country because we think government is so far away from us. But in fact, we do have opportunities across a number of sectors … and there’s no reason why our companies shouldn’t look to see what they can do.”
It is well to be noted that the majority of the session will be dominated by a question-and-answer session with federal procurement officials.
The event targets small and medium-sized businesses in a variety of sectors, such as infrastructure and construction, manufacturing, defence and security, transportation, information and communications technology, as well as health and pharmaceuticals, she said.
Pupatello is expecting approximately 100 business leaders to come.
“We’ve had great response from leadership in different sectors,” she said.
In the gamut of budget 2025, the federal government of Canada has gone ahead and assured almost $186 million over five years in order to prioritize domestic supply purchases, especially of steel, aluminium, along with softwood lumber.
The funding involves approximately $80 million to assist small and medium-sized businesses, those with less than 500 employees, in entering the federal market.
Pupatello further opines that “There’s an opportunity for our companies in this region to get a piece of that. That is new business for them.”
Notably, the information session is going to be hosted in collaboration with the Windsor-Essex Chamber of Commerce along with the WEtech Alliance.
