Tenders

Tenders are the raw procurement notices published by Canadian government bodies. The Tenders module aggregates them into a single browser so you can search, filter, and inspect notices before deciding which ones to pursue.

Sources

Cothon collects tenders from:

• CanadaBuys — Canada's federal procurement portal
• SEAO — Système électronique d'appel d'offres du gouvernement du Québec (provincial, municipal, and parapublic)
• BC Bid — British Columbia's provincial procurement system
• Ontario Tenders Portal — Ontario government opportunities
• BC and Ontario municipal portals — municipalities that publish through bids&tenders platforms

Key Features

Multi-Source Aggregation

Notices from every source are normalized into a consistent view — title, issuing agency, closing date, notice type, delivery region, documents, and buyer contact where the source publishes one. French-language sources such as SEAO retain their bilingual fields.

Smart Search

Keyword search is UNSPSC-aware: your search terms are expanded through a bilingual lexicon of procurement category labels, so a search like "janitorial" also finds notices coded in the matching UNSPSC families — in English and French. Results that match your term directly rank above lexicon-expanded matches. See Browsing & Filtering.

Capability Matching

Turn on Match my capabilities to score open tenders against your company capability profile, including a goods/distributor-aware layer that uses UNSPSC categories. Matching tenders show a relevance score and the reasons they matched.

Rich Detail View

Each tender opens into a single-scroll detail page: description, buyer and contact block, source documents, estimated value (disclosed or an "est. $X–$Y · similar awards" band from historical award data), an AI semantic profile, historical similar awards, and — where the source publishes them — plan takers and bid results. See Tender Detail View.

Saved Filter Presets

Save a filter combination under a name and reload it in one click. See Saved Filters.

Understanding Tender Data

Notice Types

Notices carry their solicitation type from the source — for example NPP, RFP, RFQ, RFI, ACAN, ITT, ITQ, RFSO, RFSA, LOI, RFEI, and award notices. Filter by notice type to focus on the solicitation forms you respond to.

What the Source Publishes Varies

Each portal publishes different fields. The detail page's Source coverage block shows which fields were captured for a given tender — and where a source doesn't publish something (for example a contact or structured qualifications), the page says so instead of guessing.

From Tender to Pursuit

Section Contents

• Browsing & Filtering — filters, search, sorting, and capability matching
• Tender Detail View — every block on the detail page
• AI Semantic Profile — the extracted asset, work phase, and tags
• Historical Awards — award history and value bands
• Saved Filters — reusable filter presets
• Provincial Sources — what each source provides