Matthew R. Alter

The Crown appealed a Divisional Court decision quashing the Ministry of Transportation's award of a highway construction contract to the lowest bidder.

The second-lowest bidder had argued the winning bid was non-compliant because it declared no imported steel, despite design drawings specifying rolled steel beams unavailable in Canada.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the Ministry's investigation and subsequent conclusion that the winning bid was compliant—based on the bidder's intention to use Canadian welded steel that met structural standards—was reasonable.

The Town of Newmarket appealed a decision declaring it breached its Contract A obligations to the respondent contractor by accepting a non-compliant bid from another bidder.

The accepted bid contained a discrepancy between the stipulated price, the GST, and the total cost of the work.

The Court of Appeal upheld the application judge's finding that the price was uncertain, rendering the bid non-compliant and incapable of acceptance.

The Court distinguished previous case law where price discrepancies were mere clerical errors, finding that in this case, the intended price was unclear on the face of the bid.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellants, having successfully appealed a decision regarding tender documents, sought costs for the appeal and a prior stay motion.

The Crown respondents supported the appeal and sought costs for the original application.

The respondent opposed the amounts claimed as excessive and resisted the Crown's request for application costs.

The Court of Appeal awarded the appellants $30,000 in costs for the appeal and stay motion, payable by the respondent, but declined to award the Crown any costs for the original application.

The Bot Group appealed a declaration that a late bid submitted by Coco Paving for a Ministry of Transportation (MTO) contract was compliant.

Coco's bid was received electronically 28 minutes after the tender closing time, allegedly due to a computer glitch.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the application judge misinterpreted the tender documents.

The Court held that the MTO's tender process strictly precluded the consideration of bids received after the closing time, and no contractual duty of fairness was owed to a non-compliant bidder.