More waiting: Trade tribunal tells feds to re-start service pistol procurement process

It looks like Canadian soldiers will have to wait even longer for their new service pistols. After months of work on the procurement process, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) has advised the federal government to reboot the program due to complaints of unfairness.

The issue arose when Rampart International, official supplier of Glock firearms to Canada's military and law enforcement, complained over the procurement process. According to Rampart International, the federal government's terms unfairly favoured other pistol manufacturers competing with Glock. Rampart International made its complaint to CITT back in July. At that point, CITT said "Rampart alleges that the solicitation requires certain design types that serve no legitimate operational requirement and favour certain bidders"―see more here.

We discussed the federal government's tender for a new service pistol back in March of 2021. At that point, the military was looking for a striker-fired modular design, chambered in 9x19mm with capability to convert to .40 S&W (see the full list of requirements here).

Following the complaint in July, CITT asked Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) and the military to hold off issuing any contracts, while it investigated. Now, CITT is asking that the whole program be restarted, saying there were some merits to Glock's complaint.

What next?

A PSPC spokesperson told the Ottawa Citizen the government is waiting for CITT to release its reasoning behind its decision to restart the program before planning the next step. In other words, the military and the federal government aren't committed to an action plan just yet. We could see service pistol procurement go through as planned, with orders filled in 2022.

Or, we could see everything started all over again, with officials first coming up with a new set of requirements for Canada's next service pistol, and then issuing a tender. This could give CZ/Colt Canada a new chance to make a bid for the military's business. And, it could also result in more years of waiting, while our country's military scraps by with worn-out Browning Hi-Powers that were designed before World War II.

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