As the city grapples with how to address its worsening roads, Montreal’s inspector general says it’s keeping a close eye on how the city awards contracts for pothole repairs.
That’s one of the findings to come from the inspector general’s annual report, released on Monday, which warns Montreal has been “restricting competition” in awarding the contracts.
As a result, the inspector’s office — best known by its French acronym BIG (Bureau de l’inspecteur général) — says it will be surveying how the city awards pothole contracts moving forward.
“The BIG will monitor future calls for tenders in 2026 and produce a status report on this issue,” the report states.
The report comes as the city has been dealing with a record number of potholes this winter and has warned the spring thaw will only make the situation worse.
Earlier this year, the city found itself operating without its usual contract for mechanical pothole repairs after it expired in December without being renewed.
The city has said it twice issued a call for tenders for that contract, but wasn’t able to find bidders that complied with the criteria.
The city later awarded 10 privately negotiated contracts for companies to repair potholes by hand as it became clear the state of certain streets in the city badly deteriorated over the winter.
Those contracts allowed the city to patch 15,000 potholes, it says.
In its report on Monday, the BIG speaks of the failed call for tenders and notes the city has “restricted competition” by requesting a particular technology be used for the work since 2015.
“As a result, only one company had the necessary machinery to perform the work as required and was able to submit a compliant bid,” the report states.
The city currently has four automated pothole-repair machines, but announced last week it is purchasing two more that should be in service by 2027.
The city also announced it is creating two new teams of blue-collar workers that will be dedicated to road maintenance on the city’s main streets.
Executive committee chair Claude Pinard said the teams will help the city better understand the pothole issue, predict costs and avoid unsuccessful calls for tenders.
Asked about the inspector general’s report on Monday, Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said the city is working on ensuring more companies can bid on city contracts.
The mayor pointed to the city awarding the 10 smaller pothole contracts as a recent success.
“There is real work to be done,” Martinez Ferrada said. “(But) one thing is certain: we want to ensure that more people bid on contracts, which leads to greater competition and, as a result, lower prices.”
Concerns over “extreme concentration” of resurfacing sector
The report also raises concerns about the local asphalt resurfacing market suffering from “extreme concentration” in recent years.
The report speaks of a “gradual erosion of company diversity” and a shrinking market dominated by a handful of companies.
It notes that while the five most influential companies in the sector captured 71 per cent of the city’s contracts in 2017, they accounted for 100 per of them last year.
The report warns the concentration risks weakening competition, driving up costs, and making it harder for new companies to successfully bid.
The Inspector General’s Office was created in 2014 to catch wrongdoing and ensure the integrity of Montreal’s contract-awarding process.
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