Anonymous internal fraud and misuse reporting lines

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

This bid solicitation cancels and supersedes previous bid solicitation number 1000526891 dated January 27, 2025 with a closing of March 5, 2025, and bid solicitation number 1000526891/A dated June 13, 2025 with a closing of June 30, 2025.
THIS REQUIREMENT CONTAINS SECURITY REQUIREMENTS.

Bidders must hold an approved facility clearance for Document Safeguarding at the Protected B level prior to contract award.

OVERVIEW

The CRA requires the services of an independently managed anonymous toll-free hotline and an online (website) services that are available to approximately 50,000 CRA employees, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in support of its Internal Investigation Program.

The Contractor must:

 Implement and maintain the CRA Anonymous internal fraud and misuse reporting lines;
 Ensure that allegations can be submitted through the below-specified mediums 24 hours/day, 7 days/week:
o Hotline (Phone) Reporting Service; and
o Online (Website) Reporting Service;
 Make the services available to CRA employees located across Canada;
 Ensure that a mention indicating the service is intended for CRA employees only, appear on the report page;
 Ensure that all services are available in English or French as per the Sources and CRA authorized reviewer’s language of choice;
 Maintain all information gathered through the initiative in a secure location (physical and/or electronic) inside Canada at all times, ensuring that the data remains confidential and anonymous (NO cloud computing/storing);
 Ensure the anonymity of the Source by providing warnings and reminders to the Source not to provide any personal information/identifiers;
 Provide accounts administration and access to a maximum of six (6) CRA authorized reviewer profiles per year and revise as required based on position changes;
 Provide email service to immediately alert the CRA authorized reviewers by automatic e-mail notification of the receipt of any newly submitted or updated allegation. Automatic e-mail must not contain protected information;
 Provide anonymous follow up capabilities:
o Provide all Sources with a secure username and password, and an allegation number that will allow them to provide additional information on their allegation via online or phone;
o Ensure that the CRA authorized reviewers have the ability to communicate anonymously with the Source if additional information is required (i.e. CRA authorized reviewers can post a question under an allegation number and the Source can log in using the username and password provided to provide additional information) ; and
o Provide a Reporter Notification feature allowing Sources to submit an email address to the Contractor in order to receive email notifications when their report has been updated by a CRA Reviewer and communicate clearly that it will remain anonymous.
Note: In order to maintain anonymity of Sources, any data provided under this requirement must not allow any Source to be identified.
 Provide data collection and data storage in a manner that is secure, confidential and anonymous (as per Annex A-3: Information Technology Security Requirements); and
 Provide a unique identifier for each allegation.

This solicitation is open only to Canadian suppliers and to Suppliers of an applicable trading partner. For additional information, consult the bid solicitation document.

Conditional Set-Aside Under the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business

• This procurement may be conditionally set aside under the federal government Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business.
• In order to be considered for the set-aside, the Bidder must certify that it qualifies as an Indigenous business as defined under PSIB and that it will comply with all requirements of PSIB. If bids from two (2) or more Indigenous businesses are compliant with the terms of the Request for Proposal, the contracting authority will limit the competition to those Indigenous businesses and will not consider bids from any non-Indigenous businesses that may have been submitted.
• For more information on Indigenous business requirements of the Set-aside Program for Indigenous Business, refer to Eligibility for Indigenous procurement set aside and Procurement information for Indigenous business owners

TRADE AGREEMENTS

The required services are subject to the following trade agreements:

CANADA-CHILE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CCFTA);
CANADA-COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CCOFTA);
CANADA-HONDURAS FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CHFTA);
CANADA-KOREA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CKFTA);
CANADA-PANAMA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CPAFTA);
CANADA-PERU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CPFTA);
CANADA-UKRAINE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CUFTA);
CANADA UK TRADE COMMUNITY AGREEMENT (CUKCA);
COMPREHENSIVE AND PROGRESSIVE AGREEMENT FOR TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP (CPTPP)
CANADIAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (CFTA);
COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC AND TRADE AGREEMENT (CETA);
WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION – AGREEMENT ON GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT (WTO-AGP).

CONTRACT AND OPTIONS PERIODS

The period of the contract is from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2028 inclusive, with three irrevocable options to extend the contract period for up to three additional years, to be exercised in 1-year increments, with a possible 3 month extension if required.

CONTRACTOR SELECTION METHODOLOGY

The Bidder must meet all mandatory criteria applicable to this solicitation. Only the bids meeting the mandatory criteria will be evaluated and scored in accordance with the point rated evaluation criteria. Any proposal that does not achieve the minimum score of 39 points out of 65 will be considered non-compliant and will receive no further consideration.

To determine an overall score for each proposal, technical and price will each be given a rating value; in this case, 70% for technical and 30% for price, and then combined to derive a total combined rating.

The Bidder recommended for award of the Contract will be the compliant Bidder achieving the highest combined rating.

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

When responding, the proposal MUST be delivered to the Bid Receiving Unit address indicated below by the time and date indicated on Page 1.
BIDDERS ARE TO SUBMIT PROPOSALS TO:
Canada Revenue Agency
Bid Receiving Unit
BRUg@cra-arc.gc.ca
Bids will not be accepted if emailed directly to this email address. This email address must be used to request that CRA open a Connect conversation, as detailed in Standard Instructions 2003. Bidders must not use their own licensing agreement for Connect to initiate a Connect conversation with CRA.
Bidders are hereby advised that the Bid Receiving Unit of CRA is available Monday to Friday inclusive, between the hours of 0830 and 1500 EST, excluding those days that the federal government observes as a holiday.
Due to the nature of this solicitation, electronic transmissions of a proposal by facsimile is not considered to be practical and therefore will not be accepted.
Proposal documents and supporting information must be submitted in either English or French.
All enquiries regarding this Request for Proposal must be directed in WRITING (see email address below) to:

CONTRACTING Authority:

Michael Yaehne
Senior Supply/Business Analyst
Contracting Division
Canada Revenue Agency
Tel. Number : (613) 291-3146
Email Address : Michael.Yaehne@cra-arc.gc.ca