Tax and Benefits Programs Envelopes

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

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 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) wishes to establish a strategic collaborative arrangement to produce the CRA’s Tax and Benefits Program Envelopes requirements, in an efficient manner through the application of industry best practices.  

The Contractor will be responsible for meeting CRA’s requirements on an “as and when requested” basis, and to ensure timely, accurate service delivery.

It is estimated that 163 different Tax and Benefits Program envelopes are printed by the CRA on an annual basis.  The end user of the printed material may be internal or external to the CRA.  As such, envelopes may be required in either one or both of Canada’s Official Languages (French and English). 

The resulting contract will include a minimum guarantee of $500,000.00 (applicable taxes included), for the period of the contract, including options. 

Approximate Annual Quantities:
The table below provides estimated quantities for the first contract year only.  The CRA anticipates its annual print quantities may vary from historical trends during the contract period, including any exercised option period.

Type	   No. of TAs issued	Quantity	         Print job range (Qty)
Envelopes	50	          135,000,000	500 to 4,500,000

Sustainable Development
It is the Agency’s objective to promote sustainable development initiatives by purchasing environmentally preferable products, where possible, as well as encouraging vendors to use best practices in packaging and delivery to reduce environmental impacts.

The Contractor is required to assist the CRA with achieving these objectives and is responsible for the following:
All paper products must contain a minimum of 30% PCW, or contain virgin fiber originating from a sustainably-managed forest certified to a third-party verified forest certification standard such as or equivalent to the Canadian Standards Association Sustainable Forest Management Standard (CSA/SFMS), the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Canada reserves the right to request proof of such qualifications, at its sole discretion, throughout the life of the Contract. All designated stocks are listed in the tables of the Basis of Payment.
Products that are equivalent in certification to the certifications specified will be considered where the Contractor:
• designates the certification(s) name of the product;
• states that the substitute certification is fully interchangeable with one of the certifications specified in the offer;
• provides complete specifications and descriptive literature for each substitute certification; 
• provides compliance statements that include technical specifics showing the substitute certification meets all mandatory performance criteria that are specified in one of the certifications specified in the offer; and
• clearly identifies those areas in the specifications and descriptive literature that support the substitute product's compliance with any mandatory performance criteria.

Certification(s) offered as equivalent in form, fit, function and quality will not be considered if:

• the offer fails to provide all the information requested to allow the Contracting Authority to fully evaluate the equivalency of each substitute certification; or
• the substitute certification fails to meet or exceed the mandatory performance criteria of one of the specified certifications identified in the offer.

The CRA may, but will have no obligation to, request the Contractor demonstrate, that the substitute certification is equivalent to the certifications specified herein. The cost to demonstrate the equivalency shall be borne by the Contractor.

All paper products must be manufactured such that if a whitening process is used, the fibre must not have been whitened with elemental chlorine.

Environmental Criteria for Printing Inks:
In order to reduce the environmental impact of its print publishing activities, the Canada Revenue Agency chooses to use inks that are considered environmentally friendly, containing vegetable oil-based materials. The printing inks used for requirements under the resulting Contract should adhere to the following criteria for % of vegetable oils as well as the % of VOC within the ingredients composing the ink.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Criteria:
The common VOC in a conventional lithographic printing ink is high-boiling aliphatic petroleum distillate. This distillate is used to dissolve the resins that will eventually bind to the substrate during printing. The amount of ink VOC that is released to the atmosphere depends on the process; heatset inks release 80% of their VOCs while sheetfed inks release only 5%.VOC in an environmentally friendlier ink would be below 18 wt% for sheetfed inks, below 30% for sheetfed varnishes, and below 40 wt% for heatset inks and heatset overprint varnishes.

Vegetable Oil Criteria:
Vegetable oils are renewable resources and can include Linseed Oil, Soya Oil, Chinawood Oil and similar plant oils or combinations of them.  In conventional lithographic printing inks (heatset and sheetfed) these oils and their derivatives can be used as is, or modified to provide the appropriate press and finished product properties.  The Vegetable oil-based materials in an environmentally friendlier ink would be above 25 wt% for sheetfed inks and overprint varnishes, and above 10 wt% for heatset inks and overprint varnishes.

Price Escalation/De-escalation

Prices for the second and third year of the initial contract period and optional periods of service, if exercised at CRA's discretion, will be adjusted (i.e. either increased or decreased) in accordance with the following, as published by Statistics Canada.
• For printed products (Tables A, A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5, above): Table 1 Industrial Product Price Index - Not seasonally adjusted for Pulp and Paper. 
• For shipping costs (Table B above):  Table 1 Consumer Price Index and major components, Canada - Not seasonally adjusted for Transportation.  

The prices of the previous contract year will be multiplied by the “% change” published for the twelve month period preceding the contract anniversary date (for the second and third contract year) or the month preceding the month in which the Option is exercised.
Release dates for major economic indicators can be accessed via http://www.statcan.gc.ca/release-diffusion/index-eng.htm.

TRADE AGREEMENTS

Only AIT is applicable to this requirement.  

CONTRACT AND OPTIONS PERIODS

The Services will be required from date of Contract to 31 March 2018 inclusive, with four irrevocable options to extend the contract period for up to four additional years, to be exercised in 1-year increments.  

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 96 points out of 160 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, 60% for technical and 40% 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.

All enquiries regarding this Request for Proposal must be directed in WRITING (see email address below) to:

CONTRACTING Authority:

Diane Page
Senior Supply/Business Analyst
Contracting Division
Canada Revenue Agency
Tel. Number : (613) 995-4701
Email Address :  Diane.Page@cra-arc.gc.ca