Contract Intelligence

Contract intelligence is the analysis layer over the population of public contracts: scope drift, recurring language, vendor-vs-deliverable patterns. The free-text surface of Alberta and federal disclosures supports useful signals today, but structured amendment and bid-history analysis requires data neither government publishes in bulk.

What this page shows now: Free-text recurring-phrase clustering across contract scope-of-work fields, vendor-vs-deliverable patterns, and a vendor universe table built from the contracts feed.
What is missing to prove more: Amendment-to-parent linkage, full bid history for each award, line-item / unit-price detail, and a standardised scope-of-work taxonomy across departments.
Why it matters: Without structured amendment and bid data, contract intelligence stays at the prose layer — useful for leads, weak for systemic claims.

Recurring justification

$10.6B

Authorised across 25 repeated justification sentences, 4,483 contracts in 8 ministries.

See findings →

Vendor scope drift

Vendor + ministry pairs with substantial scope drift across 10 distinct vendors.

See findings →

Sole-source universe

4,798 / 15,588

Distinct sole-source vendors and total disclosed contracts in the universe these findings are drawn from.

Explore the universe →

What the live data shows today

Search by name

11 findings · Page 1 of 1

Metis Child And Family Services Society · CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~18% between FY 2018-2019 and FY 2021-2022.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.82)

Top words shared roughly 18% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2018-2019 · 10 contracts: supports
based
community
living
services
FY 2021-2022 · 3 contracts: supports
care
foster
kinship
services

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Brownlee LLP · SERVICE ALBERTA

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~11% between FY 2020-2021 and FY 2022-2023.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.89)

Top words shared roughly 11% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2020-2021 · 14 contracts: advocate
consumer
legal
retainer
alberta
FY 2022-2023 · 3 contracts: uca
general
proceeding
2022
2023

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Kingsgate Legal · JUSTICE AND SOLICITOR GENERAL

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~20% between FY 2017-2018 and FY 2021-2022.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.80)

Top words shared roughly 20% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2017-2018 · 4 contracts: legal
alberta
re
services
advice
FY 2021-2022 · 6 contracts: advice
legal
client
privilege
solicitor

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Tallcree Wildland Limited Partnership · AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~20% between FY 2017-2018 and FY 2020-2021.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.80)

Top words shared roughly 20% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2017-2018 · 5 contracts: crews
base
secondary
day
firesmart
FY 2020-2021 · 4 contracts: base
crew
firetack
firesmart
isc

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Alberta Health Services · SENIORS, COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~0% between FY 2022-2023 and FY 2024-2025.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 1.00)

Top words shared roughly 0% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2022-2023 · 3 contracts: developmental
disabilities
pdd
persons
support
FY 2024-2025 · 4 contracts: arrangements
group
living

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

CarePros Enterprise Inc. · CHILDREN'S SERVICES

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~25% between FY 2020-2021 and FY 2022-2023.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.75)

Top words shared roughly 25% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2020-2021 · 6 contracts: specialized
placement
care
based
campus
FY 2022-2023 · 7 contracts: placement
specialized
care
community
personalized

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Reynolds Mirth Richards & Farmer LLP · SERVICE ALBERTA

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~12% between FY 2020-2021 and FY 2022-2023.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.88)

Top words shared roughly 12% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2020-2021 · 12 contracts: advocate
consumer
legal
retainer
alberta
FY 2022-2023 · 3 contracts: 2023
energy
legal
2022
2024

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Catholic Social Services · SENIORS, COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~23% between FY 2020-2021 and FY 2023-2024.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.77)

Top words shared roughly 23% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2020-2021 · 3 contracts: arrangements
group
living
FY 2023-2024 · 7 contracts: developmental
arrangements
behavioural
disabilities
group

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Field Law LLP · JUSTICE AND SOLICITOR GENERAL

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~18% between FY 2015-2016 and FY 2021-2022.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.82)

Top words shared roughly 18% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2015-2016 · 6 contracts: health
matter
occupational
safety
advice
FY 2021-2022 · 20 contracts: fatality
inquiry
legal
advice
client

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Field Law · JUSTICE AND SOLICITOR GENERAL

Scope-text overlap dropped to ~2% between FY 2018-2019 and FY 2022-2023.

Scope-text drift snapshot(Jaccard 0.98)

Top words shared roughly 2% of the vocabulary across the two periods.

FY 2018-2019 · 14 contracts: services
legal
litigation
opinion
public
FY 2022-2023 · 6 contracts: advice
client
legal
privilege
solicitor

Top-5 most-frequent words per period after stopword removal. Bookend snapshot only — see the follow-up story for the full FY-by-FY trajectory.

Show evidence

Alberta: recurring justification language authorised $10,608,543,597 of sole-source awards across 25 repeated sentences spanning 8 ministries (FY 2015-2016–2025-2026).

Show evidence

Yearly contract-intelligence findings

Stacked bar per fiscal year, segmented by finding kind (recurring justification language vs vendor scope drift)

III

Vendor universe — every contract-intelligence vendor

Sortable, searchable, paginated. Default sort by finding count (descending).

Every Alberta vendor that anchors at least one contract-intelligence finding. Columns: vendor name, total sole-source contracts in the publishing window, finding count across both kinds, finding-kind badges, latest finding date.
			Kinds
Catholic Social Services	207	2	RecurringDrift	2026-03-31
Alberta Health Services	141	2	RecurringDrift	2026-03-31
Tallcree Wildland Limited Partnership	19	2	RecurringDrift	2024-03-31
CarePros Enterprise Inc.	39	2	RecurringDrift	2026-03-31
Metis Child And Family Services Society	36	2	RecurringDrift	2023-03-31
The Board of Governors of Lethbridge College	6	1	Recurring	2021-03-31
Red Deer Youth & Volunteer Centre Foundation	3	1	Recurring	2019-03-31
CBI Limited	6	1	Recurring	2019-03-31
712556 Alberta Inc.	3	1	Recurring	2022-03-31
Wheatland Crisis Society	6	1	Recurring	2020-03-31
The Calgary John Howard Society	4	1	Recurring	2025-03-31
Driftpile First Nation Enterprises Inc	6	1	Recurring	2024-03-31
Discovery House Family Violence Prevention Society	7	1	Recurring	2020-03-31
Alice McNeil	4	1	Recurring	2023-03-31
Bluefox Association	10	1	Recurring	2024-03-31
Boys & Girls Clubs of Calgary	15	1	Recurring	2021-03-31
Bridges Family Programs of Southeastern Alberta	4	1	Recurring	2017-03-31
Calgary & District Foster Parent Association	7	1	Recurring	2020-03-31
Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter Association	6	1	Recurring	2021-03-31
Darlene Cardinal	5	1	Recurring	2019-03-31
Deborah Steadward	2	1	Recurring	2017-03-31
Grasslands Regional Division #6	3	1	Recurring	2017-03-31
LO-SE-CA Foundation	2	1	Recurring	2021-03-31
McMan Youth Family & Community Services Association	10	1	Recurring	2026-03-31
Nickel Enterprises Ltd operating as Apple Blossom Day Home	2	1	Recurring	2017-03-31

Page 1 of 43

Federal vs Alberta · data availability

11 dataset classes that bear on this chapter, federal vs Alberta side-by-side

Alberta supports richer text-layer clustering today, but both jurisdictions fail on amendment linkage, bid history, and line-item pricing — the structural gaps the table below makes explicit.

11 dataset classes · Federal vs Alberta

Federal

Bulk machine-readable: 3
Available · no bulk export: 0
Gated · account required: 1
Partial coverage: 3
Not published: 4

Alberta

Bulk machine-readable: 4
Available · no bulk export: 0
Gated · account required: 2
Partial coverage: 1
Not published: 4

Contract awards (proactive disclosure)
FederalBulk
Format
Consolidated CSV (Proactive Contracts ≥$10k)
Lag
Quarterly
License
Open Government Licence — Canada
Linkable ID
Vendor name is free-text; no stable vendor key
↗ Open Canada — Proactive Contracts
AlbertaBulk
Format
CSV via Alberta Open Data (`contracts`, `sole_source_contracts` source-family)
Lag
Annual snapshot, monthly delta on disclosure file
License
Open Government Licence — Alberta
Linkable ID
Vendor name is free-text upstream; resolved to a stable id after entity resolution (spec 043)
↗ Open Alberta — Sole-source service contracts
Free-text scope-of-work / contract description
FederalBulk
Format
Per-contract free-text field on Proactive Contracts disclosure
Lag
Quarterly
License
Open Government Licence — Canada
Linkable ID
Per-contract; varies in length from one line to a paragraph
↗ Open Canada — Proactive Contracts
AlbertaBulk
Format
`contracts.service_description_raw` (free-text)
Lag
Annual snapshot, monthly delta
License
Open Government Licence — Alberta
Linkable ID
Per-contract; recurring-language clusters and vendor-scope drift are computable today (see live findings above)
↗ Open Alberta — Sole-source service contracts
Sole-source justification text
FederalPartial
Format
NSC reason codes on Proactive Contracts; longer-form justifications inconsistent across departments
Lag
Quarterly
License
Open Government Licence — Canada
Linkable ID
Per-contract code field; prose varies from blank to paragraph
AlbertaBulk
Format
Free-text on sole-source-family `contracts` rows; carried in `service_description_raw`
Lag
Annual snapshot
License
Open Government Licence — Alberta
Linkable ID
Recurring-justification clustering live on this page
↗ Open Alberta — Sole-source service contracts
Tender notice and award text bulk
FederalBulk
Format
CanadaBuys tender notices + awards bulk export (CSV)
Lag
Daily / weekly
License
Open Government Licence — Canada
Linkable ID
Per-solicitation; joins to Proactive Contracts via vendor + dollar amount, not a stable id
↗ CanadaBuys
AlbertaGated
Format
Alberta Purchasing Connection — vendor account required (not open-data; portal access only)
Lag
Live (account)
License
Terms of use, no open licence
Linkable ID
—
Vendor stable identity across disclosures
Federal—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Vendor names are free-text in Proactive Contracts and CanadaBuys; no published stable vendor id.
AlbertaBulk
Format
Spec 043 entity-resolution publishes a stable vendor_id keyed off the contracts fact table
Lag
Refreshed with each ingest cycle
License
Open Government Licence — Alberta (derivative)
Linkable ID
vendor_id
Procurement-method classification (structured codes)
FederalPartial
Format
NSC reason codes on Proactive Contracts; coverage varies by department
Lag
Quarterly
License
Open Government Licence — Canada
Linkable ID
Per-contract code; not normalised cross-department
↗ Open Canada — Proactive Contracts
AlbertaPartial
Format
`contracts.sole_source_code_raw` carries the procurement-method code as free text; coverage and value-set inconsistent across ministries
Lag
Annual snapshot
License
Open Government Licence — Alberta
Linkable ID
Per-contract; values not normalised
↗ Open Alberta — Sole-source service contracts
Amendment linkage (parent_contract_id)
FederalPartial
Format
Amendment reporting is inconsistent across departments; no stable parent_contract_id field on the consolidated disclosure
Lag
Quarterly
License
Open Government Licence — Canada
Linkable ID
—
Note
Some departments append amendment rows in-place; others issue a new contract id. No consolidated link.
Alberta—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
AB does not publish parent_contract_id. Amendment-creep magnitude cannot be computed from open data.
Bid histories (winning + losing bid amounts)
FederalGated
Format
ATIP-only — no public dataset
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Losing-bid amounts not published in any structured form.
AlbertaGated
Format
Alberta Purchasing Connection — vendor account required (not open-data; portal access only)
Lag
Live (account)
License
Terms of use, no open licence
Linkable ID
—
Line-item / unit-price detail
Federal—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Not collected on Proactive Contracts; line-item data sits with departmental contract files.
Alberta—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Not collected at source. Per-line pricing is not part of the AB contracts disclosure dataset.
Standardised scope-of-work taxonomy
Federal—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Free-text only on both Proactive Contracts and CanadaBuys; no published taxonomy maps SoW prose to a controlled vocabulary.
Alberta—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Free-text only on `contracts.service_description_raw`; no published taxonomy.
Cross-jurisdiction price-benchmark dataset
Federal—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Does not exist on either side of the border.
Alberta—
Format
—
Lag
—
License
—
Linkable ID
—
Note
Without line-item data on either jurisdiction, no comparable price benchmark can be built from open data.

Legend bulk machine-readable available · no bulk export gated · account required partial coverage not published· click any row for license, lag, ID, source

What open data still can’t answer

4 questions this chapter raises that the public record doesn’t close — index format, no page reference because no page exists

01
Amendment linkage (parent_contract_id)
Without a stable parent_contract_id, amendment-creep magnitude — how a $100k contract becomes a $2M one through repeated amendments — cannot be computed from open data on either side. Federal amendment reporting is inconsistent across departments; Alberta does not publish the linkage at all.
02
Bid histories (losing bidders + amounts)
Without losing-bid amounts there is no benchmark for whether a winning vendor's price reflects market competition. Federal access is ATIP-only; Alberta publishes solicitation HTML but not losing-bid amounts.
03
Line-item / unit-price detail
Per-line pricing is not collected on either jurisdiction's contracts disclosure dataset, so cross-vendor or cross-ministry unit-price comparisons cannot be computed from open data.
04
Standardised scope-of-work taxonomy
Both sides publish scope-of-work prose as free text; neither publishes a controlled vocabulary that maps SoW text to a normalised activity. Cross-vendor scope comparisons rely on per-query token analysis (the Jaccard distance the live drift finding above uses) rather than a published taxonomy.