Ontario Bid Brief · Issue 19

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Last week's lead file, the Peel Police 11 Division acoustic renovation, had three plan takers when we ran it. It has 34 as of this week's pull. This week's board is thin on building work and heavy on winter, so the five below lean toward grounds and site crews. The awards carry the building side, including a $305,000 generator job decided by $4,900.

1. Snow Removal and Landscaping, Peel Long Term Care Homes Region of Peel · 2026-345T · closes Tue Oct 27, 12:00 PM ET · 23 plan takers

Peel is buying winter and summer grounds work for its long term care homes under one contract. The Region runs five homes across Mississauga, Brampton and Bolton. Confirm in the documents which sites are in scope and how long the term runs.

Estimated value: $150K to $450K per year (estimate, confirm on the portal)

Incumbent read: the listing does not name the current contractor, and this contract has no prior award in our archive. The archive does show who prices municipal snow in this corridor. A&G The Road Cleaners of Bolton took Durham's winter maintenance at $4.35M in Issue 18, and the same firm bid Oakville's leaf collection this summer (see below). Peel also awarded pest control for these homes in August, a file we ran open in Issue 11, so the Region is tendering its LTC services one contract at a time.

Worth bidding if: you run both snow and grounds crews and have equipment free right now. An Oct 27 close leaves the winner very little time before the first snowfall, which favours firms that are not already at capacity. Care homes also expect entrances and walkways cleared to a tighter standard than a commercial lot, so price the response times in the spec carefully.

2. General Contractor, 409 Centre Street South, Whitby Region of Durham · T-1034-2026 · closes Fri Oct 30, 2:00 PM ET

Durham is calling for a general contractor to build at 409 Centre Street South in Whitby. This is the only new building tender on the seven boards this week.

Estimated value: likely above $2M (estimate, confirm in the documents)

Incumbent read: there is no incumbent on a new build, so the read is the field. Durham publishes every bid, and its building work draws deep rooms. In Issue 17, fifteen roofers bid the Ajax admin roof and the winner took a $557K job by $7,678. Durham also has an architect call open for a new paramedic facility in Bowmanville (RFP-1029-2026, closes Oct 29) and a housing development call at the Ritson School site in Oshawa (NRFP-1032-2026, closes Oct 27). That is a building program, and this tender is the first piece of it a contractor can price.

Worth bidding if: you are a GC with the bonding for a multi-million dollar build and Durham references. For trade subs, this is a pricing opportunity. Pull the plan taker list this week and get your number to the GCs on it before they close their own estimates.

3. Loose Leaf Haulage Services, Oakville Town of Oakville · RFT-36-2026 · closes Thu Oct 22, 2:00 PM ET · 0 plan takers

Oakville needs a hauler to move the leaves its collection program picks up this fall. Nobody had pulled the documents when we checked.

Estimated value: $100K to $300K for the season (estimate, sized against the collection bids below)

Incumbent read: the collection side of this program was awarded this summer to Marquee Landscapes of Burlington, and seven firms bid it. The full results are in the awards section. Haulage is a separate contract, which means the collection winner does not automatically hold the trucking. Zero plan takers two weeks out is the thinnest room on any board this week.

Worth bidding if: you run dump trucks or roll-offs in Halton and have capacity through November. Read the documents for the haul distance and the disposal site before you price, because those two items decide the margin.

4. Snow Storage Facility, 1875 North Sheridan Way, Mississauga Region of Peel · 2026-484T · Project 13-4007 · closes Tue Oct 13, 12:00 PM ET · 42 plan takers

Peel is building a snow storage facility in Mississauga. Expect a site works package, so grading, drainage and paving will carry most of the dollars. Three addenda are already out.

Estimated value: $1M to $3M (estimate, confirm in the documents)

Incumbent read: none, since this is new construction. The number to read correctly is the 42. In Issue 17, twenty firms pulled the Oakville depot parking lot and four bid. In this issue, 23 pulled a Burlington park bridge and eight bid. A crowded plan taker list on site work usually shrinks by more than half before close.

Worth bidding if: you already have the documents. One week is too short to start an estimate from zero. For paving and concrete subs, the play is the plan taker list. Forty-two firms hold the drawings and most of them still need trade prices.

5. Supply and Delivery of Aggregates Halton Region · T-121-26 · closes Wed Oct 14, 2:00 PM ET · 4 plan takers

Halton is buying aggregates on a supply and delivery contract. Four firms have the documents.

Estimated value: $200K to $600K per year (estimate, confirm quantities in the documents)

Incumbent read: Halton posts the winner and the award value on its Awarded tab but not the losing bids. Look up the last aggregates award there before you price. It gives you the incumbent's name and the number you have to beat.

Worth bidding if: you own a pit or hold a supply agreement with one, and you run your own trucks in Halton. Four plan takers is a small room for a contract that renews.

Generator Replacement at Town Hall, Oakville Town of Oakville · RFT-15-2026 · closed Aug 21 · 19 plan takers, 7 bids

Winner: AC Contracting Inc., Mississauga · $305,100

AC Contracting beat Advanced ECS of Burlington by $4,900. That is 1.6 percent on a $305K job. The high bid came from Ferguson Electric at $472,000, which is 1.55 times the winner.

The field is the lesson. Electrical contractors and mechanical contractors both priced this job, and the winner was a firm with neither trade in its name. B&B Mechanical, who won the $4.2M Burlington library roof in Issue 16, finished fourth here at $383,000. Twelve firms pulled the documents and never bid, including Paramount Power Systems.

Loose Leaf Collection Services, Oakville Town of Oakville · RFT-52-2026 · closed Jul 28 · 16 plan takers, 7 bids

Winner: Marquee Landscapes Ltd, Burlington · low bid of $745,960 (Oakville did not post a separate award value)

Marquee won by $27,080 over Municipal Maintenance of Schomberg, a gap of 3.6 percent. The high bid was Winfield Contracting at $1,056,960, about 1.4 times the low.

A Halton firm won. Marquee lists a Burlington address on Appleby Line, and the next three bidders came from Schomberg, Oakville and Bolton. The Bolton bidder was A&G The Road Cleaners, the Durham winter maintenance winner from Issue 18. They finished fourth at $828,160. The listing does not show the term, so check it before you compare these bids to your own seasonal rate.

Ireland Park Pedestrian Bridge Replacement, Burlington City of Burlington · ES-26-34 · closed Jul 31 · 23 plan takers, 8 bids

Winner: Rankin Construction Inc., St. Catharines · $402,133.10

Rankin won by $29,019 over Total-Pave of Burlington, a gap of 7.2 percent. KB Civil Constructors was high at $682,079, which is 1.7 times the winner.

A St. Catharines contractor drove past every Burlington and Hamilton firm on the list to take a park bridge. Terrain Landscapes of Hamilton bid $533,281 and finished sixth. GIP Paving and Three Seasons Landscape, both Hamilton area firms, pulled the documents and passed. Forest Ridge Landscaping of Mount Albert bid both this bridge and the Oakville leaf contract and finished well back on each.

Demolition of Three Residential Properties, Trafalgar Road, Georgetown Halton Region · R-2960B-1-26 · closed Aug 28 · 17 plan takers, 11 bids

Winner: Salandria Ltd., Richmond Hill · $137,777

That works out to about $45,900 per house on simple division. Halton does not publish the losing bids, so there is no spread to report.

What Halton does publish is the bidder list, and eleven of seventeen plan takers bid. That is a 65 percent conversion, the highest of the four awards this week. IQ Environmental of Millgrove was one of the ten who lost. In Issue 8 they won the Cooksville demolition in Mississauga at $375,820 for five properties. Small demolition is a crowded trade where most firms that open the file go on to price it.

Four Peel files we have covered are still open, well past the dates we printed.

The Suite A modernization at 10 Peel Centre Drive ran in Issue 10 with an August 13 close. It now closes October 26. The Cliff Road envelope restoration ran in Issue 13 with a September 16 close and now closes October 19. The Vera Davis interior modifications moved from September 21 to October 15. Sheridan Villa decarbonization moved from October 5 to October 22.

Most estimators treat a closing date as fixed. They look once, decide they are too busy and never open the file again. On these four, that decision was made against a deadline that no longer exists.

An extension is information. Owners rarely move a date without a reason, and the reason usually shows up in the addenda. Cliff Road has four addenda. Suite A has three. When the addenda count climbs alongside the date, the scope or the drawings have probably shifted, and any number priced before the change is stale.

That cuts two ways. If you priced early, you have to reprice, because your competitors will. If you passed, you are now level with the firms that started in August.

The plan taker count tells you which kind of extension you are looking at. Cliff Road had 8 plan takers when we ran it in August and has 10 today. Six weeks on the board added two firms, so that room is still thin. Suite A has 39. The extension there bought the owner a crowd.

The BD move is a simple habit. Keep a list of every file you passed on for lack of time. Check the dates each Monday. When one moves, read the newest addendum first and then look at whether the plan taker list grew. A longer runway with a short list is the best setup on any board, and right now the Cliff Road envelope job is exactly that.

If one of these files fits a crew you know, forward this to them and hit reply to tell me which one you're pricing.