POR - Quantitative

Trade Agreement: Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) Tendering Procedures: The bidder must supply Canadian goods and/or services Competitive Procurement Strategy: Best Overall Proposal Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No Nature of Requirements:

POR - Quantitative

HT372-203492/B Brad, Giulia Telephone No. - (613) 293-8534

Line 2, GSIN: T001C, SOL B, Quantity: 1, Unit of Issue: Each, Delivery Date: See Herein

The information contained in this notice is a summary of the requirement. Bidders must refer to the solicitation documents for a full description of the requirement and instructions.

NATURE OF REQUIREMENT

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), on behalf of Health Canada (HC), has a requirement to conduct a large-scale quantitative survey twice per year to understand Canadians’ attitudes, knowledge, patterns of use, and perceptions with respect to vaping and tobacco products.

PERIOD OF THE CONTRACT

The period of the contract will be from the effective date to Mai 31, 2024, with the possibility of two (2) additional one (1) year option periods.

ENQUIRIES

All enquiries must be directed to the Contracting Authority at the contact details identified within this tender notice no later than the deadline indicated in the RFP.

SOURCING

The requirement is limited to Canadian goods and/or services.

The Federal Contractors Program (FCP) for employment equity applies to this procurement; refer to Part 5 - Certifications and Additional Information, Part 7 - Resulting Contract Clauses and the annex titled Federal Contractors Program for Employment Equity - Certification.

This bid solicitation allows bidders to use the epost Connect service provided by Canada Post Corporation for bid submission. Bidders must refer to Part 2 of the bid solicitation entitled Instructions to bidders for further information.

The Phased Bid Compliance Process applies to this requirement.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

MANDATORY EVALUATION CRITERIA

M.1 SURVEY FIELD MANAGER

The bidder must identify one (1) survey field manager who is able to communicate with the project authority in English and one (1) survey field manager who is able to communicate with the project authority in French. The individual identified for each language can be the same person. The bidder must provide the curriculum vitae of the proposed fieldwork manager. The curriculum vitae must include:

a) the candidate’s professional experience; b) the candidate’s employment history, starting with the present (in months/years), and including a brief description of each role; c) the candidate’s education, including the field of study, memberships, publications, certification and training; d) the candidate’s oral and written language capabilities or proficiency for each of the two (2) official languages of Canada (i.e. English and French).

M.2 SURVEY FIELD MANAGER - SAMPLE PROJECTS

The bidder must demonstrate the experience of each of the proposed fieldwork managers in the following way. The bidder must submit the following:

• two (2) quantitative telephone surveys that each survey field manager has produced and completed* in Canada in the two (2) years preceding the bid closing date.

• The bidder must submit two (2) quantitative online surveys that each survey field manager has produced and completed* in Canada in the two (2) years preceding the bid closing date.

The samples submitted will be evaluated in the Point Rated Technical Evaluation R.4 - Survey field manager - Sample Projects. Please use the sample project format in R.4 to submit sample projects.

If two (2) fieldwork managers were identified in M.1, the bidder must then submit a total of eight (8) projects in R.4. If one (1) survey field manager was identified in M.1, the bidder must submit four (4) projects (2 telephone surveys, 2 online surveys).

*Completed is defined as when the final data was submitted to the client.

At least one (1) of the two (2) projects for each telephone and online submitted must be national*** in scope, with a minimum of one thousand (1000) survey completions and must demonstrate that a final sample is representative**** (for the telephone surveys) and reflective (for the online surveys) of the target population in terms of age, gender, and region/province, based on Statistics Canada data at the time of study.

***National is defined as a project being delivered in at least four (4) regions of Canada. One (1) of these regions must be Quebec. The regions are: • British Columbia; • Prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba); • Ontario; • Quebec; • Atlantic (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador); and • The Territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut).

**** Representative is defined as a final sample that is composed of individuals who have been randomly selected from the adult Canadian population, and thus the sample is an accurate reflection of the adult Canadian population. The final sample proportion must be within +/-2% of the population proportion.

M.3 FIELDWORK FIRM / SUB- CONTRACTORS

All fieldwork must be completed in Canada. The bidder must identify whether all fieldwork will be conducted with either:

• in-house resources; • a sub-contractor; or • a combination of in-house resources and a sub-contractor.

If a firm is using in-house resources, the firm will be required to complete all projects for the duration of the contract using these in-house resources unless authorized in writing by Public Works and Government Services Canada.

If a sub-contractor is involved, the same sub-contractor will be required to complete all projects for the duration of the contract unless authorized in writing by Public Works and Government Services Canada.

In the case of the use of a sub-contractor, the bidder must provide

• the name of the sub-contractor; • the number of years in business; and • the research components for which they will be responsible.

M.4 FIELDWORK FIRM / SUB- CONTRACTOR - PROJECT SAMPLES

The bidder must submit the following: • a minimum of two (2) but no more than four (4) quantitative telephone surveys completed in Canada by the fieldwork firm / sub-contractor identified in M.3. • The bidder must submit a minimum of two (2) but no more than four (4) quantitative online surveys completed in Canada by the fieldwork firm / sub-contractor identified in M.3

The more projects a bidder submits, the more points will be awarded for a maximum of 4 telephone surveys and 4 online surveys.

The samples will be evaluated in the Point Rated Technical Evaluation R.5 - Fieldwork Firm / Sub-Contractor’s Experience.

The projects will be evaluated based on recency, sample size, questionnaire duration and sampling distribution. Refer to R.5 for more details.

M.5 BUDGET

The budget for the initial contract period of three years plus the two option years including taxes is $2.5M (excluding the extra survey cost for the extra minutes past the 15 minutes per survey which is to be priced separately under B2.2.2.3).

POINT RATED EVALUATION CRITERIA

R.1: UNDERSTANDING THE REQUIREMENTS

The response should include a narrative summary that reflects the understanding of the Statement of Work. Simply repeating the Statement of Work, in whole or in part, does not indicate an understanding of the project’s aims and objectives or the ability to carry it out. Understanding of the requirement should include: a) Understanding the purpose of the research and how it applies to the roles and responsibilities of Health Canada. The summary includes an understanding of the purpose of the research, and how it applies to the roles and responsibilities of Health Canada as it relates to this project.

Relevant sections of the Standards for the Conduct of Government of Canada Public Opinion Research?Telephone Surveys and Online Surveys will be used to evaluate the comprehensiveness of the response for the rated criteria.

R.2: METHODOLOGY

The response should include a complete description of the methodology and research procedures, including data collection techniques; response should demonstrate how they will achieve the completions required by describing the size of the eligible population, the methodology by which they will locate eligible respondents, the expected response rates and how they will be achieved, and the procedures they intend to follow to obtain the required number of completions.

Section I: Methodology and Research Procedures • The degree to which the response describes a suitable methodology, including the size of the eligible population, the methodology by which they will locate eligible respondents, the expected response rates and how they will be achieved. The response should also demonstrate how their sample is representative of the population.

Section II: Data Collection Procedures The degree to which the response describes suitable data collection procedures as it relates to the Data Collection section in the SOW, including a detailed description of how the two-staged approach (telephone to online) will be done.

Section III: Data Collection Capability and Quality Control • The degree to which the response describes a suitable data collection capability and all quality control mechanisms that will be in place to ensure the reliability and validity of the results. • The degree to which the response indicates the anticipated response rate and detail the steps that will be taken to achieve the probability-based sample and response rate.

Section IV: Addressing Methodological Requirements • The degree to which the response describes a suitable rationale for the approach and a description for each of the following: • Margin of error, • non-response bias, • urban/rural/provincial/territories coverage, • sampling issues, • extrapolation to the population, • response rates, • ensuring there is no overlap between cell and landline sample for each wave,. • ensuring each wave contains unique respondents that have not participated in an earlier wave, • overall data collection strategy to ensure data is collected in relatively equal proportions throughout the data collection period.

Section V: Addressing Issues and Challenges • The degree to which the response addresses issues and challenges and proposed solutions for each of the following stages of a data collection period, including: • Surveying youth and obtaining consent, • Ensuring the quotas for harder-to-reach audiences will be met, • survey programming, • pre-testing, • data collection, • sample replenishment from phone to online, • coding, • weighting, • final data, • reporting, and overall scheduling and project management.

R.3: SURVEY FIELD MANAGER - QUALIFICATIONS

The curriculum vitae of each survey field manager proposed in M.1 will be evaluated as follows:

a) Academic qualifications / training / certifications / publications / awards and memberships relevant to public opinion research fieldwork management, including communication of survey pre-test and results.

b) Work experience -the proposal should state the total number of months and years (ie: 6 years and 4 months of relevant experience for each proposed fieldwork manager.

R.4: SURVEY FIELD MANAGER - SAMPLE PROJECTS

The projects submitted under mandatory requirement M.2 will be evaluated under this point rated evaluation. Bidders are requested to use the following PROJECT SAMPLE FORMAT for each project submitted.

Projects can include any target audience (e.g. Indigenous, ethno-cultural groups, seniors, youth, general population, etc), as long as the project was conducted in Canada with Canadians.

PROJECT SAMPLE FORMAT

SECTION I: BACKGROUND INFORMATION SECTION II: PROJECT BACKGROUND SECTION III: METHODOLOGY

R.5: FIELDWORK FIRM / SUB-CONTRACTORS - EXPERIENCE

Project experience will be evaluated based on the following criteria

Telephone Surveys (2 to 4 projects)

a) Recency of the Project: The project fieldwork was completed in the two (2) years preceding the bid closing date by the bidder’s proposed fieldwork firm. b) Sample Size and Questionnaire Duration c) Sampling Distribution

Online Surveys (2 to 4 projects)

a) Recency of the Project: The project fieldwork was completed in the two (2) years preceding the bid closing date by the bidder’s proposed fieldwork firm. b) Sample Size and Questionnaire Duration c) Sampling Distribution

BASIS OF SELECTION

Highest Combined Rating of Technical Merit and Price

1. To be declared responsive, a bid must: a. comply with all the requirements of the bid solicitation; and

b. meet all mandatory criteria; and

c. obtain the required minimum points specified for each criterion for the technical evaluation, and

d. obtain the required minimum of 980 points overall for the technical evaluation criteria which are subject to point rating. The rating is performed on a scale of 1400 points.

1. Bids not meeting (a) or (b) or (c) and (d) will be declared non-responsive.

2. The selection will be based on the highest responsive combined rating of technical merit and price. The ratio will be 70% for the technical merit and 30% for the price.

3. To establish the technical merit score, the overall technical score for each responsive bid will be determined as follows: total number of points obtained / maximum number of points available multiplied by the ratio of 70%.

4. To establish the pricing score, each firm price or rate will be prorated against the lowest firm price or rate for each individual category of service. The ratio of 30% will be calculated as follows: Lowest Average Firm Contract Price multiplied by 30 points divided by Bidder’s Average Firm Contract Price = Weighted Financial Score for Firm Contract Price for Initial and Optional Contract Periods.

5. For each responsive bid, the technical merit score and the pricing score will be added to determine its combined rating.

6. Neither the responsive bid obtaining the highest technical score nor the one with the lowest evaluated price will necessarily be accepted. The responsive bid with the highest combined rating of technical merit and price will be recommended for award of a contract.

All solicitation documents must be obtained through http://buyandsell.gc.ca/tenders

Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.