Ottawa Brew Sample Issue #001

Ottawa shed 30,500 jobs between February 2025 and February 2026 — the largest employment loss of any city in Ontario. Most of that pain sits squarely in the federal public service, where the Carney government's efficiency mandate is trimming departments faster than anyone expected.

Nokia, Ciena, and several Kanata-based SaaS firms told local recruiters that applications from former public servants are up 60% year-over-year. "We're getting people with 10 years of experience who are ready to move fast," said one hiring manager. "That doesn't happen in a normal market."

The bottom line: if you're a displaced federal worker with any tech-adjacent experience, the private sector has never been more interested in you. If you're a startup founder, now is the time to post that role.

Parliament Hill quietly passed changes to the Directive on the Management of Procurement this week — and if you're a govtech founder, you should probably be reading it right now instead of this newsletter. (But finish this first.)

The short version: the threshold for sole-source contracts for innovative Canadian suppliers has been raised from $40K to $250K. That means startups can land federal government contracts without a multi-year competitive procurement process.

Caveat: the rule still requires Canadian company status and supplier registration. Boring but necessary.