*3.3. Prequalification to Ensure Integration*

One important legislative principle is the opportunity for qualified tenderers to compete in calls for tenders, which includes SMEs, suppliers and manufacturers. Since 2016, public bodies must adopt guidelines which must ensure openness of public markets to competition and SMEs (Conseil du Trésor 2019). This has led to various practices such as inviting at least one SME in an invitational tender, and the creation of a public market accessibility index, which denotes a high degree of variation in terms of best practices for SME inclusion (Conseil du Trésor 2019). Quebec also offers financial support to companies wishing to acquire the required equipment and software to use BIM (Gouvernement du Québec 2016). Furthermore, Quebec's regulations provide for prequalification of contractors and service providers.

DB contracts in Quebec include provisions mandating the creation of a project management control committee, composed of public and private actors, whose role is notably to review all matters concerning design and construction issues. The committee, at its discretion, may invite any relevant party to meetings, which broadens the possibility of key stakeholders' involvement. The design builder can also voluntarily implement multidisciplinary workshops. Furthermore, BIM projects are usually coupled with publicly mandated integrated design workshops, during which any collaborator can be invited, such as a manufacturers or end-users (Jobidon et al. 2019).
