Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, honourable members of Parliament and members of the industry, science and technology standing committee.
My name is Rosemarie Powell, and I am joined by my colleague Kumsa Baker, representing the TCBN.
The Toronto Community Benefits Network is a 120-member, and growing, coalition of community organizations, grassroots groups and social enterprises, unions, construction trades' training centres and workforce development agencies. Our mandate as a non-profit organization is to partner with the government and with the construction industry to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the economy and workforce of this industry that has historically excluded Black, indigenous and racialized Canadians.
We propose community benefits agreements as a proven and effective means to tackle this historic and systemic economic and employment equity issue, an issue that will only be further compounded as we seek a green recovery, if not addressed in an intentional way. When done right it creates a win-win solution for all, including for the industry as it struggles to find skilled workers to meet the growing demand and to deal with impending mass-scale retirements.
BuildForce Canada projects that the Canadian construction industry demands will intensify over the long-term, requiring more than 300,000 workers over a decade. In the middle of a pandemic, the best place to find skilled workers is in our local communities, from demographics that have low participation rates in the industry.
Over the next decade, government has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent on public infrastructure to build and maintain housing, roads, transit, water supply, electricity and telecommunications in urban and rural communities. It is imperative that government leaders ensure these large public infrastructure projects include CBAs that can ensure equitable workforce and business opportunities for Black, indigenous and racialized peoples, including women, persons with disabilities, veterans, vulnerable youth and newcomers. These approaches to infrastructure investment contribute to the federal government's environmental, economic and social policy objectives while delivering world-class infrastructure projects.
CBAs as part of large-scale public infrastructure projects is not new. Here in Toronto, the TCBN is currently implementing community benefits on five major infrastructure projects, including the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, the Finch West LRT, West Park Healthcare Centre and Casino Woodbine expansion projects.
Federally, community benefits have been included in projects like the Gordie Howe bridge in Windsor, which ensures economic, social and environmental benefits to support and strengthen the local economy.
Through the various community benefits programs and projects in Toronto, TCBN has worked with our network partners to support hundreds of people from under-represented groups into well-paying careers in the construction industry and on these projects, which include both skilled trades and professional administrative and technical positions. Now, although CBAs have been proven to help strengthen diversity in the industry, we remind you that it was just this past summer in Toronto that nooses were found on five separate construction sites with Black workers.
While we support policies like the federal community employment benefits program, which can be a valuable tool to create local workforce and business opportunities for under-represented groups, we need the government to ensure that these policies are adopted, implemented, tracked, monitored and publicly reported. We also need to ensure that all contractors have policies that ensure employment equity, and that their workforce is free from racism, discrimination, harassment and/or hate.
Last spring, at the height of the pandemic, we were extremely disappointed to see the dismissal by certain construction and engineering firms, like the Canadian Construction Association and Progressive Contractors Association, of community benefits agreements, and the livelihoods they support. This came at a time when participants of our Quick Start in Construction pre-apprenticeship training program were graduating and looking for entry into well-paying careers in the unionized construction industry.
In response, TCBN invited allies from our community labour and corporate partners to endorse a joint letter to the federal government, and it was extremely impactful. We got tons of support from across Canada. This is something that our communities want to see, and we implore the government to take leadership on this very important issue.
Thank you very much.