Evidence of meeting #30 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was benefits.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
That's not what I said. I said the local, grassroots, community organization may assist community members to come together to help them conduct the consultation process, so that the community members themselves can identify what they'd like.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay, to my mind, it's very vague as to how these community members are going to have an opportunity to provide input to the Minister of Public Works on the community benefits of a project.
Why is the burden to demonstrate community benefits being placed on the bidder of the contract and not on Public Works when they are looking at selecting a contractor? Why is it the community and not Public Works that is obviously the proponent pushing for the project to be done?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
This is my conception. The onus is on the contractor because they are the ones that are bidding for the government contract and it's not just one contractor. It's usually a number of them and they are all competing to get taxpayer dollars, so what we're saying to them is, “If you want government money to do project x, what other value would you create for this particular community? Show us what else you could offer to the community and do that in a way that engages the community, so you are not just guessing what that benefit would be. Engage the community and then get back to us and tell us.”
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Thank you.
I want to follow up on a question that your colleague asked about red tape and additional costs. There are 37,000 federal buildings and 20,100 federal properties. The Minister of Public Works and Government Services will need an entire new team to process the paperwork, yet you've said there will be no cost since it will just be one additional line. Can you describe what you envision that to be, that one additional line? What's that line going to provide to the minister in order to allow the minister to know whether or not the contractors have satisfied the community benefits test?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Okay. Right now, we have a very rigorous application process for contractors applying for Public Works and Government Services contracts. This would be an extra line in there asking whether there is a community benefit above and beyond the project and what is that benefit? That would be one extra box in there and it wouldn't require any new team, or sub-department, or anything like that.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I get the impression, Mr. Hussen, that really what you're looking for is something that comes from the community up into the project. Will this add cost to the project?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Absolutely not. The community benefit agreements that have been embedded in infrastructure projects across the country have not, in any way, shape, or form, added any additional costs to the project. In fact, they have brought value to the communities involved.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Can you describe, then, a scenario of how that would happen?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
That what would happen, the benefits that a community would get?
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Yes. Describe a benefit that could be coaxed out of the project, something that met the community's needs that didn't necessarily add time or cost to a project.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
For example, the community may demand from a contractor that, as part of the project, the contractor consider giving an opportunity for jobs or paid training to local members of the community. That has happened in many, many projects, including the Eglinton crosstown LRT project in Toronto, where a number of jobs were given to local youth in the community, and they were given access to trades. They were included in that building project by the contractor as part of a community benefits agreement with the local community.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I think it would be fair to say that somebody who's put into a situation like that may not be as productive as a well-experienced person. That, to me, would suggest that there could be some additional costs. I'm not saying it's a bad thing; it's just a matter of when we, for instance, cost out a project, when we come up with an estimate as to what something's going to cost us, if we want that kind of community benefit to emerge, or if our partner in the community wants that benefit to emerge, we do have to account for that.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Looking at the jobs that are provided, for example, envisions that the folks who are being hired are people who can already do those jobs. They just happen to be local community members. The issue of the folks who cannot do the job who, like you said, would add additional costs, would be taken care of by an option for the contractor to enable the local community to get access to paid training, or just training, so they're able to be in a better position to take advantage of similar jobs down the road or with other projects. That sort of analysis doesn't happen at this time with the federal government. There's no legislative framework, and this bill would enable us to start doing that.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay.
I want to go back to the green and social aspects of this. Would the ask we get from the community be totally left up to them? Would you envision a situation where we come to a community and say that we want to make an investment in the community, we want to rehabilitate an existing federal building? There are no community dollars going into it; it's just simply all on our account. Would we then want to talk to the community and coax out from them or bargain with them the kind of community benefit we would like to see emerge out of this project?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
My vision is that the identification of the benefits would always come from the community itself, similar to how mining companies interact with local communities that are impacted by mining operations. They always go to the community, allow the community to identify what they want from that project, and sign an agreement with that community. This would be similar to that process.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Is there a framework in place that would describe or define the sorts of things the community could ask for?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
I don't see the need for that because most communities would want similar things. They would want local jobs. They would want paid training if they don't have the skills for those local jobs. They would want green space or some other form of benefits. They tend to be very similar across the country, depending on the project, but essentially they are a form of social procurement for small businesses in the neighbourhood, and really, a majority of them would require local jobs and training or a mix of the two.
I don't see a need for the government to come and tell the community what they should ask for. I think that most of the time, if you consult communities, they would come back with those kinds of asks because they would want those kinds of benefits to come out of a project.
Liberal
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
You mentioned earlier that Ontario had legislation already in place similar to what you're proposing. I just want to know what their experience has been, if you know that.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Ontario has passed Bill 6, which embeds community benefit agreements in all the infrastructure spending, almost $29 billion over the next number of years. The regulations haven't been written yet, but already, just the passing of that bill has provided leadership not only to provincial bodies but also to the private sector to start to really incorporate community benefit agreements in their projects.
