Thank you, Madam Chair, and honourable committee members, for inviting the Canadian Construction Association to appear before you today on Bill C-227.
As those of you who were here last week know, CCA represents Canada's non-residential construction industry. I was before you on the navigable waters protection act.
We have 20,000-plus firms from coast to coast to coast across Canada. It is our members who will be most directly impacted by Bill C-227, because they bid on projects that are awarded or let by PSPC.
We appreciate that in Minister Foote's mandate letter, she was tasked with modernizing procurement practices to make them simpler, less administratively burdensome, and to include practices to support the government's economic goals, including green and social procurement. Clearly, Bill C-227 is consistent with this overall objective, so we are neither surprised by the bill nor opposed to its introduction.
However, our concerns deal specifically with how this is implemented, and, in particular, to make sure that any community benefits or social procurement objectives that are put into the procurement of a construction contract do not jeopardize the integrity of the competitive bidding system; or, put in another way that you might better understand, do not conflict with Treasury Board's own contracting policy guidelines with respect to tendering, etc.
For example, where an entity wants to have a certain public policy objective achieved through procurement of construction services, they must define that in the document that's soliciting bids. They must clearly define what it is they want the bidders to bid against, and to price. The opportunity has to be equal for all bidders competing. That's a very important point. The consultation process with respect to a local community, to define community benefits to go into a PSPC contract, would have to be done by the department prior to seeking bids. That's the only way that the procurement process would be in fact be complied with. That's an extremely important point.
I think, Madam Chair, I'm a little confused. I thought I was coming here to speak about Bill C-227, but I suspect we're going to get into a very good discussion about social procurement and community benefits. That, we're prepared to do, but it's important to understand that first point I'm making. Your own rules, right now, do not allow you to go to bidders after the bids have closed and ask, “What can you do for us locally?” We had a commission of inquiry in Quebec that frowned on that kind of approach. It's very important that those requirements be spelled out in the tender documents so that all bidders have an equality opportunity, so that it's transparent, accountable, etc. That's very important.
Let's turn to Bill C-227. As I said, we do not oppose the introduction of social procurement or community benefits into contracting. In fact, we see it all the time. It's the manner in which it's done that is so important, to ensure that taxpayers do get value for their money, and that it's done in a transparent way that supports the integrity of the bidding system.
Going to the specifics of what would be asked for in the community benefit agreement, our only question is on whether anybody has done their homework to determine whether in fact procurement is the best tool, or even an effective tool, to achieve that public policy objective. It may be a public policy objective that everybody agrees with—not a problem. Getting more employers to engage in apprenticeship is a laudable objective. We would absolutely support that. However, has anybody really done the exercise to determine whether that is the best means to do so?
Secondly, how do you measure it? How do you know, by putting this into the procurement of a particular construction project, that you are actually having an impact on the public policy objective you're seeking? With regard to the engagement, for example, of disadvantaged youth, is it happening only because it's a condition to get this particular contract? Is it really having an impact?
The Mowat Centre in Toronto did a study of the use of social procurement and community benefits worldwide in jurisdictions that have been doing it longer than Canadian jurisdictions. One of the things the study said was that it falls down if the conditions of the contract don't get enforced by the public sector contracting authority, or there's no metric to measure whether the use of those objectives in the procurement process is successful.
I guess we're here to say that, in general terms, we have absolutely no problem with the bill in what it's trying to achieve. The important point is the manner in which it's implemented. Public owners must define in their tender documents what it is they want the successful bidder to do. That's an absolute fundamental principle in competitive bidding. It's the only way to measure whether you're successful or not after the fact.
The worst-case scenario would be a situation in which, for example, a public sector agency said, “Give me a price on building the new hospital, but also I want to see another envelope as to what you're going to do for the local community.” That's the last thing we want to see in any procurement system. I think that's a key point. The only other thing I would close on is to say that this whole area is extremely important. Corporate social responsibility is becoming something that we are looking at very earnestly in our industry. It's a very important part of doing business today. We have a how-to guide coming out for our contracting members in the industry, but CSR is not social procurement. CSR is a voluntary program that a corporate entity takes on to ensure that what it does as a company meets environmental sensibilities, good HR practices, etc. Social procurement is a government coming out and saying, “If you want to do business with us, then you have to have a CSR policy.” I think that's a very important difference.
I'm going to conclude there, and I look forward to the discussion. Our biggest point is, and I'm repeating myself, but it is so important, that's how something like this gets implemented. When you read the bill, it's very clear we're talking about contracts that are awarded by the minister of PSPC. Those are federally funded projects that the PSPC would build themselves and would be the contractor on. Those projects, quite frankly, are fewer and far between than they used to be. It's not a huge area. Most of the infrastructure projects today are awarded or contracted by the municipalities or the provinces. It's important to keep that separation. Our speech is the same to municipal governments and provincial governments. If you're going to put community benefits or public policy objectives in your tendering, then define it up front. You want a building that is reduced in carbon emissions. You want a good environmental footprint. For Pete's sake, put that in the initial document, and allow all bidders an opportunity to come up with an innovative way to get you what you want.
Thank you.
