Transport Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Varone.

Mr. Cartwright.

[John Cartwright, President, Toronto and York Region Labour Council]

Good morning, committee. My name is John Cartwright. I'm the president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council representing over 205,000 women and men who work in every sector of the economy. I'm a construction worker by trade, having started as a carpenter apprentice at the age of 18. I'm here to support the amendments that are contained in Bill C-227.

We feel that the billions of dollars in investment that's about to be made through the federal infrastructure program serves a multiple purpose.

For the last two and a half years, the Toronto Community Benefits Network, which I co-chair, has been working with the Government of Ontario and Metrolinx to create a community benefits model for the $8 billion of construction in the Toronto transit lines. That really focuses on ensuring that the prosperity that will come with that investment is shared adequately in our community, particularly among those who sometimes have been left out of prosperity in past economies. We're looking particularly at historically disadvantaged communities, equity-seeking groups, and military veterans to be included in the apprenticeship opportunities in that work as well as in the white-collar side, the professional, administration, and technical work unique in North America to ensure that graduates and internationally trained professionals can get opportunities for employment.

To create that model, we brought people from the United Kingdom, from the United States, and from British Columbia into a meeting to talk about the different experiences that had been involved in those different jurisdictions in community benefits. There are now over three dozen community benefits agreements working on major infrastructure programs in the United States.

We think we have it right. We have a whole series of commitments through the trades in Toronto to reach out to diverse communities to help engage people from diverse communities to come into our industry. We've already had several hundred young people from those different communities come into the trades, and with the Eglinton Crosstown, we anticipate hundreds more coming into those trades.

This is not a simple task, but we look at mirroring what happened around the health and safety agenda in the construction industry in the past decades. Originally when we created a health and safety regime under Bill 208 in 1990, there were some on the employer side among supervisors and contractors who were resistant to embracing those elements, but three decades later, there's not a major contractor in Ontario that doesn't talk about the importance of having a full health and safety regime as part of its culture. We believe that is a transformation we can do within the construction industry across Canada by helping to change the openness to first nations people, to newcomer communities, to young people, and to youth at risk, to ensure that they actually have a chance to have a decent career.

A similar parallel is really to be made around green construction. I remember when LEED was first brought up as a possible goal for building, and it was very much a small marginal effort at the time. Today there's not a major contractor, architect or engineering firm in Canada that doesn't have LEED specialists on its staff in order to achieve those goals, and every major project is trying to reach some form of LEED standards, including platinum when it can.

We believe that kind of transformation is possible by tasking the construction industry with embracing community benefits, by looking at the major projects that the federal government will invest in, and by making those choices.

We are going to spend billions of dollars. We have crisis levels of youth incarceration in first nation communities across this country. The Globe and Mail today talked about that being 25%. We have a crisis of young people in greater Toronto falling into violence and gang activity. The alternative, instead of spending money on prisons or on the health crisis of diabetes in first nations, is to spend the money on infrastructure and to make sure it gives double value, that is, by creating the infrastructure that our country needs for the 21st century and also by creating the job opportunities that so many young Canadians need in order to be part of a growing industry, and to have a career in an industry that values apprenticeships and training, that gives people portable skills they can take with them for the rest of their lifetime, an opportunity I was fortunate enough to have at the age of 18.

That's my presentation, and I'm happy to answer questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cartwright.

We'll go to Mr. Rayes, for six minutes.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First I want to welcome our two witnesses and thank them for being here with us.

Of course, we cannot be against motherhood. Like you, I think it is essential that we support local communities. However, in this private member's bill, we see no obligation or constraint. We are told that the implementation of such a bill will not cost the government a penny.

My question is for each of you.

Could you give me a concrete example of a projet conducted by Public Services and Procurement Canada that had no socioeconomic benefits in communities?

I am talking about strictly federal projects, projects that were not funded by municipal or provincial governments. This is what the member who introduced the bill specified. It is important to clarify that, since some people may not know it.

My question will be addressed to Mr. Varone first.

[Toni Varone]

I would categorize that on two levels. Any investment in any infrastructure in any project is of community benefit by its very nature, but the subset of that is whether the local community will benefit tangentially from that project as well. I am more concerned about the latter being implemented as a matter of course. It is a successful model. If Public Works is putting in a watershed review of a certain area, cleaning up the rivers or other items that can be compiled within that, that would serve the local community, that is equally important as looking at the whole. I suggest that both elements can be achieved at every project.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

You answered my question, but I would like to know what is preventing the government, more specifically Public Services and Procurement Canada, from requiring these economic benefits. Why can it not impose those conditions?

In my opinion those conditions exist, since many experts and organization representatives told us that they already take this into account.

The representative of one organization—I don't remember which one—told us earlier that benefits to communities were taken into account, and that community parks, commemorative parks or parks for recreational activities had been created, and that work was done with first nations communities. They already do all of that. If the minister wanted to, through her department, all she would have to do is add one line, state some requirements and do some verifications.

Is there something stopping the minister from doing that at this time, in your opinion?

[Toni Varone]

I guess it's a question of government priorities of the day, and your operative word was “might” instead of “will”. In successive governments, when austerity takes hold, local communities are the losers.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

However, I can assure you that with the Liberal government, we are not in a period of fiscal restraint. Far from it, in fact. Mr. Rodriguez can confirm that.

Mr. Cartwright, could you answer my question?

[John Cartwright]

I'm not aware of federal projects ever explicitly mandating community benefits in the way they become meant in the disciplined practice we've looked at through the United States and the United Kingdom.

In fact, we have some examples in Ontario that we've developed over these years. In northern Ontario, Ontario Power Generation has partnered with first nations and there's a requirement of an amount of that work to be done.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

In your opinion, would including that incur costs for the government?

The member who came to speak to us about it said that it would cost nothing to ensure that communities be taken into account in all projects.

[John Cartwright]

I don't believe there is any additional cost to this. It's a matter of the construction industry starting to embrace this in their ongoing culture in the same way as I've described that health and safety is now embraced in the ongoing culture with dramatically reduced fatalities, and green building design has been embraced in the culture. These haven't cost anything. In fact, a life-cycle cost analysis would show that these kinds of measures and community benefits will provide dramatic savings to the public purse as we reduce some of the other issues around incarceration and health issues.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 30 seconds.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

To be fair and equitable toward all of the entrepreneurs who submit a bid, how can we verify that what is indicated in that line, the commitment to create socioeconomic benefits for the community and engage it, is really achieved?

Do we have to give all entrepreneurs carte blanche?

[John Cartwright]

You put in a monitoring process, as they've described in the bill. There are reports annually to the minister about what those benefits have been.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

We will need people to do that work, which implies costs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You're out of time.

Does somebody want to quickly answer Mr. Rayes?

Continue, Mr. Cartwright.

[John Cartwright]

There's a monitoring process in place, and that will help ensure that the contractors understand what is expected of them and that they report on that. It's no different from any other spec in a major tender.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Rayes.

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I have two questions that zero right in on the provisions in the bill, because we have to focus on it to send something back that is either amended or accepted as is. I'd ask you to keep your answers relatively short, but if you come bolt upright at 3 o'clock in the morning with “Gosh, I should have said something else”, I invite you to send us something in writing as well to flesh out this information.

One of the provisions is that the minister could require bidders on contracts for public works to “provide information on the community benefits”. Should we leave that up to the bidders alone? It occurs to me that there are three players here: the bidders, the proponent, and the community. Each one of them should actually have something to input in the whole range of community benefits that are possible.

Is the language in the bill too restricting when it just says “require bidders”?

Mr. Varone, I'll start with you.

[John Cartwright]

Could I answer that?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Yes. Go ahead.

[John Cartwright]

It's absolutely necessary. In any bid, depending on the complexity of the bid—the bid documents are hundreds of pages long—if you don't put something in the specifications in that bid, then many other issues will oversee that. Then the bidders will say, “That was our best intention, but actually we focused on timeliness, on cost, on technical changes, and other things. We didn't get around to that.” There are huge pressures on bidders to complete a job on time and under budget, as you know. Only if there's a clear expectation that community benefits will be part of their bid and part of their practice will we actually elevate this culture within the construction industry as a whole.