Transport Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

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

It says “to provide information on the community benefits”. It sounds to me as though you're asking the bidder what the community benefits are that are arising out of this. Does this language have to be refined?

Mr. Varone.

[Toni Varone]

You hope that over time, and hopefully a short period of time, you're going to shift the paradigm whereby this conversation is going to be irrelevant. You want every bidder thinking about community benefits as part of their strategic bid and the reasons they're going to get picked over somebody else. You want it ingrained, and you want it embedded in the way contractors think. You want it to be a reflex and not a necessity: “Oh, look at what they're making me do.”

I think Mr. Cartwright is absolutely right. Over time, the bidding community will embrace this. They'll be the ones seeking out the community, looking at what those benefits are, and coming back to the proponent saying, “Hey, this is what I think. This is what we've heard. This is what I think we can pull off with our community benefit section.”

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

Another provision is “the contracting party shall, upon request by the Minister, provide the Minister with an assessment as to whether the community benefits from a project”.

Is that too confining? Should we just hear from the contracting party, or should we actually hear from the community as well to get their assessment as to what has been delivered?

As a bit of background, I used to work in the broadcast industry, as my colleague here used to. I worked on promises of performance. I certainly saw licence applications promise the earth, moon, and stars, and all end up playing progressive rock.

It's sometimes what the actual beneficiaries perceive as the benefits. To confine this to the contracting party seems, to me, to be a little bit too narrow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Varone.

[Toni Varone]

Yes and no. Again, you would hope that over time this is a reflex, not just a burden. As for the burden in terms of creating that community benefit, I think it's incumbent on all parties not only to design the bid and the bid structure and to have the contractors bid on it, but to create the preamble whereby all of this is already discussed and fleshed out. You want different ideas and you want the marketplace to see if they can't even elevate that community component part.

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

Shouldn't we ask the community as well what it got or what it perceives it will get?

[Toni Varone]

Absolutely.

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

All right.

Mr. Cartwright.

[John Cartwright]

I think we are taking small steps here. I absolutely agree with Mr. Varone that over a period of time you will have bidders anticipating that community benefits are required, and they will be bringing them forward. In fact, TCBN made a presentation with three bidders on another major project for Metrolinx, and each of those three bidders had already thought about what the community benefits would look like, their commitment to apprenticeship, and their commitment to outreach to disadvantaged communities, and had developed that as their business plan. Once the contractor provides an assessment, then we would hope that the federal government or those in charge would find a way of asking the community to verify that assessment or to question that assessment.

I think the initial first steps are to make sure that in the whole bidding process, this becomes, as Mr. Varone said, part of the culture, such that there's an expectation that you do this, that you create your bid around this, and then you report this accurately. As we often say, if you can't measure, you don't know what the progress is. This is part of measuring what's actually being done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hardie.

Monsieur Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to welcome the two witnesses and thank them for being here and taking part in our study.

There is a consensus as to the objectives of Bill C-227, but the substance is very vague.

We tried to clear up a certain number of points with the witnesses who preceded you, such as the environmental aspect, which could be included, and the requirements the minister could impose. So I would like to explore a few other avenues with you.

I will begin with you, Mr. Cartwright.

We know that the successful realization of local benefits will in large part be due to communication among the unions, workers and community groups. But all communities are not that well organized.

Do you think that Bill C-227 should allow prior public consultations before any work is done?

[John Cartwright]

I think it depends on the size of the project. What we've achieved in the Toronto Community Benefits Network is a very strong labour-community coalition. We've been supported by a number of charitable foundations in that effort to ensure that the communities are at the table, that leaders from those communities are part and parcel of crafting this plan, and that they help to bring together community members who are seeking apprenticeships or seeking to get into the white-collar job opportunities here, as well as having a conversation about the environmental impact of these projects.

How that will be created at a local level really depends community by community. From Toronto, I can't suggest what that engagement should look like in parts of Quebec or in Atlantic Canada, the Prairies, or the north. I know what we've been able to achieve. Certainly, our experience tells us that the legitimacy of this depends on building organizations on the ground where communities, particularly those who have been historically disadvantaged in terms of access to the great careers that the construction industry offers, are very much part of this conversation.

We hope that we're building a new culture in the way that we say now that we have to look at life-cycle costs when we're talking about infrastructure investment. You can't just ask what the low bid is on the bricks-and-mortar piece. You also have to ask about what the operating cost is and what the maintenance cost is. If your investment dramatically reduces those, then that's the overall review.

We say that the triple bottom line here is the social advantage that's created for different communities. We don't want to see contractors securing a bid and bringing in a workforce from way far away while unemployed young people in that area are standing at the chain-link fence looking in and wondering why they can't get a job. We have to be able to move this paradigm forward.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Did you want to add something, Mr. Varone?

[Toni Varone]

I agree with Mr. Cartwright. You'll be hard pressed to find every single tender that's on point with the community, and I think you should be building in cash in lieu components where you're not able to meet that community benefit strategically. The people benefiting and the contractors benefiting should be able to contribute to something like a local skills development outreach program for disadvantaged youth and ensure that even though that contract was not on point to create the community benefit, whether it be for jobs or whether it be for the environment, that you do have a mechanism built in where you can take advantage and support community outreach programs.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

Let me take advantage of your answer to segue into my next topic, because it seems obvious to me that there is a connection between the Ontario Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act of 2015 and the bill we are studying right now.

The Ontario act stipulates clearly that bidders on government tenders must indicate the number of apprentices they intend to hire, and the means they intend to use to employ women, aboriginal people, newcomers to the province, young people at risk, veterans, and so on. Do you think we should include this type of criteria in Bill C-227, which would clarify expectations?

[Toni Varone]

Yes.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Cartwright, what do you think?

[John Cartwright]

I see this as a process that we're involved in now. We're taking our first step with Bill C-227 to start to set the stage for an expectation of community benefits, and these will be different in different regions and in different communities. Eventually, we should put into regulation what those community benefits would include, such as apprenticeship numbers and outreach to diverse communities where we've looked at other considerations. I think those could be put in regulation as we move forward, and then at some point as we've tested this, and as we've seen the areas of strength and weakness as it roles out, then perhaps it would be time to come back to create an infrastructure that has the benefit of real life experience.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much to our witnesses.

I would like to start on the reporting mechanism. Mr. Cartwright, I think it was you who drew attention to the need to measure something if we're going to improve it in a significant way. Currently, the bill requires that the minister table a report in Parliament saying whether there were projects where the community benefited. Is this the right methodology to encourage reporting that will improve this culture change that you spoke about and provide for accountability in the process to bidders or builders to make sure they implement the benefits that they said they would?

[John Cartwright]

I think this is a very important step in trying to ensure accountability. As a major contractor's bid on infrastructure in this country, nobody wants to be highlighted in Parliament as having failed to produce benefits with the billions of taxpayer dollars they've received. I'd liken it to the whole issue of green standards in construction. In Toronto, I used to head the Building Trades Council's efforts to try and raise green building standards, because we believed they would help substantially reduce operating costs and help the environment as well. It's not that long ago I attended a forum with one of the largest contractors in our country who was seeking to become the greenest builder in this country. They understood that's where the market would be, and they wanted to be able to say to the public and to the owner clients, “If you take us on, we can deliver this because we have a track record”. To some degree this is the owner client, the Government of Canada, saying we are looking at the track record of major infrastructure companies in this country, and we are tracking that and reporting on that, and hopefully shining the light on those results will help improve outcomes.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Varone, do you think this public report card to celebrate or shame the builders is an appropriate way to promote accountability, or is there something else that the bill should have to promote accountability?

[Toni Varone]

It's essential that you have it. Auditing and reporting are symbiotic, and I don't think this bill should be moving forward without it. You need to keep people accountable for government money.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Certainly.

Mr. Cartwright, bouncing back, you drew a parallel to the LEED standards for environmental certifications for buildings. I have an easier time understanding how you would enumerate the best practices potentially in regulations, because when you're putting up a building, there's seemingly a finite number of pieces of equipment that could go into the building, whether it's insulation or multi-paned windows or energy efficient heating.

With social benefits, I have a harder time understanding how we could enumerate them, because they're quite literally infinite, and there are probably some that no one's even dreamed of yet that may come. Is there a way we can identify best practices that exist now without closing the door on potential future benefits that could be considered in these kinds of agreements?

[John Cartwright]

The basic tenet on which we've started Toronto Community Benefits Network is around job opportunities, ensuring those jobs are adequately shared among the communities where the project is taking place. Apprenticeship is a core piece of that. We still have part of the construction industry that does not commit to apprenticeship training, that takes on people, calls them trainees, but never puts them through the appropriate process. To have reporting on how many registered apprentices were part of this project, there's tracking software widely available that can track those kinds of things. It's very easy to track which people came from various communities, whether they're women, first nations, workers of colour, at-risk youth, military veterans. Those are the kinds of things that I think are the core step.

You can move then to other things, such as whether or not you achieved environmental standards, whether or not it's part of connecting with local economies. Those could be other elements of the accountability, but the core one is around the actual jobs.

I'm sorry. I forgot one other thing. Social enterprise is a part of what we've built into our model in Toronto, because social enterprises often provide people opportunities to engage in the economy in a way they wouldn't normally be able to do. Certainly, in first nations situations social enterprises could be a big part of the solution.