Best Value Procurement and Community Benefits

At our Building Trades Conference in 2018, we introduced the concept of Community Benefit Agreements (CBA’s). Over the past several months, members of Build Right Nova Scotia (a partnership of professional unionized tradespeople and contractors), have been lobbying various government departments on the benefits of CBA’s, particularly as they are related to the upcoming significant investment in public infrastructure planned for Nova Scotia. 

Community benefits are a tool to help local communities organize and leverage public infrastructure investments to create employment and apprenticeship opportunities. It is a “best value” procurement approach to optimize the tax dollars investment.

Each CBA is unique to the situation and the communities it is designed to serve.

The Government of Nova Scotia has recently committed that the opportunity is now to embed social procurement as part of the value assessment for bidding on upcoming provincial government projects. Some requirements for submitting bids now include:

  • Be engaged in the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Program;
  • Confirm that a minimum 25% of all designated Trade/Craft hours worked to be performed by registered Apprentices, subject to the following:
    • A minimum of 10% of the hours worked by registered Apprentices shall be performed by under-represented groups (Aboriginal peoples, African Nova Scotians, persons with disabilities, and women in non-traditional roles).
    • Proponents must abide by the Apprenticeship Procurement Policy;
  • Confirm that all Trade/Craft hours worked to be performed by a certified Trades Person (Journeyperson) or registered Apprentice;
  • Confirm that a minimum 10% of all workforce shall be comprised of under-represented (Aboriginal peoples, African Nova Scotians, persons with disabilities, and women in non-traditional roles).

Best value is not lowest bid. Best value is optimizing the expenditure to build both infrastructure, and the community the infrastructure is there to serve. The aforementioned procurement requirements are not only achievable targets that can be monitored and enforced, they ensure workers gain the apprenticeship experience they need to prosper and lead successful careers in their trade.

This is a national issue that many of our counterparts in Building Trades Councils across the country have been advocating for. The Canadian Building Trades is promoting the value of CBAs, while critical infrastructure continues to be built across the country .