City Of Vancouver Community Benefits Agreement

April 8, 2021

The main difference between a Community performance framework or a CBA directive and a Community performance agreement is that a CBA is legally binding: if the terms of the agreement are not met, an appeal can be invoked. A CBF or CBA directive is a set of guidelines that can be adopted by a government for public procurement projects. In 2015, the Council commissioned staff to implement an urban community interest agreement (CBA) policy as part of the four-year “Healthy Urban Strategy” (2014-2018) action plan. The goal of a CBA is to ensure that development improves people`s lives through local attitudes and public social markets. For Vancouver residents, the CBA`s proposed policy emphasizes fairness of opportunity for residents. With a quarter of Vancouver residents living below the low-income measure, the third highest rate of any canadian city, and with the second-highest income gap of any Canadian city, Vancouver`s CBA policy will help ensure that worthy jobs are distributed more equitably across communities throughout the development lifecycle. In the coming years, this new policy environment will demonstrate opportunities and needs to strategically develop and implement CFCs, maximizing workforce development opportunities, diversity of suppliers and capacity building in communities and sectors. This will contribute to the city`s objectives of improving economic security and affordability for its inhabitants, especially those who are statistically over-represented in poverty and job insecurity. The Vancouver Social ced@vancouver.ca Planner is the first major city in Canada to implement a formal CBA policy and achieve the objectives of the Health and Development Strategy for a Healthy City Strategy adopted by the Council in 2014.

As such, it represents an important innovation in the practice of the CBA on the commune and attempts to anchor the CBAs as a standard development practice in order to maximize employment opportunities and skills development among marginalized groups that would otherwise be bypassed or excluded. In addition to the three key elements of the CBA`s policy approach – First Source Hiring, Social Procurement and Supplier Diversity – the implementation of the directive will also focus on coordinated human resource development, training and retraining, as well as capacity building in local supply chains. In addition to achieving poverty reduction goals, policies are also seen as a strategy to build local social and economic resilience. We will continue to understand the different perspectives of people living in poverty, collecting contributions from employers, the business and social sector and the development community.

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