TTCRiders supports Community Benefits Agreements

Toronto’s new Light Rapid Transit (LRT) network is an estimated $8.4 billion project. In addition to providing new, reliable, rapid transit for hundreds of thousands of people, the project potentially offers Torontonians the possibility of meaningful, well-paid work.

Community groups, from Scarborough to Weston, are launching a campaign to make sure that all groups of people living near LRTs receive the greatest possible benefit from transit investment. Their goal is to get Metrolinx, the public agency responsible for building LRT in Toronto, to agree to a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).

What is a Community Benefits Agreement?

A CBA is a commitment to provide jobs and other benefits for local residents. In many countries, communities demand CBAs when new industries or public sector projects are built.

The construction of the new LRT transit network will create hundreds of employment opportunities. CBA’s help ensure that all groups of people get a fair share of those jobs.
A CBA will provide jobs for people living in communities along LRT routes including jobs for youth, women, recent arrivals, aboriginal peoples as well as foreign trained professionals.
The CBA campaign is proposing that existing programs and agencies be used to recruit and prepare applicants for the jobs created by the CBA. The Carpenters Union and the Central Ontario Building Trades Council, for example, have established programs to prepare youth, from “under-resourced” communities, for apprenticeships. The City of Toronto’s Employment and Social Services Division identifies applicants for the union’s programs.

Of course not all, or maybe not even most, jobs can go to new entrants to the workforce. But with careful planning, coordination and cooperation among governments, industry and community, it is possible to make sure that the public tax dollars spent on infrastructural projects are spread more evenly – to benefit communities.

For more information about CBAs, please visit www.communitybenefits.ca

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