Arlington bridge is a century-old amenity that was initially built to connect the North End and West End of Winnipeg over the CP Rail yards.
On April 30 the City of Winnipeg posted a request for tender for a contractor to conduct a number of structural steel repairs. This latest project represents only one of the many efforts made to upgrade the overpass, which has presented several challenges, such as temporary closures, to nearby communities since it was constructed in 1912.
Arlington bridge is essential for commuters and local residents, but the history of the overpass proves it is not always reliable. This is why the City launched “A Better Bridge for Arlington” — to design a new bridge that meets the community’s needs. The project report was completed last year.
This has left some organizations and stakeholders wondering if there’s room for social procurement, a practice defined by social purchasing and community benefits agreements.
Social purchasing is the recruitment of goods and services from community social enterprises. Through community benefits agreements, the community, government, and developer determine social deliverables, such as job training and target hiring.
Benefits of social procurement can include reduced crime and stress on social services, increased employment and income, skill development, and enhanced quality of life.
“In the case of the Arlington Street bridge, that neighbourhood or that region is one of the poorest in Canada, and to be able to create employment opportunities for the people that live in that neighbourhood through the construction of that bridge is immensely powerful,” Art Ladd, executive director of BUILD, said.
BUILD is a North End social enterprise that provides job and training opportunities in renovation and maintenance, to individuals who face employment barriers.
“These sorts of things do happen, not as much as they could. But they’re happening all over North America quite regularly,” Ladd said.
Though social procurement exists in Winnipeg, it happens on a small scale. For example, in January the City launched a pilot project with Mother Earth Recycling — an Indigenous social enterprise in the North End — to recycle mattresses and box springs brought to the Brady 4R Winnipeg Depot.
PHOTO BY SYDNEY HILDEBRANDT
Art Ladd, executive director of North End social enterprise BUILD, said using social procurement policies for the redevelopment of Arlington bridge could have a powerful impact on the community.
Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), who chairs the standing policy committee on infrastructure renewal and public works, said Arlington bridge might be too large and expensive a project to include social procurement.
“My first thought is, in terms of social procurement, is this the type of project that would lend itself well to that sort of initiative,” Allard said.
Although he expressed interest in the concept of social procurement, Allard emphasized his concern for the cost of replacing Arlington bridge, which measures beyond $300 million.
But Michael Barkman, the Manitoba public policy co-ordinator for the Canadian Community Economic Development Network, said ambitious projects can be shared between a social enterprise and developer.
“We’ve seen social enterprises work really well with larger companies to take on just five or 10 per cent of a contract,” Barkman said.
He pointed to the city of Toronto to show how this is possible. In 2012, a group of stakeholders mobilized to advocate for social procurement to be part of the construction of the $5 billion Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit line.
Crosslinx Transit Solutions, which was awarded the contract, committed to having “historically disadvantaged residents” perform 10 per cent of all trade and craft working hours for the project. The company also hired more than 50 newcomers for professional, administrative, and technical jobs.
In 2016, the City of Toronto adopted the Social Procurement Program which “equalizes access to the City’s procurement processes for diverse suppliers, including social purpose enterprises, who experience inequitable barriers to accessing City competitive procurement processes.”
Coun. Markus Chambers (St. Norbert – Seine River), who has been exploring ways social procurement could be implemented in City projects, said there needs to be more policy created to support the practice in Winnipeg.
“Certainly the community benefits aspect of it is a lens that we should be using in a lot of these projects, and perhaps that’s one of the things that as a council from a policy perspective we need to start using,” Chambers said.
“Coming up with a formula that satisfies both private industry, unions, as well as the social purpose entity, again, that’s the piece that’s missing.”
Organizations such as the North End Community Renewal Corporation would be willing to lend a hand in this endeavour, executive director Dawn Sands said.
“We do have an opportunity to follow the lead of some of the other cities here in Canada and in the States that actually have formalized social procurement in their procurement policies. So that’s something we’d be very interested in working with the City to accomplish,” Sands said.
Sydney Hildebrandt
Community Journalist – The Times
Sydney Hildebrandt is the community journalist for The Times.
Email her at [email protected]
