TCBN welcomes federal budget’s community benefits commitment

By Lincoln DePredine

Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN) – a coalition of workers’ groups and other organizations – has given a guarded thumbs-up to at least one aspect of the 2025 federal budget presented last month by Canada’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne.

“As the 2025 federal budget doubles down with hundreds of billions of dollars earmarked for new infrastructure and housing over the next five years, it is crucial that Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) are woven into these initiatives. This will ensure that they not only grow the economy but also create opportunities for marginalized populations and promote inclusive growth,’’ commented, which was founded in 2013 with membership from trade unions, trades training centres, workforce development agencies, grassroots groups and community organizations.

One of TCBN’s principles has been a commitment to negotiating CBAs to ensure “community members are accessing publicly funded jobs resulting from infrastructure construction contracts, and that hiring targets for diverse groups are met’’.

“Canada Strong’’ is the title of this year’s budget, which commits $141.4 billion in new spending. The Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Mark Carney said its aims include “creating high-paying careers, building our country, and growing our economy’’. It also promises to “make capital investments a national priority to build ‘Canada Strong’’’.

According to the government, infrastructure investment is a key driver of growth. Canada, it said, “must build an enormous amount of infrastructure at speeds and scale not seen in generations. This includes the infrastructure to diversify our trading relationships, to become an energy superpower in clean and conventional energies, to restore affordability to housing, and to secure our borders and communities’’.

Powell, underscoring the importance of CBAs, pointed to their adoption in Toronto, where projects with CBA components “have been able to create good jobs and opportunities for local residents and equity-deserving communities, through apprenticeship training pathways and skills development programs; and support for small- and medium-sized businesses through local procurement strategies’’.

“CBAs have been gaining traction in recent years as a powerful tool for promoting economic development and social equity in Canadian cities. Thankfully, the federal budget has included a community benefits directive in the way infrastructure projects will roll out,’’ she said.

She added that Toronto’s Community Benefits Framework, formally adopted in 2018, has shown how CBAs can deliver tangible benefits to local communities through infrastructure and housing projects. By engaging residents, community organizations, and other stakeholders, Toronto has ensured major projects deliver more than physical assets.

Toronto’s approach, argued Powell, “helps to address economic disparities within the city and fosters a sense of community ownership and pride in the projects being developed’’.

The 2025 budget contains a “promising step’’ but the federal government “must work closely with key stakeholders’’ to ensure that CBAs are embedded from the outset and include mechanisms to monitor and report on impact, said Powell.

“It was good to see that a Community Employment Benefits Agreement directive was included in the 2025 Carney budget. However, its success will rely on strong funding conditions, early engagement at the project level, and developing key performance indicators to ensure accountability,’’ she added.

“As Canada embarks on this unprecedented wave of infrastructure and housing investment, CBAs must not be treated as a box-ticking exercise but as a cornerstone of how we build. The 2025 federal budget’s inclusion of community employment benefits is a promising step – but promises alone will not deliver equity.’’

LJI reporter.