City of Toronto needs to open up competition on municipal projects
It’s nothing to be proud of. From shabby parks to collapsing public housing, ours is a city that’s been shamefully neglected. Restoring civic pride and Toronto’s sorry infrastructure will require a mayor and council that are willing to reel in construction costs and finally get things fixed.
In the weeks leading up to the municipal election, people vented. A satirical campaign about the decline in city infrastructure under Mayor Tory’s watch struck a public nerve. It prompted a barrage of complaints about neglected amenities, from shuttered playgrounds and brimming garbage bins to broken park water slides. If you think this is bad, just wait.
The city has paused dozens of capital works projects, from major road repairs to park improvements and maintenance. A staff report warns $300 million in capital budget cuts are necessary, unless other levels of government pitch in. Mayor Tory claimed there were no other options; the city has tried everything possible to find savings. What the mayor hasn’t done, but certainly could during his third term in office, is get behind the most practical solution yet: open up competition on municipal construction projects.
This would allow Toronto to improve parks and community centres and build more public housing at a far lower cost. Although the benefits of construction competition are well founded, Toronto City Council under Tory’s guidance and leadership chose to ignore all the evidence.
Council flatly rejected the opportunity to save at least eight to 15 percent on municipal construction by opening up competition.
The decision to keep awarding contacts to the same select group of companies and labour groups is costly for taxpayers. And where’s the fairness in a city policy that shuts a lot of qualified contractors and workers out of municipal projects?
It’s worth noting that Toronto is the only holdout; the only city in Ontario to restrict competition on public construction work. Other municipalities have opened up competition and are realizing sizable benefits.
Doing away with restrictions that limited bidders on projects has saved the Region of Waterloo at least 14 percent on municipal construction. That translates into savings of $24 million over two years, according to a report by the Cardus thinktank. It found similar results in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie, which also opened up their construction markets, awarding contracts based on merit, not union affiliation.
In 2019, Toronto Council voted to maintain restrictive bidding and the status quo. The independent Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) calculates that by doing so, Toronto passed up savings of up to $381 million in that year alone; funding that could have helped get more families off the 10-year waiting list for affordable housing. It’s public money that could have gone towards the massive repair backlog at Toronto Community Housing. That backlog grew this summer when a cement ceiling collapsed in one of the complexes, sending a woman to hospital and forcing dozens of others to move out.
Toronto can’t afford to keep dragging its feet on vital infrastructure. Well maintained parks and roads, reliable transit and safe public housing are what make us proud to live here. Putting off repairs reflects poorly on city hall and only compounds what is already a daunting challenge: an estimated $8.9-billion backlog for repairs and maintenance that’s expected to balloon to well over $16 billion by 2031.
With the federal and provincial governments in no hurry to bail Toronto out again, third-term Mayor John Tory and the city’s new council must get their priorities straight and do a far better job of making sure our infrastructure investments go further.
This article appeared on Toronto.com.
