Colette Murphy is the Chief Executive Officer of the Atkinson Foundation.
This photo captures a moment more than a decade in the making. I’m standing with long-time collaborators from the Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN) and the Labour Education Centre on this sub-zero Sunday morning. It’s opening day for Line 5 Eglinton and we’re about to board the newest section of the Toronto transit system—19 km and 25 stations in total.
Rosemarie Powell is in the centre with Steve Shallhorn on her left and Rick Ciccarelli on her right. Lensa Simesso Denga is next to her. John Cartwright, formerly the head of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, is on Steve’s left.
A much longer journey began for us in 2012 with an unprecedented opportunity to leverage billions of public dollars earmarked for construction to create good jobs and other economic opportunities in low-income communities. The provincial government had committed to spend $160B on infrastructure between 2014 and 2026. The federal government projected spending $180B on infrastructure over twelve years, a large portion of which would go to Ontario.
We rallied around a shared vision of a membership-based, community-labour coalition strong enough to put equity at the centre of Ontario’s public infrastructure development process. Sights were set on a process that respected the voices and interests of communities benefiting the least and being harmed the most by development — for example, the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT project directly affected Weston-Mount Dennis, Lawrence Heights, Flemingdon Park, Kennedy Park, and Scarborough Village. The goal was to secure “community benefits” such as job opportunities, apprenticeships, local procurement, affordable housing, child care and other amenities through negotiated goals, targets and legally binding contracts.
Atkinson, Maytree, Metcalf, and the United Way were the first funders to see the potential in the idea of TCBN and to back early organizing efforts. Since then, we have collaborated with resident-led networks, labour organizations, philanthropic organizations, community-based service providers, academic institutions and policy centres across the province and around the world to frame the opportunity and build capacity to seize it. When called on, we have also advocated with elected representatives and public officials to leverage this grassroots democratic power.
A framework was reached for community benefits as part of the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT project in 2014 and ultimately extended to other transit projects in the region. The passage of the Province of Ontario’s Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act (the first of its kind in Canada) in 2015 and Bill C-344 – An act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (introduced but not passed at the federal level) were among early wins. The City of Toronto followed suit with its own Community Benefits Framework in 2019. Today, the idea of community benefits is no longer an outlier, having moved closer to the centre of local economic development circles.
When TCBN began it was a network of 13 community and labour organizations. It now has over 120 members. Rosemarie and her team track 12 projects across Toronto with community benefits commitments worth a total value of $63B. At last count, over 3,000 individuals from under-represented groups have received training and/or moved into apprenticeships and professional, administrative and technical careers as a result of these efforts. $121M has been directed toward local procurement with $24M procuring goods and services from suppliers with clear social objectives. They won the 2022 Good Fight Prize for this exceptional leadership.
Heading into 2026, TCBN continues to collaborate with the Ontario Nonprofit Network and others to organize in cities throughout the province for community benefits and other tools for inclusive economic development like land trusts, cooperatives, and anchor institution procurement plans. A community benefits agreement for Pearson International Airport, the multi-billion dollar federal infrastructure project, is being explored.
But the Eglinton-Crosstown project was the first. The one that captured our imaginations. The one that put us on a good path. The one that taught us a lot about how to collaborate, organize and mobilize to build democratic power for a truly inclusive economy. The one that proved conflict, setbacks, and even a game-changing pandemic could not stop this vision from becoming a reality.
In 2014, I was asked by the Toronto Star for a big idea with the power to transform the city. The people organized by TCBN were a priority for me then as they are now. I opened with this question: “What if we expected — and got — more from public infrastructure investments?”
“Community Benefits Agreements demand a disciplined process for finding common ground and strategizing to deliver the highest returns. They earn community support for development projects, diffuse opposition, and build the reserves of trust, skill and resolve needed to tackle other complex issues… Unlike old-style backroom deal-making and shallow public consultations, this process empowers everyone who has a stake in the outcome and sets their sights higher. It counters the cynical view of development as serving only a select few with real evidence that it can serve us all.”
At every station along Line 5 Eglinton, I couldn’t help but think of the “real evidence” we can share now. And how gratifying it is to travel with people who always expect more, and are ready to fight for it, no matter how long it takes.