BC Infrastructure Benefits was formed by the Province of British Columbia to operationalize the new Community Benefits Agreement(CBA). One of the CBA’s commitments is to provide comprehensive Indigenous cultural competency training—with local Indigenous communities—to all workers on CBA projects. Brenda Ireland, an Anishinaabe Elder, developed BCIB’s Indigenous cultural competency training (a part of BCIB’s Respectful Onsite Initiative). Brenda has worked with BCIB for four years. She began as a contractor, however, she was quickly recognized for her leadership, commitment, and passion for implementing the CBA. She is now BCIB's Executive Director of Indigenous Relations and the Respectful Onsite Initiative. When developing the cultural competency program for the Respectful Onsite Initiative (ROI), Brenda was guided by BCIB’s mandate: to foster a workplace free of discrimination and harassment and is respectful of the cultural differences of all participants; to provide apprenticeships, skills training and employment opportunities on a priority basis to Indigenous people, women in non-traditional work, people with disabilities, and other disadvantaged groups to achieve appropriate goals reflective of the local area of the project; and to ensure that that the needs of Indigenous peoples and other equity groups to are respected and facilitated through training and employment on construction projects. Under Brenda’s leadership, ROI is delivered by a group of 12 dedicated and compassionate individuals from BCIB’s Indigenous Relations and ROI team. Unique to the construction industry, this team supports underrepresented individuals including Indigenous apprentices and trainees by providing training, support and resources to create safe and welcoming worksites. But more than that, they foster meaningful relationships with partner organizations to ensure BCIB’s construction sites are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Denise oversaw development of the Social Procurement Policy, Community Benefits Framework and, the Rexdale-CBA at the City of Toronto. Denise led the early, research mission and development of the Social Procurement Policy which was eventually adopted by City Council in 2016. The policy embeds supply chain diversity and workforce development within the City’s procurement processes to drive inclusive economic prosperity and growth. Even before the CBA’s were on the City of Toronto’s radar, Denise advocated for the use of municipal purchasing power to create meaningful employment, training and business opportunities for Indigenous, Black and equity-deserving groups. Denise has been able to inform political decision makers on ways to achieve equitable city building. For example, under Denise’s leadership, City staff led intensive policy development that led to the establishment of the Rexdale CBA. She also oversaw the development of the Community Benefits Framework, adopted by council in 2019 to focus on ways to maximize uses of City levers to create inclusive economic opportunities through community benefits initiatives. With Denise’s leadership and advocacy to advance community benefits at the City of Toronto, the City’s Community Benefits Unit was established in 2022, which is the first of its kind in a Canadian municipality. Since its launch, Denise has overseen the CBU’s development of community benefits implementation infrastructure and tools, and advance community benefits policy and programs at City of Toronto. Denise oversees the implementation of the Community Benefits Framework, an umbrella framework which includes a wide range of community benefits initiatives such as the Social Procurement Program, Rexdale CBA, IMIT (Imagination, manufacturing, Innovation & Technology Program), Housing Now, FIFA World Cup 2026, Toronto Community Housing Revitalizations, Transit Infrastructure Projects and Private Sector “Voluntary” Community Benefits. Examples of recent measurable results from the Rexdale CBA includes, social hiring outcomes (2768 hires since 2018) on where 44% of individuals have self-identified as social hires. In 2023, $87.7 million was spent by One Toronto Gaming across 14 local suppliers which represents 32 percent of their total procurement spend. In 2024, One Toronto Gaming will be conducting community consultation and engagement on a Community Access to Space policy and procedures which will see community groups have access to theatre and meeting spaces for little to no cost. Under Denise’s leadership and guidance, policy and program staff at the City remain committed to working with local Rexdale residents and community organizations to maximize positive outcomes for local and equity-deserving residents. Under Denise’s leadership, SDFA has achieved systems change outcomes in Toronto’s community benefits ecosystem. Denise has overseen City of Toronto creation of a community benefits workforce intermediary model, and a community benefits toolkit which includes labour forecasting templates, employment service provider database, skilled trades unions contact list, a construction hiring validation process and a monitoring and evaluation framework to track and report on community benefits targets and outcomes. A major breakthrough in monitoring and evaluation was in 2023, with the launch of the Welcome Form, a disaggregated data collection tool that raises the bar on robust and rich data collection. The Welcome Form can be used with construction and non-construction hires, and will enable the City of Toronto to conduct data trends analysis and engage in data-informed story telling about community benefits workforce development, at a depth that has not be done in the past on any community benefits project in Toronto or Ontario. At this time, key findings on measurable outcomes across a range of community benefits initiatives are limited as robust data collection tools are in early phases of roll out. Data reporting on measurable outcomes across a number of City community benefits initiatives is currently underway, and expected to be shared publicly later this year.

David is recognized internationally as a social enterprise and social procurement thought leader, effective practitioner, and public policy architect. He has developed and applied innovative market-based solutions to complex social issues for decades with a focus on social enterprise and social procurement. In addition to founding Buy Social Canada ten years ago, David co-founded two landmark Vancouver social enterprises: EMBERS and Community Impact Real Estate, while also offering consulting and advice to countless others through Accelerating Social Impact and the Buy Social Canada Social Enterprise Certification. Many of these social enterprises, including MEMBERS, have provided goods and services on projects with CBAs across Canada. David was instrumental in the piloting of CBAs in Vancouver including at the 2010 Olympics and Parq Casino. David advocated alongside other community members for the City of Vancouver's CBA policy and supported his Buy Social Canada colleagues in the implementation of the CBA on New St Paul's, the first project to implement the CBA. Through his work at Buy Social Canada David has worked with local government, the construction sector and community benefit networks to advocate for and support the implementation of CBAs across Canada. David supported the research project "Voices of Industry: a Paradigm shift in CBAs" which included recommendations of greater collaboration and co-creation across key project stakeholders, and recently coauthored a chapter in The Role of Design, Construction, and Real Estate in Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals focused on Achieving the UN SDGs Through the Integration of Social Procurement in Construction Projects. David has played a role in achieving a CBA on projects in Vancouver including the 2010 Olympics and Parq Casino as well as the development of the City of Vancouver's CBA Policy. David has worked to support the advancement of social procurement and CBAs at companys including Chandos Construction resulting in a voluntary CBA on the 1st & Clark development project in Vancouver. Dedicated outreach, recruitment, hiring and dispatch of equity seeking groups, Proactive strategies for job preparation, job retention and apprenticeship completion, Mobilizing and collaborating with stakeholders on new approaches to achieve equity, diversity and inclusion in construction workplaces, Collaboration with sector stakeholders on actions that result in more welcoming workplaces for diverse workers and oher leadership actions with measurable results. Through his work at Buy Social Canada David has worked to educate the construction sector on social procurement and community benefits, to develop policy and implementation frameworks that achieve real benefits for communities. David has worked with his colleagues at Buy Social Canada to develop tools for the construction sector including Social Value Menu's for CBAs and the CEB initiaves. David is recognized internationally as a social enterprise and socialprocurement thought leader, effective practitioner, and public policy architect. He has developed and applied innovative market-based solutions to complex social issues for decades with a focus on social enterprise and social procurement. David has advocated for social procurement and community benefit's policies at the Federal Government level, with results including the Federal Government's Social Procurement Policy and Infrastructure Canada's CEB. David has advocated for CBAs across all levels of government and through his work with his colleagues at Buy Social Canada has worked with municipalities including City of Vancouver, Surrey, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Peterborough to develop social procurement policies including community benefits in construction and development projects.