2018 Collaboration Award

Procuring with a purpose is important to the City of Toronto. In 2017, the City of Toronto implemented the Social Procurement Program, which uses the organization’s procurement to create positive social and economic outcomes. On average, the City of Toronto spends approximately $1.8 billion in procure-ment contracts annually. Social procurement is about leveraging a proportion of the City’s procurement spend to create economic opportunities for people from equity-seeking groups.

The City of Toronto Social Procurement Program is implemented through two streams, supply chain diversity and workforce development. To diversify the City’s supply chain, City staff invite certified diverse suppliers to quote when making lower dollar value purchases. Since 2017, the City of Toronto awarded 75 procurement contracts to diverse suppliers for a total value of approximately $1.14M. To achieve workforce development, targeted hiring requirements were included in 17 large-scale City projects. To date, 10 job opportunities (E.g. Apprenticeships, administrative, technical) were created for people from equity-seeking groups.

The City of Toronto plays a strong role in working collaboratively with CAMSC members, suppliers, and stakeholders to strengthen Aboriginal and minority business growth. Recent examples include the Social Procurement Networking Event, Capacity Building with Supplier Councils, and Community Benefits Agreements.