A bit of municipal protectionism could be fundamental to the city economy. All of our problems as a city are related, and come down to a lack of budget. City budget, and citizen budgets. A healthy economy requires as many people as possible to have purchasing power. Is that Vancouver business going to spend the money they got from Prince George (and therefore, PGers)? Of course not. We've taken money out of local circulation by awarding a contract to outside companies.
It's the New Zealand wood for the siding on the downtown pool all over again.
I think you're wrong, Darrin. The city spending city money on non city companies isn't boring. It gets a lot of people fired up.
The irony I excluded was that the campaign was under the "Invest in PG" brand which was just a *chef's kiss* cherry on top.
And I agree across all your points - a healthy local economy is one that prioritizes keeping tax dollars in our city whenever/however possible, not shovelling them out to large cities that have their own pool of opportunity and I hope you're right that it can fire up people and slide us closer to having a strong social procurement policy.
oh, I feel this post. As someone who puts out RFPs and oversees contracts for the province (forestry related), I have done my time sitting with legal services trying to explain why the WTO agreement is not suited to niche services in BC forestry. A company in the UK, as an example, offering the same services as a company in BC still does not have the experience of working in the diverse forests, ecosystems, terrain, etc of BC and to our own very specific standards. I have one example where a contract didn't go well (not a complete fail, but it cost us more in time and the contract came close to getting pulled from the contractor), because of the WTO rules. We managed to get additional legal advice and support to "exempt' our work based on the issues with that one contract. But the time involved, and costs (because even Ministry legal advice is cost-neutral), was months and months. I learned a lot, though, and I've moved into a newer position where the contracts don't hit the NAFTA or WTO thresholds which makes life a bit easier. LOL
In any case and to get back to your point, the Province revised their RFP process a couple of years ago to allow for inclusion of social and environmental procurement considerations. Some Ministries/ business areas are making it work. First Nations collaboration and employment opportunities are the examples that I've seen included in some RFPs when poking around BC Bid. However, there hasn't been any training on where and how minions like me can structure and score the RFP appropriately and effectively, so we can include a social criteria or two into our very formulaic service requirements. The other issue is that there has to be a change in mindset and procurement 'culture' to incorporate some beneficial criteria in an RFP, because typically there may be a bit more time/cost involved to achieve goals.
Very interesting post, Darrin - you got me fired up!
Hahaha it's lovely to hear from a procurement professional on this one. I definitely fell down the rabbit hole into your world during this whole thing and it illuminated just how important solid procurement policy is, and how hard it is to do well and fairly. I really do admire folks like yourself who are out there trying to do this right.
Like urban sprawl, like making walkability more popular, and yeah, like making a better procurement practice, it really does come down to a will to shift culture AND because agreements like NWPTA and WTO are so overbearing, willing to operate on the margins and grey areas to fit social procurement practices into the existing parameters.
Thanks for putting “social procurement” on my radar. I wonder if it is a dressed up way to say “buying local.”
I enjoyed your article and noticed your graphic considered school re-naming to be relatively low on the day-to-day importance spectrum.
I’m guessing this chart was a spitballed mock-up to make a point that we should pay more attention to procurement and yet how great would a nuanced debate be on the importance/impact of such re-naming be?
I 100% take your point - I think a bit more thought and reframe of the Y axis could have made my point more accurately. Re-naming schools and parks is an important part of civic discourse and symbolically does have a huge impact on day to day life.
Yeah, this is a whole other part of this that I wasn't able to get in to in this letter. I did spend a lot of time meeting with folks in the procurement world (both at the City but also just asking questions of experts) and the system is flimsy - there isn't a ton of oversight on these scoring committees and it really comes down to the vendors to start submitting FOIPOP requests if they sniff something went sideways.
My "investigation" if you can call it that did not give me a TON of confidence in the scoring system. When I started to ask questions about why I received X score on Y rubric, the answers fell pretty short for me - largely because it is non-expert committee members weighing in on a subject I'm very familiar with.
I won't rehash the other excellent comments here (except for the "wow thank you for alerting us to this, I had no idea" ones because, well, wow thank you for alerting us to this, I had no idea) but can add: as we see our local economies hit by global forces over and over again (*cough* Canfor *cough* to name just one), it is doubly, nay, quadrupally important that local governments and organizations prioritize supporting local people and businesses so we can keep the dwindling incomes of the North circulating around the economies of the North.
100% agree. Making sure procurement policy is prioritizing local and regional economies is one of the few mechanisms we can control in such a turbulent global economy.
I think that was the foundation of my initial outrage - big picture: I pay my property tax locally, I service my vehicle locally, we get lunches at local restaurants, etc - keeping that $150,000.00 largely inside Prince George would have been a great way to wash city tax money back into the community versus almost entirely spilling that money into Vancouver.
A bit of municipal protectionism could be fundamental to the city economy. All of our problems as a city are related, and come down to a lack of budget. City budget, and citizen budgets. A healthy economy requires as many people as possible to have purchasing power. Is that Vancouver business going to spend the money they got from Prince George (and therefore, PGers)? Of course not. We've taken money out of local circulation by awarding a contract to outside companies.
It's the New Zealand wood for the siding on the downtown pool all over again.
I think you're wrong, Darrin. The city spending city money on non city companies isn't boring. It gets a lot of people fired up.
The irony I excluded was that the campaign was under the "Invest in PG" brand which was just a *chef's kiss* cherry on top.
And I agree across all your points - a healthy local economy is one that prioritizes keeping tax dollars in our city whenever/however possible, not shovelling them out to large cities that have their own pool of opportunity and I hope you're right that it can fire up people and slide us closer to having a strong social procurement policy.
oh, I feel this post. As someone who puts out RFPs and oversees contracts for the province (forestry related), I have done my time sitting with legal services trying to explain why the WTO agreement is not suited to niche services in BC forestry. A company in the UK, as an example, offering the same services as a company in BC still does not have the experience of working in the diverse forests, ecosystems, terrain, etc of BC and to our own very specific standards. I have one example where a contract didn't go well (not a complete fail, but it cost us more in time and the contract came close to getting pulled from the contractor), because of the WTO rules. We managed to get additional legal advice and support to "exempt' our work based on the issues with that one contract. But the time involved, and costs (because even Ministry legal advice is cost-neutral), was months and months. I learned a lot, though, and I've moved into a newer position where the contracts don't hit the NAFTA or WTO thresholds which makes life a bit easier. LOL
In any case and to get back to your point, the Province revised their RFP process a couple of years ago to allow for inclusion of social and environmental procurement considerations. Some Ministries/ business areas are making it work. First Nations collaboration and employment opportunities are the examples that I've seen included in some RFPs when poking around BC Bid. However, there hasn't been any training on where and how minions like me can structure and score the RFP appropriately and effectively, so we can include a social criteria or two into our very formulaic service requirements. The other issue is that there has to be a change in mindset and procurement 'culture' to incorporate some beneficial criteria in an RFP, because typically there may be a bit more time/cost involved to achieve goals.
Very interesting post, Darrin - you got me fired up!
Hahaha it's lovely to hear from a procurement professional on this one. I definitely fell down the rabbit hole into your world during this whole thing and it illuminated just how important solid procurement policy is, and how hard it is to do well and fairly. I really do admire folks like yourself who are out there trying to do this right.
Like urban sprawl, like making walkability more popular, and yeah, like making a better procurement practice, it really does come down to a will to shift culture AND because agreements like NWPTA and WTO are so overbearing, willing to operate on the margins and grey areas to fit social procurement practices into the existing parameters.
Knowing how much talent and local vendors we have in all areas, this is disappointing to see. Thanks for the education!
Thanks for putting “social procurement” on my radar. I wonder if it is a dressed up way to say “buying local.”
I enjoyed your article and noticed your graphic considered school re-naming to be relatively low on the day-to-day importance spectrum.
I’m guessing this chart was a spitballed mock-up to make a point that we should pay more attention to procurement and yet how great would a nuanced debate be on the importance/impact of such re-naming be?
I 100% take your point - I think a bit more thought and reframe of the Y axis could have made my point more accurately. Re-naming schools and parks is an important part of civic discourse and symbolically does have a huge impact on day to day life.
what happens if the City doesn't follow the "rules"?
Yeah, this is a whole other part of this that I wasn't able to get in to in this letter. I did spend a lot of time meeting with folks in the procurement world (both at the City but also just asking questions of experts) and the system is flimsy - there isn't a ton of oversight on these scoring committees and it really comes down to the vendors to start submitting FOIPOP requests if they sniff something went sideways.
My "investigation" if you can call it that did not give me a TON of confidence in the scoring system. When I started to ask questions about why I received X score on Y rubric, the answers fell pretty short for me - largely because it is non-expert committee members weighing in on a subject I'm very familiar with.
I won't rehash the other excellent comments here (except for the "wow thank you for alerting us to this, I had no idea" ones because, well, wow thank you for alerting us to this, I had no idea) but can add: as we see our local economies hit by global forces over and over again (*cough* Canfor *cough* to name just one), it is doubly, nay, quadrupally important that local governments and organizations prioritize supporting local people and businesses so we can keep the dwindling incomes of the North circulating around the economies of the North.
100% agree. Making sure procurement policy is prioritizing local and regional economies is one of the few mechanisms we can control in such a turbulent global economy.
I think that was the foundation of my initial outrage - big picture: I pay my property tax locally, I service my vehicle locally, we get lunches at local restaurants, etc - keeping that $150,000.00 largely inside Prince George would have been a great way to wash city tax money back into the community versus almost entirely spilling that money into Vancouver.
I'm glad you brought this up while the city budget surveys are open - I'll definitely be working these thoughts into my responses <3