The federal government committed to the use of unionized labour and consideration of Community Employment Benefit Agreements through large-scale infrastructure investments announced in Budget 2025. Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU) worked with Medow Consulting to develop the brief Community Employment Benefits Agreements: Defining the Path Forward to help define what these federal commitments should mean in practice.
Building on distinct lessons from provincial approaches, as well as recent federal precedents, the brief communicates five core recommendations to policymakers to ensure that federal infrastructure investments create strong pathways to high quality training and employment, including for equity-seeking groups.
CBTU is the national voice of over 600,000 Canadian construction workers — members of 14 international unions who work in more than 60 different trades and occupations and generate six percent of Canada’s GDP.