The Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA) has launched a campaign aimed at convincing Toronto City Council to adopt open-tendering practices.

The association says Toronto is the only city in Ontario that will take bids for municipal construction work from contractors whose workers belong to a select group of unions. That practice, PCA says, leads to the city overpaying for construction work, and has led to council raising property taxes to pay for those works.

The association’s FairandOpenTO campaign urges residents and businesses to call on their councillors to adopt open tendering practices.

 “It’s astonishing that only companies who hire American building trade unions are allowed to bid on and build taxpayer funded projects in Toronto,” said Karen Renkema, VP Ontario at PCA. “Our member companies employ unionized workers that are members of a made in Canada union. For that reason, our members and their workers are shut out of local taxpayer funded projects. It’s that simple, and it’s wrong.”

According to the independent Cardus think tank, Toronto Council knowingly passes up on savings of roughly $347 million annually by sticking with a restrictive tendering process that’s been in effect since the 1970s.

Conversely, open tendering practices allow all qualified contractors and their workers to build public projects, from new community centres and libraries to splash pads.