The Clinical Support and Research Centre (CSRC) is the most recent construction project in Vancouver with a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). It is also the last construction project to have a mandatory CBA applied, before the City’s CBA Policy shifted to a voluntary application in December 2025. CSRC shares the same site as New St. Paul’s Hospital, which was the first project in Vancouver to trigger the CBA Policy in 2021, offering the opportunity to see how four years of relationship-building, lessons learned, and process refinement carry forward from one CBA project to the next. This post shares more about this opportunity, the early project CBA target results, and the groundwork being laid to work towards meeting those targets.

CSRC contributes to the growing community impact CBAs in Vancouver have made so far, and highlights what can be achieved when community benefits are committed to on a long-term basis and across multiple projects.

Launched in 2018, the City of Vancouver CBA Policy applied to all redevelopment projects in Vancouver over 45,000 square metres. The mandatory application of the CBA required project owners and key contractors to demonstrate best efforts toward targets for local procurement, social procurement, and local, inclusive employment.

As of December 10, 2025, developers with new projects over 45,000 square metres are no longer required to participate in a CBA but are still encouraged to opt in on a voluntary basis.

Since the construction phase of the CSRC project began prior to this change in December, CSRC is under the original CBA policy and therefore has a mandatory community benefits agreement with the City.

Two Connected CBA Projects

CSRC is designed to integrate advanced patient care with cutting-edge medical research and improve health outcomes for residents across the province. The initiative represents a significant investment in B.C.’s healthcare infrastructure, emphasizing the importance of innovation and integrated care in addressing future medical challenges.

Located on the Jim Pattison Medical Campus, CSRC sits adjacent to the New St. Paul’s Hospital (NSPH). CSRC aims to enhance healthcare delivery by fostering collaboration between clinicians and researchers, physically connecting CSRC and NSPH via a sky bridge which is set to be installed as early as September 2026.

At an estimated $512 million, CSRC construction began in December 2024 and is expected to continue for over three years, with project completion set for March 2028.

CSRC is owned by Providence Health Care (PHC), with PCL Construction as Construction Manager, and Buy Social Canada as the Independent Third Party Monitor. All three parties also hold the same or similar roles on the NSPH project. In addition, a number of subtrades from NSPH are now working on CSRC. In terms of CBA implementation, the crossover between the two projects presents a unique opportunity to witness how prior CBA experience allows relationships, processes, and lessons learned over the past four years to carry over to new projects.

This blog post includes CSRC’s baseline of CBA data, covering the retroactive reporting period of December 19, 2024, to March 31, 2026.

CSRC Project Creates Community Benefits

Per the City’s CBA Policy, CSRC is working to achieve the following targets:

• Local, inclusive employment: Make 10% of all jobs on the development come from equity-denied groups and local residents, prioritizing new entry-level hires.
• Social procurement: Source a minimum of 10% of material goods and services from third party certified social impact or diverse or equity-denied owned businesses, with a priority on Vancouver businesses.
• Local procurement: Attain 10% of materials, goods, and services from Vancouver companies or companies located in Metro Vancouver or British Columbia. These may or may not also be equity-denied third party certified businesses.

Organizations reporting on these targets include Providence Health Care, PCL Construction, and major subcontractors with contracts over $500,000, for the period of December 19, 2024, to March 31, 2026.

At the end of Year 1, CSRC is currently meeting its employment target, exceeding its local procurement target, and is not currently meeting its social procurement target.

17.4% Local Procurement

In its first year of reporting, CSRC’s local procurement spend is off to a strong start, exceeding the CBA target by 7.42%. As of March 31, 2026, local procurement stands at 17.42%, or nearly $27 million, of the project’s $154 million total spend to date.

Additionally, only 15.22% of total project spend has gone outside British Columbia, meaning the large majority of CSRC’s spend to date has the potential to recirculate through BC’s economy.

An update on the definition of “local”

Initially, “local” was defined in the CBA Policy by a list of postal codes referred to as Vancouver’s “City Core.” While implementing the CBA on previous projects, Vancouver-based participants of the CBA provided feedback on this definition through channels such as the Project Specific Working Group meetings and one-on-one conversations with Buy Social Canada as the Independent Third Party Monitor.

In response to the feedback received, the City of Vancouver updated this definition in February 2026 to include the whole city of Vancouver. This new definition of “local” was applied to CSRC’s retroactive CBA data to be used moving forward and will continue to be applied to all future CBA projects.

Previously, local hiring and local procurement targets on CBA projects proved difficult to meet. CBA targets are meant to be aspirational. Difficult targets can be a sign that the Policy is functioning as intended: creating demand that supply needs time to build capacity toward and respond to. Yet CBA targets are also meant to be attainable. The updated definition of “local” considers feedback from a range of stakeholders and reflects the growing affordability crisis across both residential and commercial spaces that is affecting Vancouver’s business landscape and the city’s inner-core housing challenges.

Buy Social Canada updated its tools and trainings and worked with the project team to ensure all cumulative data reflected the new, broader definition with minimal disruption to reporting.

10% Local and Inclusive Employment

To date, 34% of CSRC’s total workforce has voluntarily self-identified as belonging to an equity-denied group through a voluntary Employee Self-Identification Survey.  10% of the total workforce also live in postal codes local to Vancouver, meeting the CBA employment target.

$4 Million in Social Procurement Spend

CSRC is not currently meeting the 10% social procurement target. As of March 31, 2026, 2.62% of project spend, representing just over $4 million, has gone to social value suppliers such as certified social enterprises, diverse or equity-denied owned businesses, and living wage certified suppliers.

Working toward the social procurement target

Suppliers already contributing to CSRC’s social procurement include the certified social enterprise EMBERS Staffing, who are continuing their relationship with PCL from their work on the New St. Paul’s Hospital project, which was the first project to implement a CBA in Vancouver under the Policy.

This example highlights the potential ripple effects of implementing the CBA Policy: intentional relationship-building between the construction sector and social value suppliers can grow beyond one CBA project and result in other opportunities for community benefits across projects.

Other suppliers contributing to social procurement so far are diverse-owned and social impact businesses. Several of the social value suppliers working on CSRC are familiar with the CBA requirements from their work on the New St. Paul’s Hospital project.

Community Benefit Outcomes in Best Efforts and Shared Learning

While CSRC’s reporting is still being updated to capture retroactive best efforts data, the project team has moved quickly to lay the groundwork for stronger social and local impact in the years ahead.

A site tour to build relationships

In March 2026, PCL hosted a site tour to introduce social enterprises and employment service agencies to the CSRC project with support from Buy Social Canada. The event gave PCL a chance to connect with new social value suppliers, and to reconnect with organizations they had already worked with on other projects such as NSPH.

The in-person event facilitated the exploration of new opportunities, including a discussion about expanding Binners’ Project’s waste diversion work to the CSRC site. Additionally, PCL contracted the social enterprise Potluck Catering to provide coffee and snacks for the event.

Extending relationships from New St. Paul’s Hospital

CSRC is already benefiting from the fact that it isn’t PHC and PCL’s first CBA project. Although the CBA experience may be new to individuals within the two organizations, the PHC and PCL teams on the NSPH project were able to share their learnings with their colleagues on the CSRC teams.

These shared learnings spanned from reporting methodology and experience with social value suppliers, to challenges overcome on NSPH.

Relationships built with social value suppliers like EMBERS Staffing, Multivista Systems LLC, and Buy Social Canada on NSPH are already extending into CSRC, giving the newer project a running start based on existing trust and proven successful service delivery.

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Buy Social Canada Supports CBA Implementation

Buy Social Canada offers reporting solutions and implementation support to owners, general contractors, and key subcontractors on CSRC and other CBA construction projects as the Independent Third Party Monitor. With a decade of on-the-ground experience across Canada, Buy Social Canada regularly facilitates connections between the construction industry and the social value suppliers and employment agencies who can help them meet CBA and social procurement targets.

Buy Social Canada is available to support construction owners and contractors with social procurement and CBA implementation. We work nationally and can ensure that project teams have the resources needed to reach social procurement targets.

Work with us to implement community benefits in construction or read Buy Social Canada’s Community Benefits in Construction Guide to learn more about our approach.

Beyond community benefits in construction, Buy Social Canada also works with purchasers across Canada to support the design and implementation of social procurement. Services offered include research into local market capacity, policy development, implementation plans and support, and measurement and reporting.  Contact us to learn more.