mayoral candidates urged to improve city planning, cut bureaucracy that's slowing projects
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the quebec association of consulting engineering firms wants the city of montreal to improve efficiency by collapsing the layers of approvals for some decisions on work sites.
dave sidaway
/
montreal gazette files
the quebec association of consulting engineering firms has a message for candidates running in municipal elections across the province, and particularly in montreal: cut the bureaucracy and red tape that slows down projects.
montreal municipal engineering employees who serve as the interface between the city and the private engineering firms working on contracts for them aren’t empowered to sign off on work-site decisions because they have to run them up the chain of command, bernard bigras, president and ceo of the association des firmes de génie-conseil (afg) québec, said in an interview with the gazette. these municipal engineers have the know-how to make decisions, but have so many layers of bosses above them that decision-making is delayed, he said.
“these professionals do … more bureaucracy than engineering,” bigras said, adding that the external engineers, for their part, are continually filling out forms.
“we have to reduce the bureaucracy. it’s the key to be able to do projects.”
he added that in montreal, in particular, “we’re caught up in paperwork, we’re caught up in bureaucracy, we’re caught up in administrative red tape.”
bigras says his association isn’t suggesting to reduce controls and monitoring by the municipality on work performed by external firms, but it wants the city to be more efficient by collapsing the layers of approvals for some decisions on work sites. it’s also asking for better communication between the central city and montreal’s 19 boroughs, which also award contracts.
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“the slowness of the process makes business relations more complex,” he said.
“it doesn’t make for an optimal relationship between public project managers and private project managers.”
a 2021 study for the afg showed that 51 per cent of engineering firms had lost interest in bidding on municipal contracts, in part due to the administrative burden, bigras said.
the afg said it has meetings this week with two of the main political parties running in the nov. 2 montreal election — projet montréal, led by luc rabouin, and ensemble montréal, led by soraya martinez ferrada — to discuss the industry’s concerns.
bigras added the afg hadn’t yet received a response to an invitation to transition montréal leader craig sauvé, who has promised to reduce dependence on outsourcing.
“it is completely unrealistic to think that the city of montreal would be able to fulfil the order book,” bigras said of cutting outsourcing to external firms.
transition montréal spokesperson julie bélanger said the party only received a meeting invitation from the afg on monday morning, but added “we’ll definitely meet with them.”
the party’s position isn’t to eradicate all contracting out, she said, but to “reduce it to a minimum” and have it co-ordinated by a new municipal agency it calls infra-montréal.
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“transition montréal and craig sauvé,” bélanger said, “believe the vast majority of work done can be done efficiently and at lower cost by employees of the city.”
the union representing montreal’s municipal engineers also says it has never suggested that all engineering work could be done in house.
“but we want it to be more internal than external,” gisella gesuale, president of the association des scientifiques et ingénieurs de montréal, told the gazette. montreal city council’s finance committee recommended during budget hearings last fall that the city develop its internal expertise, she added.
whether the engineers work for the municipality or for firms getting contracts, there are limited resources, bigras said. in 2023, the ordre des ingénieurs du québec said it anticipated a shortage of engineers in certain sectors and the demand for engineering workers to grow by 40 per cent over the next decade.
so municipalities are competing with other project owners for a limited number of experts, bigras said, adding that one estimate puts the “critical” infrastructure maintenance deficit across all quebec municipalities at $49 billion.
hydro-québec’s multibillion-dollar plans for hydroelectric development in labrador alone “will drain engineering resources significantly” in the province, he said. “so you have to have a plan in quebec to put projects in (a certain) order and be strategic.”
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the afg also wants municipalities to adopt a new formula that was recently introduced at the provincial level to evaluate the quality and price of engineering and architecture contracts.
the lowest-bidder-wins method still prevails on too many municipal professional services contracts, bigras said, even though municipalities have a two-envelope system that scores quality along with price.
“if the cities really wanted to apply a quality-price approach, they would ensure that in the end quality is taken into account in a proportion of 85 per cent, which isn’t the case right now. we’re at 70 per cent right now.”
the formula that’s now optional for quebec ministries was negotiated by the afg and the quebec treasury board, he said. it calculates a median price from the bids received and the internal estimate and eliminates bids that are extremely high and low while giving full points to bids that are within five per cent of the median. then the quality score has greatest weight and determines the winner, he said.
the afg is also asking the municipal candidates to commit to improving city planning before launching calls for tender by conducting preparatory studies to nail down the city’s needs.
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“often the project owner (the municipality) misjudges its needs,” bigras said. “we find out during the design process that we forgot this or that.”
such lapses contribute to delays in project delivery, he said.
better planning is also needed in the municipal response to climate change, bigras said. some politicians think their cities only need bigger pipes to capture rainwater, he said. but innovative solutions like sponge parks are part of the answer, he added. project teams should include such professionals as biologists and landscape architects, he said.
“the solution isn’t just concrete,” bigras said. “the solution can be green.”
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