Tech Reset Canada Newsletter #5
Hi all,
It’s a surreal time. We’re all trying to take it day by day, we imagine many of you are in the same situation. This is extremely hard.
We’re taking some time over the next few months to stop and consider the work we are continuing with for the remainder of the year. We know we’re going to keep working on technology procurement reform, and we are getting more involved in alternative internet models. We’ll share more over the next few months, including opportunities to get more involved in our work should you want to.
In this month’s newsletter we’re looking at the City of Toronto and PayIt, a procurement-related project. Next month we’ll share more about ConnectTO, an internet project that we’re working on.
Taking good care of each other in this moment is the number one priority. For some of us that is about continuing to fight old and long fights if and when we’re able to tag into them. So a particular thanks for reading in these times, and for responding to the potential actions here too if you’re able.
PayIt and The City of Toronto
PayIt is a procurement that we’ve been tracking and engaging with since last summer. The City of Toronto and PayIt are seeking to enter into a deal for the City to use PayIt’s digital platform. The proposed deal is headed to City Council for consideration and we are intervening in that process.
PayIt is a company that sells a digital government platform. Part of what that platform does is create a centralized process for people to pay City bills (parking tickets, property tax, etc.). Toronto would be the first Canadian city to adopt the product, should the deal be approved. And in the proposed deal, the City of Toronto would earn money if other Canadian cities, or the province of Ontario, buy into it too. Point is, this isn’t just about Toronto.
We believe the deal should be stopped. For our quick summary, see “Nine Things to Know about the Proposed City of Toronto/PayIt Deal”.
We’d like to invite you to the online community information session we’re holding tomorrow (Monday April 26, at 6.30 pm ET) to learn more. “Is the PayIt Deal Good for the Toronto?” We’re lucky to have a great group of people joining us to think through some of the issues.
You can register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/community-info-session-is-the-payit-deal-good-for-toronto-tickets-151740187987
Background
The proposed deal was first announced in July 2020, when City Staff brought a report forward titled: “Innovative Partnership for Digital Government Platform”.
See image below for an idea of what PayIt could be in Toronto. A big part of the PayIt offering is their business model. They know cities are cash-strapped, and they are offering “free” software to the city, then making their money by receiving a percentage of the payment transactions that get processed through their tech. Over the first three years, this deal is estimated to see the vendor earn $20,000,000 CAD (twenty million, at the low end).
Payment processing is only part of what they do, though. As you can see in this image below, there are non-financial elements to this kind of platform as well. In short, their platform becomes a part of managing relationships between the City and its residents.
Image Source: City of Toronto Staff Report, Innovative Partnership for Digital Government Platform – July 2020 - https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-148995.pdf
There has been a lot of back and forth about the deal already at City Council, including good questions about how it all started. The company approached the City with an unsolicited proposal, and they worked together for a significant amount of time outside of any contract. For a deal of this value and importance, the processes followed raise lots of questions, more on that in our summary. The last Toronto City Council session in April provides a great summary of some of these issues, start the video at 06:10:42 to watch.
Now to bring us up to today: City Staff have finished negotiating with PayIt and have a proposed deal - you can read the latest report on it here: “Innovative Partnership to Accelerate Digital Services with Payments”. The deal will be presented to the City’s Executive Committee on April 29th to seek their permission to approve it. If that approval is received, the item will move to City Council for a full vote on May 5/6. There is a lot of complexity to the financial elements of this deal, so don’t get discouraged that those bits are confusing. They are to us too. And while this deal is being positioned as primarily about the financial benefits of the deal, we think it’s important to reframe this all significantly.
Reasons to Get Involved
Once a technology product such as this is introduced into a complex system it is very difficult to remove it. Based on the way this deal came to be, best practices for procurement were not followed. The City is setting this up outside of any kind of granular and specific democratically informed policy guidance for digital infrastructure. There are questions we have about residents’ digital rights. This deal is partially about enabling a proprietary platform to become an intermediary for a wide range of transactions and interactions with residents.
For these reasons, and more, we are calling on Toronto’s Executive Committee and all Toronto city councillors to reject this deal. There are lots of other ways (and frankly, better ways) to do everything outlined in the report. Bottom line: we believe public digital infrastructure is something that should be intentionally designed prior to going to tender, following democratically informed policy. The technology approach being used for this deal is only one of so many, and other alternatives should be fairly considered. This is public procurement. Fairness is mandatory.
Actions to Take
Action: Register for our community information session, to be held on Monday April 26th at 6.30 pm ET. We’ll focus on both a) the PayIt model (relevant to all cities/regions/towns etc. as this might be sold to you) and b) the Toronto deal specifically and how to get politically involved.
Action: Contact your councillor. If you live in Toronto and already agree that this deal needs more attention, please consider emailing your local councillor and asking them where they stand on the PayIt deal. You can also let them know that you have concerns about the deal if you do too. But it’s enough to just send a one-line email asking them what their position is. If you live in Toronto, you can find your local councillor here by entering your address and then contact them by sending them an email or giving their office a call. If you hear back do let us know - Together@TechResetCanada.org
Action: Submit a letter or send an email to the Mayor and Executive Committee sharing your concerns about the deal. The item is here on the City’s website, which is where you can click a button to submit comments (see below).
Your email or letter does not have to be long. Just share any concerns you have. You can do it as an individual or on behalf of an organization, like we do.
In this moment, these kinds of deals are moving along fast without adequate public oversight. One fact that you can be certain of, in terms of including it in your email or letter, is that a deal of this importance and size did not go through a proper procurement process. We’ll talk about that at our event, and also about how procurement is a function we should be using differently to build public digital infrastructure that keeps and grows public power.
Related Reading
Mariana Valverde and Alexandra Flynn’s piece from February 2021 touches on PayIt: “What have we learned from the Sidewalk Labs saga? Smart city plans in Toronto”
“Toronto tech firms fume at proposed sole-sourced deal between city and U.S. firm” by David Rider for the Toronto Star, July 2020
Matthew Claudel and Bianca Wylie co-authored a research brief called “Technology Procurement: Shaping Future Public Value” as part of the Future Cities Canada Community Solutions Portal (free, registration required)
City Hall Watcher #80, July 2020 by Matt Elliott, see section titled “PayIt forward: staff recommend deal with online payment software platform”
“How the Government’s Multibillion-Dollar Plan to Modernize Its Tech Could Go Horribly Wrong” by Jennifer Pahlka, April 2021 for OneZero (from the US/not about PayIt, but some related things to consider in terms of managing legacy systems).
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Bianca Wylie, Saadia Muzaffar, Jen Evans, and April Dunford
Tech Reset Canada
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