7 families who are building Canada

Construction doesn’t run in these families. It sprints.

Some of Canada’s biggest construction brands were built and guided to new heights by families. Their stories of rugged entrepreneurship go back decades, span World Wars, survive tragedies, inspiring innovations and more. Learn more about the origins of some of the nation’s most powerful general contractors.

The Pomerleaus – Pomerleau

Pomerleau founder Hervé Pomerleau’s roots are as humble as they come.

Hervé started his construction education while doing chores around the family farm and even helped his father build farmhouses. Some of his early jobs were picking potatoes, being a lumberjack and carpentry.  

But he also had a yearning for entrepreneurship. In the early 1960s, he began building his own business and eventually founded Pomerleau with his wife. He saw opportunity in Quebec during the Quiet Revolution, and the company landed its first contract: the expansion of an elementary school in St. Bernard, QC.

The 1990s was when Hervé’s sons, Pierre, and Francis, who both have engineering degrees and MBAs, took the helm of the company. They led it for 25 years, eventually withdraw from their operational roles in 2023. However they continue to remain active members on the Board of Directors. Philippe Adam now runs the comap Pomerleau’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Hervé chaired the board until 2007, and has always maintained its head office in Saint-Georges, in the Beauce region. When he was awarded the Order of Quebec in 2014, officials stated that if the municipality continues to be a bastion of entrepreneurship, it is undoubtedly in large part thanks to him, as he has actively contributed to the development of the Beauce region in many areas: employment, commerce, business, university education, transportation, and more. 

The Ledes – Ledcor

William “Bill” Lede started Leduc Construction in 1947 with just a bulldozer and a handful of contracts in Alberta’s emerging oil industry. 

Soon business was booming and he had his two sons to support him: Dave and Cliff. 

Bill placed high value not just on his family and business, but also on giving back to the community. Bill served on Leduc’s town council for twelve consecutive years and was elected mayor for four terms. During this time, he was also active in the Alberta Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association, the local Chamber of Commerce, and the Leduc chapter of the Jaycees.

But tragedy struck in 1980. Bill was fatally buried under gravel at an Edmonton construction site. This incident forever shaped the company’s safety practices. Dave was named the new leader of the company. With his brother Cliff and other key figures, they rebranded as Ledcor and took business to new heights, opening offices across Canada and the U.S.

While Cliff went on to become a winemaker in California, Dave remains the CEO and Board Chair of Ledcor. While their father may be gone, his legacy lives on in the company’s values.

“My father taught my brother and me the importance of having good people and treating them right,” said Cliff in an interview with the Globe & Mail. 

The Broccolinis – Broccolini 

Broccolini founder Donato Broccolini’s ethos boils down to this: build with total accountability. Donato started the business in 1949 as a modest single-family home builder in Montreal, driven by the conviction that putting his family name on a project meant standing behind every brick. He anchored the young firm in core values of integrity, hard work, and deep respect for partners and craft.

As the company grew, Donato’s sons—John, Joseph, and Paul—joined the business and spurred a period of major expansion into commercial real estate, industrial developments, and large-scale contracting.

Today, the third generation leads the firm, with Donato’s grandson Anthony Broccolini serving as Chief Executive Officer. Moving up through the ranks required earning trust in the field before taking executive roles, ensuring the family values remained front and center as the business grew.

The Smiths – EllisDon

Construction juggernaut EllisDon’s success can be traced back to Donald Smith. One of his first jobs as a teenager was delivering the Toronto Star while living in North Toronto. He went on to study engineering and became a superintendent when he was 25. 

Smith and his brother David founded EllisDon in 1951, combining Donald’s first name with David’s middle name, Ellis. Their first project, a schoolhouse renovation, was funded by their mother, who served as the school’s bookkeeper. 

Donald and his wife went on to have 7 children, and it was their son Geoff who eventually succeeded him as President of EllisDon in 1996. That same year his children bought out his position in the company and he took on the role of Executive Chairman.

The story doesn’t stop there. Rather than look to private equity or outside investors, they put their confidence in the people driving the company forward; creating a new share structure and giving 45% of the company’s common shares to employees, at no cost.

In the years that followed, EllisDon built on that foundation, and in 2020 the journey was completed when the company decided to transition to 100% employee ownership, ensuring those who contribute to its growth also share in its long-term success.

The Pooles – PCL Construction

The roots of Canada’s largest construction company start in Prince Edward Island, where Ernie Poole worked at his father’s mill. At business school he learned about architecture and reinforced concrete, eventually co-founding a construction company in 1906 that became Poole Construction Ltd. 

After decades of growth and expansion, Ernie handed over the reigns and sold the business to his sons, John and George. Along with the company keys, Ernie passed down a handwritten list of core principles that had guided his own success, now known as Poole’s Rules. They include “employ the highest grade men obtainable”, “be firm, fair and friendly”, “avoid jobs where design is not good or financing doubtful”. They are still posted in every PCL office. 

 Both brothers brought deep technical expertise to the family firm. The eldest, John, earned a civil engineering degree from the University of Alberta in 1937. Younger brother George followed closely in his footsteps, graduating with his own civil engineering degree in 1943 before joining John to drive the next era of the family legacy.

In 1964 engineer Bob Stollery was appointed CEO of Poole Construction. In the late 1970s, he and 24 senior managers led a major transition from family ownership to employee ownership. A few years later the company was renamed PCL. To this day, eligible employees can still participate in the employee ownership program. 

The Birds – Bird Construction 

Hubert J. Bird was working as a construction supervisor in Nova Scotia when World War 1 broke out. 

He and his brothers enlisted. Tragically, three of them were killed. He returned Moosejaw as a Captain in the Canadian Engineers and established Bird Woodall and Simpson construction company in 1920. It would eventually shorten its name to Bird Construction. 

His service didn’t stop there. During the Second World War, the Saskatchewan-based firm built many of the air training facilities in western Canada and more wartime housing than any other firm in the country.

The company’s size and scope explode and it is responsible for some of the most recognizable infrastructure and architectural landmarks across the country. Most famously, the company served as the general contractor for Toronto’s iconic CN Tower, completed in 1976.

Company founder H.J. Hubert passed away in 1965. His son, Robert Allen Bird, carried the torch forward as Bird’s new president, CEO and Chairman. He remained CEO until his retirement in 1991 and continued as chairman of the board of directors until 2001.

The Grahams – Graham Construction

Graham’s story began far across the Atlantic ocean in Huddersfield, England, with building and stone merchant Abraham Graham & Sons. In 1913, Abraham Graham’s son, Philip Wigglesworth (P.W.) Graham, brought the family tradition to Canada, founding P.W. Graham & Sons in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Formally incorporated on May 27, 1926, Graham steadily evolved from its early roots into one of North America’s leading construction firms. The company’s formative decades were guided by P.W. Graham’s sons: Kenneth served as chief engineer through 1945, Reginald oversaw legal operations and sat on the board into the 1950s, and Peter, a University of Saskatchewan civil engineering graduate, eventually stepped up to lead the business.

The firm’s most defining turning point arrived during the economic crisis of the early 1980s. Confronting double-digit inflation, soaring interest rates, and a contracting market, Graham restructured by offering employees equity in the company.

Seventeen employees stepped forward to buy in, establishing Graham Construction and Engineering Ltd. as a fully employee-owned enterprise. More than four decades later, that shared ownership model remains the cornerstone of the company’s identity and ongoing success.