Digging In Podcast: Prompt Payment Arrives in BC, Finally

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Transcript:

So, I’ve been covering Canadian construction for well over a decade, and I remember some of the first stories that I wrote were about prompt payment efforts in British Columbia. Well, guess what? BC has introduced bill 20. It’s the construction prompt payment act, which if passed, it sets clear payment timelines for construction projects with 28 days for owners to pay general contractors and 7 days for contractors to pay their subcontractors. It also includes an adjudication system for disputes. So, this move would align BC with a bunch of other provinces, including Ontario, which has had prompt payment legislation for years now. Alberta, which introduced it in the you know the past few years. Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia also have similar laws. And so this is a humongous win for the BC construction sector.

The BC Construction Association, the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, the Electrical Contractors Association of BC, the list goes on. There’s a lot of people that have been working for many, many years putting immense pressure on the government to enact this and going to many meetings giving a lot of advice and input and it’s finally here. But we’re not across the finish line yet and there’s still some things to hash out. So while a lot of these industry groups are celebrating and rightly so after doing all this hard work, they’re still cautious. Because just a few years ago when Alberta was hashing out its prompt payment rules, the legislation started out by excluding some public sector projects. and there was quite an uproar from the local industry that forced them to remove that exception. So BC is warning officials, don’t go down that same path. So here’s what Chris Aches, who’s president of the BC Construction Association, here’s what he said.

Whether you’re a private sector, public sector, whether you’re a crown corp, or whether you’re a home builder, we want all of the construction industry to fall under this payment certainty. So they’re really strongly advocating that no one is special. Everyone should be under this law.

Next up, Montrealbased Deep Sky has announced plans to build a largecale carbon removals facility in southwestern Manitoba. It would be capable of capturing 500,000 tons of CO2 annually when it’s at full capacity. That’s insane. The $200 million initial phase is set to begin begin construction in 2026 and it will use direct air capture technology powered by Manitoba is renewable hydroelect electric grid to store CO2 underground. So, they’re just going to suck it right out of the air directly. Southwestern Manitoba, they say, offers geology that’s really good for underground CO2 storage. And they also cited that the province has passed enabling legislation in 2024.

So, specific regulations are expected this fall. So, it seems to be a friendly jurisdiction to be doing this kind of work. And also Deep Sky recently began operations at Deep Sky Alpha in Alberta. So that’s a 3,000 ton per year facility and it’s hosting up to 10 different direct air capture technologies and performance data from that site will help inform the technology selection for the Manitoba project. So yeah, Deep Sky is definitely turning heads with their approach. They’ve raised about $130 million in funding from investors.

All right, our next story will be very very familiar for our Toronto listeners, Metrolinx has begun a 30-day final test. It’s called the revenue service demonstration on Toronto’s 19 kilometer Egllington Cross Town LRT. Features 25 stops and yep, it’s faced repeated delays since starting in construction, get this, in 2011. Originally it was slated to be open in 2020, but the project has had technical issues and many cost over overruns. And in fairness to the project I mean we had a global pandemic, we’ve had you know a major labor crisis supply chain disruptions so in fairness to the project team you know there has been some stuff that is out of their control. So but these delays have drawn quite a bit of of public criticism and calls for greater greater accountability. So Josh Matlo and he he represents Toronto St. Paul’s has called on the Ontario government to launch a full public inquiry into the delays and cost overruns which he says Metrolinx has refused to fully explain. And also the world’s biggest construction YouTube channel B1M just did a 15minute video explaining why Egun is an example of how not to build transit in a major city. So this project team is facing a lot of of criticism, but they’re just at the finish line and this will transform from Toronto.

It’s a massive LRT project that cuts right through the center of town. So hopefully that can relieve some of the major traffic and also not having that construction going on for years and years will also probably provide a great deal of relief for commuters in that region.

Next up we have a major port project. So a consortium of Pomelo and Acon has launched the next phase of the port of Montreal expansion and contraure. So this $69 million project, it includes building two births totaling 675 meters and it will accommodate larger container ships. It’s expected to be operational in about 2029 and it’s positioned as Eastern Canada’s largest container port development. The team is moving forward under a progressive design build model to improve cost and schedule predictability and meet environmental requirements. So the scope includes prep work dredging, construction of dock infrastructure, key walls, return walls and auxiliary activities.

The consortium said that this prep work will start immediately and construction full construction is expected to start in 2026. So completion activities are expected to be fully done around 2030.

So rounding out our headlines, PCL Construction is dating donating $1.5 million to the center for addiction and mental health. And these funds will be used to curate programming and education tools, tools designed at helping construction workers and their families address, you know, the specific challenges that come with addiction and mental health. And so why is PCL doing this? They cited some pretty staggering stats. So about 17.2% of men and about 12.6% of women in construction reported high or very high work stress. And they cited heavy workload and work life balance as the main stressors. The industry also represents nearly 8% of opioid toxicity deaths and 64% of construction workers said they wish employers would do more to support mental health initiatives.

You know, I think that this is a really hard job. Being in construction is really challenging. There’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of stress. And I think people need support, they need help. And it’s really great to see Canada’s biggest general contractor putting, you know, money where their mouth is instead of just talking about it. They’re putting some funds down to try and help address it. I think that’s great. Every single company has a story about a co-orker that has struggled with you know, mental health issues or addiction. And many have lost friends and loved ones in the industry to you know, the these issues. And I’ve met many of them. I’ve heard many of their stories and people have talked about them at great length. And it’s great to see this great to see some work done to to address some of these issues. All right, thanks so much for sticking around right to the end. And so, we have the bonus story for you.

What’s the weirdest thing that you have found while digging around on a construction site? Well, construction crews who were digging the subway extension in Toronto’s West End in 1976 uncovered a small but scientifically significant fossil. It was a fragment of a skull with antler stubs now known as Toronto Seros or the subway deer. So recent DNA analysis by the Royal Ontario Museum and Trent University confirms that the specimen indeed was a deer related to modern mule and white-tailed deer but diverging before those species split. So this resolves decades of debate over whether it was closer to a caribou. So, this discovery kind of highlights how urban construction can unearth some really cool things and off offer a glimpse into some of the post ice age landscape.

Yeah, I think there have been many many times where really cool indigenous artifacts some really interesting historical items like old bottles and also major fossils have been discovered while digging around in construction. I’m sure for years to come even more stuff will be unearthed as we continue to build out Canada’s cities and infrastructure.

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. If you’re a fan of the podcast, if you enjoy what we’re doing, please give us a review. Let us know how we’re doing. Let us know what we can do to improve and and help other people help other people find us. If this is your first episode, be sure to subscribe on Spotify or on Apple Podcast. All right, that’s it. That’s all. All I got. Go get building. I’m done.