Digging In Podcast: Sept. 2, 2025

Transcript: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Digging In the podcast from SiteNews, where we dig into the biggest construction headlines of the week. I’m your host, SiteNews editor in chief, Russell Hixson, and we have some massive news for you all. First up, our first headline, Canada has officially launched its Major Projects Office. After that, number two, we’re going to be looking into big tech as they eye the construction sector for optimization. And our third headline is a trio of humongous project updates in Ontario. And for our fourth story, Westbank has sold their entire stake in the Sen̓áḵw project, so we’re going to be discussing that, and stick around to the end for our bonus story, we’re going to be talking about how minerals are so nice we’re trying to mine them twice. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

So first up, we have some massive news out of Ottawa. Prime Minister Mark Carney has officially launched the major projects office, and it’s opening its headquarters in Calgary, and there are plans for satellite offices in other cities. So what is it? Well, it’s going to act as a single point of contact for companies and governments that are pursuing large scale projects, kind of nation building projects, as they’ve said, these would be ports, railways, energy corridors, critical mineral developments and clean energy initiatives. Kearney has also kind of signaled that some of the first projects that Canada is eyeing are ports. So yeah, they say that this office is going to streamline environmental and regulatory reviews, and they’re trying to get project approval timelines down to no more than two years. And we already know who’s going to be leading this effort. It’s going to be Don Farrell. So they are the former head of the Trans Mountain Corporation and Transalta, and so, yeah, they’re going to be the CEO. And so why does this matter? Well, rather than navigating kind of this patchwork of federal departments and agencies, proponents are going to be able to deal with one entity. And also the government’s been very explicit that they want to prioritize projects of national significance. And so that’s, I think these projects are going to be evaluated in a bit different of a light. So that’s going to be very interesting to see how it rolls out. And, you know, some of the other cities that are going to get these offices.

So next up, we’re going to talk about big tech continuing to turn its gaze towards the construction sector. So Procore and Amazon have signed a multi year strategic collaboration agreement. So it’s going to be aimed at accelerating digital transformation in construction using artificial intelligence analytics and data driven tools. So the two companies say they’re going to co invest in product development and market of marketing market initiatives and also procores construction platform is now available in the Amazon Web Services marketplace. They say that the collaboration will be used to advance the use of AI to streamline project delivery, improve decision making and reduce risk. Obviously, Amazon famously disrupted, you know, brick and mortar stores all bookstores by selling books online. And they’re not the only ones, I think, recently, about a week ago, field AI, which is backed by Nvidia and Bill Gates, they they write programs that control models, that control robotics worldwide that, you know, are used in sectors like construction, energy, logistics, and you know, they’re they’re wanting to use them on construction sites. They raised about $400 million I think they’re valued at $2 billion and so why does this matter? Well, you know, that says it all. The tech industry has a ton of money to throw around. Obviously, Amazon and Nvidia are the biggest companies in the entire world, and if they’re looking at construction, they have vast amounts of capital to disrupt. And it’ll be really interesting to see what Amazon comes up with, and in the coming years, you know what big tech is going to do when it comes to construction, then, you know, they may have a more outside perspective and be able to, you know, come at these problems in in a different way. And obviously, construction is facing a lot of labor challenges. It’s facing a lot of productivity challenge. It challenges. So it could be really fascinating to see what comes from some of these gigantic tech companies.

Finally, it was a big week for Ontario builders. So Ontario is moving forward on several major infrastructure projects. We got some huge updates. So first they awarded a. Uh, the contract for the 9.2 kilometer westward extension of Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT to Trillium rail partners, and so this will add seven new stations and fully integrate rail signaling and communication systems. So also you had Infrastructure Ontario and North York General Hospital issue an RFP for a new patient care tower, and that will add over 300 private rooms and nearly 100 acute care beds and underground parking. And so that’s a major health care project. Also, the province has awarded the first contracts for highway 413, which is a long planned route that’s expected to significantly ease gridlock in Toronto. So for all our Toronto listeners, you know what it’s like to be sitting in that that traffic. And so this is also expected to create 6000 jobs annually during construction and contribute more than $1 billion to Ontario’s GDP. So this could be just a massive impact for Ontario.

So for our fourth and final story, Westbank, a Vancouver based developer, a major developer, has sold its entire ownership stake in the first two phases of the massive Sen̓áḵw housing development right in the heart of Vancouver, and they’ve sold it to OPT Trust, which is the Canadian pension fund manager as a result. So now the Squamish nation and op t trust are equal ownership partners for phase one and two, while the nation has secured full ownership of phases three and four. So why are we talking about this? Well, Westbank hasn’t publicly commented on why they did this, but I suspect a lot of developers, and again, this is not confirmed, but a lot of developers are face facing issues right now with the slump in the condo market. You know, I suspect that west bank wants a bit of liquidity. So, you know, a lot of developers have been selling off assets and trying to get their affairs in order to kind of make it through this challenging time in the development sector. So this could be one way that Westbank is trying to weather current economic conditions, is just get that cash flow going.

All right, for our bonus story, it’s very apt for digging in as we’re digging into mining. That’s right, we’re going back to the mines, as are many others. It seems that the mining industry is facing mounting pressures to meet soaring demand for copper and other critical minerals that are needed for our energy transition, particularly with electric vehicles, solar panels, all those different things. But we have declining ore grades. There’s very long project timelines and waste challenges. So according to a 2020, research paper, the entire world dug up about Sif, 650 million metric tons of copper, between 1910 and 2010 but about 100 million tons never even made it to market, and so experts argue that all that metal is just still sitting there laying in tailings tailings ponds, and it’s potentially Just a massive resource waiting for the right technology to unlock it. So companies are increasingly turning to innovation to try and pick up these table scraps, these crumbs that have fallen by remining tailings, they’re trying to improve grinding and leaching processes and exploring bioengineering solutions to get more value from existing resources, because digging a new mine is dirty, it’s expensive, takes a long time, and it just puts us kind of back in the same situation. So why not go back to places that have already been mined and using modern technology and slurp up those crumbs? That’s what people are doing. And obviously, you know from the top, we explain why this matters. We’re in the midst of a major energy transition. We want to drive electric vehicles. We want to shift our energy over to more sustainable sources. And a lot of these things require these critical minerals, and that’s why I think Canada and a lot of other countries have developed a critical mineral strategy. And yeah, that does it for this week. Thank you so much for joining us. If you want more stories and insights, go to readsite news.com and subscribe to our industry leading newsletter. Until next week, I’m your host, Russell Hixson, we’ll see you in a bit.