Digging In Podcast: Sept. 8, 2025

Transcript: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Digging In from SiteNews. We are going through the week’s biggest construction headlines. And man, we have some major breaking news that broke late this week. So we have four top stories. First, nation building project list leaks. Second up, Bird construction is taking to the high seas. Third, PCL has completed a historic digital consolidation project. And finally, Quebec has pulled the plug of support on a $7 billion EV project. And of course, stick around for the end. You can listen to our bonus story, which is about protecting ancient graffiti and Canada’s role in that. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

So one of our top stories, there’s been a leaked draft of 32 potential projects that might qualify under Ottawa’s New Building Canada Act. So these are major infrastructure, energy, mining projects, and they could be fast-tracked for approvals. So the list was obtained by the Globe and Mail. It’s not final, but it kind of offers one of the clearest looks at some of the projects that Mark Carney is looking at. I mean, we’ve had bits and pieces here and there, but this is the most fulsome view we have. Of projects that could be subject to the Building Canada Act. So let’s rattle off some of them that made this leaked preliminary list. So first, we have the Northwest Coast Oil Pipeline from Alberta to BC. We have LNG Canada Phase 2, which I believe we wrote about this recently because a major kind of early works contract was awarded for this. You also have KSI, LISMS, LNG, and KSI. So these are the Nisga’a nations LNG project. Port expansions at Churchill, in Quebec, St. John, and also Vancouver’s Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project. So a lot of port projects, although I believe Carney mentioned some of these recently. Ring of Fire mining projects, Darlington small modular reactors. As people in Ontario know, most of Ontario’s power is nuclear, and they’re trying to expand that. Bay de Nord offshore oil project, and just a bunch of others. So it’ll be really interesting to see if that list becomes pared down. And maybe this was purposely leaked just to get the public’s reaction to see if there’s any kind of hot button projects that they might want to avoid or nix from it.

Next up, Bird Construction has acquired FRPD. So Fraser River Pile and Dredge. So they are Canada’s largest marine land foundation and dredging company. And the transaction is valued at about $82.3 million. So this company is headquartered in New Westminster, BC, right on the Fraser River. And FRPD was founded in 1911. So that’s before World War One. And they employ about 300 people. So Bird said the purchase is expected to strengthen its infrastructure portfolio by adding national marine construction and land foundation expertise. While also enhancing their profit margins. So on a pro forma basis, they expect this new new company to generate about $160 million in revenue. So why is this interesting? Exactly about one year ago, Bird acquired Jacob Bros for 135 million. So this is kind of a continuation of Bird’s aggressive acquisition strategy in these large purchases. And this is also during a kind of an uncertain period of time. So they’re trying to build a new company, and they’re trying to build a certain economic time. So it’s really interesting to see Bird kind of double down on the strategy, despite some of the geopolitical challenges that we’re facing right now, and just kind of the confidence that they have in the current market.

So next up, PCL, one of the largest construction companies in Canada. I think it’s the largest construction company in Canada. So they’ve just completed a sweeping digital transformation, consolidating 26 separate enterprise resource planning systems into one single company. So they’re going to be building a new company, one single Microsoft Azure cloud platform. And this was completed by Syntax Systems. And they say that this is one of North America’s largest ever ERP consolidations. It was a multi year project that unified kind of decades of fragmented payroll and operations infrastructure across, you know, more than 370 financial entities. And it migrated all that data, it streamlined all those workflows. This was just like a massive, massive, massive, massive, massive, massive, massive, massive, massive lift, you know, at an $8 billion contractor. And so they say it’s going to provide greater agility for their finance, payroll, supply chain and project execution. So why do we care about this? Why does this matter? Well, I think in my experience, from what I’ve seen, during my coverage of the sector, what’s often what often happens that kind of these large, sophisticated contractors and is proven out amongst them can trickle down into smaller ones. And this is also just kind of the largest, or sorry, the latest rather large digitization effort in the construction sector. I know Graham had a major one in the past few years. I’m sure many others have done similar things. And the question is why? Well, one, I think that digitization is just the future of being an efficient company of any kind. But also, you know, the buzzword of all buzzwords, artificial intelligence. So if you do not have structured data, if you don’t have structured data, if you do not have clean, good, organized data for AI to comb through and interface with, it’s like having a digital Word document compared to something scrawled on a piece of paper and crayon. You know, AI can’t do much with that. And so to utilize the tools of the future, I’m guessing that PCL needs to do something like this to make sure that their housekeeping is in order. And so tools that might not even exist today, they will be able to do something like this. And so I think that’s a take advantage of later because they’ve done this heavy lifting.

So next up, we are moving to Quebec. So Quebec Superior Court has declared Northvolt Batteries North America insolvent. So this places it under creditor protection. And this is just after the provincial government withdrew its funding for the company’s $7 billion battery plant that they plan to build near Montreal. I remember them announcing this. It was hailed as just a humongous economic win for the region. So this ruling follows Quebec’s effort to recover about $260 million that is owed by the firm, of which I think nearly $2 million has already been seized from frozen accounts. And Northvolt, which laid off about 50 of its employees this week, they accused the government of just abruptly abandoning the project despite attempts to find investors. But Northvolt, did say would not contest these proceedings. Now, provincial officials say that the company failed to present a plan that met Quebec’s interests. I think this is particularly indicative of the times that we’re in. There have been other struggles in Canada’s EB sector, and other major projects have stalled or been delayed or even abandoned or shelved due to rising costs and trade pressures. You know, I think a lot of things that are outside of these companies are going to be delayed or even abandoned or shelved due to rising costs. Unfortunately, I mean, I think that this is just disappointing to see. I know there were tens of billions of dollars tied up in this industry. And a lot of people were really looking forward to it putting food on their tables for years to come. However, I would say this, I think that we saw years and years of the LNG sector struggle, particularly in BC after it was touted as this huge economic driver. And I think a lot of people had given up on that. Industry or didn’t think that it might happen anytime soon. And look at us now. We have LNG Canada, Wood Fibre LNG, Cedar LNG, the list goes on. We definitely thought we had missed the window in LNG, and that didn’t turn out to be the case. So, you know, I think there’s still hope. And, you know, hopefully in the future, you know, the EV and vehicle plant and battery manufacturing sector can experience a resurgence. And I think that’s going to be a big part of the resurgence after some of these difficult economic times come to a close.

Well, dear listener, you’ve made it to the end of the podcast. And we have the bonus story. Think twice before getting upset at graffiti artists defacing your job site, because it could one day become very cherished history. Because right now, Canada is playing a key role in trying to document ancient graffiti along Asia’s famed Silk Road before it’s gone. So there’s a new dam being built in Pakistan that threatens to erase some of these centuries old carvings that have been left by traders and travelers, missionaries, pilgrims, armies that pass through the region in the route, leaving their mark. This dam, which is set to be complete in about five years, is going to flood the entire region. And so most of this route and most of these carvings will be destroyed. But they’re hoping… to live on thanks to researchers from Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario. And so what they’re doing is they’re part of an international team that is in the region right now, and they’re using high-tech equipment to do digital scanning of every single rock, every little patch of dirt that has some of these ancient carvings, this ancient graffiti. And so even after this massive dam covers up all this stuff, people are still going to be able to digitally tour it. There’s going to be a 3D model of each rock, so you can walk through these places, and researchers can check it out, and the public can check it out. And this graffiti will live on long after it’s destroyed. So that is this week’s episode. Thank you so much for joining us. If you want more stories and insights, go to readsightnews.com. And of course, once you’re there, you know, give our free newsletter a check and sign up. And we will see you next week. Who knows what major news stories might break, but we will be there to cover them. Goodbye for now.