Recap: SiteSummit Summer School aces test in Toronto

The bell has rung. Class dismissed. In case you weren’t taking notes, we got you covered. 

Our SiteSummit: Summer School conference has wrapped and graduates have a lot to think about. They experienced two jam-packed days of high-level discussions with industry leaders and laid back networking with their peers. 

Each day started with the entire crowd under flashy lights and booming sounds of the Demo Room, a state-of-the-art creative studio and venue. Attendees heard about Canada’s $100B renaissance, how contractors are winning major defence work, and strategies for using artificial intelligence to drive real ROI. But the highlight from these sessions was a one–on-one fireside chat between Andrew Hansen, CEO of Site and Kieran Hawe, CEO of EllisDon.   

The unfiltered conversation touched on the evolving identity and critical responsibilities of a modern builder in today’s market. Hawe challenged the traditional definition of a constructor, detailing how EllisDon intentionally diversified into unexpected, specialized sectors—including facility management, digital technology divisions, and niche corporate roles—to secure absolute “care and custody” of their destiny following risk misalignments in early P3 consortiums. 

He strongly urged the construction industry to stop complaining about systemic hurdles like aging workforces and regulatory gridlock, reframing them instead as massive opportunities that require early contractor integration and proactive, unsolicited private-sector solutions. 

Ultimately, Hawe emphasized that the future of Canadian building rests on a progressive leadership model rooted in genuine employee support, severe self-awareness, and the elimination of modern distractions to focus entirely on execution and community-driven impacts.

“At the end of the day, the definition of value has changed. It’s not just a cost-driven response. It’s how we look at the full life cycle outcomes. What’s the quality of our product, what kind of services do we offer?” Said Hawe. “I think a traditional builder will get left behind if they’re not thinking outside of the box, to be quite honest. The organizations that will define the future are those that think beyond projects—those that integrate innovation and take responsibility for the outcomes. That’s what the future builder of this country must be built for.”

With such heavy topics, SiteNews’ Vice President of Partnerships Kyle Davis kept the energy high with his Rapid Fire segments. He peppered panelists with questions on their ultimate coffee orders, favourite apps, movie preferences and more. 

After the sessions at the demo room, each day participants packed up their things, loaded up onto yellow school buses and  made the short trek to George Brown Polytechnic for ultra deep dives into some of construction’s most exciting niches. 

Whether it was in a lecture room at George Brown’s Daphne building or inside the cozy mass timber walls of Limberlost across the street, attendees got into the weeds of the industry’s most complex issues. 

At Limberlost, sparks were flying at the Housing 201 panel, moderated by Ashwin Vadivelu, Senior Director of Strategy & Origination at EllisDon. It featured Richard Lyall (President of RESCON), Hugh Clark (Executive Director, Housing Secretariat, City of Toronto), and Mwarigha (Vice President of Housing, Asset Sustainability & New Development at WoodGreen).

The experts evaluated whether recent government interventions represent a real generational pivot or mere tinkering on the margins. The discussion brought up systemic failures, highlighting that government funding and build targets remain fundamentally unrealistic compared to the multi-billion-dollar reality of the private sector, which handles over 90% of the market.

“The industry looks at the targets they set and all we can do is laugh our asses off,” said Lyall. “Because what that tells you is that the people who set those targets are either entirely unserious, or they don’t know what they’re talking about. And the answer is the latter.”  

The panelists broke down how a legacy of low public rental investment, complex municipal layers, and a recent inflation shock have choked the pipeline, leaving behind a severe imbalance—most notably an oversupply of unusable investor condominiums alongside an acute shortage of affordable low-rise and non-market options. 

Ultimately, they argued that solving the crisis requires moving past disjointed, reactive policies and adopting an integrated, data-driven approach that strictly aligns government planning, taxation, and zoning with the actual living needs of Canadian families.

“You can’t have a supply system driven by numbers that actually undermines the numbers that you want to achieve, because they can give you the wrong supply. We need an integrated mindset,” said Mwarigha. 

Here were some key takeaways from some other sessions: 

Marketing 101: The New Rules of Marketing – “Don’t underestimate the value of what is happening in real time on those job sites… those three photos that your super took on his iPhone actually got far more engagement than your large produced video.” – Connie Clearwater, Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Priestly Demolition.

Leadership 101: Executive Roundtable: Opportunities in an Uncertain Environment – “One of the things I would always remind everyone is capital is agnostic, and it will chase the best risk-adjusted return. And the pull of our own capital every day into the United States is not because we believe it’s a better market… it’s because the clarity of the environment in which we work down there is more certain.” – Brad Carr, CEO, Mattamy Homes

Sustainability 101: How Sustainability Can Make You Money – “Through our estimating phases, we’re reaching out to our suppliers, we’re asking them mix by mix for what is the environmental impact of the product that we want to use in this instance, and what else can we do that won’t impact cost, that won’t impact schedule… just asking the question opens the door to being able to look at all of the options.” — Jolene McLaughlin, Vice President Climate and Sustainability, EllisDon

Tech 301: Turning AI-Driven Prediction into Hard Profit – “The real test of any technology on a jobsite is simple: is it as easy as a hammer?”- Chuck Pfeffer, Vice President, Partnerships, Cupix

Change Management 101: The Elite Change Management Playbook – “The leadership lesson for us is that people don’t resist change, they resist loss. So this was about loss. It wasn’t that they were getting something new, it was what they were losing …we have to get people from denial to decision. And if we can get them from denial to a decision where they’ve decided that they’re going to buy in, that’s a huge win for us.” – Sean Fitzgerald, Partner & Chief Transformation Officer, Results

We could go on and on about the details. Like the feast networkers had at Cherry Street Bar-B-Que, the fiery competition at the ping pong tables, the cute notes hidden in everyone’s lunch bags. But we will let SiteMedia’s Chief Growth Officer Brett Rutledge sum things up: 

“We weren’t interested in throwing another run-of-the-mill conference,” said Rutledge. “The industry is too busy for that. The goal was simple: get the best people in the room, add some creativity, buzz, and get out of the way. I think we hit the nail on the head.” 

More photos from SiteSummit: