November 14, 2011

Canadian Construction Association discusses training, public-private partnerships

KELLY LAPOINTE

staff writer

The skilled labour shortage and the disadvantages local companies face in Ontario’s private-public partnerships (P3) model weigh heavily on the minds of construction industry leaders, a recent forum revealed.

These topics and others were discussed during the Past Chairs Panel at the Canadian Construction Association’s (CCA) recent Construction Industry Leaders Forum.

Past national chairs of the CCA, Tom Brown (2003), Brad Greene (2010) and Paul McLellan (2003) sat on the panel, moderated by current chair Dee Miller, which turned into more of a round table discussion with the CCA members present.

McLellan said that in 2000 the big focus was on training and the industry has grown from about 800,000 to 1.3 million members in 2011.

At the time, the problem was attracting students to the industry, but now the problem seems to be getting qualified youth.

“They’re coming to our doors not prepared, I don’t think they’ve been well counseled in what they need to have.”

Paul Charette, former CCA chair and Bird Construction board chair, said the industry has been talking about an ongoing skilled trades shortage for literally decades.

“There is a disconnect going on in our education system and we’re graduating a lot of people from colleges and universities that aren’t prepared for the workforce.”

Charette did point to advancements thanks to the Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP) with new programs like construction management at George Brown College and a new degree program in project construction management at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). He said enrollment in Ontario colleges is up 20 per cent and after two years of pushing KIP, there is still a long way to go.

“Is it about capacity of college or stigma?” Charette said. “Are we educating for the sake of education or for the sake of having a good job and a wonderful career?”

Also feeding into this skilled labour shortage is the use of temporary foreign workers, says some stakeholders.

“The problem we’re having is those temporary foreign workers don’t want to be temporary,” said McLellan, adding that his company had one worker for two years who now is collecting Canadian Employment Insurance waiting until he can permanently work in Canada.

“There’s something wrong with the system in my mind.”

The other main theme of the discussion was that smaller construction firms are having trouble keeping up with P3s and its increasing regulations when they do not have the in-house resources to do so.

Greene posed the question of what is the role of local and national construction associations in helping them with these concerns.

“Our membership is largely made up of smaller organizations that are puzzled about how they can participate, how they can build that single school in Saskatchewan that’s bundled with 10 others?” he said.

Toronto Construction Association President John Mollenhauer said international firms are coming in droves specifically for the P3 market.

“We’re competing against multinationals coming to Canada with effectively subsidized financing. We have seen our architects and engineers going abroad and do very well but very few of our construction [companies have],” he said

“I think it’s making it very difficult for Canadian companies to compete.”

Stakeholders said something needs to be done because a lot of local firms are at a disadvantage.

“We have to have a strong coordinated effort at the provincial level,” said CCA President Michael Atkinson. “Coordinated effort at all government levels has never been needed more.”

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