Month: September 2022

ICBA, the single largest sponsor of trades apprentices in British Columbia, announced today that it is increasing its bursaries to further reward the next generation of construction professionals.

These bursaries are fully funded by ICBA members and clients – it’s a program built by industry for industry.

“Contractors play the most significant role in recruiting, retaining and rewarding trades apprentices,” said Chris Gardner, ICBA President.

According to the Industry Training Authority, open shop construction companies sponsor more than 80% of all apprentices in the province.  ICBA directly sponsors more than 1,400 apprentices, the most of any group, company, or union in B.C.

“British Columbia is going over a demographic cliff – workers are aging and retiring faster than new people are joining the workforce. This means there is incredible opportunity in construction for young people, entrepreneurs, and skilled trades workers,” said Gardner. “ICBA and our members are committed to making that opportunity as attractive as possible and spreading the message that a career in the trades is an exciting and dynamic path full of tremendous opportunities and challenges.”

ICBA apprentices will now be eligible for up to $1,500 in bursaries, as they complete various levels of their Red Seal designation. For more on ICBA’s program, see icba.ca/apprenticeship.

On top of these ongoing bursaries, ICBA and its members have endowed scholarships at 15 B.C. post-secondary institutions with more than $1.35 million, providing ongoing financial support for young workers.

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

We live in the Age of Distraction. Text messages, social media, a million TV and streaming options, every song ever recorded at our fingertips, and on and on. Then there’s our inner monologue, that stream of thoughts in our head that can take our focus away from what we need to be concentrating on. And external issues too – problems at home, with parents, tight finances, a bad night’s sleep, to name a few common ones.

But construction workers can’t risk being distracted when doing work that – if done improperly – could result in injury.

Employers need to make sure they are not adding any distractions, and that means intentionally creating a worksite that supports the engagement and inclusion of all its people. Whether it’s ending biased behaviour, breaking down mental health stigma, or answering questions and concerns positively, employers have a big part to play.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at some practical tips on creating psychologically safe workplaces. Stay tuned!

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 75 companies and 7,000+ construction professionals better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.

 

Saturday, September 10, is World First Aid Day, dedicated to promoting the importance of first aid training and its role in prevention of injury and death.

First aid skills and training are something you can carry with you everywhere — to a job site, the office, around your neighbourhood, to a kids’ sports event… you can make a huge difference in someone’s life!

ICBA Training offers regular Occupational First Aid (OFA) classes. OFA Level 1 is a one-day course designed to cover all medical techniques considered to be within the responsibility of the Occupational First Aid Level 1 Attendant as required by the Workers’ Compensation Board of BC (WCB).

Participants learn:

• Priority Action Approach
• Primary Survey – Conscious patient / Unconscious patient
• Cervical spine control
• Airway and Breathing interventions
• Hemorrhage control
• One person CPR
• Minor injuries which require medical aid
• Management of soft tissue injuries
• Records and reports

Visit ICBA.ca/firstaid to see our full fall schedule of Occupational First Aid courses. And to those first aid folks out there — thank you!

Today, September 10, is World Suicide Prevention Day. ICBA Wellness continues our work to break the stigma around mental health and help construction professionals talk openly about issues, including suicidal thoughts. Suicide is a leading cause of death in the construction industry, and we want to help as many people as we can.

It’s important to get help if you or someone you know is going through a crisis or thinking about suicide. You’re not alone!

Warning signs that might suggest someone is at risk of suicide include:

• thinking or talking about suicide
• having a plan for suicide

Other signs and behaviours that might suggest that someone is at risk of suicide include:

• withdrawal from family, friends or activities
• feeling like you have no purpose in life or reason for living
• increasing substance use, like drugs, alcohol and inhalants
• feeling trapped or that there’s no other way out of a situation
• feeling hopeless about the future or feeling like life will never
• get better
• talking about being a burden to someone or about being in unbearable pain
• anxiety or significant mood changes, such as anger, sadness or helplessness

Talking honestly, responsibly and safely about suicide can help you determine if someone needs help. If you want to help someone in crisis, try:

• listening and showing concern
• talking with them and reassuring them that they’re not alone
• letting them know you care
• connecting them with a crisis line, counsellor, or trusted person (colleague, neighbour, friend, family member or elder)

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please call the Canada Suicide Prevention Service at 833-456-4566 or Crisis Centre BC at 1-800-784-2433.

This op-ed, by ICBA president Chris Gardner, first ran in Business in Vancouver on September 12, 2022. For more analysis on municipal effects on housing costs, see our September 2022 Construction Monitor.

With inflation making life more unaffordable than ever in British Columbia as we head into a local government election cycle, it’s tough to muster much confidence that our political leaders at city halls will be offering any real relief on important pocketbook issues.

In fact, too often local politicians fail to fully grasp the unintended outcomes of their decisions and end up doing things that make housing and transportation more expensive for families. They compound the challenges with every piece of red tape, new tax, added fee and seemingly endless delays in much needed housing and infrastructure projects.

Vancouver City Council is an obvious example. Mayor Kennedy Stewart has city staff quietly driving ahead with a plan to bring in road pricing for downtown Vancouver.

To out-of-touch political leaders and government bureaucracy, it makes perfect sense to force everyone coming downtown to pay more.  Not surprisingly, those forgotten in this ill-conceived tax grab will be working men and women, seniors, students, and small businesspeople.

A road tax will have a disastrous effect on affordability.  It will hit those who can least afford it and for businesses able to pass on the cost of this new tax, they will, increasing the cost of everything we buy, including housing.   It will squeeze construction workers who don’t have the option of toting their tools and supplies on bikes or on public transit.  The road tax will add to the cost of all materials being delivered to a site, hitting homebuyers yet again.

All this in a city that is already one of North America’s most expensive places to live. A recent CD Howe Institute study shows that Vancouver homeowners pay an average of $644,000 in government taxes and fees on every newly built home – that’s nearly half the price of a new home and its more than twice the percentage paid in taxes, fees and regulations compared to Toronto.

No wonder Vancouver is dead last in the Canadian Home Builders Association’s review of 23 major Canadian cities for progressive planning practices, low charges, and quick approvals.

Too many other city councils are following Vancouver’s lead by hiking fees and restricting supply. It’s a shocking and expensive fact that many projects take longer to get approved and permitted than to build.  It’s so bad, that two years ago, the World Bank ranked Canada #64 in the world in the length of time it takes to approve and permit a project.

On the one hand, people are desperately pleading for affordable housing, one the other, they pack council chambers in cities across BC railing against change in their neighbourhoods, forcing councils into full retreat.

Earlier this year, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Commission (CMHC) issued a report that laid out the facts on housing affordability and stated that the last time housing was affordable in Canada was in 2003 – two decades ago.  What has happened over the last 20 years, a cascade of red tape, regulations, taxes, fees and never-ending debates and delays on the desirability of new projects.

But CMHC also provided a solution, bring more housing supply on to the market.  This point was reiterated by the Bank of Canada – in fact every objective analysis of the housing affordability crisis we are now living through comes to the same conclusion, supply is not keeping pace with demand, and we need to build more and build it faster.

Yes, wages for people working in construction are increasing and building supplies cost more and take longer to order.  But it’s municipalities that have the single biggest influence on the cost of construction projects.

Voters in municipal elections this October can send a clear message and elect mayors and councillors committed to doing something meaningful about affordability.

The opportunity – elect candidates who will propose concrete ways to streamline bureaucracy, cut red tape, look for opportunities to speed up project approvals and permits, and hold the line on taxes and fees. Support those who have the ideas – and the courage – to stand up to the not-in-my-backyard activists who are making our communities less welcoming, less inclusive, and more expensive.

For the full September 2022 Construction Monitor on municipal effects on housing affordability, click HERE.

Less than two years since the last provincial election and barely a year since the last federal one, British Columbians are again being asked to head to the polls – this time municipally. For contractors – and anyone who cares about the state of B.C.’s construction industry and housing market – it’s time to get out and vote.

Municipalities may be the junior level of government, but their policies and procedures have a big influence on the viability and cost of construction projects. City-set fees, regulations and red tape are the key drivers of housing availability and affordability.

For many voters, this reality is out-of-sight and out-of-mind. But the research is clear and the scope of the impact is frankly shocking.

According to the CMHC, the last time housing was affordable was in 2003/04, nearly two decades ago! The regulatory burden adds significantly and largely unnecessarily to the cost of housing, particularly here in B.C.

Municipalities have many levers at their disposal to reduce the regulatory burden on housing affordability – not the least of which is better efforts to rein in their own run-away spending.

This October’s municipal elections are an opportunity to get affordability on the table. Candidates across the province need to be asked what they will do to reduce fees, to speed approvals, and re-think housing in order to tackle the affordability crisis head-on.

For the full September 2022 Construction Monitor on municipal effects on housing affordability, click HERE.

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

For the superstitious (and the little-bit-stitious), 13 can be an unlucky number. Most tall buildings skip floor 13, for example.

But the Mental Health Commission of Canada says there are 13 key factors which can positively impact an employee’s psychological safety. It takes more than luck to make these 13 things happen; it takes commitment, leadership and kindness. The 13:

1. Mental health concerns are supported and responded to
2. The workplace is characterized by trust, honesty and fairness
3. Clear leadership and expectations
4. People are respectful, considerate and support/help each other
5. Employees have the emotional and technical skills they need for their role
6. Employees receive encouragement and support to develop
7. Recognition and reward of employees’ efforts
8. Employees are included in discussions about how their work is done
9. Workloads are appropriately managed
10. Employees enjoy and feel connected to their work
11. There is recognition of the need for work/life balance
12. Employees feel able to ask questions, report mistakes, or share ideas
13. Appropriate action is taken to protect employees’ physical safety at work

Let’s work together to make these 13 things a reality on our job site or in our office today.

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 75 companies and 7,000+ construction professionals better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.

 

Each week, ICBA’s Jordan Bateman reflects on what we’ve learned as we participate in ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program. This program is free for all ICBA members – check out icba.ca/wellness for details.

It’s easy to get jaded with politicians sometimes, but Todd Doherty proves there are still good people doing good work in the House of Commons.

Todd, the MP for Cariboo-Prince George, was 14 years old when his best friend died by suicide. Decades later, still moved by the memory of his friend. Todd introduced a motion in Parliament to create 9-8-8 as an emergency phone number for people contemplating suicide. It’s taken years to get approved and off the ground, but he’s done it: the CRTC has announced it will make 9-8-8 happen.

Unsurprisingly, Todd was deeply moved:

“On the morning of Aug. 31, my team sent a tweet from the CRTC informing Canadians it will be bringing 9-8-8 to Canada. I pulled over my truck in the Canadian Tire parking lot and wept. I couldn’t stop the tears. For over an hour, I tried to compose myself. I still tear up just thinking about it.”

In an op-ed for iPolitics.ca, Todd writes about his friend’s death by suicide, and his work to get 9-8-8 up and running. Every Canadian should read it.

9-8-8, Canada’s new national suicide prevention phone number, will save lives. Thanks for leading the way on this, Todd Doherty.

ICBA’s Workplace Wellness Program is helping more than 75 companies and 7,000+ construction professionals better understand mental health. The program is free for ICBA members — see icba.ca/wellness.