Vancouver fired its mayor. So did Surrey. So did Langley Township. Nine of ten Vancouver council seats went to the Greens, COPE and OneCity. Doug McCallum is back in Surrey at 82, promising a zero per cent tax increase and a SkyTrain to Newton. And on the same weekend, oil touched $110 while Alberta's barrel sold $26 under the benchmark.
Episode 43 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:
☕ THE BIG ONE: BC's cities turned over Saturday. Pete Fry beat Ken Sim by about 31,000 votes with turnout up 36 per cent; ABC went from seven council seats to ONE. McCallum took Surrey by 11,000. Jay Lundgren beat Eric Woodward in Langley Township, 18,302 to 15,459, and Langley Strong took six of eight council seats. Kamloops, Prince George, Richmond, Delta, New West, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, West Van, Port Moody — new mayors. Every one of them now sets your DCCs and your permit timeline.
🚧 Where the work is: Aecon wins the Bow River package on Calgary's Green Line — three bridges, Ogden Road, the Bow and Deerfoot — inside a $6.248 BILLION Phase 1. Contract value: not disclosed. Plus Terracap breaks ground on a 50,000-square-foot airside cargo building at the Edmonton airport.
🛢️ Alberta votes today on ten questions — with Brent at $110 and Alberta heavy crude selling $26 under WTI, the widest gap since 2023. Premier Smith says Pacific Link will be shovel-ready by fall 2027: "Very much so." Our test isn't the date. It's the first contract award.
👷 Ottawa's $430 MILLION for trades training goes through the Union Training and Innovation Program. In BC, open-shop contractors sponsor well over 80 per cent of apprentices. Fund the apprentice, not the hall.
🏠 Five days to the BC election: Stewart Muir takes apart the "LNG is 150 jobs" line: 9,400 workers on site at peak at LNG Canada, 59 million construction hours on Coastal GasLink.