After over 11 years on the board, Craig Lesurf has been named chair of the Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA).
Over the one-year term, Lesurf, who is also president of Gillam Group and a long-time safety advocate in the industry, said he plans to provide guidance for the organization but also finding ways to support the industry.
“The OGCA organization is a collection of general contractors that want to express a common voice,” said Lesurf. “I’ve always been one of those people that you either you put up or shut up. Rather than be quiet, I would want to help change the industry for the better and got involved in this organization that has the strength and the depth of OGCA.”
He has headed up the OGCA safety committee for years. He is also co-founder and former chair of the League of Champions, a cross-sectoral construction health and safety advocacy group founded in 2015. He plans to continue that focus going forward.
“What I’ve done is just had a voice and helped make change in the industry for the better,” said Lesurf. “Along my journey the first part was heavily in safety. I am still going to be doing safety. I have an initiative going on with the OGCA. In March, we’re going to host a safety summit on how to influence the future of construction in Ontario. That’s going to be a key. I want to keep the safety agenda going.”
Lesurf is taking over the position from Jim Blair, who now becomes past-chair. Harold Reinders, president of Maple Reinders, will take over as chair of the safety committee.
“We’ve got a Lobby Day coming up at Queen’s Park we’re going to be participating in,” said Lesurf. “We liaise with other organizations, we help lead change when it comes to documentation updating…There are other documents that we help author and support. We work with organizations like the Construction & Design Alliance of Ontario.
“Overall, it’s just about how to make us better as an industry.”
One of the biggest issues facing general contractors is fair contracts.
“We’re all about balanced contracts and making sure that the owners aren’t putting onerous supplementary general conditions in front of us,” said Lesurf. “That’s not fair to us because once we accept those supplementary general conditions then we pass them on down to our subtrades and so everybody in the food chain can be affected by our decisions. If there is something that’s unbalanced or unfair it often gets applied to us and then it gets applied down to the subtrades and suppliers. It’s up to us to be advocates for fair, balanced contracts.”
Lesurf said he is looking forward to working with OGCA president Giovanni Cautillo and the staff at the association.
“I’m looking at a number of things to help support the OGCA as a whole,” said Lesurf.
“I’m looking forward to working with Giovanni and OGCA staff…The idea is that I’m here to support them and they’re here to support me. Together we can do some good things for the OGCA and the industry.”
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