KITCHENER-WATERLOO — The Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge and Hamilton Chambers of Commerce came together recently to express their concerns about the impact of construction labour monopolies on taxpayers, contractors, workers and municipal infrastructure budgets.
In doing so, the chambers joined associations such as the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association (OSWCA) and the Conestoga Heavy Construction Association (CHCA), which have been calling on regional and municipal governments to do their part to stop what they view as restricted construction tendering.
A special luncheon was held Dec. 6 to discuss the impact of restricted tendering practices particularly in the Waterloo and Hamilton regions. Currently, only select companies affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners are allowed to compete for projects in those regions, a release highlights.
Local elected officials should be pushing back and providing leadership on this issue
— Giovanni Cautillo
OSWCA
“We’re delighted local business leaders recognize that our local governments need to step up and be heard,” said Sean Reid, vice-president and regional Ontario director for the PCA.
“There’s nothing fair about shutting the vast majority of local contractors and their workers out of local projects. Local politicians should be strong and vocal advocates of provincial labour law changes. Instead they’re making a bad situation worse by not speaking up on an issue that impacts every one of their constituents.”
Construction associations are concerned that qualified local contractors and their workers have been prevented from bidding on an increasing number of local projects, even though the work falls outside a region’s certification by the carpenters, states a release issued by the CHCA.
“The reality is that healthy construction competition no longer exists in Hamilton or Waterloo Region,” said Mike Doupe, vice-president, McLean Taylor Construction Limited. “We’ve seen numerous projects in the region involving only one bidder. Now that’s just wrong…Local contractors have raised the issue with the Region of Waterloo, but no elected officials seem concerned about fairness or the waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Giovanni Cautillo, executive director of the OSWCA, said local contractors are being shut out of projects in the Region of Waterloo even though that work falls outside the scope of the Region’s certification with the Carpenters’.
“Local elected officials should be pushing back and providing leadership on this issue, rather than allowing it to go on,” said Cautillo.
“Our concern is that sewer and watermain contractors, who have been successfully performing this work for decades, won’t be allowed to keep working on Region of Waterloo projects unless elected officials step up and address this issue. The question is, why aren’t they?”
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