Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was clear in his message to several cabinet ministers: Innovation is needed in order to improve and support the economy, Canadian Construction Innovations (CCInnovations) president Pierre Boucher pointed out during a recent presentation.
In one way or another, it’s included in the mandate letters for the minister of innovation, science and economic development, the minister of procurement and the minister of transport.
"As Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, your overarching goal will be to help Canadian businesses grow, innovate and export so that they can create good quality jobs and wealth for Canadians," reads the letter to Navdeep Bains. "I expect you to partner closely with businesses and sectors to support their efforts to increase productivity and innovation."
It’s also exemplified in the mandate letter to Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote, where one of her top priorities is to "modernize procurement practices so that they are simpler, less administratively burdensome, deploy modern comptrollership, and include practices that support our economic policy goals, including green and social procurement."
For Boucher, the industry should heed the message stated by government and seize the opportunity before them by working to embrace new practices.
"Now is the time to discuss that with them (government) and say, how can we collaborate to make sure the projects go up faster, better?" he told attendees at the Ontario Road Builders’ Association‘s (ORBA) convention in Toronto last month. "Now is the time to tackle those issues, more than ever before."
It was a sentiment shared by ORBA executive director Geoff Wilkinson.
"We all know what innovation is to our industry and I think the public owners also understand," he said.
"We really don’t want the government to impose things like innovation within our contracts. I think it’s better for us as the industry to define innovation and how innovation works within our industry."
CCInnovations was established in 2013 to provide a framework, play a leadership role in securing research funding and promote industry-wide collaboration for innovation in construction.
It was the result of both a Canadian Construction Association challenge and a report commissioned by the federal government of that time, which called for a "clear focus on the commercialization of Canadian research and innovation," Boucher explained.
With the current government poised to spend nearly $125 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years, Boucher said the industry needs to start embracing new innovations in order to keep up with other parts of the world.
"You have to be creative to survive in this industry," he said.
Canada lags globally, he said, with a lack of performance in innovation, collaboration and integration. Previous World Economic Forum stats show the country ranks 23rd out of 144 countries in business sophistication, 27th in company R&D spending and 26th in capacity to innovate, Boucher noted.
"I have yet to see many companies that will have a line item in their balance sheet on their financial statement on innovation, but I think you will all agree that your line item for legal services is probably too high," he added.
Building Information Modeling (BIM), Boucher said, is one area where it’s evident the industry isn’t fully embracing a new system.
"BIM has been talked about for way too long," he said. "Some people said I will leave that to the next generation. This is a tool that cannot be ignored."
Boucher said overall Canada needs a stronger venture capital industry, government programs that are better aligned to the industry and the ability to create stronger relationships on innovation at top levels in the private and public sectors.
"We must learn how to enable, to create conditions under which innovation can flourish," he explained.
"We have foreign competition that’s there…they may have tools to make them more competitive. We need to realize that protectionism does not work. Integrating processes, integrating systems and collaboration, that is your strength."
CCInnovations has been working on many initiatives to bolster innovation and recently created a clearinghouse portal with the goal of becoming the "nerve centre" for construction innovation, Boucher explained in a previous interview with the Daily Commercial News. The Clearinghouse for Construction Innovation in Canada is intended to provide the industry with new innovative solutions ready for implementation in the construction marketplace. It also highlights what could be up and coming.
With the federal government recognizing the need for innovation, Boucher’s message to the industry was simple: "We know that the government expects industry to do better on innovation. They are willing to listen and work with you."
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