"Election is Done...Now What?"

With the PC Party obtaining a firm majority mandate moving forward, what does that mean for our sector and how is the OGCA engaging to ensure that the voice of the General Contractors is being heard?

Luckily for the OGCA, we can continue our existing engagement with the PC Party in all of our prevailing capacities as well as expanding our outreach to include Ministries that the OGCA has not historically had a high degree of interaction with.

Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development

To date, over the past four years, the OGCA has worked closely with the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development (MLTSD) to firmly communicate the labour shortage that our sector and the entire construction industry is facing. The government heard our plight and spent a great deal of resources on highlighting and incentivizing the skilled trades. The MLTSD commenced a campaign to promote trades at the grade school level, since this is the correct time to expose children to the potential found in construction.

Additionally, through the MLTSD Chief Prevention Office (CPO) the OGCA has worked diligently with the previous Chief Prevention Officer, Ron Kelusky, and the now current CPO, Dr. Joel Moody, in addressing the health and safety of our workers with a particular emphasis on prevention. The OGCA sees this relationship deepening since Health and Safety are one of our foundational pillars for the association.

Lastly, the OGCA has a dynamic relationship with the MLTSD Inspectorate. This is the division of the MLTSD that deals specifically with enforcement. The OGCA has been in communication with this division to express what the industry perceives as our need for more consistency and evenhandedness with regard to overall industry inspections. Furthermore, the OGCA has communicated that through the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) downloading too much risk onto our Site Supervisors will ultimately have a detrimental effect on that role in our industry and make it exponentially more difficult to attract new individuals to that role.

All of these discussions, as well as others, will continue with the MLTSD as we continue to navigate this Ministry.

Regarding the new Ministries that the OGCA has indicated that our sector needs to have a greater degree of interaction and an active working relationship, the OGCA will be seeking to engage fulsomely with the following:

Ministry of Education

The OGCA has recognized that the Ministry of Education can help to solve many general contractor issues at the project level if they were to structure their funding to school board slightly differently than they have traditionally. This structure has clearly come to light due to the global supply chain issues that our sector faces and hence it behooves the OGCA to engage with the Ministry of Education and “educate” them about how ICI construction works from a fundamental process level.

Ministry of Transportation

Historically, the OGCA may have engaged with this Ministry on specific projects that may have positively affected our members. I don’t believe that you only visit someone when you need something, but instead the OGCA needs to have an open and fluid dialogue with this Ministry as more and more transportation encompasses transit and other forms that would advantage our members. During my tenure, the OGCA has worked well with the Ministry of Transportation on high level communications to our members to ensure that mobile cranes and pump trucks had their requisite vehicle certification stickers. The OGCA wants to parlay this good working relationship into an even deeper regard.

Ministry of Health

It is clear that spending for hospitals and other medical facilities will remain constant and possibly increase, therefore ensuring that the OGCA is at the table to assist in the creation of any future project development or help in navigating existing ones is critical. We want to offer the Ministry our expertise, through direct engagement with our members, to enhance how hospitals are being constructed. Our members have a multitude of experiences from all over the world in how to better deliver hospitals and medical facilities and that knowledge would greatly enhance project delivery at the Ministry of Health.

Ministry of Long-Term Care

Over the past four years, we have witnessed a number of announcements from the PC government on the subject of long-term care facilities. They have demonstrated that they are open to new and innovative ways of construction, and I believe that the OGCA can offer a specific viewpoint to better assist this process as well. Now that we have a few projects underway or completed through the government’s “Long-Term Care Modernization Plan,” that data needs to be assessed to make improvements, where possible, to make for a more streamlined system. The OGCA wants to be part of this process.

These are the top Ministries the OGCA has highlighted for interaction and engagement. Our ultimate goal is to formulate a deeper rooted and robust working relationship with each Ministry and have the OGCA, and all of its members, be recognized as assets in the formulation of the planning and execution for how to best build Ontario.

Should any of our members have questions regarding the OGCA’s overall advocacy plan, or if you require any assistance from the OGCA, please contact me directly at giovanni@ogca.ca or via phone at 905.671.3969.