March 17, 2010

Exit interview

Canadian Construction Association chair bids farewell

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

As he criss-crossed the country meeting with partner associations during the past year, outgoing Canadian Construction Association (CCA) chair Brad Greene routinely was peppered with questions about the federal infrastructure stimulus programs.

“Every time I went out to speak to our members, I was asked about the status of these programs, when the projects were coming out and what the rules were,” said Greene, CEO of Project Management Services Inc. of St. John’s.

“A lot of our time this past year was spent on tracking the roll-out of the various programs, trying to keep our members up to speed on what was going on and trying to gauge the impact in various areas of the country.”

From the CCA’s perspective, the programs announced in last year’s budget provided a much-needed boost to the Canadian economy and have been instrumental in increasing employment in the construction industry.

The association is pleased to see the federal government follow through on the second year of stimulus measures, but believes Canada needs to continue to invest in public infrastructure.

“Our members certainly were telling us that if it hadn’t been for the stimulus programs, they didn’t know what they would be doing this year, particularly in the heavy civil and roadbuilding side,” he said. “This meant a great deal to them.”

The need for a sustained infrastructure investment program was a key issue at the CCA’s groundbreaking summit on the future of the non-residential construction sector.

Greene said that he views the summit, as one of the association’s major accomplishments of the past year.

It was held in Toronto and attended by 110 industry representatives from across the country.

“Every one of our board members recognized that change is continuing in our industry,” he said.

“It seems that the rate of change in the way we do business and the way we serve our members is accelerating.”

A summary document of summit findings will be released at a members’ forum during the association’s annual conference this week. This data also is expected to prove useful when the CCA updates its strategic plan this fall.

Greene, a professional engineer who graduated from Memorial University in 1981 and set up Project Management Services 12 years later, said limiting contractor liability on federal renovation projects was another top priority during his term of office.

This matter had been on the agenda at annual Meech Lake meetings with federal contracting authorities for several years, with no progress being made.

However, at the 2009 event, government officials made a commitment to meet more frequently and to try and get this fixed.

“They’ve worked hard with us to come up with new contract language,” Greene said.

As a result, new federal contract provisions that will introduce reasonable limits on contractors’ risk are expected to come into effect April 1, at the start of the government’s new fiscal year.

“We’re pretty happy about that,” he said.

Greene, who has been active in association circles at both the provincial and national levels, is a past chair of the CCA’s general contractors council, said other CCA accomplishments in 2009 include:

• Construction industry research and innovation: CCA’s research and innovation committee has launched a ‘roadmap’ initiative to identify best practices to enhance research and innovation efforts.

The CCA has forged close ties with like-minded groups such as the National Research Council in Ottawa and the construction divisions of the Canadian and American civil engineering societies. It also is anxious to establish links with university research chairs.

“We want to let our members know what’s coming down the pike in terms of new technologies and also have some influence on the way research money gets spent in our industry,” Greene said.

• Promotion of industry documents: The CCA has worked with partner associations to make available a full set of both CCA and CCDC standard forms and guides for free to members firms. The association has received thousands of requests for the binder.

• Hosting of the annual meeting of the North American Construction Federation: The three participating associations agreed to promote development of strategies to bring about a new era of collaboration and support for research and innovation within the construction industry.

Other key initiatives were: establishment of a BIM taskforce and appointment of a representative to the board of the Canada BIM council; a renewed collaborative relationship with the Canada Green Building Council; and drafting of a P3 guide aimed at smaller firms.

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