Victoria (February 18, 2022) – The Horgan government is sticking it to taxpayers and workers once again, with its decision to build a new $136.6 million Trades and Technology Complex through a so-called Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), according to the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA) whose member companies build major infrastructure and capital projects across the country.
“This is a government that clearly has no shame,” said Paul de Jong, President of the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA). ‘It’s a sad day for workers and taxpayers when the province chooses to keep building projects under a restrictive labour scheme that drives up costs and shuts the vast majority of workers out of public projects.”
PCA has been an outspoken critic of the B.C. styled CBA, which funnels public work exclusively to companies and workers affiliated with select Building Trades Unions. Key projects which fall under this arrangement include the Pattullo Bridge replacement, the Broadway Subway line and the Massey Tunnel replacement. This costly and unfair labour arrangement has discouraged contractors from bidding, raising projects costs for taxpayers by $400 million and counting.
“If B.C. is going to rebuild a healthier economy, its labour policies should encourage competition and provide good public value,” added de Jong. “Instead, the province keeps moving in the opposite direction.”
PCA believes it is astonishingly hypocritical for the B.C. government to claim it is boosting trades and training opportunities through a centre that is being built using a labour model that shuts most construction workers out of the project.
For more information on the B.C. government’s regressive labour policies go to: www.moneywellwasted.ca and www.fakecba.ca
About the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA)
PCA has been a leading voice in construction for more than two decades. Our member companies are responsible for 40 per cent of energy and natural resource construction projects in British Columbia and Alberta and are leaders in infrastructure construction across Canada. PCA member companies employ more than 25,000 skilled construction workers in Canada, represented primarily by CLAC.
For further information, contact:
Danna O’Brien, Danna@obriencommunications.ca 416-500-0699