Ottawa Construction News staff writer

The massive excavation pit in front of Parliament Hill’s Centre Block is finally transforming into a structure, marking a pivotal turning point in the largest heritage rehabilitation project in Canadian history.

During a media tour of the construction site in late November, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) revealed that crews have begun pouring concrete for the lowest basement level of the new Parliament Welcome Centre. The milestone signals the shift from the precarious excavation phase—often dubbed the “Big Dig”—to the structural rebuild of the parliamentary precinct.

The project is being managed by a joint venture of PCL Constructors Canada Inc. and EllisDon Corp., which oversees the complex logistics of the estimated $4.5 billion to $5 billion renovation. However, the specialized task of excavating 40,000 truckloads of bedrock and shoring up the historic building was subcontracted to Ottawa-based Taggart Construction.

Floating the building

The most delicate engineering feat is occurring directly beneath the neo-Gothic structure. Taggart crews have been working to transfer the building’s load onto a temporary support network to allow for the installation of a base isolation system.

“Right now, we have steel piles… and that right now is holding up Parliament,” Joe Farquharson, a superintendent with Taggart Construction, told CTV News during the tour.

Farquharson’s team has driven steel piles around the perimeter of the existing footings. This temporary skeleton allows workers to excavate beneath the foundation to install more than 500 seismic isolators. These “shock absorbers” will eventually separate the building from the earth, protecting it from earthquakes by reducing impact forces by up to 60 per cent.

The Welcome Centre rises

While Taggart manages the shoring, the wider team is focused on the new 23-metre-deep Parliament Welcome Centre. This three-storey underground facility will eventually serve as the public’s central entry point, connecting the West, Centre, and East Blocks with a secure concourse.

Construction has advanced to the installation of footings, walls, and elevator shafts. By spring 2026, five cranes will tower over the site to accelerate the structural work.

Peace Tower to disappear

The skyline of the capital is also set for a major change. PSPC confirmed that starting in the spring of 2026, a steel scaffolding frame will begin rising around the 92-metre-tall Peace Tower.

To minimize visual disruption for tourists, the scaffolding will be wrapped in a decorative tarp featuring a trompe-l’œil image of the tower, according to a report by CBC News.

Jennifer Garrett, assistant deputy minister of the science and parliamentary infrastructure branch, told a parliamentary committee that the framework is necessary for safe access to complete masonry repairs and window replacements. She noted that 65 per cent of the steel used in the project is Canadian-made.

Budget and timeline

Despite the progress, officials cautioned that the project faces ongoing pressures.

“We’ve had COVID, we’ve had inflation, we’ve had labour shortages, so those give us challenges,” Siavash Mohajer, senior construction director with PSPC, said in an interview with CTV News. “But we’re always agile and ready to readapt to those challenges.”

The Centre Block has been closed since late 2018. If the current schedule holds, construction will wrap up in 2031, with the building reopening to the public in 2032 following a year of commissioning.Relevant Video:

This official project update video visually documents the “rebuild” phase described in the story, including the excavation work and the structural reinforcement mentioned by the sources.

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Ontario Construction News staff writer

Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) has broken ground on Gladstone Village, a downtown Ottawa development that includes 336 new affordable homes in its first phase.

The first phase was designed by Diamond Schmitt and KWC Architects and the general contactor is Pomerleau Construction.

“We are proud to partner with OCH to deliver affordable homes that meet modern living standards. This project represents a significant step towards addressing Ottawa’s housing needs while prioritizing sustainability,” said Louis-Philippe Sylvestre, senior vice president at Pomerleau.

The Gladstone Village development represents a significant milestone in our mission to expand affordable housing options,” said Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe “With 336 new homes, this project will provide individuals and families with access to high-quality, affordable living spaces, addressing the ongoing demand for affordable housing.”

“Our design for Gladstone Village aims to foster community and interaction among residents, with enhanced amenity spaces and outdoor terraces that connect to the surrounding neighbourhood and upcoming LRT line,” said Nigel Tai, principal at Diamond Schmitt Architects.

The development will offer a range of housing options suitable for families, seniors, and individuals. The homes will be managed by OCH’s affordable housing branch, ARRIV Properties.

“We are honoured to continue our collaboration with OCH, focusing on raising the standards of affordable living communities that prioritise social diversity, inclusion, and sustainability,” said Ran Zaig, Partner at KWC Architects.

Construction will meet Passive House standards and be district energy-ready, featuring high-efficiency heating and cooling systems along with wastewater heat recovery, reinforcing the commitment to environmental responsibility.

The initial phase sets the foundation for further development, with plans to construct up to 1,100 new homes over the next five years, providing a scalable solution to Ottawa’s affordable housing crisis.

“This groundbreaking marks the start of a transformative project that will ultimately provide up to 1,100 affordable homes on this eight-acre site,” said Stéphane Giguère, CEO of Ottawa Community Housing Corporation. “The development will have an estimated $375 million economic impact and create 1,800 new jobs, demonstrating our commitment to building vibrant and sustainable communities.”

For more information about the Gladstone Village project and Ottawa Community Housing, please visit www.och-lco.ca.

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Ottawa Construction News staff writer

With the federal budget tabled on April 16, the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA) has outlined what it believes are key initiatives aimed at addressing the housing crisis across the nation.

The association says that the government’s commitment to building nearly 3.9 million homes by 2031 underscores the urgent need for supply-side measures to help combat affordability.

In a statement, GOHBA executive director Jason Burggraaf said: “We applaud the federal government for investing in a diverse range of initiatives related to the housing and development industry.”

The budget proposes extending mortgage amortization for first-time homebuyers, expanding the Home Buyers’ Plan, increasing the use of factory-built components, and improving access to low-cost financing for rental apartment buildings.

The GOHBA also supports the creation of a Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund, which the government previously announced will help to finance home building projects across the country.

Burggraaf added that the association agrees with the government’s intention to develop an Industrial Strategy for Homebuilding.

He said: “GOHBA’s federal counterpart, the Canadian Home Builders’ Association, has a Sector Transition Strategy which outlines how this can unfold and why this type of strategy is necessary to increase productivity.”

The GOHBA says that it is committed to working with policymakers and industry stakeholders to help implement innovative solutions to the housing crisis in Ottawa and across the nation.

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Ottawa Construction News staff writer

To help the City of Ottawa achieve its goal of building 151,000 new homes by 2032, the Ontario government has announced funding of $37.5 million for the construction of 10,313 new homes in 2023.

“This provincial funding will help Ottawa create the conditions for builders and community agencies to build homes faster,” Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said in an April 5 statement. “We have an ambitious but achievable target that I believe we can reach by working together.”

The funding is being provided through the Building Faster Fund, a $1.2-billion program that is designed to encourage municipalities across Ontario to address the housing supply crisis by providing funding for housing- and community-enabling infrastructure projects that are aimed at speeding up the housing supply process.

“I applaud the work being done by Ottawa and all the other municipalities that are making substantial progress toward their housing targets and I’m proud to see these communities helping lead the province when it comes to building homes,” said Paul Calandra, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Ottawa has reached 99 per cent of its target of 110,000 new homes for 2023, with the city recording the highest number of rental starts in a recorded history of 18,992 in 2023.

“Today’s provincial funding announcement of $37.5 million for the City of Ottawa underscores the Ontario government’s dedication to supporting the construction of new housing supply and improving housing affordability in the region,” said Jason Burggraaf, executive director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA).

“This funding, allocated through the Building Faster Fund, is a direct response to Ottawa’s strides toward its 2023 target for new home construction. The GOHBA welcomes the positive impact that today’s announcement will have on the development of housing in the region.”

The province has also announced $1 billion in Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program funding and a quadrupling of the provincial Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund to $825 million as part of its plan to reach its goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.

The funding announced on April 5 will help the city of Ottawa achieve its goal of building 151,000 new homes by 2032, and is part of a broader provincial effort to address the housing crisis by increasing housing supply and improving housing affordability across Ontario.

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Special to Ottawa Construction News

Did you know the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is currently looking for submissions from qualified suppliers to design, build, and commission a Deep Geological Repository for safely managing Canada’s used nuclear fuel?

The NWMO is on a 175-year journey to build this first of its kind in Canada facility and is now seeking qualifications from suppliers in the fields of Design/Engineering, Construction, Mining, Shafts, Headframes, Hoisting and Nuclear Management.

Here’s your chance to be a part of history by securing a future where Canada’s used nuclear fuel is safely managed.

For more information and to submit your interest, visit Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) :: Bid Details (biddingo.com).

Sponsored feature

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By Mark Buckshon

Publisher, Ottawa Construction News

It’s been three years since we launched the sister publication to Ottawa Construction News, with the same OCN acronym. Ontario Construction News has succeeded in breathing some competition into the province’s construction news industry, and allowed me to fulfill a lifetime dream of publishing a daily newspaper.

When I started my career as a journalist while at university in the early-to-middle 1970s, my first dream was to write for a daily. That happened quickly enough when I snared a part-time job as a police reporter at the Vancouver Province.

After graduating in 1976, I set out on a few years of travel and adventure, celebrating my 27^th birthday in Monrovia, Libera, a week after a military coup in the West African nation. I had worked for 18 months as a sub-editor on the Bulawayo Chronicle, living through the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, filing stories to Canada for the Southam News agency.

The Liberian story, filed by telex the day before I returned home to Vancouver, would be my last experience with live journalism until I started this business in 1988.

Yes, owning a specialized construction news publishing business certainly provided to be much more enjoyable for me than pushing press releases around for a federal government department. But monthly cycle publications, like this one, lack the daily adrenalin challenge of daily news publishing.

The new Ontario Construction Act, and its provision allowing for the publication of Certificates of Substantial Performance (CSP) and other legal notices in electronic publications, gave us the economic framework to start the business, but we still needed to build systems and capacity to handle the immediate and daily publishing cycle.

There have been harrowing and challenging moments, but the daily newspaper has succeeded. We’ve developed the capacity to handle urgent and breaking stories (such as the triennial ‘strike season’) and fill the pages with news on less-exciting days.

I’m certainly lucky to regain the joy and challenge of daily journalism, and am thankful for the team working on this project, who I expect will have an ownership stake in the business within the next three years.

Mark Buckshon is president of the Construction News and Report Group, which publishes Ottawa Construction News and Ontario Construction News. He can be reached by email at bu******@***gp.com.

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By Jeffrey Street

Special to Ottawa Construction News

Like many small and medium-sized businesses in Eastern Ontario, Ottawa-based McDonald Brothers Construction (MBC) worries about finding the skilled workers it needs to pursue a growing number of opportunities in the institutional, commercial, and industrial building sector it serves.

For Allessandro Guarna, the company’s vice-president of finance, a sensible solution is to take advantage of a provincially funded skills development program aimed at reducing the current labour shortage and upskilling incumbent workers so they can contribute more.

“Any labourer can come to a job site and push a broom around, but if you want people to add greater value and fill the gaps that are out there you need them to be trained to a point where they can work safely and independently in a wider range of roles,” says Guarna. “So I think it’s a really great thing that we have this program in place to support the industry.”

He’s referring to an initiative funded by SkillsAdvance Ontario and co-ordinated by the Eastern Ontario College Consortium/Consortium des Collèges de l’Est de l’Ontario (EOCC-CCEO), a coalition of five colleges that came together in 2019 to support the training needs of key growth sectors in the region.

The consortium offers innovative, sector-based training to help businesses onboard new workers and upskill and retain existing employees. Recognizing that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to training, it works with employers to offer tailored solutions in the full range of workforce development areas, including custom onboarding, mandatory health and safety training — such as first aid, machine and equipment safety, and Covid-related health and safety courses — construction project management, supervisory training, construction technologies, stress management, general labourer training and more.

The program is not only free for employers who qualify but also designed to avoid common perceived pitfalls of funded training, such as burdensome paperwork, lengthy application processes and inflexible scheduling.

“We often dismiss a lot of these kinds of programs because we don’t meet all the criteria to participate,” explains Guarna. “But in this case, it’s very open-ended. Just about every employer in the construction industry I can think of can benefit from it.”

According to Guarna, the cost savings to MBC are a genuine bonus.

“Normally, we might identify a few people within our company who show promise and send them off for skills development. That costs us per head, but with this program we’re able to get more people trained and generally be more creative,” Guarna explains. “I set up a plans reading course, for example, and arranged to make it available for anyone in the company who wanted to attend. We had quite a good turnout.”

In fact, more than half of the company’s 45 employees participated in the course, which, he says, “was really cool.”

He adds: “In addition to the business value to the company in having people exposed to that kind of training, it helps position us as an employer of choice that wants to engage and motivate its staff. That’s one of the hidden values. You don’t always think about it, but it’s there.”

Beyond the direct benefits to MBC, Guarna recognizes the program’s value through his experience as past president of the General Contractors Association of Ottawa. He also sits on the EOCC-CCEO’s advisory committee of industry insiders who help guide the consortium and ensure that training offered to employers remains relevant.

“Take advantage of this,” Guarna urges others in the industry. “You don’t want to wait until it’s too late and you can’t find the right people to perform the jobs you need filled. Now’s the time to upskill your existing labour force, too. The program is not going to last forever — use it or lose it,” he recommends.

To learn more about this unique program, contact the EOCC-CCEO at in**@*******eo.ca, call 1-844-853-0326 or visit 

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Publisher, Ottawa Construction News

What a year it’s been, and what a year it will be.

COVID-19  has made for a challenging and at times frustrating year for contractors, suppliers, and design professionals. Yet the industry has persevered and – allowing for some painful adjustments and work stoppages – has done surprisingly well despite the health and economic tensions surrounding us.

There are reasons for optimism.  Successful introduction of vaccines should, as 2021 progresses, ease the public health crisis, and there is now near-universal recognition that government spending on infrastructure is a good thing. The construction industry in Ottawa has fared better than many other places — with infrastructure work continuing and new projects moving through the planning process, though of course there have been delays.

Notably, the construction industry adapted effectively this year to stringent public health requirements in part because construction demands higher-than-normal attention to safety. Site cleanliness and sanitation conditions will likely continue to be maintained, even after social distancing are relaxed and the N-95 masks will return to their conventional site safety respiratory purposes without interfering with medical requirements.

You’ll probably read this note as Christmas approaches in the subdued pandemic environment without the traditional seasonal parties and events. However, we can look forward to the New Year with much promise, hope and opportunity.

Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year!

            Mark Buckshon is president of the Construction News and Report Group and Ottawa Construction News’ publisher. He can be reached by email at bu******@***gp.com or by phone at (888) 627-8717 ext 224.

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Special to Ottawa Construction News

The amazing power of the pair of amygdala glands in our brains was shared with readers earlier, in “The biggest problem of all,” which described how the two amygdalae helped us achieve success.

Today, we will discover how these same glands lead to worldwide misery including confusion within your business environment.

Quick summary of the amygdala

Sometimes called the emotion centre, the two amygdalae react quickly to any change or perceived threat such as even a friend coming stealthily behind you. That ‘startling’ has a response time of microseconds.To ensure your continued survival, besides its immediate response capability, the amygdalae trigger, within your body, more powerful adrenaline flow, increased white blood cell production, preparation for fight or flight and 45 other ‘uncontrollable’ but automatic, activities.

One of the glands’ downsides is that they diminish our ability to think, as the price of enhancing our ability to react swiftly. That is why we stumble for words or answers during this moment of emergency or make ‘stupid’ choices, then. The power of the amygdalae subsides a few hours later after the threat has been dealt with, and all systems return to normal.

Despite this yo-yo of emotions, in the long run it ensures survival: after our continuous stupid reactions, including humans’ endless murders and wars, this planet’s population has kept growing to our present eight billion.

Me first

A power towards our survival provided by the amygdalae is the ‘me-first’ attitude. In the moment of emergency our focus is on saving ourselves. Two best-friend warriors will fight one another viciously to get into the foxhole that accommodates only one person. To keep the species going, Mother Nature’s first priority is for each of us to survive. It trumps all other human considerations because, if we don’t focus on our survival, our species’ future becomes improbable; hence, the selfish function of the amygdalae.

Co-operation

Along the way of our development, we animals (humans, wolves, dogs, whales, bees, etc.) learned that we could achieve more by co-operating rather than constantly carrying the ‘me-first’ attitude. Cities, which are nothing less than centres for human co-operation, are growing more quickly than the surrounding counties or countries.

Amygdala dominance

As wise as it may be to co-operate, at the instant when our own survival is on the line, the amygdalae override all other brain operations to save us from a perceived danger. At this moment, cooperation, while useful in the longer term, is a less immediate consideration and quickly gets thrown out the window.

Result of that dominance on the human landscape

The environment we live in is highly co-operative: marriages, teamwork, businesses, human endeavours, and country nationalism. How could we construct a 60-story building without co-operation? Yet, always lurking in the background are the amygdalae ready to pounce in an instant in order to save me as an individual. What more ‘me-first’ evidence do we need than, for example, that which we have seen of some peoples’ reaction to the Covid-19 crisis? Thus, while we go about our usual day-to-day cooperative roles, a perceived personal emergency can trigger the important ‘me-first’ gland pair which manifests itself, in our times, as:

• Male domination over females
• Leader domination over subservients
• Race domination
• Countries dominating other countries
• Marriage problems
• Partnership problems
• Political problems
• Parents overlording their children

The point is, that within your business, most of the time, things flow smoothly as individuals cooperate with one another. But every so often an employee reacts strongly (feels threatened) and the results of his or her amygdalae operation bursts onto the scene and takes over the whole person’s environment – and, frequently, that of workers nearby.

Conclusion

While we are not attempting to excuse human misbehaviour, we are trying to explain it. People you hire, work diligently eight hours a day to co-operate within your company but for a few moments of that day, the basic animal within each, has little choice but to react to any perceived (real or imaginary) threat in a totally selfish manner.

When it happens near you, the solution is for you to focus on defusing the excited person’s emotions.  As a quick answer, the least you can do is offer sympathy to the individual’s concern even if you can’t imagine why such a trivial item would matter at all. Avoid defending your own position because it only sounds as if you are justifying the threat. For goodness sakes, refrain from blaming the other person because all you would be doing is adding to the threat, i.e. triggering the person’s amygdalae to make more misery for you.

Good luck.

Bill Caswell leads the Caswell Corporate Coaching Company (CCCC) in Ottawa, www.caswellccc.com or email bi**@********cc.com.

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We were lucky. The following week, a painter fixed up my home office as I attended some large association activities, including the Ottawa Construction Association’s Annual General Meeting and a day-long program co-ordinated by BECOR and Construction Specifications Canada’s Ottawa chapter about heritage restoration. We gathered in indoor meeting rooms with buffet-catered meals.

A couple of days later, the lockdown began. The N-95 masks I had purchased in January, fearing for our safety because of Australian wild fires, turned out to have an entirely different practical application.

Then, as the economic consequences of the public health crisis became apparent, I initially recoiled in fear, then relief. Our business checked all the right boxes for two key government assistance programs, the Canadian Emergency Business Account (CEBA) and the Canada Employee Wage Subsidy (CEWS).  In fact, because we had always operated with a remote home office employee/employer model, we were perfectly equipped to weather the COVID-19 storm.

As mid-August approaches, our business will claim what is likely its final CEWS subsidy payment, relatively well-positioned for the fall and winter months ahead. However, I know the story isn’t so positive for other businesses, especially trade contractors whose business structure and payment schedules have left them outside the box for the initial support programs, and who will find the updated government assistance opportunities both complicated and bureaucratic (and probably inadequate).

I know some annual traditions won’t be as usual this fall – the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association (GOHBA) Housing Design Awards Gala in October will be an online-only event this year, and the Buildings Show in Toronto will need to be much more constrained and less crowded this year if it is to happen in a real as well as virtual format.

Nevertheless, while there will be some casualties, I am optimistic that we’ll largely be out of the crisis by this time next year – and many of us can begin thinking of further overseas vacations and adventures next winter.

If you have questions or suggestions about topics explored within this month’s issues, please let me know by emailing bu******@***gp.com.

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