By Mark Buckshon
As the Christmas holiday season and New Year approaches, I’m taking a few minutes to reflect on the year, which marked several milestones.
Among the year’s accomplishments, our team successfully launched Ontario Construction News as a new daily construction newspaper. We discovered that while it is certainly challenging to publish every day, it can be done with co-ordination and systems.
The new business has succeeded despite some unexpected competitive surprises. In the next few weeks, we’ll introduce some new features to make the publication even more effective and useful, while adhering to the specific laws and regulations necessary to allow it to publish Certificates of Substantial Performance (CSP) and other legal notices as mandated by the Ontario Construction Act.
As for competitive surprises, I’ll adhere to my long-standing practice never to speak negatively about competitors, at least in earshot of anyone outside of our own organization. However, the twists and turns in this story – especially as the other competitors “dis” each other (and to some extent, us) in public messages – are creating plenty of moments of tension and sometimes humour.
One thing is certain: When we set up Ontario Construction News as a daily digital publication, we decided that it needed to have the look, feel and characteristics of a traditional printed newspaper – a point proven when you read Section 57 of The Legislation Act (2006), the governing law for Ontario’s legal public notice advertisements. We’re confident that we’ve achieved true compliance with the law, while saving our advertisers thousands of dollars each year on their mandatory notices.
Another change that happened quietly this year involved a corporate restructuring to simplify our business and make it totally debt free – freeing us from stress, financing costs, and allowing the business to continue effectively in the years ahead.
I’m looking forward to 2019 and hope that you and everyone around you have a great year ahead.
Mark Buckshon is president of the Construction News and Report group of companies. He can be reached at buckshon@cnrgp.com.
