Farm builder helms Ontario's construction industry group
Thursday, April 2, 2015
by SUSAN MANN
A member of the Canadian Farm Builders Association, Gary van Bolderen, is the new chair of a province-wide construction industry group that represents the sector at Queen’s Park.
Van Bolderen says the Council of Ontario Construction Associations includes all sectors of the construction industry, such as drywall installers, carpenters and others along with related associations. The council is a “collective voice for the whole industry across Ontario with Queen’s Park,” he says.
He has been with the Farm Builders since 1980 and has served as president of that organization two or three times. He has also been on various committees. Van Bolderen has been a member of the council for eight to 10 years, serving on its executive committee and representing the Farm Builders on the board. Every organization’s representative is on the council’s board, he notes.
Van Bolderen’s Barrie-based business, Dutch Masters Construction Services Ltd., focuses on designing and building horse barns.
It’s a big deal to have a member of the Farm Builders serve as chair of the council, he says. Farm Builders is a very small group with a relatively small number of members, about 250 to 300. The member companies have limited time and money to represent themselves at Queen’s Park, he says. “Even us as a (farm builders) association, we don’t have the resources to make submissions, go to different committees, do research and all that.”
That’s why Farm Builders joined the council, which is recognized as the Ontario construction industry’s overall voice, van Bolderen explains. “If the government wants a feel for what’s happening in the construction industry or to get an opinion,” it will contact the council.
One matter builders are concerned about is the Ontario College of Trades, formed by the provincial government in 2009. The college has the potential to make more trades compulsory. Currently there are 135 trades and some of them, such as electricians, broiler makers, crane operators and plumbers, are compulsory trades. Van Bolderen says that means, “if you want electrical work done (for example) it has to be done by someone that’s been trained and certified.” The certification is done by the Ontario College of Trades.
If the College of Trades makes other trades, such as roofers or carpenters, compulsory “we are kind of concerned it will have a great impact on our industry,” he says. “We are smaller companies and we come from smaller population areas and the mobility of the skills may limit the efficiencies of people having the ability to build buildings.”
Van Bolderen says adding more compulsory trades would make it impossible for workers to overlap their work. For example, if a roofer finds he/she must replace a piece of rotted plywood as part of a roofing job, he/she would not be able to do the replacement unless “there’s a carpenter there.”
Other matters the council and farm builders association are involved in include being on committees at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, the review of the Construction Liens Act, and the need for prompt payment legislation for general contractors, sub-contractors and others in the industry. Sometimes people in the industry are taking 90 to 120 days to issue payments, and the delay makes it difficult for companies that have to pay their workers and cover other costs, he says. BF