One Outaouais contractor who does business in Quebec and Ontario says it often takes two to three times longer to finalize contracts here than in Doug Ford’s province.
“We have 15 school renovations this summer with work ranging from $10,000 to $1 million. “I have a lot of projects that could have been done in a day in Ontario that I have to spread out over several days in Quebec,” laments the Journal Olivier Desjardins, vice president of DLS Construction, in Gatineau.
According to a recent study by AppEco, commissioned by the Association de la construction du Québec (ACQ), construction productivity here is down 13% compared to Ontario.
“Quebec is below the Canadian average. The gap with Ontario remains,” said Guillaume Houle, spokesman for the ACQ.
“We need 11,000 workers. There are delays due to labor shortages, deadlines and rising public works costs, ultimately leaving the taxpayer footing the bill,” he says.
Last May, Le Journal told the story of a construction worker who, on the contrary, feared that the construction sector reform that Labor Minister Jean Boulet plans to introduce next autumn would force people to quit their jobs.
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However, for DLS Construction’s Olivier Desjardins, this heaviness is not theoretical and puts a very real pressure on him every day.
“We replaced a hundred windows in Quebec. We found rotted plywood. “We had to call the carpenter to remove this wood, when in Ontario we could have done both at once,” he explains.
The contractor also cites the example of repairing a school wall. While in Ontario the plasterer can do the repair and painting in one day, it is very different in Quebec, where it takes several trades and two to three days of work, he even goes so far as to say.
“To replace a drain in Ontario, the same person can cut, dig and rebar the concrete. It can be done in one day. In Quebec, the person cutting the concrete, installing the rebar and pouring the concrete is from another world,” he adds.
Photo courtesy of Olivier Desjardins
Contractor Olivier Desjardins manages 25 construction workers.
In the Journal, Olivier Desjardins says that having to hire three companies and three different trades on the same day is tedious, if only for reasons of time.
When asked if he thinks the fact that there is more commercial activity in Quebec pays off by driving up the overall cost of the renovation, he makes no secret of it: “We make more money and charge more,” he admits.
Still, he believes that given the labor shortage, it doesn’t make sense for companies like his to have to chase multiple occupations, as the industry could be more productive without this back-and-forth between occupations that drives up hours worked.
“If I had that less to find, it would help us,” he concludes.
– In collaboration with Philippe Langlois