October 6 , 2009

ICBA Commentary: Building Permits August 2009

The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA) offered the following commentary on today's Statistics Canada release of the building permits survey for August 2009.

“These numbers show that private sector investment in construction is increasing in BC, which is welcome news since we cannot rely solely on government to turn around our industry and our province,” said Philip Hochstein, President of the ICBA. “While residential housing is starting to get busier in some areas like Kelowna, residential building leads a healthy construction industry and we are concerned that things are still slow throughout the province.”

Hochstein added that with work focused on public projects, it is more important than ever to ensure that BC has an open tendering process. “Competition for work has risen significantly since the slowdown began, so we must ensure that tendering for construction work is fair, open and inclusive. The trend has been moving away from that at the expense of both contractors and taxpayers. Fair tendering must be restored.”

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