Local construction associations say they don’t anticipate any significant impacts coming out of new provincial and federal regulations that will require public-sector entities to prioritize Canadian-made goods and services.
In September, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a policy change that will require suppliers that contract with the federal government to source key materials from Canadian companies for construction projects.
That policy came into effect in November. It is currently applied to contracts worth more than $25 million and applies to steel, aluminum and softwood lumber orders with a value of more than $250,000.
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The Ontario government followed suit with the introduction of its Buy Ontario Act. If passed, the act would require public sector-organizations – including municipalities – to prioritize first Ontario and then Canadian goods and services on public procurement, including construction projects.
Like the federal policy, the provincial legislation would apply initially to steel, aluminum and softwood lumber.
Although the scope of these regulations apply to many local construction projects – particularly those procured by the City of Ottawa and the federal government – local construction associations say they don’t expect the implications of the changes will be significant.
The Ottawa Construction Association represents the majority of the region’s non-residential construction contractors. Association president and general manager John DeVries told OBJ that the industry began looking at ways to boost its domestic material supply chains earlier this year, when the tariff tensions between Canada and the United States began to heat up.
“A lot of these products (softwood, steel and aluminum) are mostly sourced from Canadian suppliers already,” he said. “The challenge for some sectors of the industry will be how they manage the extra costs associated with bringing in materials or specialty products that are produced in the United States.”
Although critical to some activities, DeVries said specialty products usually account for only a small scope of any single project – unlike key materials like wood and steel.
Jason Burggraaf, executive director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association, said the impact of the changes is unlikely to be significant among his members, too.
Builders diversified their supply chains during the pandemic, he said, and have created the redundancies they need to weather any potential supply shocks. In the bigger picture, much of the work performed by local home builders is privately funded and therefore not subject to the regulatory changes.
“The only trouble I can foresee coming out of this is if there is a downstream impact to material suppliers,” Burggraaf said. “If more emphasis on purchasing from Canadian suppliers creates shortages among those suppliers, that could lead to price escalations. But that’s a longer-term consideration.”
