Rocking the Block: Meet the women behind one of the biggest and most complex restoration projects in Canada

In fact, the project is the biggest and most complex in Canada and perhaps the world. It is expected to be complete by 2030 or 2031, with a budget of nearly $5 billion. Built nearly a century ago after the original Parliament Building was destroyed by fire, Centre Block houses Canada’s Senate, House of Commons and Library of Parliament. It also includes the Memorial Chamber that commemorates Canadian citizens who gave their lives in military service. As defined in the “Long-Term Vision and Plan for Ottawa’s Parliamentary Precinct,” the Centre Block rehabilitation project emerged from two decades of planning. The vision is to modernize the physical setting, security and support infrastructure while honouring Centre Block’s heritage as the epicentre of Canadian democracy. The design entails reorganizing and renovating the entire 1922 Beaux Arts Parliament Building, its iconic 302-foot Peace Tower and adjacent grounds. This includes the construction of a new underground visitors welcome centre and several ancillary projects. While it’s hard to miss the beehive of activity, what has gone largely unnoticed is the unusually high number of women leading the project, from both the public and private sectors, in what some might consider non-traditional roles. OBJ spoke to four of the women to get their perspective on the work.

JENNIFER GARRETT, DIRECTOR GENERAL, CENTRE BLOCK REHABILITATION PROJECT, PUBLIC SERVICES AND PROCUREMENT CANADA

Jennifer Garrett is the public face of the project on the federal government side. Garrett leads a relatively small team of 30 public servants who oversee the construction and design elements, which are contracted to industry partners. Of that team, more than two-thirds are women, which is an unusually high number of female faces for any construction project. Garrett tells OBJ that recruiting strong teams that are inclusive and diverse has been a goal throughout her career.

“I've been in the public service for over 20 years and quite a significant number of years as an executive, always working in non-traditional environments. Before coming to this program, I spent 10 or 11 years with National Defence in a role that was not typically female. I've always wanted to represent women and also encourage participation of women,” she says. Garrett says her various positions in defence, procurement and real property, often as the first woman in such prominent roles, have led her to embrace the additional burden of being a trailblazer. “You have to work a lot harder as a woman to establish credibility when you shouldn't (have to) and I just want to continue to drive forward and have those conversations and continue to raise the profile of women across the public service,” she notes.

ASHA-RANI BOUCHER-SHARMA, PROJECT DIRECTOR, CENTRE BLOCK

Asha-Rani Boucher-Sharma reports to Garrett and is responsible for $3 billion of the $5-billion overall budget. Boucher-Sharma trained as an engineer and began her career in municipal construction projects, where male faces and leadership were the norm. “There were very few women in the civil engineering field of work,” she says.

While working with Defence Construction Canada, for example, Boucher-Sharma led a team of 60 to 80 people in the remote Arctic, decontaminating Distant Early Warning Lines, or DEW Lines, a series of radar stations across the Arctic, from Alaska through Canada over Greenland to Iceland. “And out of those 80 people, you could probably count three to five women on site,” she explains. “So it was significantly different than Centre Block in terms of women representation.” Growing up, she says, she had no reason to see women working in technical fields as unusual. For this she credits her father, who led diverse teams in his work as a geologist. Sitting in a university auditorium of 100 or so engineering students was the first time Boucher-Sharma saw how under-represented women could be, as she could count the female faces on her fingers. “Growing up that way, knowing that I had those role models, if I can be the role model for young women or students who are coming through the ranks as a model for women in (science, technology, engineering and math) and construction fields, then that's great,” she says. “It's a great professional and personal fulfillment.”

SUSAN VIVIAN, LEAD PROGRAM MANAGER, CENTRUS

Susan Vivian leads the industry side of the restoration project for Centrus, which is a joint venture of WSP and HOK, two global engineering and design firms. More than 600 workers may report to Vivian in a given year, with about 450 (300 FTE) on site each month. Over the past year, 40 per cent of those workers have been female, a much higher proportion than what Vivian would usually see in her work at WSP.

“We're trying to hit a target of about 30 per cent women in management and women and under-represented people in management and we're not quite there yet,” Vivian explains. “We're really trying to move beyond that and be more diverse and inclusive on all sorts of levels.” She notes that 30 per cent may sound low, but as a “pure engineering firm” WSP is more representative than the industry generally. She credits a broad industry push for the female talent that has coalesced around the Centre Block project and adds that, among the engineers and project managers, the proportion of women is closer to 50 per cent. “Have we focused on specifically women? No, but I think we focused on getting the best people for the job. And the fact that a number of those people are female is fantastic. I do think there is a concerted effort in the industry to try and overcome bias,” she says.

CAROLINE COUTURE-TRUDEL, LEAD PROJECT MANAGER, CENTRUS

When Caroline Couture-Trudel was at school for electrical engineering, about seven per cent of students were women, she recalls. After graduation, she moved quickly into managing technical and engineering projects and says her experiences in a male-dominated field have been positive.

“(Engineers) are people who believe in working together, achieving and resolving problems. They're team players and therefore they just make it happen. We tend to work together, leave the egos aside to make something bigger happen than each of us,” she explains. At the same time, she says it is important for both men and women to see examples of women leading and achieving success. “I think that’s the importance. That’s where it makes a difference.” She also says collaboration, regardless of gender, has been key to the success of the Centre Block project so far. “Collaboration on this project is at the maximum,” she laughs. “We don’t really have a choice.”