'We do need more people': N.S. Construction Association CEO on recent federal construction announcements

The federal government has been making their rounds across the country in recent days, announcing tens of billions of dollars worth of construction, rental units, and affordable housing.

While these housing announcements are only coming to us now, Duncan Williams, president and CEO of the Construction Association of Nova Scotia says projects like these are often in the works for years.

“There’s a long tail on all of these projects, and all of the programming and all of the dollars that go with it, so some of these things have been in the works for seven, eight years,” Williams told CTV’s Todd Battis in an interview on Thursday.

Williams points to a number of contributing factors for the ongoing housing problems around the country, one of which being the number of people leaving the industry versus going in.

“The crisis, if you will, around it is because we’ve seen population grow so quickly, we’ve seen commercial growth, industrial growth happening right across the country,” said Williams. “So the pressure on trades after people are retiring, [compared to] the number of people who can get out and build has been just off the charts in the last few years.”

Despite the discrepancy, Williams says they’re working hard to get numbers back up.

“It took us a while to get where we’re at, it’s going to take some time to get where we need to be. What we’re seeing right now is people are retiring, we had COVID of course, which the number of people graduating and finishing apprenticeship programs, immigration, all dropped off. So we’re trying to recover from that,” he said.

The long hours and lack of numbers are additionally starting to take affect on employees.

“People are tired because they’re working long hard hours because we don’t have enough people, we’re also seeing employers start to recognize that and starting to take different approaches around mental health, wellbeing, all those things,” said Williams. “We do need more people though, there’s no question about that.”

Williams says there’s been lots of talk with various levels of government in order to get recruitment numbers to even out.

“We’ve done a lot of work with the provincial government, municipalities, the federal government, over the last four years to say ‘Hey, we really need to double down on these things, we need to increase our training portfolios, we need to make sure people are able to get into the country, we need to make sure we’re letting in the right people to make sure we can build the housing for the people that are coming.’”

While the conversation of trimming government “red tape” is a hot topic at the moment, Williams says that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

“I don’t think the conversation on red tape is going to go away anytime soon, that exists at every level of government, and it exists no matter what party you’re talking about,” said Williams.

“That’s always been a challenge for businesses is finding a balance of what you need to keep people safe, to do things right, to treat people properly and do what you want, and how can you also ensure you don’t choke business off and deter investment.”

Despite the talks of “red tape,” Williams says the cooperation from government has been very strong.

“We’re seeing a lot more cooperation than we ever have, there’s going to be fights in the family, like any time, but the important thing is we all keep coming back to the dinner table.”

With files from CTV's Todd Battis. 

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