April 16, 2020 will mark the first anniversary of the
election of the United Conservative Party (UCP) to
government. One quarter of their mandate has been
consumed and, as usual with a change in government, the
first year was focused inwardly, setting the agenda and steer-ing
the ship in the party’s new direction.
The UCP government is doing what it said it would by cut-ting
spending to reduce the provincial deficit and reduce reg-ulatory
burden on businesses in order to improve Alberta’s
competitiveness. The strategy to implement their platform is
to move very aggressively on all fronts.
This presents two challenges for the ARHCA: first, the
cuts to highway construction and rehabilitation lines in the
October budget average $200 million per year over four
years. That $800 million reduction in roadwork is a 40 per
cent cut from 2017–18 levels. This obviously has a material
and severe impact on our membership and cashflow in the
industry. It also will lead to the diminishment of Alberta’s
highways, a fact admitted in the Alberta Transportation
Business Plan.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hawaii that Cabinet
will reverse this decision in the second budget. Our advo-cacy
on funding will aim to restore adequate funding sooner
than was the case in the 1990s. Our history of maintaining
highways to budget rather than need is not a sound financial
asset management strategy. We will advocate to Cabinet that
Alberta needs a healthy civil construction industry because
at some point the public outrage toward the condition of the
highways will require a political response. Like all taxpayers,
we want that reinvestment to go into roads and not into capi-talizing
a massive ramp-up that is bid back into higher prices.
I am confident that this government will appreciate the
sound business advantage of making the right strategic
investments. Albertans know that roads are integral to eco-nomic
activity and have high standards for their condition.
Unfortunately, it is our industry that suffers disproportion-ately
while this plays out.
On the (very) positive side, the government’s aggressive
agenda to reduce “red tape” presents a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to address barriers to efficient operations for our
members. Most governments set up one or two special initia-tives
to focus on problems and make recommendations. This
Cabinet is opening so many doors to consult with industry
By Ron Glen, CEO, ARHCA
Alberta Roadbuilders & Heavy
Construction Association
that the ARHCA Board had to establish a new Government
Relations Committee to coordinate all the requests to provide
input and ensure we are taking full advantage of the oppor-tunities
presented.
Topics that the Cabinet will be consulting on include
“red tape” reduction, procurement and opportunities for
small business, construction industry competitiveness,
environmental regulation, labour code revisions, a new
Infrastructure Act, prompt payment legislation and others.
Alberta Transportation is also engaging with the ARHCA and
the Consulting Engineers of Alberta (CEA) on matters spe-cific
to our business relationship such as claims, risk transfer
and their impacts on pricing. We will be discussing strategies
to stretch the available dollars to prolong the life of the road
asset and this means looking closely at technical standards.
Alberta Transportation has also indicated they will be estab-lishing
a contractor performance evaluation system in 2020
and will consult with the ARHCA.
On many of these issues, the ARHCA will need to poll the
membership for input. In responding to the many and var-ied
requests from government for feedback, the polling may
seem uncoordinated, but please take the time to make your
opinions count. Our new Government Relations Committee
will ensure that our right hand knows what our left hand is
doing to ensure that we are presenting thoughtful and con-sistent
advice back to government. n
C E O ’ S M E S S A G E
Bad News
First:
Government
Edition
ARHCA CEO Ron Glen on the panel “Trickle Down: The economic
and social impact of reduced investments in municipalities” at the
#AUMASummit, sharing some of the difficulties created when projects
are deferred
2 www.albertaheavy.ca
/www.albertaheavy.ca
/www.albertaheavy.ca
