Alberta construction voters: trust your instincts

If the results of Alberta’s last provincial election are any indication, Albertans are not an apathetic bunch. In fact, far from it. Voter turnout in the last Alberta election was 68 percent, the highest showing since the 80s. That’s when the NDP made history, becoming the first incumbent government to fail to win a second term.

With advance voting set to open in Alberta on May 23, the one in ten Albertans who make their living in construction, get their first opportunity to make their ballot count.

If the pollsters are right, this election is about trust. “Even if you don’t always agree with me on everything, the fact is you know me,” Notley said during her campaign kickoff. “And what you know is this: that I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.”

That’s a problem for Alberta’s construction industry. What Notley has said, but hasn’t widely advertised as part of the NDP platform, is that she intends to bring BC’s brand of so-called “Community Benefits Agreements” to Alberta.

In BC, CBAs have been a massive failure, leading to multi-million-dollar overruns by allowing only contractors affiliated with Building Trades Unions to bid on and build key public projects. That’s left 85 percent of BC’s construction workers, who are either non-union or members of alternative unions, on the sidelines; cut out of billions of dollars in construction work.

Do we really want that here in Alberta, especially at the height of a skilled labour shortage?

It’s the reason the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada, the Alberta Construction Association and the Independent Contractors and Business Association of Alberta wrote an open letter to Notley urging her to clarify her position.

Her policy team did provide a pat response, thanking us for our feedback, and passing along a commitment to consult “extensively” with stakeholders, if elected.

Industry-wide consultations never took place in BC, before the Horgan government made a pact with the Building Trades Unions to grant them a monopoly on taxpayer funded projects.

If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s to watch out for potential political headwinds.

Alberta’s construction contractors and their workers should trust their instincts, and make an informed choice this provincial election.