May 12, 2025
CELINE HARMEL HAD BEEN WORKING at the Artesia construction site in Metrotown for seven or eight months when the site finally got flush toilets this past December.
While she believes the site should always have had flush toilets, it came at an opportune time of the year. Winter brings an entirely different dimension of discomfort when it comes to non-flushable portable toilets.
“Personally, I try not to use the porta-potties on site, especially come winter. It is usually frigid, to say the least,” said Harmel. “[It’s] not the most pleasant thing to sit down on a cold stall.”
To make things worse, the women’s portable toilets were often missed in cleaning because they were locked and the cleaner didn’t know where to find the key.
It’s one of two sites Harmel works at, alongside a Ledcor office and residential tower construction site near Broadway and Granville in Vancouver, both of which now have new flush toilets thanks to legislation from the B.C. government that requires flush toilets on construction sites with 25 or more workers.
“I was pretty excited to see it,” she said of the arrival of those flush toilets.
The implementation of new WorkSafeBC sanitation regulations followed the BC Building Trades’ (BCBT) years-long Get Flushed campaign. BCBT executive director Brynn Bourke said she’s heard about how a lack of hygienic toilets can impact workers.
“When you’re a construction worker, prior to this legislation, you think about how you’re going to go to the washroom all the time,” she said.
Workers would have to think ahead about using a clean washroom before arriving at the worksite. On lunch breaks, they’re thinking about where and how they can wash their hands.
And often workers were holding it in to “avoid this disgusting and demeaning aspect of the work,” Bourke said, a sentiment echoed by Harmel.
“I have trained my body to be like a camel sometimes and just hold it,” Harmel said. “It’s just nice seeing them in general, just for other women on site, because we have to deal with our monthlies, right?”
The Get Flushed campaign started with COVID-19, when construction workers were exempted from social distancing requirements and still showed up to work, often alongside hundreds of other workers.
Despite this, sites usually didn’t have adequate hand-washing stations — something the new legislation now requires.
Harmel said that hand-washing was another necessary improvement in the new regulations. Her Vancouver worksite had a hand-washing station, but the water was never hot and there was rarely any soap in the dispensers.
This has been a major problem when she’s needed hot, running water. Harmel described once having to go to a coffee shop washroom to wash firestop — a carcinogen — off her hands.
But while the law came into effect on Oct. 1, Harmel said her worksites took months to actually comply with the law.
The Artesia site didn’t get its flush toilets until December and the Ledcor site didn’t get toilets until mid-January.
This was particularly striking in contrast with nearby Broadway Subway construction workers who have had flush toilets “for quite a while,” she said.
It is perhaps not a surprising contrast. Bourke said that publicly funded projects had built flush toilets into their procurement processes before the law came into effect.
The private sector, meanwhile, waited until they were required to have flush toilets to even begin looking at implementation, according to Bourke.
Harmel recalled hearing one contractor complaining about the “expensive” facilities as she was helping an apprentice who was at the hand-washing station to clean a cut on his hand.
Bourke said the BC Building Trades has been hearing a number of complaints about sites that still aren’t in compliance with the law and has been filing complaints with WorkSafeBC.
That includes sites that already had flush toilets onsite, but the facilities were only available to management.
“I would say that kind of practice is hypocritical,” Bourke said. “These contractors would argue that it’s not possible or practicable to provide flush toilets while they are providing flush toilets for themselves.”
BC Building Trades has also developed a bulletin for members to know what their rights are, including that they have a right to flush toilets, that the toilets need to be in proper working order, that they need to be well-lit and that they need to be cleaned and sanitized.
The Council is working to provide information to workers about how to complain to WorkSafeBC about the conditions of the toilets on their worksites.
But some workers feel uncomfortable filing complaints for fear of retribution, even if they do so anonymously, and BC Building Trades has supported some workers to file complaints with WorkSafeBC, Bourke said.
WorkSafeBC said it was working on awareness prior to the law coming into effect and it has been doing proactive inspections throughout the province since October.
The agency said it has trained 10 new occupational health and safety advisors who will focus on education on new legislation, including the flush toilets requirement, and compliance.
WorkSafeBC said enforcement can include compliance orders, citations, warning letters and administrative penalties.
Despite the issues, Bourke said she’s heard positive things from workers like Harmel who now have access to hot water and flush toilets.
“These new regulations add a level of dignity and professionalism that has long been needed in our industry,” she said.
And for Harmel, as a trades ambassador at high schools, it is something she can point to for students as an example of how the industry is getting better for workers, particularly when some consider construction to be dirty or unsafe work.
“It’s kind of nice to be able to tell students, ‘Our workplaces are getting safer,’” she said.
By Dustin Godfrey