Let’s ensure local British Columbians build BC
We are the 50,000 BC tradespeople who build the bridges, hospitals and schools that make our province work.
We call on the BC Conservatives to withdraw their legislation to ban Community Benefits and Project Labour Agreements.
BC is in the largest public infrastructure build in a generation. At the same time, we face a serious skilled trades labour shortage after decades of underinvestment in apprenticeships and training.
Community Benefit and Project Labour Agreements help solve that problem.
They ensure major public projects are built by local, skilled workers from British Columbia, while expanding apprenticeships and training, providing safe working conditions and paying family-sustaining wages.
BC Conservatives should stand with – not against - BC’s trades workers.
Here are the facts
BC skilled trades workers have built some of the most ambitious infrastructure in our province recently – from the Surrey-Langley Skytrain, to the Cowichan District Hospital, the Broadway Subway and stal̕əw̓asəm Bridge (Pattullo Bridge replacement).
But in early March, the BC Conservatives introduced legislation that would ban Community Benefits and Project Labour Agreements on all public projects.
That would take away one of the most effective tools we have to recruit and train the next generation of skilled trades workers, and to ensure public infrastructure is built safely, on time, and by British Columbians.
At a time when major private-sector projects are choosing to sign agreements with the BC Building Trades to secure skilled labour, this legislation would move British Columbia backwards. The BC Conservatives want to take us back to a time when the public Canada Line project was built using temporary foreign labour, paying some workers less than $4 an hour.