Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

Post by cperciva » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 10:16 AM UTC

jacobush wrote: post #49

cperciva wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- corruption, especially in QC If you think corruption is bad in Quebec, look at BC. One of the first things our current government did was to pass a law requiring that all government-funded construction must be performed by workers belonging to unions which donated to the governing party's last election campaign. A short time later, they changed the procurement rules from "lowest cost bid" to "best bid", with the ru…

I'm not convinced this is a bad thing, given only the information in your comment.

Post by emmelaich » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

acd wrote: post #28

Here is a theory. Builders chargé maximum what they can. Home prizes has increased rapidly in Canada, some say possibly to a bubble level. Banks create new debt out of nothing through fractional reserve banking. Central banks support negative interest rates. A conseque of low interest rates is that many can afford to borrow to high real estate prices. The high real estate prices drive up building costs, since builder…

Post by gpderetta » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 11:06 AM UTC

yegle wrote: post #45

moltar wrote: post #17

As I can see from living in Canada and travelling the world there can be several reasons: - corruption, especially in QC - over-the-top safety requirements, regardless of project size. E.g. in Toronto every road work sight has a police officer present who’s just standing there bored out of their mind. In Montreal it’d be two persons on each side holding a flag - a job in Europe replaced by a temporary semaphore. - la…

Unrelated: as a non-native English speaker with CS background it's the first time I learned the original meaning of "semaphore". Took me some time to find https://www.uvm.edu/landscape/dating/road_signs_and_traffic_... to explain what is a semaphore (the search results were heavily biased to the word's use in computer science).

Post by smabie » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 11:13 AM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #37

Magi604 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over-the-top safety requirements are spot on I think. Here in BC Worksafe BC just constantly adds on new rules and regulations every year, and they don't care about your company's budget or productivity. I know Worksafe programs are similar from province to province, so I would be curious to see a comparison of Canadian Worksafe safety standards to safety standards from around the world to see just how much more (or…

Well if we can't afford to build things without killing people, we shouldn't be building things. Construction safety rules act as a check on liberal capitalism's growth obsession.

Post by tomohawk » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 11:22 AM UTC

chopin wrote: post #50

cperciva wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- corruption, especially in QC If you think corruption is bad in Quebec, look at BC. One of the first things our current government did was to pass a law requiring that all government-funded construction must be performed by workers belonging to unions which donated to the governing party's last election campaign. A short time later, they changed the procurement rules from "lowest cost bid" to "best bid", with the ru…

Taking lowest cost bid isn't always optimal. In Germany it is required to take the lowest cost bid which leads to all kinds of failed projects as the winning bid can't hold its bid. As well, life-time of things built this way have become awfully short.