Construction Financial News

Provincial police say four people are dead after a construction project turned tragic Saturday in Quebec’s Bas-St-Laurent region.Police say the victims were atop a scissor lift several metres above the ground as they worked on a new house in the municipality of Saint-Léandre when the device toppled for an unknown reason.Police spokesman Stephane Tremblay says officers arrived at the scene to find a young man dead and three others badly injured.He says they were taken to hospital but died during the night.Officials say a coroner’s inquest is underway, while an investigation by Quebec’s workplace health and safety board aims to determine whether an equipment breakdown occurred.The victims are a 53-year-old woman and 60-year-old man from Rivière-du-Loup, a 27-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman from St-Léandre, a rural municipality of fewer than 400 people.

Within the economy, the services sector's output has been revised down from a 0.1% fall to a 0.2% fall over Q3, while the production and construction sectors have been revised upwards, to 0.1% and 0.4% growth, respectively.

A Trans Mountain company report reveals new details about what triggered massive cost overruns within its pipeline expansion project, including problems it says were caused by an abandoned landfill site.

As pressure mounts on the federal government to take a more active role in filling the housing supply gap, the minister in charge of the portfolio is exploring new — and potentially old — approaches to getting homes built.

housing crisis “absolutely cannot” be solved without the aid of new immigrants who bring their skills here, Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters on Friday.“The federal government is making housing more affordable and bringing in the skilled workers required to build more homes,” Miller said in Montreal.“Without those skilled workers coming from outside Canada, we absolutely cannot build the homes and meet the demand that exists currently today.”Miller was asked by reporters if he was considering slashing Canada’s immigration targets, which are currently at historic highs, in response to a recent Bank of Canada report that new immigrants are adding to housing demand.The minister said he was not.“People coming to this country are resourceful. When they bring capital, they are able to acquire houses,” he said.“If people are asking us to slash, what does that mean? Does that mean slashing the skilled workers that we need to actually build those houses? Slash family reunification, which can be devastating for the mental health and well-being of the families that are already here?”Canada aims to welcome 451,000 new immigrants in 2024.By 2025, the number is expected to go up to 500,000 new immigrants in one year.Miller said around 60 per cent of new immigrants to Canada are economic migrants, many of whom are the kind of skilled workers needed to build more housing.