Nova Scotia Has No Contractor Licensing — And That's a Problem | NSCSC's Trent Soholt

0:03All right, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today our guest is Trent Soholt, representing NSCSC — for short, Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council. Thanks so much for being here, Trent. Well, thanks for having me. And how's your summer going? It's just starting — it feels like it just started, anyway. Yeah, we're just talking about — it's a beautiful day, and it's good to see all the people outside. It makes parking a little hard to find downtown here, which is pretty difficult. It's amazing to see the

0:30activity downtown — it's wonderful. Yeah, it just feels like civilization's back to normal a little bit. So, Trent, I'll let you introduce yourself and just kind of give us a little bit about your journey. I know you have a PMP designation and obviously many, many years in the construction industry. But maybe just tell us a little bit about how you ended up being the Executive Director at the Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council. Sure — how much time do we have again? So I started off my career in project

0:58management, and I was doing that for a municipal government out west. And when my wife and I relocated, I applied for a project manager position with the Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council, who was doing a lot of research at the time. And in doing that research — studying labor market forecasts, labor market supply, where the issue is going to be, what's the demographic of the industrial commercial institutional sector — and then from there started to see some opportunities around available funding, partnerships, agreements with contractors, unions,

1:26training providers, and started to go, where can we really help fill the gap? So when people say how do I get into construction, how do we help answer that? And if they say, you know what, what work is coming up for a contractor to prepare for workforce development — how can we figure that out for you? And so we really evolved over time to say, how do we help the industry in as best a way as possible, focusing on training and education and career awareness and what have you. But

1:51at the end of the day, we've become the help desk. Yeah. And to be the help desk for the contractors, for the unions, training providers, government, provincial government, federal government — anybody who has questions around ICI construction, give us a shout, check out the website, check out videos. We're doing things all the time to try to provide that support. We even opened up an office in Cape Breton recently to help provide that support for the infrastructure projects happening up in Cape Breton, right, for

2:16the big healthcare jobs and things like that. Yeah, yeah, I see that on your website — I think 500 positions that were kind of, they're projecting that to be 500 new positions for construction workers in the province. They forecast a lot of work, which is wonderful. And I think there's going to be a lot of work that comes up there. We've got some models where our researchers are able to put in the value of a project, the duration of the project, and then based on past experiences

2:40either throughout Atlantic Canada, we can then look at what's the labor breakdown going to be by trade, by occupation — apprenticeship versus a journeyperson — what are we going to need to be successful in this space? And in doing so, we were able to forecast what these 500 or so occupations will look like, when the peaks will be, when the roll-offs will be — you know, all that sort of stuff. And then yeah, can you guys — you guys transcend into other provinces? Or, like, when it says Nova

3:04Scotia Construction Sector Council, but you obviously just talked about Cape Breton — so it's not just mainland? No, it's not just — you're taking data and information from all over Atlantic Canada. Yeah. We have — we're focused on Nova Scotia. That's our mandate, is to change how we see and how we manage construction in the province. We have partner organizations like us across the country, everywhere from BC right through to Newfoundland, even. We have organizations who we work with to learn what they're doing; they

3:29can learn what we're doing. And at the end of the day, how do we make sure that we can help contractors, those unions, those training providers, the workforce in general — new recruits — who's got a question about what a millwright does, how do we help you out? So yeah, so that could be a youth who's thinking about getting into the trades and has a specific interest in woodworking or millwright or whatever, and then they go to you guys and you'll point them in the right direction. Absolutely. We even have on our website

3:52career paths where an individual could look at that and say, what's a reasonable salary I should expect as that millwright? What are my job prospects? Who do I talk to about this further? And then we can direct them — where can I take a course, where can I get involved in apprenticeship programs? And exactly, so you mentioned the CANS youth apprenticeship program that they have, so you'd be strongly connected with them. Exactly. And other similar things like that as well. Yeah. They have this summer co-op program called Building

4:16Futures for Youth. We have a facility called the Trades Exhibition Hall, which is — I want to say it's a one-of-a-kind career awareness facility, but it's the first of its kind, because I'm going to Winnipeg in August to be a guest for the opening of the second Trades Exhibition Hall in North America, in Winnipeg in August. So you're the first Trades Exhibition Hall anywhere that we could find. We were — we kind of, where is it located? At your office? Back half of the office.

4:40There. We're in Bayers Lake Business Park, and when we went in there in 2014, we relocated offices and we had a big warehouse. And the staff started thinking, what can we do with a warehouse? And the creative juices started going. We thought, okay, we can create a gallery or a library of construction drawings, or tools, or whatever, and it just kept — and in April of 2014, we launched the Trades Exhibition Hall with no model to follow. We just kind of went with, here's some visions,

5:09here's some ideas, and we built this thing, calling on contractors to help us out. So let me — let me stop right there. So NSCSC is a non-profit organization. So when you go to initiate a project like that, like building and designing the Trades Exhibition Hall, is that funded by the government? That one in particular was funded in part by the government and funded in part by the industry. Right, so the industry got together — excuse me — because you guys have partners everywhere, whether it

5:35be in Atlantic Canada, but like there might be GCs or different subcontractors that are members on the board of directors or yeah. Yeah, our board is a mix of labor and management, right, in the industry. And the focus is really, how do we build those relationships to strengthen the whole? And we went to the province — and it's funny, I remember going to the province with the first ask. I had a real tough time selling the idea of a facility that youth could come to

6:01put hard hats and glasses and work boots on, hold tools, talk to an industry professional, and try something out. And I went back a second time and said, you know, here's the idea still. And that's gonna be a tough pitch, and then you're gonna go to all these other sector members to try and get this thing to happen and get that funding. It was pretty funny. We went around to the province, and then we went back to industry, we

6:24went back to the province, went back to the industry, and finally got the province to commit. And I'm trying to remember the exact number, but it was in the $128,000 range — it wasn't an exorbitant amount of money. Maybe it was like, here, trying to go away, stop asking for money. And we went to the board and said, here's the idea — put the, you know, drawings up on the wall.

6:44And then the board said, are you sure you want to go down this path? And we thought, you know what, this is a great opportunity to differentiate the industry and give a hands-on experience that, if a young individual hasn't gotten that at home or through school, where did they get that? And we launched it in April of 2014. Okay. And we launched it with the thought of doing one visit a month. We're doing — non-COVID times — two to

7:11three visits. So would this be like high schools, junior high schools? Oh, all of it. And then getting buses from Yarmouth right through to Sydney, and they'll come and visit us for a day or two. And I've seen on your website — you have maybe 10 or 15 different trades, like sheet metal workers, what else, pipe fitting? In terms of trades, there's about 35 trades in there, but 14 booths. So we've had to bundle up some trades into

7:34a couple of booths. So like pipe trades, for example — we have sprinkler fitter, gas fitter, plumber — you know, we put all those into one. Sprinkler fitter, yeah, we put those into one booth under the pipe trades umbrella. We have pipe trades, and we have insulator, sheet metal workers, and roofers, carpenters, millwrights, non-destructive testers, boilermakers, welders, finishing trades — so drywall, painting, masonry, cladding, exactly, bricklaying. We've got ironworkers in there. So you've got all these booths set up, so you can basically, when these

8:04students come — or I guess any age, youth mostly — they kind of just get immersed in that one trade for a day, or five hours, or a week. But what we have found is what was most successful and kept the young individual's attention is to give them almost like a speed dating experience. Yeah. You give them the glasses, the hard hats, you put them — you break them up into groups, you know, into maybe 14 different groups depending on the group and what they're

8:27looking for. You introduce them to their trades professionals. So we're always drawing from somebody from industry to be in those booths. Did you have to hire new staff to run this? We put a call out to industry, and industry has a combination of volunteers to come forward for it. And they love sharing their experiences. And we have a lot of retirees who like to do that now too. So retirees will come in and they've done this career for 20, 30, 40, 50

8:50years and they just want to show it off. Yeah, they want to do that. And so they come in for a day, and we'll usually have a tradeshow coordinator who will walk them through a safety orientation up front. They get assigned a booth to start, and somewhere between five minutes and 20 minutes, we say, okay, time to switch, and they go one booth to the right and they go around doing the whole experience in one day. And they leave there, and we get a chance to do

9:10some metrics. We ask them some questions: what did you like, what didn't you like, did this help you identify an occupation? You know, speed dating is a good analogy. Yeah, it's kind of the easiest — we have "Speed Trades", that's what we call it: Speed Trades. Yeah. The best way we could kind of — so basically you're giving them the experience of being immersed in those different trades so they can say, oh yeah, that is what I thought it was, maybe I

9:31will go down that road. And it's a little bit of training too, but it's not like they're being trained in that short amount of time — they're just feeling what it's like hands-on enough to go, it's for me and I want to learn more. Yeah, or enough that this is not for me, and that's okay too. And that's amazing, because really, I don't get that experience anywhere else. No. And you're giving them like all 30 of the main — I mean, 30, I say 30 but you just

9:55mentioned 35 trades there. And project manager — we have a project management booth that simulates a job site trailer. So they get a chance to meet with a project manager and talk about estimating and talk about design and engineering and how all that works together. And right at the end of the day, you simulate like a job meeting. Yeah, so exactly — that's exactly what we do. Right, right. And then they have hazard assessment books they can fill out. It's trying to make it as real as

10:16possible in a safe environment that doesn't impact productivity on a job site. It doesn't negatively impact the student. If they don't feel comfortable, they have the ability to step out. So — so you say Winnipeg is designing one of these, and that'll be like you guys are kind of the frontier? We're the first one. Winnipeg's launching theirs in August. And so that'll be the second one. So now we've had to change all of our marketing material from being a one-of-a-kind facility to the first of its kind

10:41facility. And, you know, I'm talking to other groups around the country as well who are looking — in BC, in Ontario — as to, could they simulate what Nova Scotia has there as well? Yeah. We are fortunate the geography of our province — the accessibility of our province to one another. Like we've been very fortunate. Where to put a facility in Ontario or Alberta or Saskatchewan, geography itself is a barrier to a lot of that experience. We don't have that same — yeah. Would you say with your experience

11:09with other provinces and across the country, the demographics for people involved in the trades in Nova Scotia is higher than a lot of other provinces? I don't know — I don't know. Tough question. This is a tough question. Coming from Alberta — that's where I grew up, and that was sort of where I got my feet wet in construction. Alberta spent a lot of time attracting people who weren't from Alberta to come and work on the — in the oil

11:34patch. So there was not a lot of Albertans who kind of went into those different types of occupations, but because of the level of activity they drew from other parts of the country. I think Nova Scotia has a lot more access to their own community members, to their neighbors, to their friends, to their sisters, brothers, uncles, what have you, to bring those individuals into their workplace. And I think there's a different lens in the East Coast around blue-collar work, versus, say, yeah, in Alberta —

11:59everybody aspired to be the white-collar worker, whereas I think there's a little more — or at least there was a clear divide anyway when I lived there, when I grew up there. And I think Nova Scotia's got a very different attitude too. It's good pay, it's good work. Yeah, I can have my toys, I can go — you know, I have my time off. We have a fairly good-sized airport, we can get to anywhere we need to get to. The lifestyle just has a different flavor.

12:24Yeah, that's really the way you articulate it there — that's definitely true. There's a different lens in the East Coast for those blue-collar positions. So NSCSC — you described it as the help desk for the construction industry. Obviously doesn't include residential construction, it's ICI — industrial, commercial, institutional. Everything's bigger than a house. Yeah, a road raises the definition — that's right. Everything between a house and a symbol — that's right. Infrastructure. So that kind of explains how you guys are engaged with the youth and

12:56apprenticeship and the trades hall. But I know you guys are — you're kind of a facilitator for so many different things. Like, you mentioned contractors, government, provincial and federal. Maybe just give us some examples of how you're working with contractors, and then how is it that you're helping the contractors, whether it be general contractors, subcontractors. Yeah, absolutely. So a couple — I'll start with the big picture right now. A few years back, the concern of what's our future workforce

13:29going to look like has come up, and contractors are worried about that day in and day out — and how are we as a province going to grow and what's the forecast for work going to be? And so we got involved in a lot of those early conversations, and where we started to see where that vision down the road is going to be, how do we do a better job of integrating our communities into our sector? Our sector is very white and male. And we got into some early

13:51conversations around what the trend is going to be to being a more diverse sector, attracting people who we typically haven't had success attracting in the past, and changing the culture on job sites around the province. And in doing so, we did a lot of research — as a council, a big part of our mandate is to do research. So we do research on behalf of those contractors and the province and what have you. And in that research we're looking into things called community benefit agreements and best value procurement — what are the

14:16models that are delivering success around the world? And in doing so, we were able to kind of help the province get a sense of how to change diversity and community engagement in construction. So we started to go down that path — and the province very proactively, last June, put in some language into provincial tenders that says you will do a better job, as a contractor, as a union, of being more diverse and reflecting the communities that you're there to serve. And in doing so, the contractor said, well,

14:43we're going to need help doing this. We're going to need help to access funding for training, which could be around becoming a better welcoming workplace; could be access for training around skills; it could be access for training for new products that are going to be built, because we haven't built a hospital in this province in forever. Yeah. And all that — they're building some now though. We are now. Generally, it's generational. It's exciting. I think we've got QE2, we've got Bayers Lake community outpatients —

15:08yeah, you mentioned Cape Breton. Yeah, there's another facility getting some renovations down in the South Shore. And then Cape Breton has five major projects. I don't remember the exact number, but there's about $1.05 billion being invested in Cape Breton, and we're looking at two to two and a half billion on the mainland over the next five to seven years, which is substantial amounts of money. And contractors have said to us, okay, if we're going to build hospitals that we haven't done in

15:33a while, and we're going to have requirements in the contracts to be more diverse and do things in a more open, transparent fashion — how do we do that? And if we're going to be required to fill out forms and submit claims back to the province, or provide status updates, what does that look like? And so we've put people in place both in Cape Breton and on the mainland here to help contractors know how to fill out that form and how to engage a community member. If they don't

15:58know how to reach out to the Indigenous population, or they're not sure who the African Nova Scotian leaders might be, we can help navigate that for them, right? And we're just the connector — we're not intending to be a gatekeeper to anybody. But it's like, how do we make that connection so that people can reach out to you about almost anything? Oh, pretty much. That's why I've gone to the help desk — the help desk, that's the help desk. That's funny, because when you came in

16:20and I — obviously just in prep for, you know, graciously giving your time and coming on, just to kind of get my head more into NSCSC — and of course we all, I've heard of it, but I kind of felt a bit ignorant just not knowing exactly what it is that you do, because you do so many different things and you're facilitating so many things. When you said "help desk" I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, really, it really is the best way to

16:40describe it. It's taken you 16 years to get here to be able to say, I work at the help desk for construction. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. You know, we get funding from the provincial government, we have funding from the federal government, we get contributions from industry — we are asked to help. And so in any way that we can, that aligns both provincial priorities and industry priorities, that's where we live. How many full-time employees work with you there? When I started, we

17:07had three. We had five a few years back, we grew up to seven — I'm going to have 20 by the end of the summer. Wow. And it's just from a variety of projects that we're able to access and funding, both provincially and federally, and again with the lens of how do we strengthen this industry to be more like our communities here in the province. Yeah. And so for your board of directors and your kind of internal members, that would consist of, like, subcontractors, general contractors —

17:35what else? Subs, generals, the trade contractors. Then we also have union reps, so there'll be a union rep or business manager from various unions. We have some who are there who participate either at the board level or at the committee level from a training provider — so from private career colleges, or we have committees at the community college involved. We have partnerships with different communities — they get involved with us depending on the projects. If we're doing research, reaching out to

18:01the whole suite of individuals might be involved, which could include open shop and the unionized sector and everybody else. And at the end of the day, it's how do we help clarify where the forecast of work is going to be, but how do we help you get there, right? And so yeah, you're getting perspective from all the different angles, all the different perspectives in the industry. So you talk a lot about looking ahead, the vision — where's the industry headed,

18:27where's the money being spent, where's the federal money coming from, what about the private sector? So how often — is there a board meeting that happens every quarter, once a year, where everybody kind of gets together from all these different angles, whether it be your board of directors with generals and subs and yourself and unions? And you guys meet often? We have — our board gets together every two months, and then we have an Annual General Meeting every year, usually in September in the fall.

18:53And we open that up for invitation to other parties to come and join us. And then a lot of it is just creating committees or reaching out to individuals who we think might be interested in a certain topic. So if it's around procurement — how does the procurement language need to change, what is best value procurement, or where is it going to go — another hot topic for us right now is contractor licensing: where is that going to go, how do we implement contractor licensing in the province? And

19:15do we start with a trade, do we start with a level of a contractor? So we're looking into what the best practices for that are. So you mean the employer or the employee to have a license? Electrically, right — so the electrician, they're already mandated because it's a compulsory certified trade to either be an apprentice or a registered journeyperson to be able to do their work. But a contractor who hires electricians — to then be able to do that work, there is a regulatory process

19:42around that, and currently there isn't. And not all trades have that — is it just, like, electrical? Like, you have to be a certified — not as many as you think. Yeah. That's why I'm asking. So it's amazing — if you want to start a masonry contracting company or a commercial drywall supply and install, you'd have to go get a license, right? You don't — technically there's no licensing for the

20:08contractor in the province. But for the individual, you have to be registered as an apprentice or a journeyperson, or certified as a journeyperson, to be able to perform the work. Say for example you decide you want to be a masonry contractor tomorrow — there's nothing you have to do other than register at the registry, you join the ranks right now, sure. And then if you're going to hire bricklayers, you have to hire either registered apprentices and a certified journeyperson, and ensure that they're working in the ratio as approved by the province,

20:34which is currently one-to-one. Now if you become a unionized contractor, you might have different requirements under that collective agreement. But other than that, to be a contractor — yeah, just nothing else. To say that you know the product that you're selling, or what have you — and if there's any sort of public safety risk to that, there's no mechanism in place currently. Electrically, for example — I could be the employer of multiple electricians who I dispatch to do different projects, but there's no regulatory framework around

21:02me as the employer. There is around the worker, but not around me as the employer. That's really interesting. And so we're looking at how could that change, how should it change. Is it like other jurisdictions that can eliminate contractors out there that are maybe not as prepared to take on certain jobs, where there's problems a year down the road because they maybe aren't as set up as one might think? Is that the idea — is that

21:28the purpose of going down that road? No, it's to strengthen and protect the customer, I think, in a lot of ways. It's to ensure that the workers know what's expected of them and how to perform that work safely. We all make the assumption that when we go to a lawyer or to a doctor or to whatever else, that they're qualified and they know what they're doing. Everybody thinks that about us too. You know, it's a white lab coat — what's that experiment, the Milgram experiment or something? There's

21:50a movie about it. But he's wearing a white lab coat, so he must be the doctor, he's the authority figure. Yeah. You know, you think about it even as a homeowner — we all make natural assumptions that the person coming to service our hot water tank or do our plumbing or do our electrical work is qualified to do that. You know, as we try to educate the public to say, make sure you ask to see that card, make sure you ask to see that they are a

22:15registered, certified person to do that. So there's some assumption in that. And I think that's the part around the public safety — that if the public's not aware enough to ask those questions, or the client is not aware enough to ask those questions, how do we make sure that there's a system in place so that the contractor bidding that work and dispatching or deploying those employees is doing the right thing for that customer? Right. And these are things that I think we've got a lot of work to do —

22:43we as an industry have a lot of work to do in this. Because there are really great contractors out there who do the right thing — they hire an apprentice, they put them with a certified journeyperson, they plan out what their career trajectory is going to look like, they really make sure that the customer gets the right value and the quality at the end of the day. And then there are some contractors out there who don't do that. And the person who loses out the most

23:05is the client. You know, and I've had enough horror stories and phone calls — someone says, you know, I hired electrical company X, and they told me I wasn't paying them enough so they sent only apprentices. And think, well, first of all, you can't do that — that's against the whole apprenticeship system. You need — it's against the Act. You need to be dispatching somebody who's qualified to do that work. Yeah. The more you talk, the more

23:30I feel like NSCSC is kind of the undercurrent of everything that's happening in front of our eyes. You guys are the undercurrent of all the things that maybe people aren't thinking about every day. Well, I think, you know, we try to have our finger on the pulse. But there's partnerships — nobody does anything successfully in isolation. And we have a great relationship with the apprenticeship agency, with

23:56the Nova Scotia Construction Labour Relations Association, with the Building Trades, with CANS, with Merit — you know, with various levels of government, with the community college, with private career colleges. All of those groups get together. So you're connected with NSCC? Yes, absolutely. And we have to be, because if we know where there's going to be a demand in the future, we need the college to be able to help develop strategies as well to meet that need. Are you guys involved with the curriculum or how they form

24:20some of the training for the different courses? Yeah, as well. We've sat on program advisory committees — they don't have quite the same structure anymore, but program advisory committees. We're involved. I'm on the Apprenticeship Board of Directors, to be able to help make that connection from industry to what's happening in the apprenticeship system. And then the college is there as well to make sure that there's the alignment. And at the end of the day, the employer, if they have a need, they have to know how to

24:45get that through the process. Okay. And so it might simply be a phone call, an email, an inquiry — and it may bring all of those parties together to discuss a topic that cross-cuts for everybody. I'm trying to think of just a general example. If I was a contractor — let's say I'm a unionized contractor and I know I'm bidding on a project that has two unionized contractors and I know there's three non-union bidding, and I might want to apply for a target — is that

25:10something that NSCSC could — could they reach out to you about that? I mean, you guys are involved in everything, it seems like. If they reach out to me, I would — you know, somebody else — exactly. That's fine. Yeah, yeah. We're not in the day-in-and-day-out business, and targets and bidding and all that — we still have that. But again, you point them in the right direction. Absolutely. Yeah. And if a contractor needs education, or they're

25:31asking about what a target is, what the term means — you don't know what that is — absolutely. So you could help people out with that. Yeah, yeah. But call the help desk, call the help desk. We're kind of Switzerland — we're here to help. But you guys help in a lot of other ways as well, right? I mean, are you guys involved in any funding programs for startup subcontractors, or — I think you guys do some, like, a marketing

25:53package — for websites and things like that? Am I right on that? Yeah, so we have a member services piece. And those members who make contributions to the organization have access to that sort of support and service, or our division might help keep business cards and websites and brochures and what have you. But any contractor can call us and say, you know what, I'm looking for training, I understand there's this training program out there, how do I apply for

26:19that — we'll help you navigate that. If there's a situation of, well, geez, how do I — what programs exist? I get that question all the time: what programs exist? And depending on the time, there's a ton of programs out there depending on what the government has going. Oh yeah, there's programming available in the province — you know, the province is more accessible to anybody than I think ever before, at least that's been my experience. It's easier to find individuals to help,

26:46it's easier to find programming to support — what, so you guys are linking them with NANS? No, whoever else. Yeah, whoever else has wonderful programs. The province has programs, the federal government has programs. And it's to, again, strengthen the sector — how do we strengthen that sector, how do we change how the sector functions to be more welcoming, more diverse, to be more active and thriving, and make sure people are getting paid well and their benefits and safety and

27:12all those sorts of things are values I think for the sector. Yeah. Go to work, get good pay, do it safely, you know, learn as you're doing it, and then go home at the end of the day and be able to have a good life. Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome to me, really. Yeah, that sounds like the goal, really. Yeah, that's what we're all after — we should all be aspiring to that. Yeah, yeah. Today's Friday, and you said — before we started, you said like, Friday's always

27:35like, I gotta wrap this up and get this done. And you're talking about the different priorities that you're doing — maybe just can you run us through that? I think it will give a good little snapshot of what it's like being the Executive Director — a day in the life of Trent at NSCSC. Yeah, I try to get there a little bit before the rest of the staff get there. I sit down, I do my quick email check. And then guaranteed — my days are planned

27:57by the half hour in my calendar. Yeah, everything's planned for the whole day. I sit down — thank God for an assistant, oh my goodness. I've only recently got an executive assistant. It's been amazing. And the first half hour, whether someone comes in and chats with me or another staff member says, hey, did you see this on the news last night, or I got a text from somebody, or my phone rings — the whole day could change in that first 15 minutes. Say, hey,

28:23we've got a question or an issue happening up in Cape Breton, we're not sure how to find training for individuals who need to go to work today. What do we do? Okay, well, where are we going and who do we get engaged with? So does that mean, like, telling them how to get their WHMIS online? Or maybe, or it could be whatever else. Could be. Today, really, it was — I got into the office this morning

28:48and I had a couple of phone calls lined up around recruitment, because we have these positions to fill. So I've got positions to fill, I was working around recruitment. I got off the phone and sure enough, another phone rang and said, oh hey, you know, we've got some claims that are due before you go on vacation. We gotta get the claims completed. And so, with every activity that we get funded, we have to report what we've done, how the money has been spent, and everything else

29:09like that. So is that to your board of directors or governments? All of them — could be all. Today was the federal government, right? So today was a report back to the federal government. It's a little paperwork — just a little bit of paperwork. And you know, you're checking your budget and you're looking at your schedule and your Gantt charts — because I still love Gantt charts, so you get the Gantt charts out. And I love the visuals. Oh, absolutely. You know, we're right here, we're on target, we're

29:29not on target. And then easily it could be — again, today, COVID. You know, we're not through the pandemic. Can I, as an employer, request that everybody accessing my job site has to be tested? This is a great debate. It's a great example, because I'm just thinking of like 100 other questions that people are thinking as business owners. Yep. How do I know? Yeah, it's like nobody really knows. And where — you know, the

29:58province is doing the best they can. And you know, I've got to give credit where credit's due. Our province has done better than a lot of others. And Atlantic Canada has been amazing. I mean, we're in the construction industry so we're always going to talk proudly about that, but I think it goes for every industry — the care workers, the retail — like it's just

30:23amazing how things went and how people responded. And you know, I moved here — so I'm a CFA, I come from away, I've been informed about that. But I went — so I choose to live here because this is a great province in a lot of ways, this is the place to be. And I think it's only going to keep going in that direction. I've never been as excited for this province as I am in recent

30:50weeks, months, in the last couple of years. And the pandemic has been extremely hard. The province has done a great job of helping us navigate through that. And now that we're kind of hoping to be on that tail end of it and get back to some normalcy, there's some real questions that people are struggling with: when are things going to lift, when is this rule not applying anymore, can I test, can I not test, can I require vaccines, do I not have to require that —

31:12and everybody has a different perspective. Absolutely. Some people will want to continue to do these things while others will be ready to release, not do that. We have contractors questioning what they can do and can't do. And then if they call the office and say, Trent, what do I do — I won't pretend to have the answers, but I'll hopefully know who to direct the person to to get a good answer. Yeah. You know, if it's occupational safety, call

31:36so-and-so; if it's through the construction safety association or Construction Safety Nova Scotia, talk to these folks; if it's a matter of talking to legal counsel, here are some avenues you can go down. And how is this going to keep changing? Nobody knows. But yeah, everybody's come together and there are coalitions formed within the industry to help deal with COVID, coalitions to help deal with legislation, there are coalitions to help deal with workforce development. The industry has really pulled together in ways that I've

32:04never seen before, in my role, to address some pretty large issues — to try to get us to a positive place at the end of the day. And yeah, so Friday — that's kind of how it went. And it was like, I gotta go find — and you're on vacation? Well, at the end of the day, yeah, I'm going to take a couple of weeks off. But yeah, well, it's an exciting time,

32:28it's a humbling time, it's very promising for what's available in this province. And I hope that as a province, as our respective communities, we come out of this stronger together, with a clearer vision of where things can go. And you know, this province, this whole region, has the opportunity to be second to none in this country, and I really believe that. Wow, yeah. I mean, if I was a contractor, I'd be reaching out to you guys all the time. So

32:55if I'm a contractor and I have questions about anything they might have heard now or what we might talk about in the next few minutes, they can find you online: www.nscsc.ca. And then who do they ask for? Depending on what the issue is. Just depending on what the issue is. We're going through some growth, so there'll be different people getting identified as key contacts for certain topics. But they're welcome to get ahold of me or send me an email and

33:22I'll try to direct them to either the appropriate staff, or maybe it's the appropriate provincial department, or it's the appropriate training provider, or what have you. Yeah. Get back on vacation — your mailbox will be full and the phone will just be ringing off the hook. Yeah. It sounds like Friday. It sounds like a Friday. Tell us — I was set to, now I can't remember if this was a CANS event or where I was, but it was at the Pier, and I'm

33:46— I would — you guys had a booth set up. And we talked a little bit earlier before we went on the air about the CANS event — yeah, thank you. And tell us about that augmented reality — you guys put that together? Yeah. And it kind of simulates being up on an I-beam, being tied off? Yeah. We've got a couple of mobile units that we're very proud of. And they're both built off the success of the Trades Exhibition

34:13Hall, really. We wanted to go, how do we take the Trades Exhibition Hall on the road? And so that's how the Mobile Construction Experience was built. And then from there, how do we take an experience like being an ironworker and walking an I-beam at heights? How do we take that into as real an environment as possible? So we created our augmented reality experience, our AR, which is a small trailer donated to us by one of the contractors. And we green-screened the entire inside

34:35of this trailer in Disney green — there's a color called Disney green — for you to be able to green screen anything you want. Disney green. And in doing so, we reached out to a local AR/VR studio to explore some options. And I remember having the meeting with the gentleman and saying, I would love to simulate working at heights, and if we could simulate something like an I-beam, that would be amazing. And so we did. We reached out to one of the contractors, we got just a real thin cut

35:03out of an I-beam — it's just so your foot feels the edge of this I-beam, right. We've velcroed it to the base of this trailer. So this is an actual I-beam? It actually feels like it under your feet. Five-foot section? Exactly, yeah. It's a nine-foot length and it's six inches wide. And they fabricated it for us and we stuck it in the base of the trailer. So you don't — if you roll your ankle, you're not going far;

35:26you're going about an eighth of an inch. And then we green-screened the trailer, we put some sensors up, we put this headset on with a backpack. And when that turns on, it's got pass-through cameras, so your hands are your hands, your feet are your feet, the color of your pants — your pants are your pants. But you are now 200 feet up in the air on an I-beam, looking down, watching the traffic. You hear the sounds of the birds, you hear the sounds of the community

35:50around you. Like an amusement park? It kind of is. And you walk across the I-beam for nine feet, you have to bend over and pick up a bucket of bolts, and then you have to turn around on the I-beam and walk back. And I think we may have to do some adjustments to this because people do look for that lanyard, they look for that harness to hold on to. And it has thrown a couple people off. And the only other thing I want to

36:12explore putting in this trailer to make it a little more realistic — I'd like to put a fan in the trailer so you feel the wind as well. So that's sort of one of our next things to put in there. So you turn it on, you go for a walk, you come back around. And when we built this unit — it was, I think it was 2018 or 2019 — we launched this trailer and we had to

36:37have ironworkers test it out for us. So we happened to have the right timing to have these ironworkers come in and try out this I-beam. And they lined up and every one of them came out of that trailer going, that's as real as the real thing. One even said, it's scarier, because I reached for my lanyard and it wasn't there, and I fell over a little bit. But yeah, it's just — how do we make construction interesting? Yeah. Because there's a perception out

37:01there — everyone in the room knows there's the perception of construction being low-skilled, low-paid, grunt work, dirty work. We've heard all those phrases. And as a council, we're trying to change that perception. We really want to change how we see construction. And technology is a piece of that. You know, we have contractors who are investing in exoskeletons now. We have contractors who are investing in BIM — Building Information Modeling — and 4D modeling, and immersive experiences so you can see inside a

37:31building before it's actually built. And laser — what else are you seeing for tech? Well, you mentioned exoskeleton, tell us a little bit about it. There's — we're trying to get a couple in from California. There's a startup in California that I've reached out to, and I want to get three because they come in different sizes. I didn't know this, but they come in different sizes. And you put them on like a backpack — you have a strap that goes around each arm and your waist. And the exoskeleton,

37:54because of its pivoting points and its steel components — I'm trying to remember — it adds about 20 pounds to your structure, to your stature. But it reduces the lifting by about — so if you're getting ready to lift a panel of drywall, plywood, a pipe, whatever the case may be, you can lift that — 40 percent difference — that you couldn't before without the unit. And safely. You're going to let people work 10 years longer than the trades? That's the hope.

38:25Contractors like to hear that, okay, guys work a little longer. So we're investigating some of that. We've investigated wearable technology — so having a computer in your forearm. We've got a couple of units in the office that we tried out to see if we could have foremen or supervisors able to access spec sheets or any of the forms that they need to fill out, and they can do it in real time. Now the cell phone has alleviated a lot of that, so the wearable tech is a little bit old. But we

38:50investigated for about two and a half to three years any technology that had an industry application. We were able to get funding through the government to try it out. And so we took tablets all around Atlantic Canada, onto job sites, into mines, at heights — now they're everywhere. And I don't think one caused the other; I don't ever want to pretend that I think that. But we were able to help bridge a gap around openness to technology in construction. I don't think there was

39:18a lot of appetite for it, and now absolutely people are open to it. And so now we're kind of going, what's around the corner for an exoskeleton, or what's around the corner for remote vehicles that maybe do a remote install? And we're trying to use VR and AR in ways that we've never done before. We just got, in the last two weeks, into our office a virtual reality simulator for blasting. A contractor reached out to us and said, to train people — to train people

39:43how to do blasting? Well, we see so much of that here in Nova Scotia with the bedrock. Oh yeah. This would be paint blasting — so sandblasting and doing all that. You're talking about — asking about the foundation, it's thick and cheesy. Yeah, I guess I'm thinking blasting because, you know, I'm driving down where I live in Halifax here and there's always the blasting. You know what, maybe there's a business model there for — a contractor said, I can't afford to train and simulate a real-life

40:19experience to the degree I want — can you guys help us out? Call the help desk! They called us. We looked around North America to see what was available, and we ended up being able to order in these two simulators that are used for training now throughout North America. To do just that — and there's no material wasted, but it will monitor how much time you spend, your coverage area, the amount of material you use. All that sort of stuff gets calculated and feeds back to that

40:46contractor, that worker, that trainer — where do I need to work on to be better? I'm thinking of another real example. I'm thinking of Scott and Colin Keeping — I talked to them maybe in the last month about looking at the painter-glazier and painting union, and talking with Nova Scotia Apprenticeship about creating a pathway for painters so that there's actually a Red Seal designation. And so they would have to reach out to either NSCC to do the training there

41:14or through the union hall. Would you guys be involved in that process a little bit? Sometimes we would create pathways — yeah, we'd help get anything structured. We wouldn't do the training directly, that's not our space. But you know, if there are applications — but you might offer warehouse space to do training or whatnot? Industry has access to our space, you know, again pre-COVID times. Because there are people out there, especially contractors, that are rallying together, they want a pathway, they want

41:42to be able to get funding from the government for actual journeypersons — journeys to becoming a Red Seal. And you know, they're really interested in getting those PLA things figured out. And it's not easy, you know, and it has to be done through either the union — somewhere where they can actually train them, yeah — and do it under the right protocol in college, and then have it sanctioned by the apprenticeship agency, and everything else. And it seems very daunting, and

42:10I get it — contractors don't want to do the paperwork, and they go, you know, well, they need someone like you guys to steer them in the right direction along that journey. Because otherwise it's — yeah. Well, and government can seem daunting. You know, you're a private business owner who does what you do exceptionally well. Yeah. But you've always thought, for the betterment of the industry, something needs to change. They can call the agency directly and the agency has staff to be able to help

42:37somebody do that, sure. But yeah, that can be done. I've had contractors say, no, it's daunting for me to call the 1-800 number. Yeah. I can call Trent at the Sector Council, or Kim at the Sector Council, or whoever — you guys bridge the gap, and you guys will help me out. Yeah. And you're right, because government — just because of what it is — is systematic. This is the way it is, it has to be. And then it's obviously the opposite a lot of

42:59times with the smaller contractors and people in the industry in any regard. But it can be daunting. And they're also missing out on things like graduate opportunity programs and apprenticeship funding from Nova Scotia Apprenticeship, and all kinds of — the START program, oh, training — and it's there. It's just that — yeah, maybe it's a stereotype, maybe it's a mental boundary there, where they can't kind of get over the hurdle to say, well, this isn't

43:30actually that hard, it just needs someone to take the time. You know, as a contractor, you wake up first thing in the morning, you're getting the site ready, you're getting your crews ready to go, you're doing your toolbox talks — there's a lot to do. And you know, the last thing I want to do as a contractor is go home at the end of the day before the hockey game and sit there trying to navigate a website, trying to figure out who to call. Yeah. And so

43:50we really said, you know, pick up the phone, call us, let us know what you're looking for. And yeah, it might just be the phone number of somebody to talk to — that might be exactly as simple as it is. But they should, because a lot of times they will think of it, it is there, they know it, but you're right, it's time. And you know what, you're in the industry, you're busy. So something that you're thinking about — yeah, I should do that — but you might think that for like a

44:11year or two and not actually do it because you just — it's daunting. But a call to you guys and a good point in the right direction, and the right, you know, an email, and then at least the ball's rolling, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It might be a phone call, it might be an email. At the end of the day, whatever we can do to make life a little bit easier for the contractor, whatever we can do to make life a little bit easier for the worker

44:32in the industry and for somebody looking to get into the industry — understanding the industry — that's where we spend most of our time. And I have all the respect in the world for everybody who goes to work every morning, everybody who takes the passion and the ambition to have their own company and run their own organization. I get it. They have invested their lives in what they do. And as a contractor, you know, there's lots who have put houses on the

44:59line, or cars on the line, or their future selves on the line to have a business that they are very proud of — that's theirs. Any help they can get, any help that they can access, any help they need — that's what we want to be able to be for them. Can you talk a little bit about QMP? I've seen that on your website. Is that something at the forefront, or is it basically you're helping with quality management within businesses, and not necessarily them following a big strategic

45:26plan, but just how to make things — maybe a way to make things a little more quality controlled? We have a couple of training programs that focus on quality and the things to put in place, especially as you're doing larger infrastructure projects and the expectation of a client around quality assurance and quality management. We have some training programs that are helping to provide a little bit of education. By no means does it make anybody certified to be a quality inspector or have a

45:52quality plan put in place. But it gives that underpinning of what it is, what should I be mindful of, where is future training, where do I see that? And really, if I'm going to pursue some quality management, what do I need to keep in mind, what's the impact on my business, how far does it go? Quality control is a huge thing for business owners in this industry, absolutely. Yeah, and very hard to manage too. How far do you take it, how do I start,

46:21how do I even start? Where do I start? Yeah. And so, you know, we help navigate what the training opportunities are for that. Our training programs sort of lightly touch on it from a foreman supervisory level — that front-line supervisor, we touch on it there. But for a contractor to implement that, we have connections in the industry where somebody could come in and develop that plan, develop that management system. They could be

46:45the ones that maybe structure your inspection and test plans in a certain way that you're able to then report, and it could come back to the request from the client. If the government's requesting this, well, what do I need to know, who needs to be trained to do what — we can help navigate some of that for you. But at the end of the day, we won't do it for you. We'll help get you to that stage where then it's part

47:08of business. Yeah. And for government relations — are you guys in any regard or any capacity with public tenders and how they're communicated? I'd say very little bit. A government official not too long ago said their vision of our role — and there's 14 sector councils in the province for different sectors, so we're not the only one, there's 14 — we just happen to

47:37be ICI construction. But yeah, back to that — the province has said they view sector councils as having one foot in government, one foot in industry. Sure. And if we're able to bridge that connection — fence riders, kind of; maybe that's the easiest way. If industry expresses an issue with a tendering or procurement process or what have you, and it's not a lobbying activity — it's more about how do we influence and show a business case for a different way of tendering? Yeah. We

48:03can facilitate that. You know, maybe whether it be a connection or some research that we can put into that. And similarly, the province does that to us — they reach out to us and say, we're wondering how we can strengthen this process or this procedure; what should we be looking at, who should we talk to? And maybe we're just a facilitator, getting those two groups together. University campuses at all? Oh, you know, a little bit. It kind of feels like a little bit of everything —

48:25nothing's really off the table. Yeah, you know, that's what it sounds like. We're kind of a hub. And, you know, again, 16 years to come to the help desk. And it gave him 16 years to be referenced as — it's the only way you can describe it without talking to someone for a whole day. You know, we used to go to parties — my wife and I used to go to parties and she's like, yeah, nobody understood what you said. I'm

48:47sorry, dear, she's got to come up with something sexier. All right. But really, you know, if it's a procurement process, if there's research around there, if there's a business case to change legislation or a business case to change regulation — if there's something in that space that a contractor and the industry in general feels is important, we can help out with that. Yeah. If it's around trying to lobby or influence, that's not really our space. We try not to get in that

49:16— that's you know, CANS excels at that stuff, the CLRA excels at that stuff, Merit Contractors Association Nova Scotia, they excel at that stuff. We're there to help. You know, to try to help them. Then you guys have a board of directors and all your members are — like we said before — from all different capacities within the industry. So you kind of have a real guided vehicle there to watch any issue that comes up. So yeah, and then try to navigate it for the betterment of the

49:40province. That's it — at the end of the day, how do we make this province where people want to work, want to invest, and when they build here and when we do things like the infrastructure projects that are coming down the pipe, we do it well? That's really at the end of the day. Then I can go to sleep at the end of the day. Because, you know what, we're working on it. Then you can play more guitar in the evenings, right? You're a bit of a musician yourself. You know, I

50:03noodle a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking about that before. What's your favorite genre? I've probably given it away by the length of my hair — it's probably more in the rock space. Yeah. Although I've got a four-year-old right now who's just getting ready to turn five, and he is into metal like I've never — I've never done metal, yeah. Metallica, Slipknot, like hard stuff. He sings it to me now at nighttime. How did you hear this? Clearly it must have come up on my

50:35iPhone or something at some point in time. But he loves it and he sings about Transformers and he's singing. And yeah, that's great. I don't know how you find the time to get some music in while you're Executive Director at the NSCSC. But I hope you get to get the release, like you're saying. Yeah, it's wonderful. I love what's happening at work, I love what's happening in my personal life, and

51:01where things are at — good balance. You know, it's a great balance. And I think, to an earlier comment or an earlier perspective, Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada provides the space for that. Just, you know, to share an example: when I was working out west and I was going to projects, you'd be an hour to an hour and a half getting to work, you'd be there then for your nine or ten hour shift, and then you're an hour or

51:26more getting home. Sure. And the city never slept, the communities never slept, you were always going. And one of the things that Atlantic Canada does really well is that ability to transition from work version of you to relaxed version of you to recreational version of you, to whatever it might be. Yeah. You know, and I really understand why it says "Atlantic Playground" on the back of our license plate. You know, it does provide us a lifestyle that I think is very unique

51:56to the region. Yeah, that's great, Trent. Any final things you want to chat about — about NSCSC, anything we missed, or anything that's kind of current or on your mind that you want to get out there? It's been great chatting with you. It's very interesting. I think — and we talked about this before we planned to do an episode — just how, you know, maybe it just brings to light more of what you guys do there. And it's so important,

52:24and I don't think enough people understand. But obviously, it's because of the nature of how many different things are going on. And calling it the help desk is an easy way to do that. But it's great to have a chat and sort of push it out there to get people to become more aware of all the different things that go on. Yeah, I appreciate it. I've had a lot of fun and enjoyed talking about this. I look forward to being able to do it again

52:49with you and kind of getting a sense of what that is. And to any of the contractors — you know, being private business owners, I can understand they might be skeptical: what do you mean, I call you and you're going to help me and I don't have to pay you anything? Yeah. And it's important to be a bit skeptical anyway. But you're right. It doesn't — yeah, people — nothing's free. "The Sector Council's gonna help me for free?" Well, the province has contributed money to

53:11our organization. Yeah, the federal government does as well. And we're there to provide some support. So it's being covered, it just might not have to come out of your pocket. No, no. You want to do something outside of our purview, we'll figure out a way to do it. We had a contractor call us up not too long ago saying, can I do a custom board for all my forms in a jobsite trailer? Who would build that? So we built one of those in our

53:33office. Yeah. Now we'd have to charge you cost recovery for the materials and everything else that goes into that, but that was it. Sure. Wow, cool. Yes, let's help this industry go forward. Anything that comes up — it's like you guys are going to help with anything that comes up. We'll try it. Well, yeah. I hope that this helps to get more people engaged that can benefit and get some much-needed help with whatever they might be dealing with, whether they're contractors or youth

53:56interested in the trades, or people wanting to experience the Trades Exhibition Hall — did I say that right? Trades Exhibition Hall. And all the other things that you guys are doing — connecting government and unions and all that kind of stuff. So that's great. Thanks for doing this. Thank you. Cheers. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to follow us on any podcast platform you use. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Atlantic Construction

54:25Podcast. Be sure to send us a comment or a review — we'd love to engage with you.