Good morning.

My name is Philippe Lapointe and I am here with my colleague Nicolas Trudel. We are the representatives of FTQ‑Construction, an association that represents close to 44% of the construction workers in Quebec.

I particularly want to speak with you about the three challenges facing the construction sector in relation to the adoption of new technologies and new manufacturing methods: skills adaptation, health and safety adaptation, and the need for culture change.

It is important to understand that the construction industry is very slow to innovate. First, the capital needed for starting up in construction is extremely low. For a majority of contractors, all that is needed is a tool box, and this means that the capacity to acquire advanced technology is weak, or it is often completely out of the question.

Even today, home building is more of an artisanal than an industrialized activity. In fact, our industry remains untouched by Fordism. Every build is unique and is supplied piecemeal. Even if the plans are identical, the way in which the work is done will invariably be different because of workforce mobility, bad weather and the unique characteristics of each site. In these circumstances, the expertise of the workforce and workers' capacity to adapt are crucial for completing a project.

Nonetheless, many new technologies do get introduced and improve productivity. As a representative of the largest association of workers in Quebec, I want to warn you: In order for incorporating new technologies to succeed, it must be done in collaboration with workers. They must be part of the process.

In my presentation, I will be giving concrete examples as experienced by our members that illustrate implementation on the ground.

With regard to skills adaptation, the workers have to interpret plans, adapt the way they do their jobs to the changes, and align the completion of their steps with the other steps completed before them. They must know how to work with the new materials and use the new methods, even before arriving on site, because there is no time for learning per se when a construction project is getting started. The workers put innovative initiatives and projects in place and bring them to life. There are numerous risks, and good initiatives may fail if the workers who are to put them in place are not trained on the innovative methods.

Vocational training is crucial if workers are to build infrastructure properly. For example, consider the installation of the new insulated tarps, which are extremely energy efficient. However, if they are installed improperly, the work has to be redone, then that conflicts with other steps and they have to be taken down and redone several times, and this can cause problems: Every time the tarp is ripped, it loses its air tightness, and so the lack of preparation means that it is then ineffective.

In Quebec, FTQ-Construction requires each journeyperson to have a DEP, a vocational studies diploma. A DEP can be obtained through continuous study before entering the industry or by splitting time between work and school during an apprenticeship until the person achieves journeyperson status in their trade. This has not been acted on by the Government of Quebec.

The next issue is the need to adapt in relation to health and safety. The construction industry is the highest mortality industry. We lost 68 workers in 2023 because of industrial accidents and diseases and there were 9,500 non-fatal but still serious injuries on the job.

New technologies must be introduced in a way that respects the lives of the workers. I would point out that asbestos was originally supposed to be a miracle material, and yet it ended up being the biggest cause of death in the industry, with people experiencing serious respiratory problems 15 or 20 years after being exposed. Innovations or new miracle materials must not also turn out to be fatal.

Another example is when workers share spaces with autonomous machines, which calls for considerable adaptation on site, but also in relation to how to set up the machines. When it comes to machinery, the dangers have to be eliminated at the source. Today, heavy machinery manufacturers offer the ability to control steam shovels or dump trucks remotely or completely autonomously. These vehicles should not be used when there are large numbers of people present, when sites are unpredictable and complex, or on sites located near the public. The people who manoeuvre these machines should be relatively close to the machinery, so they can step in if there is an accident. If a machine is in northern Quebec but is being controlled out of Toronto, it is then a bit difficult to react when danger arises.

As a final point, the new project management and planning technologies should also not become tools for overseeing workers. In recent years, we have seen management tools that monitor workers in continuous time, via geolocation or CCTV, rather than monitoring the work on sites. Precautions have to be taken so as not to violate workers' rights and freedoms in the name of productivity.

I did a site visit with Boston's robot dog Spot. I do want to talk to you about that, but I see that I need to conclude my presentation.

The construction industry is seasonal and subject to cyclical fluctuations. In general, construction is done intermittently, with periods of uncertainty on sites. Work on sites is done on the spot and organized by project, piecemeal. To make a decent living, workers have to work on multiple contracts over the year and they are competing with one another. It is very important to understand that.