WorkSafeBC has proposed the biggest expansion of its own authority in a generation. A new class of hazard that covers "the design and management of work" — your crew size, your schedule, your workload, your deadlines. A written risk assessment for every one of them. And a standard nobody can define until after a complaint gets filed. Employers got eight weeks to respond, in the middle of construction season. The deadline is October 9.

Episode 27 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:

☕ THE BIG ONE: WorkSafeBC's proposed Part 4.1 would make B.C. the only place in Canada where an officer can audit how you schedule your crews. Psychological-injury-only claims are already up 48 PER CENT since 2021 under the rules we have now. Construction accounted for 299 of the 28,593 violence-related claims B.C. accepted in a decade — about 30 a year, one for every 8,000 workers. This lands on 28,173 companies, 92% of which have fewer than 20 people.

💸 The Bank of Canada held at 2.25% this morning — a seventh straight hold. Inflation's near 3%, but strip out gasoline and it's 2.2%. Next decision: October 28.

👷 Internal trade ministers ratified a 30-DAY service standard on labour mobility applications, with free trade in services targeted by the end of the year.

🚧 Alberta designated the Greenview Industrial Gateway a Designated Industrial Zone — 75 square kilometres in the Peace, only the province's second.

📊 Get the ICBA Economics briefing — the most helpful email you'll get all week: https://icba.ca/economics

Read more on today's stories:
ICBA on the WorkSafeBC proposal: https://icba.ca/bc-blog/worksafebc-wants-to-regulate-how-you-run-your-company
ICBA's full submission to WorkSafeBC (PDF): https://icba.ca/hubfs/Advocacy%20items%20etc%20(Jordan)/WSBC_Psychological%20Safety_Sept%201%202026%20FINAL.pdf

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#construction #bcpoli #WorkSafeBC #WorkersCompensation #BCbusiness #abpoli #interestrates #Alberta #ICBA

Natural Resources Canada counted 504 major resource projects across the country — $633 billion of potential capital spending. ICBA Economics went and counted what's been announced since, and added another hundred billion. Call it three quarters of a trillion dollars sitting on the books. The only question that matters is how much of it actually gets poured.

Episode 26 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:

☕ THE BIG ONE: $750 BILLION of resource projects on Canada's books, if they all proceed. ICBA Chief Economist Jock Finlayson on the investment gap standing between announced and built — taxes, regulation, infrastructure bottlenecks, and not enough skilled trades.

🛢️ Natural resources are 16% of Canada's GDP, 1.8 million jobs, and more than half of everything this country sells to the world. More than TWO THIRDS of the people working in it hold a degree, a diploma or a trades ticket.

💸 In 2025, more foreign money came into Canada than left — the first time in a decade. But most of it bought companies and assets that already existed instead of building new capacity. Buying the building isn't the same as building the building.

🏠 B.C. capped 2027 rent increases at 2.2%. Asking rents across the province are already down 4.5%, and down 12.4% in ABBOTSFORD. The cap isn't what's binding — and CMHC has Vancouver housing starts sliding toward the low 20,000s by 2028.

🚧 Where the work is: construction starts on BCIT's $48-MILLION South Campus renewal in Burnaby, the $130-million Highway 7 four-laning between Maple Ridge and Mission is finished, and Ottawa puts $23.5 million into six B.C. airports — Masset, Prince Rupert, Smithers, Bella Coola, Kamloops and Fort Nelson.

🌉 Highway 1 reopened through the Fraser Canyon after 50 DAYS closed. Every load to the Interior went longer and cost more, and every extra kilometre came out of somebody's margin.

📊 Get the ICBA Economics briefing — the most helpful email you'll get all week: https://icba.ca/economics

Wednesday night, in the back of a downtown Vancouver White Spot, a couple dozen people were supposed to talk about the future of free enterprise in British Columbia. More than 60 walked in. Standing room only. Jordan Bateman was there — and he came out more optimistic than he's been in a long time. Here's the rant that came with it: the Eby record, the mess the BC Conservatives have made, and the one thing that actually matters.

Episode 25 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:

📈 GDP grew 3.3 PER CENT annualized in Q2 — the fastest in more than three years, with business capital investment up 2.3% after five straight quarters of decline. The catch: that quarter closed June 30, seven weeks before the trade talks collapsed.

🇺🇸 Ottawa rewrote its counter-tariff list Thursday. Seafood came off after East Coast processors lobbied hard — and copper wire went ON at 50 PER CENT. Every wall, every panel, every service upgrade, every EV charger you rough in. Electrical contractors: your Wednesday quotes are already out of date, and September 8 is 11 days out.

☕ THE BIG ONE — THE RANT: David Eby's record laid out cold. A $7.7-BILLION deficit, the largest in B.C. history — bigger than any COVID deficit — and $13.3 billion budgeted this year. $4 BILLION of promised hospitals, schools and roads postponed; the minister calls it "slippage," contractors call it tenders that never came. 23 mills gone. Interfor running its head office out of Georgia. More people leaving B.C. for other provinces than arriving. Then the BC Conservative implosion — said with concern, not glee — and Jordan's bottom line: the brand name doesn't matter. The plan and the people do.

💸 Alberta flips a projected $9.4-BILLION deficit into a $2-BILLION surplus on US$88 oil. B.C. — sitting on gas, critical minerals and timber — is budgeting a $13.3-billion deficit. Same country. Same commodity cycle. Very different choices.

🔧 CAN'T REPLACE IT? TELL US. If a counter-tariff line will break your business — an American input with no Canadian, European or Asian substitute — ICBA is making that case in Ottawa and needs concrete examples. Write your MP, and email Jordan directly: jordan@icba.ca

📊 Get the ICBA Economics briefing — the most helpful email you'll get all week: https://icba.ca/economics