eSignature Lawfulness for Construction Industry in Canada

How to eSign a document: eSignature lawfulness for Construction Industry in Canada

hi i'm tom stevenson and welcome to introduction to construction in today's lecture 10a we are going to be discussing the role of construction associations and some of the certification programs that are available particularly from a canadian perspective but we will be bringing in some global and u.s based opportunities and certifications and roles that are played as well so it'll be a very sort of far-reaching overview and this will be the first of two sections on this particular topic maybe three if it takes enough we'll see all right um so we'll be looking at some of the different and one of the things you're going to find with associations is there are a lot of acronyms to remember every association seems to like to use some sort of acronym so it's hard to um remember them all but they are definitely um there and so we're going to look at also uh the role that professional trade associations play and what they're trying to do and accomplish typically there's usually some sort of um motive towards what they're trying to do for their members because if why would you join and become a member of a particular association if they're really not doing much for you so typically they try to do everything they can for their particular uh members and maybe before i you know start running into the gambit of uh different associations um they're usually uh developed at different levels that kind of match up with um governments very often uh so you a home building association will have a local chapter uh that really sort of responds to local needs that could be you could have a home building chapter in a town or in a city uh and then you have provincial chapters which all of the local ones kind of uh report into and very often when you become a member of a local you become a member of the provincial because they're joined up to each other they're interconnected and then if you're a member of the provincial one very often then they will join up to a national uh one not always but uh usually that's the way it is so a good example that i could probably mention uh would be build building industry and land development association so that's toronto's homebuilder association that used to be called greater toronto homebuilders association then they kind of got stuck on bild which kind of spells build um but uh that would be the local then the provincial is the ontario home builders association ohba and uh nationally that would be the canadian home builders association chba and so you can think of it too that the toronto would definitely lobby the municipal government in toronto like the mayor's office for things like municipal zoning and adjustments and anything that would positively impact their members provincially they would lobby the provincial government so they would be trying to get things in place that would make it more advantageous for them being taxed or being able to build uh with the provincial government and then nationally they would lot the national chba would lobby the canadian federal government for again taxation programs um regulatory requirements that provide better opportunities for their members and of course part of the big sales with association is that you hire in canada literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people that are involved in the construction industry uh so it is a big dominant player as far as employment goes and that has influence because these are voters uh same thing goes with um the uh toronto construction association you know they really are about toronto and the canadian construction association is about canada and then we have the ontario general contractors association so you've got these uh nuanced differences between the associations so some associations might have a few members you know some like toronto or vancouver would have thousands of members uh that would be part of their associations and um those chapters as i mentioned national provincial local structures depending on the membership and depending on the focus for the members really lobbying groups they form a very powerful lobbying group in much in much of the various industries because one person like you're one company if you're the biggest construction company in canada how much lobbying power are you going to have but if you are a group that represents hundreds of thousands of workers hmm then you're going to be paid attention to so it's like anything there's strength in numbers right this isn't just in construction you can go through any sector in any industry and you'll see it development of standard documents practice guides things that also will make it easier for their members like standardized contracts like ccdc that makes it easier to understand and that they're tried and true and they've been vetted by a lot of skilled professionals in the industry to come up with the best document um some associations are very into the education and training of their members i say some some are better at it than others to be honest uh and uh some are very forward thinking that way and they really are are um um involved in that area and certification programs as well that are done through um associations or outreaching arm of an association uh codes of conduct so if you want to be a member of the association really an association does not want somebody that is reflecting poorly on the industry because it reflects poorly on the industry it reflects poorly on the membership and so they would not want that person or company to be part of their membership so if you're not abiding by those codes of practice you're typically turfed out they'll have industry publications and that's very interesting too and they'll a lot of them will be heavily involved in trying to push innovative products and ideas um and it's a from personal experience it's a fantastic place to network with other people like yourself that are in interested in furthering their particular business interests but are also really sort of passionate about the construction industry as a whole um so canadian construction association probably one of the premier uh associations in canada uh really um uh is involved with um the it's really ici sectors institutional commercial industrial sectors and it it casts a wide sort of net over the construction industry of what um it covers many of the members too are you know residential high-rise condominium building that sort of thing is also involved in there so it's it consists of lawyers it consists of subcontractors suppliers uh general contractors uh consultants so it's got a really diverse mixture as well of people that are trying to better the industry so usually again this is one of those multi-laddered ones typically through local or provincial associations and membership in one often means a membership in the other or there's certain dues that are split out based on uh what each association will get they've been involved in a lot of things too numerous to mention and you can go to any of these ones i mentioned their website and find out more information about them but definitely ccdc documents um so basically the canadian construction document committee they've been involved in a number of developments of standard practices and really been instrumental in this leading in this particular area they also are responsible for the gold seal certification program and gold seal is one of the premier certifications that is recognized in canada in the ici sector and they have different designations superintendent estimator project manager owners construction manager construction safety coordinator so if you graduate from your program uh in construction it's probably worth your while to look in to some of these certifications so if you end up working as an estimator i would be looking at the estimator certification or if you're end up working as a project coordinator and you eventually want to be a project manager maybe you're going to look at project manager or site superintendent so there is pretty much a designation that would fit um people that are entering the construction construction industry now you have to have a certain amount of experience and you have to pass exams you may have to take uh some courses depending on the program that you may have uh graduated from for example the degree program um i don't think there's very many courses but these are always changing um so you'd probably be credited for most if not all uh they might have the ethics course that they require but i'm not i'm not sure exactly as they these things are always in flux a little bit but let's just know this that you'd have a lot of it done and it would not be a big leap other than getting the work experience done and writing the exam for it um so it'd be definitely a designation that um you could look towards uh getting very recognized in canada's ici sector probably not that recognized globally but very recognized in canada's ici sector so that would be it and these are giving you some of the education and training credits required so there's there's a lot of credits that you would likely receive but you could check into that from that perspective and there's a lot of continuing education courses that can be taken to um bring you towards this and receiving um the credit all right so and it has uh you know sort of a code of ethics as as far as fairness and loyalty commitment to public devotion to high needs personal honor professional integrity knowledge of developments in the area of gold seal certification area competence estimator estimating project manager project management competency in the performance of construction management services and that continuous improvement thing that we've been talking about in this course a willingness to participate in ongoing education because let's face it the world is changing and we got to change with it and we got to stay up to speed um so and as i mentioned it's been involved in the uh development of ccdc documents so you can see other areas like the royal architectural institute of canada uh which is consistent you can guess mostly of architects specification writers uh consultants engine engineers and so to get together and collaboratively that's where we've gotten this ccdc so in further studies and contracts and contract law you'll learn about canadian construction document committees because there's pretty much a standardized contract for every type of construction work that's been developed by ccdc and if there's new contracting models that come out then usually they're the first ones to start looking at well can we standardize this into a format that can be best utilized by members across the country um so this is a a quick list of these and these are always being updated ongoing updates typically so you can see the different contracts we talked about in earlier videos of different contracts and you can see some of the ones that are available you can see the list there and the ongoing list of documents and there's other documents that they're not all listed here that are also available so uh gives familiarization standardization makes it easier to understand how the contracts work and then each contract will have its own unique uh nuances to it that are developed from it so just giving you some good sort of background on that and worthwhile looking into in more detail typical like a ccdc2 lump sum or stipulated price contract as an example is a contract if you the owner are trying to get work done and you want to get a single price based on it and then there's opportunities for things like contingencies and allowances and other things within that contract and of course the change order process is also described and then there's when there's changes and there generally is there's a process involved and then that's followed and it's pretty sort of becomes very sort of standardized that way which makes it easier for companies consultants owners everybody that's involved rather than having everybody come up with their own sort of unique base contracts toronto construction association a place near and dear to my heart excellent association you wouldn't you know our students at george brown college in our degree program to be honest i'm not quite sure that we'd have a degree program if it wasn't for uh the toronto construction association um they approached uh us years back and um we worked collaboratively with them and as a result we got our four-year degree program why did they want to do that well they wanted to make the industry more professional they wanted to have better educated people that they hire so they made it imperative for them to uh work on that and they've been very supportive of all our programs from the renovation program to the two and three year construction engineering program so uh it's really been a good association to work with in that way as i mentioned before some associations are very proactive on the education side they actually have a whole education wing to them which is called the construction institute of canada tcic dot ca which is working very very hard to educate their members with particular areas like a lot of the things we've talked about in this course but more in depth whether it's project management planning and scheduling lean construction methodology print reading you name it there's a lot of professional type courses that also are credited with gold seal because toronto construction association is is associated with the canadian construction association so there's that laddering effect that that helps that way and if there's a toronto construction association then you can bet there's a vancouver construction association and so on uh that work in their local members interests and toronto would obviously be the uh biggest um local chapter type construction association in canada given the size and scope of the amount of work that takes place in toronto so really you can sort of get the idea of who's involved and who it who it covers and again they have their own sort of uh ethics and uh accountability that they expect their members to follow and if the members aren't following that guess what um time to find a different association to associate with because they don't want bad press to reflect on the good will of all the other members in the association um so you can find you'll find that that's the typical sort of model that or it should be that models fall and as i mentioned the construction institute of canada and i might dive into this one a little bit later just to give you a little bit background in our second video but um tcic dot ca again if you're looking for uh courses that are credited you know with c with um gold seal etc it's probably a good source when you're working in the industry from that perspective and um offers a lot of breadth uh and with change that's happening so rapidly in all sectors it's good to be able to have a source that you could uh rely on for those types of things again that's why we remember we talked about ethics in the previous lectures that's why it's important right because we definitely need to upgrade the ethical perception of the construction industry as a whole and there are so many unfortunate ways that things can go south with regards to keeping a moral guard on how businesses are run and so again this is following along those lines that way and fitting in with the industry partnerships and networking opportunities as well nice thing about taking professional courses and myself having taught many professional courses at tcic is that you are working with working professionals so there's a great knowledge base there that you can use to enhance and increase the learning in the classroom when people have that much experience that's involved with it i did mention the home building associations earlier like the building industry and land development association ontario home builders canadian home builders association to be honest i sat for over 23 years on build building industry and land development association they were really instrumental in george brown college getting the building renovation program i can remember when i sort of came up with the idea for the building building renovation program uh i talked to another faculty member at the time that had been involved with the then greater toronto home builders association and he said well if you want to get industry support they're the place to go told me who was leading it up i went there and they were actually very welcoming because they needed people that were better trained in the renovation sector so they were able to get tons of support letters from members they were able to back it and that carries a lot of weight as a college if you're trying to develop a new program you have to prove to the ministry of education that this program has legs that this program is going to be in demand that industry wants this program before they're going to agree to fund training in it and so this is again from differing points of view how an association can actually help [Music] improve the education of its members and make the industry more professional so it's very like what cca uh sorry tca did with our degree program in this case they really helped our two-year and three-year building renovation programs i'm not sure um i'm not sure that i could have gotten that kind of information pulled together to develop the proposal and get it through without their support uh ontario homebuilders association provincially as i mentioned and then actually i sat on a on a committee the um professional development committee it used to be called the education committee for the canadian home builders association for about 15 years and that was a great learning experience for me uh because it was all the builders and developers from across canada that were interested in proving the education of the memberships and so i got to work with them on a number of projects and different items and present a number of times at their yearly meetings and so they're great the amount of networking opportunities and learning that came from me being able to participate with them was just amazing and so a lot of my knowledge about net zero and equilibrium houses and movement towards energy efficiency came long before it was actually a thing and a lot of it um a good part of it i owe to um sitting on that committee with the canadian home builders association so my point when pointing these things out are i feel like if you get yourself involved professionally in one of these associations in one of these areas when you graduate it's going to make a difference for you personally so there as you're going to see by the second lecture that i go through there's a lot of association there's a lot of certifications that are involved so you have to kind of figure out well which one sort of has a calling towards me which one am i interested in and um then you you start to invest some time in it it does take a lot of time like i'm not gonna say that it didn't take time there was a there was a monthly meeting for like every month for 21 years and trust me there was a lot of those meetings that i would have liked to have missed but i knew that there were certain things that they were covering that they wanted my input and that sort of thing and actually had to get elected to get on that committee and so there were elections and other things like that nature so you kind of have to put yourself out there you kind of have to network with people but the amount of people in it that you get to know and provide you immense opportunities in your career um there's this um saying and i'm thinking of doing a short video on this for my youtube channel but um really there's this this uh where you think about luck and opportunity or chance and opportunity and um people say oh they're lucky oh they were just lucky look at this guy they're just lucky yeah but there i feel like there's this opportunity bus that just keeps driving around and keeps driving around and if you're ready for it then it'll actually stop for you and you can get on to it but if you're not ready for it it just keeps going right on by you but being involved in these opportunities um all of a sudden you get to know somebody and they mention something and it's an opportunity that fits what you want to do you're ready for it and you can take advantage of it but if you're not involved in any of this stuff and you just got your head down in a trailer or you're working with a single company you're not seeing how the rest of the world is operating and you're not making those connections it's not going to be the same for you you're not going to have as many opportunities that way you're limiting your opportunities you're you're limiting the chances chance or opportunities of luck coming your way and um you won't really sort of be able to decipher it when you do see it but if you're involved in these things you start to see and get a pulse of how things are going i think it's a little bit too like people that have never traveled and they've kind of stayed in their hometown their whole life you know what they might be happy enough but i just don't think that they have a world view of how things work i think you have sort of a very sort of myopic view of how things work and i think if you get the opportunity to sort of open up to a wider spectrum it's going to make a big difference in your life and your career so i'm kind of in this first one just sort of laying the groundwork that you can think about the opportunities that are there and take it seriously fill your own pulse as you go through um your preparation for a career in construction or if you've started in construction keep your eyes on what's of interest to you you know is it really like uh climate change and energy efficiency and that sort of thing well then there's there's a wealth of areas that like-minded people can actually work at and maybe make a difference whether that's going to be in the leed certification area and canada green building council or maybe it's an area where you're interested in lean and reduction of waste and those opportunities and then again there's there's opportunities in all these different sectors to to meet with some some people and get to know it and sometimes it's even good to get involved in an area that's not your thing just to get a little bit of breadth in your thoughts so that you're thinking a little bit outside the box i don't know if the piano is in the view over here this uh keyboard but um that was kind of my thought when i started looking at playing the piano right i started like i've never done this before and i've never had anything in music but i want to try something different i'm all the time thinking about construction i need to have something that offers some more breadth so when i'm talking about certifications and associations think about it a little bit oh this guy's given a lecture no think about it where are some things that connect with me hmm investigate this a little bit more maybe i can get involved as a student member for now so start thinking along those lines and see where that takes you and what opportunities it brings to you so i just want to give you that quick lead in today and then i'm going to be shooting another one which will build on what we've been uh talking about now get into a lot more different opportunities and certification programs that are out there so this is tom stevenson signing off for now and start thinking about this stuff and have a wonderful day bye for now