Manitoba Heavy Construction Association

4 SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2020 A SUPPLEMENT TO THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A CENTURY OF BUILDING MANITOBA Airport, Highway & MunicipalPaving Asphalt & Concrete Street Resurfacing Commercial Parking Lots Sewer, Water & Land Drainage Renewals & Installations Snow Removal Asphalt, Limestone, Gravel &Sand Supplies Equipment Rentals 751 Lagimodiere Blvd., Winnipeg, MB R2J 0T8 Email: bci@borlandconstruction.com Ph: (204) 255-6444 Fax: (204) 255-5209 borlandconstruction.com CHABOT ROCK SOLID SOLUTIONS 204.224.1565 www.chabotenterprises.ca 1969-2019 SERVICES • Sand and Gravel • Aggregate Crushing • Excavation and Earthwork • Road Construction • Flood Protection, Riverbank and Shoreline Restoration • Site Remediation • Trucking and Heavy Equipment Rentals • Commercial Snow Removal • Site Preparation and Land Development CELEBRATING CHABOT ROCK SOLID SOLUTIONS 204.224.1565 www.chabotenterprises.ca SERVICES • Sand and Gravel • Aggregate Crushing • Excavation and Earthwork • Road Construction • Flood Protection, Riverbank and Shoreline Restoration • Site Remediation • Trucking and Heavy Equipment • Commercial Snow Removal • Site Preparation and Land Development CELEBRATING CHABOT ROCK SOLID SOLUTIONS 204.224.1565 www.chabotenterprises.ca 1969-2019 SERVICES • Sand and Gravel • Aggregate Crushing • Excavation and Earthwork • Road Construction • Flood Protection, Riverbank and Shoreline Restoration • Site Remediation • Trucking and Heavy Equipment Rentals • Commercial Snow Removal • Site Preparation and Land Development CELEBRATING CHABOT ROCK SOLID SOLUTIONS 204.224.1565 www.chabotenterprises.ca 1969-2019 SERVICES • Sand and Gravel • Aggregate Crushing • Excavation and Earthwork • Road Construction • Flood Protection, Riverbank and Shoreline Restoration • Site Remediation • Trucking and Heavy Equipment Rentals • Commercial Snow Removal • Site Preparation and Land Development CELEBRATING CHABOT ROCK SOLID SOLUTIONS 204.224.1565 www.chabotenterprises.ca SERVICES • Sand and Gravel • Aggregate Crushing • Excavation and Earthwork • Road Construction • Flood Protection, Riverbank and Shoreline Restoration • • • • SERVICES • Sand and Gravel • Aggregate Crushing • Excavation and Earthwork • Road Construction • Flood Protection, Riverbank and Shoreline Restoration • Site Remediation • Trucking and Heavy Equipment Rentals • Commercial Snow Removal • Site Preparation and Land Development www.mhca.mb.ca M anitoba's Budget 2020 still carried the smell of printer's ink when the COVID-19 pandemic began rattling global economies. Budgets are built on forecasts of GDP and tax revenues. In these uncharted times, the variables are too great to have reliable estimates for economic growth, a ecting projections of revenues. Before COVID-19, the provincial government's agenda for the next four years focused rmly on growing our economy and, hand-in-hand, the creation of 40,000 new jobs. at goal has now become much more di cult as sustaining has become the goal until certainty returns to society. e short- and long-term e ects of the pandemic are not yet known and may in fact, take a long time to fully manifest themselves. is is truly a disruptive and transformational event. e Business Council of Manitoba is clearly focused on sustaining and growing our economy. Our member companies generate more than $45 billion of business-related revenue annually, employ more than 55,000 Manitobans. Today and into the future, it will take the combined best e orts of the private and the public sector to ensure Manitoba's economy weathers the storm and prospers once the skies clear. Returning to economic stability and on to growth requires Manitoba to build upon its strengths. Sitting at the core of our economy is trade: Like Canada, Manitoba was founded on trade – it gave root to settlement and is woven tightly into the province's fabric. Fully 53% of our GDP is derived from trade; that represents nearly $40 billion worth of business. Trade is an economic force because it touches nearly all sectors. In 2017, Manitoba's top exports were wheat, pork and canola. Our top three markets were: United States - $9 billion; China - $1.4 billion and Japan Japan - $812 million. One thing those numbers illustrate is the opportunity to further diversify. Canada has renewed and signed new trade agreements in recent years. e world of trade has opened like never before. Our global trading partners, however, are gearing up to seize on the opportunities, too – as are other provinces. Manitoba needs to aggressively compete for an increased market share. One of the rst things is to strengthen the foundation for trade – our roads. Roads move our goods out and bring in products required for the production or manufacture of commodities. Trade goes nowhere without a reliable transportation system, which means prioritizing the trade corridors, gateways and hubs that move imports and exports. at requires a strategic plan to focus investment, long-term, so Manitoba builds a seamless multimodal transportation system capable of meeting the demands of rising trade volumes, ensuring goods and commodities move in and out e ciently. Such a strategy would identify the priority projects, what level of investment is needed where, when and how to fund them. A nimble trade economy is one that identi es and addresses early any barriers, to move past arti cial borders smoothly. In Manitoba, we can do that by coordinating trade-enabling infrastructure investment with both public and private partners. is is especially true in the Capital Region – Winnipeg and the surrounding 17 municipalities collectively host 70% of the provincial GDP and 65% of the population. e Capital Region has the opportunity and responsibility to collaborate with Manitoba to promote investment in the trade transportation corridors and routes that would further elevate the entire region's ability to attract new investment and business, diversify and boost its trade pro le. Provincially, a strategic infrastructure investment plan would recognize and promote the critical role that key trade infrastructure plays in our success. Assets such as CentrePort Canada, Winnipeg International Airport, the rail and highway systems connect us to the world and our trading partners. ere are no certainties in the many months ahead as we nd our foothold in a global economic shi , now and post-pandemic. It will take careful scal management and strategic planning to return to the growth forecasted for our economy just weeks ago. Manitoba has the opportunity to emerge from this stronger and should aggressively pursue all opportunities that expanded trade o er. Trade has historically provided safe harbour out of anxious times. It will be trade that sets the world right again. Let's make sure we can get Manitoba's trade on the road. B Y B R A M S T R A I N B Y C H R I S L O R E N C GETTING OUR ECONOMY BACK TO A NEW NORMAL TURNING WESTERN CANADA INTO A TRADE SUPERPOWER Bram Strain is the CEO of the Business Council of Manitoba CEO. Strain served most recently as Lethbridge, Alta., city manager and previously as deputy minister of Manitoba Infrastructure. Manitoba needs a strategic investment plan to boost trade, grow the economy. W estern Canada is a vast, resource- rich region with a growing population and signi cant, pent-up capacity to produce the goods in demand, domestically, continentally and globally. Already, this region typically out-punches its Canadian counterparts: at 32% of Canada's population, it contributes 37% of its exports and nearly 38% of Canada's real GDP; Western Canada's GDP per capita was $56,000 in 2017, 18% higher than the national average. So how do we unleash Western Canada's potential to expand existing trade markets and move into areas that new trade agreements have opened to our country? It starts with investment in our regional trade gateways and corridors, underpinned by a long- term – read: 20 or 30 years -- investment strategy. But the Western provinces cannot do this themselves. e federal government must lead the campaign, underpinned by a nation-building trade infrastructure program. at nationally prioritized investment strategy can help turn Western Canada into: • A region generating rising revenues to provincial, federal and municipal co ers from the robust trade, employment growth and invigorated cities; • A region equipped with pan-Western pipelines and power grids that see full sharing nation-wide of energy, spurring real economic growth in such sectors as manufacturing and technology, and muscles Canada onto global energy export markets; • A region where public and private sectors cooperatively invest in trade-enabling transportation infrastructure – our trade gateways and corridors -- guided by an ROI-to-GDP strategy supported by sustainable development principles; and • A globally competitive trade-based economy plugged into a Canadian economic strategy. And in turn, Western Canada can help turn Canada into a global trade leader. A new nation-building trade infrastructure program for Western Canada is needed to pick up where the Asia Paci c Gateway and Corridor Initiative le o , to complete the vision that launched one of the most successful investment plans in this country's history. e federal APG&CI strengthened Western Canada's supply chains to booming Asian economies. It delivered impressive results -- $1.4 billion in federal funding leveraged $3.5 billion of public investment, producing a total $14 billion in public-private investment. e APG&CI began with a focused priority on trade investments in British Columbia. As the region's western trade gateway province, it saw fully 60% of the federal funding invested in its trade transportation facilities. at level of investment was a necessary rst start. e next step is to complete the vision of Western Canada as a regional trade superpower. It is the right time to take the lessons learned and adopt/adapt its best practices for the whole of Western Canada, to ensure our trade-transportation assets can meet the challenges of and seize on the trade opportunities before us. Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, upon release of e Infrastructure that Matter Most put it best: " ere is the infrastructure we want like parks and hockey rinks, the infrastructure we need like schools and hospitals and then there is the infrastructure that pays for these things and that is trade infrastructure." Canadians should heed the prescient observation. We should press the federal government to leverage provincial and private sector participation and investment, in a long-term, nation building investment strategy for trade infrastructure. Chris Lorenc is the president of the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association and the Western Canada Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association "There is the infrastructure we want like parks and hockey rinks, the infrastructure we need like schools and hospitals and then there is the infrastructure that pays for these things and that is trade infrastructure." Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce

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