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PCL, GETTY IMAGES
“This partnership helps advance a message
the industry needs to hear: the skilled trades
are essential, and if you want to be a part of
building Canada, there is room for you here.”
To confront this challenge head-on, PCL
Construction—Canada’s largest employee-owned
general contractor—has stepped forward with a $500,000
lead sponsorship of That Could Be Me, a national 昀椀lmdriven educational initiative. Developed in collaboration
with Stature Films and Spit昀椀re Recruiting Inc., the project
aims to reach students across 12,500 Canadian high
schools, reshaping how youth, parents, and educators
view careers in the skilled trades.
RENEWCANADA.NET
In an exclusive interview with ReNew Canada, Chris Gower,
President and Chief Executive O昀케cer of PCL Construction,
outlined why the company made this investment, the hidden
economic forces compounding the labour crisis, and why a
uni昀椀ed, national movement is urgently needed to secure Canada’s future workforce.
The Hidden Crisis
To the average observer, Canada’s skilled labour crisis might
appear manageable on the surface. However, Gower cautions
that the true extent of the shortage is currently being masked
by macroeconomic conditions—speci昀椀cally a
lull in private sector investment.
Currently, roughly 80 per cent of construction activity in Canada is driven by publicly
funded infrastructure, while private sector
capital spending remains unusually quiet.
This imbalance creates a temporary illusion of
labour availability.
“Today, Canada’s labour shortage is being
partially masked by current economic conditions,” Gower noted. “Private sector investment
remains subdued, but when spending rebounds
and demand increases, while hospital projects
and other government infrastructure investments continue, the pressure on our workforce
will intensify. Add the signi昀椀cant increase in
Department of National Defence (DND) projects and the rapid growth of data centres, and
it becomes clear that we are heading toward a
serious labour shortage.”
Gower warned that when the bottleneck
inevitably hits, it will not manifest as a sudden
stoppage, but rather as severe economic friction
that threatens the viability of major projects.
“It likely won’t feel as though we’ve run out
of labour; it will feel as though we simply don’t
have enough,” Gower explained. “That shortage will show up in rising costs, project delays,
and di昀케cult decisions about whether critical
infrastructure projects can move forward. Many
of the resulting challenges will be di昀케cult to
trace back to a single cause, but I can con昀椀dently say that labour availability will be one of the
key factors driving those negative outcomes.”
This dynamic is not without precedent.
Gower pointed to the Alberta oil and gas boom
a decade ago, when extreme labour competition
led to massive wage distortions and service
shortages across the province. Without proactive
intervention, Canada risks repeating history on a national scale
just as major capital projects are scheduled to break ground.
Changing the narrative
At the heart of the skilled trades shortage is a cultural perception problem that has been building for more than two
decades. For years, high school students have been guided
along a narrow educational funnel that prioritizes university
degrees over technical vocations.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2026 – RENEW CANADA 13
