GlassTalk #76

Welcome to Glass Talk, Canada's podcast for the architectural glass industry.
Now, here's your host, Patrick Flannery.
Hey, everybody, it's Pat here with Blake Sanders.
Blake is the president of the Ogma Antero Glass and Metal Association.
He is also the vice president of Spandrel Tech.
And Blake has been.
Well, we've just been laughing about it.
He's been doing this officially for 10 years, but actually quite a lot longer because, of course, he worked in the shop with Wes and everybody else for a lot longer than that.
Blake, how are you doing today?
Not bad, Pat, how are you doing?
Good, good.
Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, no, my pleasure.
And we've got something, I guess you could call this a bit of an emergency podcast.
Not really, but, I mean, we're jumping on because you guys have issued a sternly worded letter, frankly, to the.
To the Ontario government.
And I think.
I think it's something that everybody across the country can.
Can.
Can relate to.
And.
Oh, there's the announcements at the shop.
That's.
That's good.
Nothing.
You have to run out to Blake, I hope.
No, no, no.
I forgot to mute my phone.
That's awesome.
And.
And.
But anyways, you know, there's.
There's.
It's just.
Well, we're going to talk about it, but it's an ongoing issue that I think everyone in the industry can really relate to.
And so I wanted to have Blake on to go into it a little further with us and talk about why the association is sending messages up to Doug Ford and the Voice.
Absolutely.
Yeah, exactly.
So, Blake, why don't you start out telling us, I guess, exactly what.
What the situation, what the incident is that precipitated this, I guess, specifically the awarding of the contract for the Trillium Health Partners hospital project.
Tell us exactly what.
What went on there that prompted all of this.
So this first came to my attention, probably.
Well, it came to my attention May 29th.
It was at our spring golf tournament, and that was at Osprey is an awesome time.
But I had several of our members come up to me and they were asking me if I knew about this or if I had heard about it.
And I kind of vaguely heard about it, but I didn't know any details, never looked into it, because it wasn't really my scope dealing with it here at Spandrel Tech.
I'm related, but I'm kind of unrelated, but through the OGMA side, I'm very, very much related.
And so they started explaining it to me the very next day.
I Got back to my office after the tournament and another member reached out to me and he wanted to have a follow up call from our conversation at the golf tournament.
So I had the call with him and he was very, very nice about it and he kind of gave me a little bit of insight into it.
And then I did some digging from there on.
And basically I'm going to sum it up here is what happened is the Trillium Hospital in Mississauga.
Trillium is what it's called in Mississauga is a massive project going on to the tune of about $140 million.
And it was awarded to a, an American company who is getting their products from Mexico.
So the American company is building the building in Canada and they're not even buying Canadian.
And to me that strikes a chord and I don't like it because as far as I'm concerned, Canadian projects should be done by Canadians.
We are more than capable.
We have some of the best glazing companies in the industry, in the world.
And this is a pretty monumental building medical facility, a Canadian medical facility.
Why is that not being done by Canadians?
For Canadians?
And so having after those conversations, I wasn't just approached by one, I was approached by several people.
And so being the president of the ogma, we always say that we are lobbying on behalf of everybody for our industry.
When something goes wrong, the OG May is there, we've got your back.
And this is what we're here for.
And we're not just social events.
We're here to lobby.
And we're also here for education.
So I'm here to lobby.
I took on the task, I said I would follow up.
I promised the members that reached out to me that I would do something about it.
And we're, we're doing something about it.
We reached out to our partners, the agmca.
I reached out to the president to see if he'd seen anything about it, heard anything, and he got back to me saying, yes, he's, he knew about this and he was actually meeting with Doug Ford at a charity golf tournament the following week to discuss the project.
So I let it sit for about a week and then I followed up with no from the AGMCA and said, what'd you hear?
What'd you find out?
And he said, yeah, we talked.
Ford and I talked about it and there's not much we can do or sorry, there's not much Ford can do.
And I was like, okay.
And that's all I got out of him.
So I let that sit with me for a couple days.
And quite frankly, that didn't sit well because with it being a medical facility, it's a project that's awarded by the government.
They should have some pull.
And then I, I got a letter from a past Director of the OGMA, Mr.
Steve Gusterson.
And him and I chatted about it and then I got a nice long winded letter of him basically ranting.
And he said, here, this is what I think about it.
And so I was like, I love the rant.
I'm not going to send your rant.
I'm going to clean it up a bit, make it appropriate.
But the gist of what our letter says comes from his rant because we all kind of feel the same things.
And so I, on behalf of the ogma, cleaned up his rant, put in my own thoughts.
I had lots of help from our administrator Lori, to board this correctly because if I'm going to go down this route, I'm going to go in the rabbit hole.
I want to be prepared and I want it to sound proper.
And so we, I then sent that off to, to Premier Ford and I waited and I waited about a week and I got a generic response from his office, Mr.
Ford will be in touch with you, blah, blah, blah.
I waited about a week, nothing.
I sent it again.
Crickets.
Yeah.
And then we sent it to the Minister of Infrastructure, Minister Surma, I believe his name is, and go figure, we get the generic response.
We've received your email, received your letter, nothing.
So we sent it actually via registered mail to make sure that they get this.
And I still haven't heard anything back.
So that was what, May 29th and last week we reached the boiling point where I was like, you know what?
Enough's enough.
I'm tired of waiting.
I'm going to go to the media with this.
So from there we sent it off to CTV News, Global News, Bell Media, and of course Glass Canada magazine.
You're probably the most important because you're in the industry, directly related.
And I haven't heard anything yet.
No one's picked it up.
But that was Thursday of last week that I sent it to them.
So I wouldn't expect to hear anything right away.
If I don't hear anything from them again, I'm going to send it to the media again, at least the local newscasts to broadcast this.
Because the project itself, I think I mentioned earlier, it's $140 million.
That's, that's not a small chunk of change.
That is, that's a lot and that being put into our economy would go a long way.
And when I was talking to our members, the gist of it on why it went to the American company is that there was no qualified in quotation marks.
There's no qualified enough Canadian companies to be able to handle a project with this.
And for lack of a better term, I'm calling not happening.
Because we have Flynn Canada.
Massive, massive company.
They're more than capable of handling.
Handling this.
And we had contract Glazers, we've got contract Leisures Inc.
West Windows, Ferguson, Newdorf.
They're huge, massive companies that have done bigger projects where you can't tell me we're not qualified.
And then I actually was fortunate enough to be sent the contract bid for this project in the help for my pursuit to justify this.
So one of our members sent this to me and lo and behold, we've got the bidding.
Glaciers were contract Glazers Inc.
Canadian Flynn hq Canadian Harmon contract Glazers Inc.
Which was formerly Soda Wall in Brampton, Canadian.
I know Harmon is American, but that's a Canadian facility.
And then Benson Industries, which is Benson Permasteel.
Lisa.
Right.
The only American that bid on that project was the one that got it.
And then I find out on top of that, they're not even buying their products for the building in Canada, they're getting it from Mexico because then they can bypass the US Tariffs and they're going to bring it into Canada.
So something is wrong with this picture.
You're telling me three Canadian, huge Canadian Glazers bid on this and you don't give it to any of them.
And it kind of shook our industry when we found out that Harman was being shut down.
And after I heard a little bit about this through the grapevine and Harman was being shut down.
Well, Harman bid on this project and they didn't get it, which probably would have saved them from being shut down.
And I know the bulk of their work is in the states, but this would have been in Canada.
So with the ongoing tariff situation, the bulk of their work is in the states.
That's why they shut down.
They're paying massive tariffs.
But this project, $140 million being in Canada, no tariffs.
Right.
So.
And I kind of irks me.
Yeah, well.
And that, you know, it looks like the advantage here to, to Benson Permastalisia is, is that they.
Is that they have facilities in Mexico and they can go and produce things that whatever the rate is there and ship it up here.
And so from a.
Whatever economic free Trade decision, all of that, if that's the only thing you're looking at.
They probably came in lowest cost.
Maybe, maybe, but we don't know.
And you hear this all the time, no other qualified bidders.
And to your point.
So I got up, I remember a couple of years ago and this was in a conversation about they were presenting the work on the centre block of the parliament buildings in Ottawa at OCS Ontario Construction Secretariat meeting here in, in Toronto.
And they, they went through the whole, you know, they, they were showing the whole project and, and then, and I believe that also went to Perma still Permasteliza.
I think, I think that one did too.
And, and the comment was made by the, by the contractor who was there doing the presentation that again, this was the only way, this was the only way they could get this done.
It was so advanced and so fancy and so amazing that they had to go overseas to get this thing done.
I believe it was some European affiliate of theirs that took care of that.
And I got up at the microphone at the time and I said really, really, you're telling me with the expertise that we've got in, in glazing and facade design in this country, you couldn't, there were no Canadian bidders that could pick this up for the Canadian freaking Parliament buildings.
Like if there isn't some national, you know, interest there, where is it?
Right.
And, and I actually had people around the room going, no, no, you'd never get a Canadian company to do this.
That was the opinion of the contractors in the room.
And if they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't have bid on.
Well, exactly.
And you know, and, and, and, and it's, it's, you know, how much cost were they saving?
Really?
I mean, come on.
Yeah, I'd be curious on that because, yeah, obviously.
So Ellis dawn is the, the GC of this petroleum hospital.
And I'd be, obviously they're never going to release this.
What the other guys came in at.
Bid wise I'd be very, very curious because I don't think that this came down to a, oh, they aren't qualified.
I think it came down to a dollars and cents thing.
First deal.
Lisa probably came in less but for me, three or four always preaches Ontario open for business.
What was Elbows up.
Yeah, where's the elbows up?
Yeah, where's the elbows up?
Let's get our economy back going.
And then all of a sudden this happens and it's like, oh, so you're just going to rip this money out of our economy and put it into none other than the Americans who, yeah, they've treated us well lately.
The timing is poor, it doesn't look good and I just, I find it very hard to believe that there wouldn't be certain advantages to working with local companies, at least companies that are Ontario.
Well, Flynn is very local and, and, and, and there would have, you know, I mean we can't sit here and say that we've looked at everything in the bid and that we know, and that we know all that, all the details.
But, but in the, in the, in the present environment it would certainly be nice to see some, a little extra, maybe spend a little more money to go.
Canadian GLAZING CONTRACTOR because you know, now is kind of the time when we're supposed to be, we're supposed to be doing that stuff.
Absolutely.
And considering everything that we've been put through by US politics, it would have been nice to see this one not go to the Americans because like myself and my own personal business here at Spandrel Tech, we got hit hard with the tariffs we have to pay aluminium goods going into the States and it sucks.
And the only way I could describe what it feels like being in the industry right now is we're targeted by the American politicians.
And I didn't even do anything.
I just feel targeted because they said okay, everything else goes down to 10% except for aluminium and steel goods.
Yeah, well what did I do?
And I wonder if permit Eliza was able to come in a little lower because as an American company they wouldn't have been paying tariffs on their components that they source inside the states and.
Yeah, and possibly not, possibly not have to face those costs.
And then to your point, they can go and make it in Mexico and then it is able to be exported to Canada under the Free Trade Agreement that believe it or not, does still exist and get it up here tariff free.
So it's kind of a, it just, it's a tough non, It's a tough competitive environment.
It's a tough non competitive situation for, for our people to, to, to build things in our own country.
I mean that's, that's the, that's the really, I think that's really.
That the galling part of it.
I'm, I'm in business.
Right.
Like I'm not naive to the fact that the lowest bidder usually gets the contract.
I totally understand it.
And Ellis Don themselves probably has a budget that they need to be within.
There's only so much money to go around.
Right.
Except the, where I draw the line is when we are wronged multiple times consistently.
And then you go and give the project to the people that wronged us for a Canadian medical facility.
What are like, are we.
Are we kidding around here?
Mm.
And then to say it's not qualified.
That's where I'm gonna start to draw the line.
And.
And let me go broader.
Let me go broader with this, because this is by far not the first time that this.
That this sort of thing has happened.
Anyone in this business can give you a laundry list of losing contracts to lowest bidders from the US or from other places.
And we had to have a whole trade battle over Chinese curtain wall before we could get that to stop happening 10 years ago or whatever it was.
And it was funny.
I was watching a conference a little while back, I think it was during COVID and Jeff Smith, I believe that's the CEO of Elliston, got up there and gave this very heartfelt speech about how there was no relationship between the contractors and the GCs anymore.
And it just wasn't the way it used to be, where you could do things with a handshake because there was trust and respect between each other.
And he really missed those.
I'm rolling my eyes exactly, man.
He really missed those days and this kind of thing.
And I've heard from.
And even at our municipal levels, I've spoken to.
I won't name anybody, but I know I've spoken to contractors in this province who have said, I'm not even bidding on stuff in Ontario anymore.
It's this race to the bottom.
They're only looking at that bottom cost line.
There is absolutely no consideration for anything else.
They have no idea if these people are qualified, unqualified.
The people making these decisions are not.
I'm not saying that.
I'm sure the construction manager at Trillium Am, what he's doing.
But.
But like, like, like there's this race to the bottom on the cost, and there's no consideration of anything else.
And here's another.
Here's another beautiful example of it.
They.
They've made the silliest possible sort of optical.
And for the benefit of the local, the Canadian and the Ontario industry, they've made a terrible move.
And, you know, it's only because somebody was able to underbid them.
Everybody else, because they're.
Because they're getting their stuff made in Mexico.
And we originally wanted.
Well, we originally went to Ford, Premier Ford, because I mentioned earlier they're not going to release this, but I'm curious how much they were underbid.
By.
Because is it something that could be offset by the provincial politics?
Like, is that something that could be offset by it by subsidies and whatnot or tax breaks or something like that?
Because if that's a solution, at least we're getting.
You're going to offset.
But maybe a couple million dollars to keep 140 million.
Yeah, right.
If I'm not.
If you're under bid by a couple million dollars, you can offset that by keeping that $140 million in the Canadian economy, in the Ontario economy.
Right, yeah.
They're going to collect more in taxes than what they'll offset it by is my guess.
And the 140 million, was that just the facade or was that the whole project?
You know, offhand, that is a great question.
That one.
I don't know.
I'd have to look it up.
It's in my notes.
Even the facade proportion of that would skew.
That would basically skew the Canadian national numbers.
It's such a big project.
Yeah.
So I mean that's.
I know.
It's 807,000 square feet of glass.
Wow.
Yeah.
So.
So, yeah, so absolutely a transformative thing for probably a lot of people in our industry.
And look, don't get me wrong, permits to.
Lisa does it.
Lots of.
There's lots of Canadians that get to work on the project that they hired that, you know, our Glazers, you know, would probably still be up there, probably locally, there's still economic activity going on.
It's not like there's nothing out of that 40 million for anybody.
But it just at this time and in a circumstance where even Mark Carney, the freaking Prime Minister is saying, we gotta do these things in house, we've gotta figure out how to be self reliant and all the rest of it.
To your point, we're talking earlier, they come out and they say, well, there's no one in Canada qualified to do this project.
Right.
I don't think they're saying that in this case, but in some of these cases this has been their excuses.
There's no one in Canada that we can get to do these, to do these projects.
And to your point, well, until you've done it, you've never done it.
So if you're trying to build capacity and you're trying to have an industry in Canada that honestly is already a world beater.
I'm sorry, there's nothing perma.
St.
Lisa can do that our guys can't do.
There is not.
That's a bunch of garbage.
We've got some of the Greatest glazers in the world.
100%. 100%. All the capacity and knowledge is here.
There's none of that.
It's just a matter of, you know, whether you've done that specific thing before.
No one has.
These are all custom projects.
So if, if you're serious about following the line of we need to build up our self reliance and we need to have the economic activity in the country and support one another as a country in a circumstance where, who knows where the Americans are ultimately going with all of this, this is a very bad move.
And then you hit the nail on the head with, well, if you're not qualified to do something unless you do it right, you, you're never going to be good at something unless you're given the shot to do it.
And who know like this is just the first one that I know of where re in recent times where it's given to the American company, but what's next is the Ottawa Hospital going to be given out because they've got a new Met medical facility and you're telling me a medical facility in our nation's capital that should be done by Canadians.
We should have this sense of pride that this was built Canadian.
Yeah.
And the Americans have no compunction about Buy America, do they?
There are many, many states.
Joe Biden did it.
There were many, many states and the federal government that when things were economically difficult after Covid and the inflation and all the rest of it, there were absolute Buy America laws put in place saying it is illegal Mr.
Government to buy anything outside of the US and that's what they do.
So why are we filled with all this magnanimous generosity that we should be giving away our projects to people in other places?
Yeah, I get a sense of pride.
Like I can drive downtown Toronto and I can look at probably 15 buildings alone just on my drive on the Gardner Expressway of projects that my company Spandrel Tech has done.
And I get a sense of pride looking at these buildings.
Now my wife hates it when I look at them, but I get the sense of pride that that is Canadian, built hard.
I know the hard work that's gone into that and I know the people that have made it and I know the people that have installed it.
I know the people that drew it from the ground up and dug the hole.
So you get a sense of for Canada, by Canada and there should be a sense of pride there.
And when we're picked on for months by the antagonists down south and then I see this happen and it's it leaves a pit in my stomach.
And it was one thing.
It was one thing, Blake, when we had a deal and there was NAFTA and we could say, well, I guess we can't kick up a fuss about an American company coming up here and grabbing this project because we want to be able to go down there and grab their projects.
And some of that went on and some of that.
Some of that has got.
Some of that's probably still going on.
But, but, but under these circumstances right now.
Well, that certainly.
That, that, that logic goes away.
Yeah.
Because we ain't going down there to grab their projects because they're going to be tariffed and, and try getting your guys back and forth across the border.
So, yeah, no thanks.
No thanks.
End up in El Salvador, but.
And then you're criticised if you.
To get a project down there, you.
You'll get criticised or scrutinised by it because we're now providing foreign material to them.
Yeah.
And I've been in the States recently and it's not a nice situation.
Yeah.
So a lot of them apologise for what they've done to us.
They have passed laws.
They have passed.
Yeah, they.
They tore up.
They tore up our agreements and passed laws and then this kind of thing still goes down.
And this was our thank you.
Yeah.
This is the thanks we get.
Well, our thank you is here's another $140 million for your economy.
Blake, what would you like to see if I'm sure Doug Ford will be listening to this intently before he goes to bed on the off check.
Yeah.
Glass Canada is one of his.
Glass stock is one of his favourite difference.
But should.
Should.
Well, the letter.
The letter has.
The letter has reached him.
Blake.
What.
What do you think?
What, what would you like to see?
What.
What steps do you think they should take?
That's a tough one because we're already into this and there's a feeling in me that it's not going to change.
But what I would like to see is if there can be a change, the change get made and give the Canadians the shot.
And if we're not going to do it on this project, you better well do it on the next one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just.
Just know that we're watching work.
Everyone in this industry is keeping tabs and we all are aware of what's happened with this project.
So let's not let it happen again.
Great message, Blake.
Great job.
Thanks to you in the OGMA for.
For taking this on and for ob.
Working hard to get to get right to the top with this messaging and, and our friends at agmca.
Absolutely.
And, and all the guys over there, we're all, we all work together and that's, you know, well, best of luck.
And even if you, even if you say, I agree with you, you know, it's probably too late for any, anything to happen at this stage, but, you know, let's, let's hope maybe our government's here and across the country, because this doesn't happen just here in Ontario.
Absolutely.
Although I think we kind of suck for it, worse than places, to be very honest.
But, but we're too close, you know, we're too convenient and a big market.
But, but, you know, hopefully, hopefully everybody across the country and the politicians across the country making these decisions and putting out the policy for their procurement practises, just give it a little second thought and get some guidance going in a better direction that's really going to help out their local industry.
Completely agree with you.
Yep.
So let's leave it there.
Blake.
Thanks a lot for joining me, folks.
It was Blake Sanders, president of the ogma, vice president at Spandle Track here in glasstalk.
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening to Glass Talk.
You can find this episode@glasscanadamag.
com or on the major podcasting services.
Glass Talk is a presentation of Glass Canada magazine and Annex Business Media.