With only a little more than 70 days until British Columbians head to the polls, July was a busy month for VRCA advocacy. On July 21st, we officially launched VRCA’s Build Lower Mainland municipal election campaign and began taking the campaign directly to municipal candidates and parties across the region, bringing construction leaders and elected officials together to shape the future of the Lower Mainland.
Mayors join the campaign launch
We kicked things off on July 21 with a breakfast at the Fairmont Waterfront featuring Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, and Huw Williams, President of Impact Public Affairs.
The room was filled with VRCA members, construction leaders, elected officials, and community stakeholders for an honest conversation about what it will take to deliver the housing, infrastructure, and communities the Lower Mainland needs.
Mayor Sim and Mayor Hurley spoke candidly about the challenges and opportunities facing their cities, including permitting, infrastructure investment, regulatory certainty, and the need for municipalities and industry to work more closely together.
For our members, the message was familiar: the industry is ready to build, but it needs clear rules, predictable timelines, and timely decisions to plan, invest, and get projects moving.
The breakfast may have launched the campaign, but it was only the beginning of the conversation.
The municipal leaders participating in the launch emphasized the importance of close collaboration between government and the construction industry: “Construction plays a vital role in shaping our region,” said Mike Hurley, Mayor of Burnaby. “None of the housing, infrastructure or community facilities we’re delivering happens without true collaboration between local government and industry.”
Following the launch, Mayor Hurley carried the conversation forward in a blog post outlining three ways governments can better support construction. Read the blog here.
Mayor Ken Sim highlighted the importance of creating greater certainty and improving processes that affect project delivery: “We’re focused on what we can control: providing certainty to industry, speeding up permitting, and making it clear that Vancouver is committed to building, when government and industry work together, projects get built faster and communities benefit.”
Build Lower Mainland is built around three priorities – Cost to Build, Time to Build, and People to Build. The campaign will bring industry, municipal leaders, candidates, and decision-makers together to help shape the future of housing, infrastructure, and economic growth across the Lower Mainland.
Bringing your voice directly to candidates
Following the launch, VRCA President Jeannine Martin and Director of Advocacy & Engagement Craig Larkins met with OneCity Vancouver mayoral candidate William Azaroff and members of the OneCity campaign team.
We introduced the Build Lower Mainland campaign and began a practical conversation about housing, infrastructure, and construction in Vancouver. That discussion will continue when VRCA hosts a Build Lower Mainland roundtable with OneCity in the coming weeks.
We are also preparing for an upcoming meeting with the Vancouver Liberals and will continue connecting with municipal parties and candidates across the Lower Mainland.
Prompt Payment Update
This month also marked an important milestone in prompt payment advocacy. Working alongside BCCA and industry partners across British Columbia, VRCA helped develop a joint industry submission in response to the Province’s Discussion Paper on regulations for the Construction Prompt Payment Act.
Together, we are calling for the Act to be implemented without exemptions or a phased rollout, supported by clear and practical regulations that provide certainty, ensure timely payment, establish effective adjudication, and create a consistent framework based on industry best practices.
Read BCCA’s news release and the Joint Industry Response for more information.
In other provincial news, it was great to see the Province adding 462 new skilled trades training seats at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, part of 5,000 new seats being created across B.C.
This investment matters. BuildForce Canada projects that B.C.’s construction industry will need to recruit 48,200 additional workers by 2035 to keep pace with expansion and replace retiring workers.
At VRCA, we’re helping build that workforce pipeline from the ground up. Bring Trades to School gives students hands-on exposure to construction careers, while our Pathways to Careers in Trades and Construction resource helps students, educators, and job seekers understand how to enter and grow within the industry.
More training spaces, earlier exposure, and clearer pathways into construction are all part of building the workforce B.C. needs. Explore VRCA’s Pathways to Careers in Trades here.
Construction Outlook: What Members Need to Know
CCA’s latest economic report shows that construction is facing a more uncertain road ahead. Growth has slowed, costs remain high and contractors are navigating continued pressure from tariffs, material prices and changing procurement requirements. For B.C.’s construction industry, it reinforces what our members already know: businesses need greater certainty, a reliable pipeline of projects and policies that make it easier to plan, invest and build. Read CCA’s Summer 2026 Economic Report.