More foreign workers hired for bridge project in BC!

Foreign workers hired for bridge project

Jennifer Moreau / read the Maple Ridge Times
Tuesday, April 10, 2007

MAPLE RIDGE - The company in charge of hiring for the Golden Ears bridge project has brought in 33 foreign workers despite criticism from the B.C. Federation of Labour that doing so is exploiting cheap labour.

TransLink owns the bridge but entered a public-private partnership with Bilfinger Berger BOT Inc., a subsidiary of a German-based construction firm.

"We have hired in total 33 foreign workers by the end of March," said Patti Schom-Moffatt, a representative for the project, adding there are 105 local employees not including those hired by subcontractors.

Schom-Moffatt said the foreign workers comprise 15 carpenters, 10 general highly skilled steelworkers and eight concrete finishers. She can't say where they are from, only that they are covered by a union contract and paid the same as local workers.

Schom-Moffatt said the move to bring in foreign labour was about skills, not money. The Golden Ears bridge is cable-stayed, requiring specially skilled workers, she said.

"It's an unusual structure. We have local people with general skills but not specific for cable bridges."

Building boom lures migrants
2,724 come from rest of Canada in last quarter of 2006

Frank Luba / Read The Province

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

B.C.'s construction boom is being credited for drawing an influx of migrants from other provinces for the first time in a decade.

According to B.C. Stats, an agency of the provincial government, the province received 2,724 more immigrants from other provinces than left the province in the last quarter of 2006.

Alberta attracted 11,813 from other provinces, while Sask-atchewan got 1,086.

Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen believes the reason for the inflow of people is the booming provincial econ- omy.

"It comes down to where the jobs are," Hansen said yesterday.

"It's the first time since the mid-1990s we've seen the inter-provincial migration significantly in B.C.'s favour," he said.

"In the last half of the 1990s we saw a significant out-migration, particularly of younger workers looking for jobs in other parts of Canada. Now it's the complete reverse." Hansen doesn't see the trend reversing any time soon.