ICBA celebrates 50 years of serving open shop construction this year, and we are looking back every week at some of the significant moments, milestones, and people who helped ICBA become Canada’s largest construction association.
Today, we look at ICBA’s platform, mission and values — as we enter our 51st year of serving construction contractors.
Here’s the truth about construction right now: nothing is simple, and everything is urgent. Housing shortages, stubborn permitting delays, inflation that squeezes every bid, a wave of retirements cresting just as demand for skilled people surges – our industry is being asked to build more, faster, and for less, with fewer people. That kind of pressure either breaks you or forges you. At ICBA, it forged us into Canada’s largest construction association.
Fifty years ago, on April 26, 1975, a small group B.C. contractors and entrepreneurs – open shop, independent, resourceful and determined – decided they were done being told to stand in the hallway while someone else got the contracts and carved up the work. They wanted opportunity and a level playing field, not special treatment. They wanted to compete. That impulse, born in a little hotel in Trail in 1975, still runs through everything we do. The open shop’s rise in British Columbia didn’t happen by accident; it happened because thousands of builders proved, project by project, that openness and competition creates opportunity and produces better value, safer sites, and faster delivery. Today, 85% of all construction workers in B.C. are employed by open shop companies. You can feel that shift on job sites, in the boardrooms of owners, and in the expectations of the public: more bidders, more ingenuity, more accountability. As the open shop grew, ICBA grew with it – with relevance and purpose.
When Chris Gardner became ICBA’s third president in 2017, he inherited that stubborn streak – and doubled down on it. “Independence means everything to us,” Gardner often says in his speeches. “In 50 years, we’ve never taken a dollar of government funding. Our credibility comes from telling the truth about what’s working and what’s not, and then providing the services our members actually need.” It’s hard to overstate how unusual that discipline is in an era when organizations too often chase grants before they drive results. The market is our report card. If what we offer helps contractors win work, train people, support their teams, and grow stronger businesses, we expand it. If it doesn’t, we kill it and try something better.
That approach turned a plucky advocacy group into a modern, leading-edge business association – one that moves at the speed of construction, not the speed of government. It also mirrors the open shop story. Independent firms grew because they were wired to adapt; ICBA grew because we wired ourselves the same way. “We want to be the easiest ‘yes’ on a contractor’s desk because of our ability to help solve our members’ problems,” Gardner says. “If you call us with a challenge on a Tuesday, your team should feel the difference by Friday.”
Training is the clearest example of that mindset. Walk any busy site and you’ll hear the same plea from superintendents and project managers: give me people who can read the spec, manage the schedule, and solve problems without creating five more. ICBA Training is our answer – a practical catalogue that shifts with the industry. Project management and construction law for folks trying to keep change orders from eating the margin. Estimating and cost control for sharpened bids. Leadership courses for people stepping into bigger roles. Digital tools and workflows because BIM and field mobility are no longer “nice-to-haves.” And delivery that fits construction life – in person when that’s best, live online when teams are spread thin, on-demand for the 9 p.m. “I need this now” crunch. The open shop needs upskilling at scale; so we built the pipeline for that.
Apprenticeship sponsorship is the companion piece. Everyone has a speech about the shortage of people; we prefer paperwork and phone calls – the unglamorous work that helps our members turn “we should hire an apprentice” into “we registered three this quarter.” Small and mid-sized firms, the backbone of the open shop, don’t have a spare administrator to shepherd hours and records. We take that on so owners and apprentices can focus on learning, earning, and progressing. Layer in mentoring and clear pathways, and something powerful happens: apprentices become tradespeople, tradespeople become leaders, and companies gain the capacity to say “yes” to more work. The compounding effect is real, and it’s how an industry renews itself – one person, one credential, one promotion at a time. And we now sponsor more than 3,000 apprentices; in fact, no company, union or association sponsors more apprentices in B.C. than ICBA.
Construction is also a culture – proud, resilient, and, at times, private. Too private when it comes to mental health. ICBA Wellness exists to break that silence with practical tools that fit the job site: toolbox talks, supervisor guides, conversation starters that aren’t preachy or corporate, and confidential supports that people can actually use. We center everything on this idea: a strong safety culture includes psychological safety. Burnout, addiction, and despair rob our industry of skilled people and families of loved ones. “If we can help one person take a step toward support, that’s a huge win,” Gardner says. “If we can help thousands, that changes our industry.” We’re pushing hard for the latter.
Benefits matter in that equation, too. Construction is mobile and cyclical; hour banks and seasonal rhythms are features, not bugs. ICBA Benefits was built for that reality, with plans contractors can use to recruit and keep talent, protect families, and promote wellness – without forcing a shop-floor business into an office-tower mold. The point is to remove friction. When benefits work in the background, owners can focus on bids and builds, and their teams can focus on work and life. “We obsess over the customer experience because these are our members – the heartbeat of our association,” Gardner says. “Speed, clarity, and solutions. No waiting for hours for a service rep, no bad surprises.”
Of course, all the training and benefits in the world won’t fix a broken permitting system or a procurement policy that excludes the majority of the workforce. This is where ICBA’s advocacy still looks a lot like our founding moment – undaunted and unapologetic. We push for faster approvals, predictable and practical codes and standards, competitive tendering, and modernized procurement that maximizes competition. We call out rules that drive up costs, stall projects, or reward incumbency over performance. And we back it up with solutions, research, and coalitions – because government moves when broad alliances of credible people agree on practical steps. “Our industry builds things,” Gardner says. “It’s time our policy and regulatory systems learned to build, not block.”
If you want to see how far the open shop has come, just scan the community. The companies building towers, hospitals, schools, roads, and homes across B.C. are overwhelmingly independent contractors playing at the highest level. Owners learned that open competition produces sharper pencils and better outcomes. Taxpayers learned that value isn’t a slogan – it’s the difference between a project delivered and a project delayed. Meanwhile ICBA grew from a B.C. upstart into Canada’s largest and most dynamic construction association, and pushed east into Alberta. We employ more than 60 people – a talented team fully dedicated to serving and supporting our members and clients. The parallel with the way open shop has grown isn’t accidental; it’s by design with our purpose in mind.
That growth also changed how we show up. We still take the tough meetings and make the tough cases, but we also build community. Events that bring ideas and people together. Research that gives our members and policymakers a clear view of what’s happening on the ground. Communications that cut through the noise and focus on outcomes. When the industry is this complex and the stakes are this high, being loud isn’t enough – you have to be relevant.
There’s a temptation, at an anniversary like ICBA 50, to wander through the museum of memories. We’re more interested in what comes next: demographics are shifting, technology is accelerating, capital is choosier. Communities expect more – and they should. Governments face fiscal constraints and should demand better value for every public dollar.
“Open shop is all about competition, fairness and performance,” Gardner says. “Fairness means everyone qualified gets a shot; performance means the best value wins. That’s how you build an industry, a community, and a country.”
That’s the thread that ties our history to our future. The handful of contractors that met in Trail 50 years ago, didn’t set out to start a movement; they set out to win fair access to opportunity and to work. In doing so, they unlocked a more dynamic, competitive, and innovative construction economy. Fifty years later, the open shop they championed is the centre of gravity in B.C., and the association they founded has grown into a modern partner that trains people, supports families, builds careers, and stands up for the conditions that let builders build.
At ICBA, we don’t know everything the future will throw at us, but we know who we are and how we help construction companies succeed. We are clear-eyed about the challenges, impatient for solutions, allergic to complacency, stubborn about independence, and relentless in service of the people who put on boots, pick up tools, manage risk, and get things built. That’s ICBA – growing as open shop grows and inspired by our members’ grit and ambition.
