Note: This course is offered every other year and may be offered again in 2025-2026.
Note: This course satisfies the Perspective course requirement.
The construction industry is deserving of separate legal study. It is one of the largest industries in Canada, comprising 20% or more of all GDP attributed to goods-producing industries in this country in any given year, and employing over 10% of all Canadian workers. It is an industry undergoing profound change due to a chronic infrastructure deficit, the globalization of construction skills and material markets, the ever-increasing dependence of public projects upon private capital, and the challenges and opportunities presented by rapid technological advance.
More significantly, the construction industry globally is one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emission. In Canada, building operations are responsible for 17 per cent of the country’s carbon emissions, with construction and materials representing a further 11 per cent. Canadian buildings account for 50 percent of natural resources consumption, 33 percent of energy consumption, 12 percent of non-industrial water use, and 25 percent of waste. With the world’s building stock set to double by 2050, a global transformation to an energy-efficient and low-carbon buildings and construction sector is essential to realize global ambitions to limit the rise in average global temperature to less than 2°C above preindustrial levels by 2030. Changing climate conditions are also driving the need for more resilient buildings and infrastructure, changing how things get built. This course will explore legislative and voluntary initiatives to address these issues.
This course will also explore the unique features of construction contracting and dispute resolution. The course will explore the shift from transactional to relational forms of contract (owner/contractor, owner/designer, contractor/subcontractor), and the role of technology in that shift. Standard transactional forms of contract will be examined as well as more collaborative integrated project delivery forms of agreement (IPD and NEC3).
The course will also explore forms of alternative dispute resolution unique to the construction industry. These include public law lien, prompt payment, and statutory adjudication remedies, and private law remedies such as mediation, multi-party dispute boards and combined dispute boards.
This course will approach construction law as a legal fabric, interwoven with strands of private law of contract, tort, real property, debtor-creditor, agency, administrative law, trusts, etc., and strands of public law and legislation relating to sale of goods, personal property security, liens, workers' compensation, labour, occupational health and safety, and sustainability.
Students completing this course will be able to analyze construction law problems and identify and apply appropriate principles of law in framing solutions.
Guest lecturers may be invited to participate in key subject matter areas.
