NEWS BRIEFS BRITISH COLUMBIA Eastern Canada anti- dumping battle risks building materials shortage in B.C. An anti-dumping battle between eastern-Canadian rebar manufacturers and foreign suppliers has resulted in the possibility of shortages of the crit- ical building material in British Colum- bia, the Vancouver Sun reports. “Eastern Canada has several steel mills that produce much, but not all, of the metal rods Eastern contractors use to reinforce concrete structures,” Don Cayo reports in the article. “But Western Canada has no such mills. And distances and rail-shipping costs make it impractical for West Coast builders to buy from Eastern Canadian shippers, even if they pro- duced enough to meet the demand.” “So Western Canada relies on im- ports, and its rebar supplies are di- rectly impacted by Canada Border Service Agency’s “preliminary determi- nation” — this is bureaucrat-speak for “best guess until we check it out fur- ther” — that mills in China and Korea are dumping product on the Canadian market.” Cayo quotes Anoop Khosla, presi- dent of Midvalley Rebar, one of half a dozen companies that cuts, bends and installs rebar for concrete used in Lower Mainland buildings, as saying in other circumstances American mills — a handful of which are much closer to Vancouver than the Canadian ones — might offer an alternative. But since Mexican producers have been squeezed out of the U.S. market by an unrelated anti-dumping ruling, U.S. customers are taking virtually all of the 12 – Fall 2014 — The Canadian Design and Construction Report American production, and little is left for Canadian customers, the article says. “This means rebar from Chinese and Korean mills is required, and soon, to prevent the region from running out,” Khosla has been quoted as say- ing. “Even though these mills are much farther away than the Eastern Canadian ones, water transportation is so much cheaper that it can be landed in Vancouver for only about 40 per cent of the shipping cost,” the Sun has reported. ALBERTA Construction of 105 new schools planned, but when? (103 to go?) The provincial government an- nounced in October plans to build an additional 55 Catholic and Public schools, on top of 50 pledged by for- mer premier Alison Redford. However, critics have observed that virtually none of the first batch of promised schools had started construction. Published reports have confirmed that one of the schools has been com- pleted and a second is under construc- tion, but that begs the question about the other 48 projects, let alone the ad- ditional 55 new ones added to the list. Alberta Infrastructure spokesper- son Tracy Larsen said construction of a new high school in northwest Cal- gary, which Calgary Board of Educa- tion officials said could cost up to $45 million, actually began in July, 14 months after it had been originally an- nounced by Redford. One project, the modernization of Ecole Citadelle for the Greater North Central Francophone school in Legal, has been completed already, Larsen said. Wildrose Party education critic Bruce McAllister, has been quoted as saying he had heard word of the new high school ground-breaking. “You’ll forgive me for not breaking out the pom-poms,” he said. “One for 50 is hardly cause for celebration. Start building the schools you promised and I’ll be the first in line to thank you.” Metro News quoted Kent Hehr, the Alberta Liberals’ education critic, as saying: “We knew the schools were going to start coming eventually, but the speed in which they’re coming doesn’t give me great confidence we are serving the students of today the best we can,” he said. SASKATCHEWAN $235.5 million Children's Hospital of Saskatchewan breaks ground Children, their families and project partners celebrated a major milestone for the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan (CHS) in Saskatoon with a ground-breaking ceremony at the construction site, the government announced in a news release. “Our government is fulfilling our promise to build a state-of-the-art ma- ternal and children’s hospital,” premier Brad Wall said. “This place of hope and healing will support high quality health care for our province’s children and families. This is truly an historic day as we celebrate a hospital made in Saskatchewan, for Saskatchewan.” ZGF Architects and HDH Architects designed the hospital, while ZW Group Inc. is the general contractor and Daniels Wingerak Engineering Ltd. is the mechanical engineer. With the support of the govern- ment’s $235.5 million investment, the facility design is now finalized and con- struction has started, the Sept. 25 news release said. The initial construc- tion phase includes piling and founda- tion work – approximately 300 concrete piles will be installed to sup- port the new structure. Construction of the main building will begin in early 2015, with the hos-