FREE TO ATTEND SESSIONS AT BUILDEX ALBERTA

Wednesday, October 23
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Location: Room 203

For industry leaders in the building industry, integrating immigration strategies into strategic planning is paramount, especially in navigating Canada's evolving landscape and addressing the prevalent labour shortages in Alberta's burgeoning sectors. Canada's evolving immigration landscape presents challenges and opportunities amidst labour shortages impacting Alberta's growing industries.
Attendees joining this session will learn key immigration strategies tailored to Alberta's labour needs, including:

• Insights into recent policy changes and specialized programs• Practical skills in navigating Canada's immigration system
• Understanding of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program
• Leveraging Alberta-specific initiatives to address labour shortages effectively

Speakers:
Jatin Shory, Partner, Shory Law LLP

Wednesday, October 23
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
Location: Room 205

According to several studies, productivity in the construction industry has been stagnating for well over half a century despite an ever-increasing utilization of technologies to assist design, scheduling, project controls, and the increasing use of power tools in the field. The building industry has taken action, pursued constant improvements, and generated many innovations to increase productivity over the decades, but this has proven insufficient.

This session will investigate why the numbers don’t match. The speaker will explore possible solutions to current problems and discuss a framework to look at these challenges that may be hiding in plain sight.

Attendees will gain insight by looking at projects from the lens of a production system, explore a frame of reference to change the approach to delivering projects, and understand some of the benefits of pursuing such approach. Key learnings for the attendees:

• Defining project vs production controls
• Overview of project production systems
• Delivering projects using production principles

Speakers:
Dominic Desmarais, Director, Lean Construction, Graham Construction

Thursday, October 24
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Location: Room 213

This seminar will highlight how increased frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves and wildfires threaten the health and safety of occupants in residential buildings in Canada, and how retrofits can address the issue. It will provide an overview of the results to date and the ongoing research that is being conducted by National Research Council of Canada on climate resilient retrofit to mitigate the risk of overheating in different residential buildings such as houses, multi-unit residential buildings, and social housing. Different resilient and sustainable retrofit measures will be evaluated with respect to feasibility, efficiency, resiliency, energy use, and Canadian market adoption to the impacts of climate change. Field studies in selected buildings are being planned to monitor indoor environment quality by measuring various pollutants and environmental conditions, with subsequent retrofit interventions tailored to each building's specific needs. The effectiveness of these measures will be evaluated through pre- and post-intervention assessments, and the results will help to updates in the National Building Code of Canada and the development of practical guidelines for building owners and property managers.

Speaker:

Marzieh Riahinezhad, Associate Research Officer, Lead for Resilient Residential Retrofit Theme, Climate Resilient Built Environment Initiative, Construction Research Centre, National Research Council of Canada