Remember, I talked about the most important issue of the decade. I'm going back to my recurring theme. Owners, the people who build, are looking around and saying, who do I rely on to get my job done? If the building trades can't supply, then I'm going to have to access every source of labor. I can't have half my job built and find out I can't get people to build it. I can't take the chances that costs are going to skyrocket because I can't find people.

Truth is, there is a huge prize happening in industrial construction in Canada. And we will get that prize if we have the people. If it looks like we can't supply, owners are going to hedge their bets. This is our opportunity.

Most of you probably remembered seeing that Time cover back when the baby boom generation turned 40. Well, that was in 1986. The baby boom generation is now turning 60. Our industry, like virtually every other industry in North America, is suffering from the double whammy of growth and retirements.

Every industry is now competing, fishing in the same pond, for the best and brightest, who are going to replace the work force of tomorrow. In the collapse of the '80s in Canada, we lost a generation of apprentices. We lost a second generation in the next collapse in the '90s. The people we have relied on to build construction jobs for the last 30 and 40 years are going to retire in the next 9 years. And you know what, truth is, when the peak of the retirements hits on the 15th of June in the year 2015, if we haven't replaced those people, we are in a world of hurt.

To keep our market share, we need to have people. We need to act now, because you cannot bring a construction worker — fully trained with the skills that you, in this audience, have — unless you start to work at it now. I know I'm sounding like a broken record on this point, but tomorrow is too late to act. We need to act now, when we have the capability and the capacity to do so.

Do we need to change organizationally? Everyone you talk to in the union, our contractors, our clients, know in their heart of hearts and will exchange this opinion one to one, that we need to change, at least some things. The best of what we do is going to endure no matter what. But other things need to change. The answer to the question is, of course, yes.

The question is, will we change enough to be back where we were when we ruled the construction industry?