“They cut corners every day, every day,” said Justin Gee, vice-president of First Nations Engineering Services Ltd.
Gee said he encountered these recurring problems while overseeing the work of a construction firm, Kingdom Construction Limited (KCL), during the building of a water treatment plant 10 years ago in Wasauksing First Nation, along the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, about 250 kilometres north of Toronto.
“You have to be on them every step of the way,” said Gee, who was the contract administrator on the project. “You can’t leave them on their own.”
Today, this plant is among seven First Nations water and wastewater infrastructure projects in two provinces, funded by the federal government, that have all involved work by KCL, an Ontario-based firm.