If anything is clear from our latest member site tour, it’s that Sigfusson Northern operates with a fierce pride in its local roots in the Interlake, while also looking to the future and embracing innovative new technologies.
The company that calls itself “Canada’s remote construction experts” recently joined the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce (MCC) after attending some of our events and hearing about how MCC can support our members with advocacy efforts and more. MCC’s Chuck Davidson, President and CEO, along with Brent Hutton, Director of Business Development & Member Relations and Sherry Kaniuga, Marketing & Communications Specialist, met with some of Sigfusson Northern’s leadership and staff at their Winnipeg office last week to learn about the company, what makes them tick and some of the issues they’re facing. We then headed north to meet more staff including CEO Tyler Bennett, and take a tour of their expansive facilities in Lundar – where the fourth-generation family business got its start a century ago.
Sigfusson Northern takes on challenging heavy civil construction and general contracting projects in isolated areas in Manitoba, Northwest Ontario and across Canada. While the company still has two Sigfusson family members as owners and board members, it is now nearly 79 per cent employee owned.
Piece by Piece
In addition to heavy civil construction and general contracting, Sigfusson Northern recently ventured into another new endeavour: modular homes. They built a $5-million, 32,000-square-foot fabrication plant in Lundar where they’re building individual modules that can be completed quickly and shipped on winter roads.
The well-constructed, insulated units can then be assembled on site into everything from single-family homes, duplexes and multi-plexes such as for seniors’ housing, to offices, daycares and even temporary health centres: when a fire destroyed the nursing station in Easterville, which also served the neighbouring Chemawawin Cree Nation, Sigfusson deployed and set up a retrofitted modular office building into a health facility in just two days.
People Power
Sigfusson Northern employs 600 to 1,000+ staff at any one time, depending on current projects. In Lundar, this includes up to 150 staff on any given day, who either live in the area, commute, board the company’s shuttle bus or stay in its on-site camp. While the company could easily move its operations elsewhere, they choose to stay and invest in Lundar and the Interlake area.
“We made the decision with the heart, because that’s where it all started. So many small businesses in the area depend on us,” shared Steve Malcolm, Director of Civil Operations – one of many longtime employees who hails from Lundar.
Sigfusson Northern provides camp accommodations for hundreds of staff at its project sites, and also hires many local Indigenous staff from the northern communities they partner with, such as when they worked on the “Freedom Road” construction with Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. But finding more permanent places for staff who want to live nearby is still a problem, says CEO Tyler Bennett.
“Housing is a huge issue in all the places we work up north,” Bennet says. “Newcomers from outside of Canada will come by themselves to work with us, but then they want to bring their families – but there’s no housing.”
Advocating for Employment-Friendly Policies
Along with staffing challenges, some provincial regulations are a concern to construction companies like Sigfusson Northern, such as the recent move to a 1:1 apprenticeship ratio, which aims to improve safety and training but limits opportunities and makes it difficult to hire the aspiring tradespeople they need. The Manitoba Chambers of Commerce is focusing part of our work this year on how to attract and keep young people in Manitoba, which includes advocating for policies that provide opportunities and make people want to work in the province, while also reducing barriers for employers.
Visiting our members, seeing what they do and listening to their priorities and concerns helps make it possible for us to provide valuable support. Would you like MCC to visit your business? Get in touch with us!
Thanks to Sigfusson Northern for hosting us for the day, and for recognizing the value in joining the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce!