London Inc. Weekly

Covenant Construction and McKaskell Haindl Design Build join forces

Two well-known local renovations firms have merged. McKaskell Haindl Design Build and Covenant Construction announced recently that the two companies have merged their operations under the Covenant Construction banner, and are moving into a new location. Both companies operate in the custom renovations space and will work out of an expanded 10,000-square-foot shop on Towerline Place. “We’ve long admired each other’s work, and share so many of the same values,” said Covenant’s co-owner Bonnie Hardy. Chris McKaskell, who will assume the role of director of craft, added, “Everyone here shares a vision and truly cares about the work we do.”

The upshot: Like a bunch of other industries, there’s been a fair bit of merger and acquisition activity in construction-related fields of late. With consolidation comes better purchasing power, better ability to attract clients, greater name recognition and larger market presence. Both Covenant Construction and McKaskell Haindl Design Build have deep roots in the city, with the businesses having been founded back in the mid-1990s. “We knew that bringing our passion and expertise together made great sense for our customers and community, and we’re seeing that already,” Hardy said. The principals expect very little to change in terms of their focus on high-end custom residential work. “We want our customers, teams and the community to know that they can continue to expect the same level of quality and care from all of us that they always have,” said McKaskell.

Read more: Covenant Construction

Surprise! BRT is way over budget

City councillors got a fresh look at the financials for London’s in-progress bus rapid transit system this week, the cost for which has increased by more than 50 per cent. The project is now estimated to cost $454 million – $174.2 million more than last estimated. “We knew it was coming,” said the city’s budget chair, Elizabeth Peloza. “We’ve seen supply chain issues continuing…as well, we’re also dealing with the changing real estate market that’s had a big impact on the project’s original budget.” Of the $174-million gap, $149 million will be funded through development charges, while $24 million will be financed via property taxes, city staff said.

The upshot: After peanut butter and jelly, it’s hard to find a more iconic pairing than Canadian transit projects and cost overruns in the last couple decades; this seems to hold true whether you’re looking at a fully public project, like the BRT network, or a private-sector partnership, like Ottawa’s beleaguered LRT or the Eglinton Crosstown in Toronto. (“We suck at building things,” is how former Ottawa West MPP Jeremy Roberts put it last year.) In fairness, the project being mid-stream when Covid hit pretty much made this inevitable: there’s been shutdowns, delay costs, inflation for materials and labour and skyrocketing real estate prices. You name it, it’s working against the BRT budget, it seems. For the city, the only way through it is forward. “We’re in the middle of eating a meal that we ordered, it’s too late to send it back,” Peloza said. “We have contracts signed with builders and construction companies.” 

Read more: CTV News London | London Free Press

$7.55-million grant to take LHSC-developed tech global

A $7.55-million grant is helping researchers at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) further develop EpiSign, a tool aimed at diagnosing rare genetic diseases with a single blood test and artificial intelligence. The bulk of the grant ($7.44 million) is coming from the Government of Canada through Genome Canada and will help move forward with the next phase of the project, which researchers say will see the EpiSign technology be implemented in academic institutions in 15 countries. “To receive specialized care, you need a specific genetic diagnosis,” said Dr. Bekim Sadikovic, who is leading the research. “We can now interpret this genetic data that we couldn’t understand before, and provide critical answers for patients and families affected by hundreds of rare diseases.”

The upshot: The EpiSign technology has attracted a lot of interest and funding over the past few years, a recognition of the potential upsides it offers. In 2020, the researchers were granted $4.8 million to develop the technology and test it in Canada, and now it looks like they are ready to deploy it more widely. “This research is a great example of LHSC’s commitment to supporting the world-leading advances in diagnosis of patients with rare diseases,” said Brad Campbell, corporate administrative executive at LHSC. “The support provided by Genome Canada and Illumina will enable adoption of EpiSign technology and place it at the forefront of patient care globally.” 

Read more: Lawson Health Research Institute

Job cuts at Middlesex-London Health Unit

The Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) announced Thursday that it will cut around 20 positions as part of a restructuring process. The local health unit is, like many public health units across the province, facing a budget crunch next year ― in London’s case, that shortfall amounts to somewhere between $2.6 and $2.8 million. As a result, 17 full-time positions are being eliminated (though transfers and the elimination of open positions means only seven people were laid off). “We are needing to reduce programs and services,” said medical officer of health Alex Summers. “Where people who are living in Middlesex and London will see the most significant reduction is in our comprehensive school health nursing program,” he noted, which will see “a reduction of about half of the nurses we have dedicated to school health programming.”

The upshot: Run a Google search for “local health unit job cuts Ontario” and you’ll see that plenty of other health units in the province are facing the exact same situation this year. Though the MLHU didn’t specify this in their announcement, other jurisdictions have linked this to the winding down of special Covid-19 funding from the provincial government, which announced in March that it was rolling that spending into the general budget for next year. (Overall, the province is only boosting funding for local health units by one per cent.) The restructuring at MLHU will take effect on January 1, Summers said. “For the work that remains, we need to have the right people, in the right positions, in the right number so we can follow through on that work,” he said.  

Read more: MLHU | London Free Press