Drive any highway in this province and you'll see it: roadwork, transit lines, port expansions, transmission corridors. What you can't see is the hole behind it — the people who are supposed to build all of it, and aren't there yet.
I pulled every confirmed BC project over $1 billion with construction starting between now and 2031. Government figures, proponent announcements, dated and sourced. The total clears $40 billion. Here's what's real, sector by sector.
The Pipeline
| Project | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| George Massey Tunnel replacement | $4.15B | Contract retendered in smaller packages to bring in more local BC contractors. Major construction targeted 2027. |
| Surrey–Langley SkyTrain | $6B | Under construction now. Opens 2029. |
| Broadway Subway (to Arbutus) | part of $13.8B transit envelope | Under construction. Opens 2027. |
| Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (Port of Vancouver) | ~$3.5B | Construction begins 2028. |
| Project | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Ksi Lisims LNG + Prince Rupert Gas Transmission | ~$30B combined | Final decision expected 2026, construction 2027. |
| Woodfibre LNG (Squamish) | $12B | 70% complete — finishing, not starting. |
| North Coast Transmission Line (BC Hydro) | $6B | Construction expected 2026. ~9,700 northern BC jobs. |
| Cedar LNG (Kitimat) | $4B | Under construction. Operations late 2028. |
| Enbridge T-South Sunrise Expansion | $4B | Decision expected summer 2026. |
| LNG Canada Phase 2 | TBD | Decision late 2026 / early 2027, construction 2027. |
| Project | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Red Chris Mine block cave expansion | $3B+ | Regulatory decisions expected mid-2026. |
| Fording River operations extension | $3B | If approved, construction begins 2029. |
| Highland Valley Copper extension | $2.25B | Construction started August 2025 — hiring now. |
| Yellowhead Copper | $1.58B | Early-stage. Watch, not a near-term certainty. |
| Blackwater Mine Phase 2 | $1.44B | Early works began January 2026. |
| Project | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Richmond Hospital redevelopment | $1.9B | In progress, four phases. |
| Burnaby Hospital redevelopment Phase 2 | $1.8B | Paused amid provincial budget pressure. |
| Royal Columbian Hospital redevelopment | $1.6B | Acute care tower opens 2026; final phase wraps 2029. |
The People Math
A pipeline this size doesn't build itself. Cross-referencing published construction-job figures with labour-intensity estimates for the projects that haven't released numbers yet, the demand lands at roughly 75,000 to 95,000 skilled tradespeople across the whole pipeline.
Be straight about where that number comes from. About 46,600 of those jobs are official, published figures — Roberts Bank Terminal 2 alone accounts for 18,000-plus. The rest is a reasonable industry estimate for the projects, like the Massey Tunnel and the hospital redevelopments, that haven't published a number. It's a range, not a single sourced fact. It is still an enormous number.
Why I'm Writing This
I have two adult kids who can't get a callback. They apply online, the way everyone tells them to, into a portal that feeds a resume to a bot. Nothing comes back. That's not a them problem — it's a system problem, and it's happening to a whole generation while $40 billion of work goes looking for hands.
The trades don't hire like that. A foreman wants to meet you, size you up, and put you to work. The gap isn't jobs. The gap is the bridge between the young people who need the work and the contractors who need the crews. That bridge is what BCTradesForce is built to be.
BC Can't Build Without You.
Whether you want into BC construction or you need crew you can trust — get on the list. Register, and Mike reaches out personally. No bots, no funnels.
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