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COLUMNS
04 | Comment
The Buildings Show, which returned to Toronto in December, has continued to provide valuable insights.
17 | Legal
When a claim is brought against a company, it’s often brought against specific leaders, raising the issue of executive liability.
18 | Climate Perspectives
Our focus should be on looking for major breakthroughs in power technologies, making nuclear a high priority.
22 | Conversation
RJC principal Paul Fritze, P.Eng., addresses the challenges of converting vacant office buildings into living spaces to combat Canada’s housing crisis.
DEPARTMENTS
05 | 2025 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards Call for Entries
The most prestigious awards program for Canada’s consulting engineers returns for its 57th year. Make sure your projects are in the running!
January/February 2025
Volume 66 | ISSUE 1 ccemag.com
FEATURES
6
COVER STORY
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Meet the winners of Canadian Consulting Engineer’s third annual Lifetime Achievement Awards program, whose exceptional careers have helped lay the groundwork for new engineers in the present and future. This year’s awards go to Wallace “Wally” Eley, Chris Macey and Tony Wing. Here, we share their stories.
ON THE COVER
Tony Wing, P.Eng., has dedicated all of his more than 42-year career to consulting engineering, with a focus on bridges, tunnels, station buildings and other transportation structures. Now he has won one of our Lifetime Achievement Awards.
See story on p. 6.
PHOTO COURTESY TONY WING.
Comment
by Peter Saunders
Constructive insights from The Buildings Show
The Buildings Show returned to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) from Dec. 4 to 6, 2024 ... this time as part of Canadian Real Estate & Construction Week, which had begun two days earlier. Over its own three days, The Buildings Show reportedly drew more than 18,000 attendees for educational sessions and networking opportunities and to check out more than 500 exhibitors across zones branded as Construct Canada, the World of Concrete Toronto Pavilion, the Property Manager (PM) Expo and the Homebuilder & Renovation Expo.
“The excellent educational program seemed to connect very strongly with members of the industry.”
Canadian Consulting Engineer once again had a booth at the show, where I enjoyed discussions with both new and old colleagues. My main focus while attending the event, however, was the excellent educational program, which seemed to connect very strongly with members of the industry, as many sessions were full or nearly so.
One of my stops on the show's first day, for example, was CHM Fire Consultants director Lisa Miller-Way’s timely presentation about updates to Ontario’s Building Code (which have since come into effect, as of Jan. 1, 2025).
Following a three-month ‘grace period,’ the new code—which has been revised to align more closely with the National Building Code of Canada (NBC)—will start to be enforced in April for all new building permit applications in Ontario. I made sure to arrive early for Lisa's session … and soon there was standing room only!
To help get the word out on these im-
portant code changes to more engineers before April’s deadline, we arranged for Lisa—with whom we had previously worked on our Women in Engineering (WiE) virtual summit—to present her insights ‘virtually’ with a CCE Education webinar on Feb. 6, where there would be no limit on the number of attendees.
(Now, I’m writing this editorial in advance of that webinar, but by the time you read this, it will be in the past. If you are involved in construction projects in Ontario, I hope you were able to join us for it!)
Also while at The Buildings Show, I sat in on a few sessions about artificial intelligence (AI) in construction. As Pat Keaney of Autodesk pointed out at one of these talks, the world population continues to grow, but the construction workforce has not kept pace, so demand is projected to outstrip the industry’s capacity. Hence, there will be an important role for AIbased tools to assist the existing workforce by automating some of its time-consuming tasks.
In another session, a panel of professionals discussed AI’s impact on architecture, including the fine-tuning of details from building information modelling (BIM). The technology was described variously as an ‘intern’ who needs lots of coaching, an assistant for brainstorming and a very powerful tool.
We plan to explore these themes further with our first-ever AI in Engineering virtual summit this year. Keep an eye out for details.
Did you attend The Buildings Show in 2024? What did you see and learn that was of value to you and your firm? Let me know at the email address below!
Peter
Saunders • psaunders@ccemag.com
SCAN CODE TO VISIT CCE’S WEBSITE: Find the latest engineer-related news, stories, blogs and analysis from across Canada
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Awards
Call for Entries
2025 CANADIAN CONSULTING ENGINEERING AWARDS
Canada’s most prestigious awards for engineering projects!
The Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards are given annually to projects that demonstrate a high quality of engineering, imagination and innovation. Now in their 57th year, the awards are the most prestigious mark of recognition for consulting engineers in Canada.
The awards are an unequalled opportunity to gain awareness for your firm and your employees. The list of winners is publicized nationwide, the projects are profiled in the September/October issue of Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine and an awards gala is held in the fall (this year, in Toronto).
Entries are invited in English or French, in the following categories:
CATEGORIES
TECHNICAL
A. Buildings
B. Transportation
C. Water Resources
D. Environmental Remediation
E. Natural Resources, Mining, Industry and Energy
F. Special Projects
G. Project Management
H. International
NON-TECHNICAL
I. Community Outreach
J. In-House Initiatives
is the awards program's 57th year!
FOR MORE DETAILS
20 AWARDS & FIVE SPECIAL AWARDS!
An expert jury will choose the winners of 20 Awards of Excellence. Of these projects, up to five could also earn additional recognition with a Special Award.
The Special Awards are:
• Engineering A Better Future Award – Presented to the project that best showcases how engineering enhances the social, economic or cultural life of Canadians.
• Sustainability Award – Presented to the project that best demonstrates outstanding environmental achievement.
• Philanthropy Award – Presented to the project that best demonstrates donation of a firm’s time and/or services for the benefit of a community or group.
• Diplomat Award – Presented to the project constructed or executed outside Canada that best showcases Canadian engineering expertise.
• Schreyer Award – The highest honour, presented to the best technical entry.
DEADLINES
STAGE 1 – TUESDAY, MARCH 20
Notice of Intention to Enter
Entry Fee $425.00 + HST due (non-refundable)
STAGE 2 – WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16
Entry Form, Project Outline, Photos, etc.
You can find further information and all entry forms at: www.ccemag.com/awards/enter
QUESTIONS?
Contact Peter Saunders, Editor, Canadian Consulting Engineer, tel. 416-510-5119, e-mail psaunders@ccemag.com
Lifetime Achievement Awards
We proudly present this year’s winners.
By Peter Saunders
Canadian Consulting Engineer reached out again in late 2024 to the industry to recognize its leaders for their exceptional careers in— and legacies of contributions to— the fields of construction and infrastructure. Consulting engineers and their colleagues once again responded strongly, with a wide variety of nominations for these accolades. The following are the winners, selected with the input of our editorial advisory board (EAB).
Wallace Eley
Wallace ‘Wally’ Eley is principal emeritus at Crossey Engineering, a Salas O’Brien company with more than 140 employees. The firm completed many major projects during his tenure as leader, including hospitals, universities, performing arts centres, museums, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities and casinos, among other buildings.
Eley received 12 nominations for this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards, far more than any other
contender, but was unaware of them until we gave him a call.
An electrical education Eley grew up in the Port Credit neighbourhood of Mississauga, Ont., and says he was always interested in electricity.
“In Grade 6, I told my teacher I wanted to make something called a battery plug," he says, "where you could plug an appliance into a battery to make it work. Back in the 1960s, of course, that was totally impossible—but today, obviously, it happens all over the place with portable chargers!”
At Port Credit Secondary School, Eley joined a five-year science, technology and trades program to prepare for university. His areas of study included electricity, electronics and machining.
“It was a very good grounding,” he says. “I wish today’s school boards put a more positive emphasis on training for the trades. There’s such a shortage now of electricians, plumbers and HVAC contractors.”
That foundation of knowledge led Eley to the University of Waterloo, known for co-op work terms. While
earning his BASc in electrical engineering, he gained career experience working for a general contractor, a consulting engineer and a stone fabricator.
“I
had never dreamed I would be running the company.”
Learning on the job
Eley graduated in 1975. It was a momentous year; he also married his wife Marlee, whom he had met in Waterloo, and got hired at Crossey. The mechanical and electrical engineering firm, comprising about 25 professionals, was based in downtown Toronto.
“At the time, it was Crossey Langlois Firman,” he recalls. “I got an offer from Ron Firman, who was the vice-president (VP), I decided to take it and I’ve been there ever since.”
Initially, Eley got involved with jobs that were already under construction, which gave him lots of experience on-site, learning how much space an electrical room requires, how conduit is installed, etc. “I also learned a lot about prac-
tical design,” he says. “Back then, there was no computer-assisted design (CAD). Everything was done on drawing boards. And still to this day, I drive some of the guys in the office nuts with what I call ‘WallyCAD,’ i.e. drawing by hand. It worked back then and still works for me!”
Over the years, Eley exhibited both technical and managerial skills. In 1985, after Firman retired, he succeeded him as vice-president (VP) of electrical engineering.
Unexpected leadership
In 1992, president and founder Ted Crossey suffered a debilitating stroke. Overnight, Eley became CEO.
“When that happened, we were still about 25 people,” he recalls. “I had never dreamed I would be running the company, but I had learned a lot from Ted and I always had an
breadth of their experience,” says Chris Couse, founding principal of KPMB Architects and Eley’s customer of some 20 years. “These projects are very challenging, with demanding and often atypical requirements, including complex co-ordination of large numbers of conduits and exacting segregation for sensitive low-voltage systems. Wally has a detailed and intimate understanding of how theatrical and audiovisual (A/V) systems need to be supported by electrical systems.”
Bright ideas
Expanding the firm also involved new areas of focus.
“As I grew in the company, I had developed a real passion for lighting design,” says Eley. “I felt it was important to develop a group to do just that.”
He created that group in 1999, which was followed in 2002 with the founding of Consullux Lighting Consultants as a wholly owned affiliate of Crossey.
“Consullux set new standards for lighting design in Canada,” says Lorraine Monico, a colleague who has known Eley for about 40 years. “Wally’s career has been marked by a series of pioneering initiatives.”
“Wally’s passion for lighting design was boundless,” says business associate Peter Buchanan, master chair and national director of chair development for of The Executive Committee (TEC) Canada. “His dedication went beyond engineering. He approached every project with the spirit and vision of an artist and consistently delivered creativ-
idea of where I wanted to go. I started to grow the firm. Over the next few years, we got to about 150 people, by getting more into areas like theatres.”
In a way, he was continuing the legacy of Ted, who was the original mechanical engineer for Roy Thomson Hall, a famous Toronto concert venue that had opened in 1982.
“Today, there are very few theatres in Toronto we have not been involved in,” says Eley. “We’ve worked on Massey Hall, the Princess of Wales Theatre, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Meridian Hall (when it was known as the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts) and the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Koerner Hall … the list goes on and on.”
“Wally and his team have become the go-to firm for electrical engineering services on performing arts projects because of the depth and
A Lifetime of Impact
Salas O’Brien is proud to celebrate Wally Eley, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. His visionary leadership and dedication to engineering excellence have shaped a legacy that inspires us all.
Crossey Engineering is now Salas O’Brien
salasobrien.com
Wally Eley P.Eng., PE PRINCIPAL
ity and value for his clients, often exceeding their expectations.”
Fittingly, Eley went on to teach lighting design at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University—now Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)—from 2006 to 2019.
“I was able to use the things I learned way back in the ’60s as examples for my students,” he says.
Shaping the future
In 2015, following a transfer of ownership, Eley became chair of the board. In 2017, he partially retired, remaining on-board as principal emeritus for Crossey’s electrical team.
“I sold my shares in 2014 and continued to run the electrical department for two years,” he explains. “Now I work part-time, putting in 15 to 20 hours a week.”
The Crossey office is currently under the leadership of Eley’s longtime partner, Clive Lacey. Further, Crossey merged with Salas O’Brien in 2023, for a total presence of more than 70 offices across North America and more than 3,800 team members, including 325 based in Canada.
“There are about seven or eight senior lighting designers in the firm,” says Eley. “We’ve gotten a lot of opportunities from that merger to do new things.”
Today, a common theme cited by those who nominated Eley for this award is his mentorship of others.
“Wally has shaped the future of consulting engineering by investing in people and supporting the broader community,” says Ion Luh, associate vice-president (AVP) and architectural lighting designer at Consullux and Eley’s colleague of 25 years.
“Wally’s extensive contributions to engineering are underscored by nurturing talent in the field,” says Eric Gordon, principal at Entuitive and Eley’s colleague of 25 years. “His career is not only defined by his
technical achievements, but also by his dedication to sharing knowledge with others. He has served as a mentor to colleagues and students alike, inspiring the next generation of engineers.”
“He has played a pivotal role in starting and advancing the careers of young professionals by generously sharing his extensive knowledge and experience,” says Crossey principal David Sylvester, Eley’s colleague of 30 years. “His mentorship has not only shaped individual careers, but also contributed to the growth of the industry as a whole.”
“Personally, I’ve learned so much from Wally and benefited from his generous leadership,” says Crossey business development and marketing specialist Manuela Parisi Braga, who has worked with Eley for the past three years. “He is always ready
Bottom: Many engineers at Crossey cite Eley’s supportive role in mentoring them.
“As I developed a passion for lighting design, I felt it was important to develop a group to do just that.”
to explain in simple terms and listen to suggestions. I feel very valued and seen.”
“Under Wally’s mentorship since I joined his firm in 2001, I’ve grown from an entry-level electrical engineer to a leader of the firm,” says Yilin Liu, principal at Crossey. “I cannot express enough gratitude for his guidance and support.”
“He has touched the careers of many lighting professionals in the Canadian market, including mine,” says Pedro Colicchio, a senior lighting designer who joined Consullux 10 years ago, but has known Eley for more than 15 years.
“He continues to spend time to help guide me to be the best I can be in my career,” says Crossey senior lighting designer Steve Duff, Eley’s colleague of eight years. “At the same time, I observe him doing this with so many others. How does he have the time? It’s because he has made investments in people over many years, which helps efficiently achieve exceptional results for the projects he is involved with.”
“Notably, the current CEOs of two major consulting engineering firms in Ontario were mentored by Wally during their time here,” adds Crossey principal and electrical department head Duane Waite, Eley’s colleague of 35 years.
Top: Wally Eley continues to draw designs by hand, dubbing the process ‘WalleyCAD.’
Chris Macey
Chris Macey, P. Eng., is AECOM’s technical practice leader—both for the Americas and globally—for the assessment and rehabilitation of sewers and other water infrastructure. With knowledge of pipe and soil structure design and pipeline materials, deterioration processes and rehabilitation technology, he specializes in projects subject to adverse conditions and where minimum risk exposure is desired.
When he began to study engineering at the University of Manitoba, Macey thought it was going to be relatively easy going, given his above-average aptitude for math and science while growing up in Winnipeg.
“They were a breeze to me,” he recalls. “So, to be brutally honest, I went into engineering as a way to continue my young, irresponsible lifestyle for another four years, without really growing up! I got humbled pretty quick. Engineering was a lot of work. But I was too stubborn to fail!”
Within the non-specialized civil discipline, Macey gravitated toward linear systems and hydraulics. After graduating in 1977, he was briefly employed by the city of Winnipeg as inspector for construction of water and sewer renewals.
“A colleague told me I worked way too hard and should find a job in the consulting sector, where I’d be rewarded for it!” he laughs. “The irony is the vast majority of my early work was on the city’s projects in the rehabilitation field and I owe a debt of gratitude to them for those opportunities.”
Stumbling into rehabilitation Macey followed the advice, joining UMA Engineering in 1978. The firm had been launched in 1911 in Saskatoon as a partnership between municipal engineers Franklin McArthur and A.A. Murphy, then purchased in 1926 and renamed
Underwood & McLellan.
In his early time with UMA, Macey worked in the north for two years, from Thompson to Churchill, Man., gaining valuable experience that helped teach him first principles.
“Engineering was a lot of work, but I was too stubborn to fail!”
“There’s not a lot of people with a background in cold-weather engineering as it relates to water and sewer systems,” he says. “The discontinuous permafrost zone is a very unforgiving and sensitive environment. You learn to respect it in a hurry or you fail!”
When Macey returned to Winnipeg, he “stumbled into rehabilitation programs,” as he puts it, and they became the focus of his career, as he advanced from project engineer to project manager, technical specialist, program manager and eventually as a subject matter expert.
“Winnipeg is one of the most corrosive environments in the world
for ferrous metals and has challenging levels of sulfates in the soil that can break down concrete,” he says. “It’s a place where I could watch deterioration in real time! We experienced elevated failure rates in our iron water systems a good 20 years before Toronto did. We were humbled by concrete structures breaking down back in the 1920s. Working in an environment like that gives you a jump on what other people face in terms of infrastructure aging. It was the best experience for me in my formative years.”
By the early 1980s, Macey was applying trenchless techniques—including horizontal earth boring (HEB) and pipe bursting—to watermain and sewer renewal projects to help minimize their cost and impact. By the end of that decade, he had transitioned to relining technologies, including cured-in-place pipe
(CIPP), sliplining and close-fit liners.
While Macey was being called a ‘trenchless pioneer,’ he points out “people in this part of the world started doing trenchless long before the term existed, so that’s all I’ve ever known. It helped me a great deal to go out into complex urban environments and apply that knowledge.”
And go out he did, supporting the assessment and rehabilitation of more than enough wastewater, combined and land-drainage sewers to span all of Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Global scope
In 2004, UMA ecame the first Canadian firm to be acquired by AECOM. At the time, it was already
one of this country’s largest consulting engineering firms, with 1,000 employees and 19 offices.
“This was a huge transition and culture change,” Macey says. “All of a sudden, we were part of a 17,000-person team. And what I did with aging infrastructure was globally in demand.”
Indeed, Macey’s scope became truly global over the course of his career. He has provided engineering services across all 10 Canadian provinces and three territories, in all 50 U.S. states and on six of the seven continents.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, he transferred knowledge of CIPP and other trenchless technologies to engineers in Australia and New Zealand, where “very
large programs dwarf those we scratch our heads at here,” he says. “It’s something they’ve figured out!”
He has also been in demand in Europe, where infrastructure aged much earlier than Canada’s.
“Chris is a globally recognized expert,” says Ian Dyck, AECOM’s senior vice-president (SVP) in Canada for water. “Through his efforts, many municipalities have been able to improve the performance of their drinking water distribution systems and limit leakage. Chris is always happy to go where he is needed.”
“For a prairie boy,” says Macey, “I do a lot of work in Metro Vancouver and San Francisco to align rehabilitations with increased seismic resiliency. I live in the middle of a tectonic plate, so I had to learn
Macey has assessed and rehabilitated sewers and other water infrastructure since the 1970s.
about soil and pipe material properties and behaviour by going out to the west coast. Understanding pipesoil interaction is the key to understanding seismic resiliency. The challenge is similar to corrosion, but a physical interaction, as opposed to a metallurgical one.”
Also on the west coast, he served as a senior technical specialist for the McLoughlin Point Wastewater Treatment Plant’s (WWTP’s) high-density polyethylene (HDPE) outfall pipe in Victoria. The 1.92-km long project, the largest of its kind in North America, went on to win an Award of Excellence in the Water Resources category of the 2020 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards.
Vintage pipes
Macey’s interest in ‘vintage’ pipes also stemmed from a CCE award-winning project: the Shoal Lake Assessment and Rehabilitation Program of 1993 to 2004.
This program addressed Winnipeg’s sole source of water, the 160km long Shoal Lake Aqueduct, which was built from 1913 to 1919. As the program’s manager, Macey oversaw condition assessment, repairs, hydraulic assessment, emergency response assessment and planning, drainage improvement and information management.
Today, he continues to work on the aqueduct—specifically, to assist in updating inspection processes. Instead of a team walking the entire 160-km pipe, future inspections will employ robotics, equipped with high-resolution cameras, multisensor setups and machine learning to identify defects for an assessment database. Wall-penetrating radar will help detect how the pipe walls are holding up and interacting with the surrounding soils.
Macey’s services as a subject matter expert and technical advisor have also been sought for the assessment and rehabilitation of other
historic water supplies, including New York’s Catskill Aqueduct (built from 1905 to 1915) and Croton Aqueduct (built in 1890) and Boston’s Sudbury Aqueduct (built from 1875 to 1878).
Sharing knowledge
With a wealth of experience from his 47 years in water and wastewater conveyance, Macey strives to share his knowledge with others, to help develop their skills and improve infrastructure development around the world.
“In the last 10 to 15 years,” he says, “I’ve tried to give back by writing code and design appendices and provide guidance for working on systems in areas that weren’t particularly well-documented on the rehabilitation side of the business.
I’ve reached out to universities to provide input and training to make sure what they’re training today's engineers for is relevant to today’s problems.”
His efforts have included teaching at universities across Canada the U.S., delivering lectures to students everywhere from his alma mater to Ontario’s University of Waterloo and Queen’s University, from the University of Alberta to Mississippi State University, Louisiana Tech
“I’ve reached out to universities to provide input and training.”
University, the University of Cincinnati and Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind.
Macey's efforts have also included the mentorship of his fellow engineers.
“I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have Chris as a mentor,” says Amin Tara, AECOM infrastructure rehabilitation specialist for Central Canada. “His expertise and leadership have been instrumental in my growth. His guidance and generosity with his time and knowledge have left a lasting impact on the industry.”
“It is impossible to work in the trenchless industry without benefiting directly or indirectly from Chris’s work,” adds Marya Jetten, AECOM vice-president (VP) and conveyance market sector lead for the Americas. “He has sat front-row at every presentation I have ever given and introduced me to other industry professionals who could help build my network and advance my career—and until five months ago, I worked at his largest competitor! Chris’s passion for education extends beyond the confines of his company’s growth targets into understanding the benefits to augmenting the trenchless community as a whole, to better the outcomes for the public.”
Macey has been considered a trenchless pioneer and today continues to educate young engineers through forums like the North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT).
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Tony Wing
Tony Wing, P.Eng., is a senior consultant for WSP and expert witness, based in Mississauga, Ont. He has devoted the entirety of his 42-yearplus career to consulting engineering, with a focus on the planning, design, construction and management of bridges, tunnels and other transportation structures.
“Going through high school, if you asked me what an engineer was, I would have said ‘I don’t know!’” he laughs, “but maths and sciences were my interest and came easily to me, so everyone told me engineering was where I’d want to go.”
Combining math and engineering Wing chose to study at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., where he was already living at the time. In his first year, he paid particular attention to chemistry and geology, but they didn’t keep him interested. Instead, his civil engineering courses steered him toward a newly introduced mathematics and engineering program focusing on structures.
“There was a thought back then that engineers didn’t know enough math to solve the complex problems that existed, so they were trying to bring those two together,” he explains. “While all of the other civil engineering students were doing sewer design, I was taking math courses. In the end, I knew way more math than any of my civil professors!”
In 1982, Wing became the first graduate of this program. While he says it was designed to prepare students for post-graduate studies, he instead wanted to begin his career, with a focus on bridges.
“I had gotten to know a professor on the civil side, Ivan Campbell, who did a lot of research on bridges,” he says. “In my fourth year, he took some of his grad students to a bridge site in St. Catharines, Ont., and I was able to join them. I also did my
thesis under him, which was on the transportation of large, precast, prestressed concrete bridge girders. Using mathematics—and this was in the days before desktop computers—I modelled the reactions of the girders in real time when they went over a bump!”
A prestigious firm
“Everyone told me engineering is where I’d want to go.”
That connection with Prof. Campbell put Wing in the right place at the right time for advancement in his career. One day when they were talking about a project in Campbell’s office, the professor received a phone call from Roy Skelton, P.Eng., who was looking for candidates in bridge engineering to come work at McCormick Rankin.
“He said, ‘I happen to be looking at one!’” Wing recalls. “I got an interview. About three months later, after I held a tech job for a small firm in Belleville, Ont., Roy
called me back and asked me to come work for them. I said yes. It wasn’t the largest firm, but it was prestigious and got the best projects.”
He worked in McCormick Rankin’s bridge design office as a junior engineer in Mississauga, Ont., for about three years before turning his attention to a large transit tunnel construction project in Ottawa.
“Roy said to me, ‘You need to get your hands dirty!’” Wing recalls, “and this very large project in Ottawa needed an engineer on-site. He knew it would do my career a lot of good. So, I moved to Ottawa, spent about two-and-a-half years on the site and learned a pile about how to build things and what goes on in the field.”
When that project closed down, Wing relocated back to the design office in Mississauga, serving as project manager from 1986 to 1988
and becoming the firm’s youngest associate and most junior shareholder. Then it was back to Ottawa in 1989, where he established and led a new department as the firm’s structural department manager. By 1995, he was leading a multidisciplinary team of 55 professionals.
“As my mentor, Roy played a huge role in the development of my career,” he says. “I am extremely grateful to him for that.”
Advancing through acquisitions
In 2005, after 19 years in Ottawa, Wing returned to Mississauga yet again to serve as deputy chief engineer. He joined the board of directors in 2006 and was promoted to chief engineer in 2008.
“I was part of the decision that led to the sale of McCormick Rankin to Marshall Macklin Monaghan (MMM) in 2008,” he explains.
“MMM was a multidisciplinary firm, but weak in transportation, so they bought McCormick Rankin and basically left it intact.”
With that sale, McCormick Rankin president Reno Radolli became the leader of MMM’s transportation
business in Eastern Canada, which opened the door for Wing to stay on in the Mississauga office and manage its 250 staff members.
“I was largely doing what I had been doing previously,” he says. “With the continued expansion of
Tony Wing’s engineering career has largely focused on bridges, tunnels and related infrastructure.
MMM and the reorganization of its management structure, I was promoted to vice-president (VP) of the transportation group, undertaking the review and negotiation of contracts and managing the litigation and claims files, as well as other risks.”
In 2015, WSP acquired MMM, which led to a bigger shift in Wing’s role.
“They saw my risk management role as important from a legal perspective,” he says, “so I moved from the transportation business into the legal group, which WSP was expanding. Now I was reporting up through chief counsel, with more responsibility.”
In this new role, he was the only engineer in a group of lawyers, but it turned out to be a good fit for the next four years.
Building on his legacy Wing retired in 2019, but has continued to serve WSP since 2020 in
“Material advances will be the biggest driver of innovation going forward.”
various consulting capacities relating to his previous areas of involvement, on an as-needed basis.
“I continue to be an employee of WSP, just not full-time,” he says. “I’m still doing risk assessments and constructability reviews. The legal system moves at a crawl; one of the files from when I retired is still active today!”
In 2022, he co-chaired the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering’s (CSCE’s) International Conference on Short and Medium Span Bridges—which takes place every four years—when it came to Toronto. (The other chair, incidentally, was Khaled Sennah, professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), who got to know Wing through an earlier project and nominated him for this lifetime achievement award.)
Leading the conference was a fitting role for Wing, given he had presented papers at such events in the past and, in particular, was
known for his international experience on award-winning bridge projects.
By way of example, over the course of his career, Wing helped pioneer the first implementation of non-corrosive glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) in bridge deck overhangs and barrier walls, when replacing the North Channel Bridge in Cornwall, Ont., significantly reducing the life-cycle cost for infrastructure exposed to de-icing salt through the winters.
“The use of GFRP in bridges is only going to continue,” he says. “Corrosion is still a huge problem. Material advances will be the biggest driver of innovation going forward.”
His pier replacement work on the Bay of Quinte Skyway in Picton, Ont., which took place with continuous traffic, won an Award of Excellence at the 1995 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards.
“I should have also submitted for an award the footing replacement of a pier bent on the high-level Burgoyne River Bridge in St. Catharine’s while under continuous traffic,” he says, “as that project gave me the inspiration and ideas for the Bay of Quinte pier replacement.”
His international experience includes budgeting, planning, environmental assessments, evaluations, inspections, contract administration and construction supervision for bridge projects around the world, such as the $15-billion, six-lane East-West Motorway in Algeria, which was completed in 2013.
Finally, another area of focus for Wing is Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), where he has sat on the discipline and registration committees since 2023. Previously known as the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (APEO), the self-regulatory organization licenses and governs the province’s professional engineers.
One of the most iconic projects Wing has worked on was the Niagara Falls International Rainbow Bridge.
By Scott Belton
Executive Liability for Engineers
Many of Canada’s consulting engineering firms have developed detailed policies and procedures and follow them fastidiously to avoid errors and leave as little as possible to chance when delivering a project, but management and employment practice considerations can often be overlooked.
In today’s litigious society, firms can’t afford to leave anything to chance. Your leadership team is the public face of your organization and could become a target. A claim questioning their management decisions could be devastating—not only to their reputation, but also to the business as a whole.
The need for coverage
While all organizations are vulnerable to legal risk, when a claim is brought today against a company, it’s often brought against specific leaders, as well as the firm as a whole.
If an investor or minority shareholder claims the firm’s executives were negligent or did not act in good faith, for example, a claim might be brought against both the company and its leadership. This means the personal assets of the leaders, in addition to corporate assets, could be at risk.
To be resilient, companies must put protection in place in advance, for those times when claims will arise. Executive liability coverage can help to cover the costs of defending the firm in a lawsuit, as well as protecting personal assets and reimbursing executives for the judgment or settlement.
Some of the more common exec-
utive liability claims include:
• Losses due to mismanagement of the company.
The personal assets of leaders, in addition to corporate assets, could be at risk.
• Errors in communication, planning or strategy.
• Alleged discrimination or harassment toward an employee, prospective employee or third party.
• Allegations of minority shareholder oppression.
• Other employment-related torts, such as wrongful termination or a failure to properly train or promote an employee.
• Directors and officers being held personally liable in the event of the financial impairment of the company.
Addressing variables
Firms seeking to protect their directors and other leaders should consider how much they can afford to pay out if (or when) a claim comes along. Choosing the right policy can be difficult, but working with an expert advisor or broker who can guide you to consider all
of the variables is imperative. Further, while executive liability coverage is primarily implemented as a means of preventing significant financial loss, it can do much more, reaping such additional benefits as the following:
• A strong corporate environment that provides security for leaders to make the best decision for the firm without having to worry about personal liability.
• A positive workplace that sends a message to current and potential leaders that the organization has their back.
• A more attractive level of risk to potential investors, who are looking for such organizations.
• The peace of mind that comes with knowing the firm and its leaders are protected from financial loss.
With these in mind, it may be time to review your firm’s insurance program to determine the right coverage and demonstrate to your leaders how much you care.
climate perspectives
By Stan Ridley
Nuclear Energy Breakthroughs
In my previous column (see Canadian Consulting Engineer , November/December 2024, pp. 8 to 10), I briefly reviewed the broad realities of the global warming and climate change crisis, touching upon a number of critical challenges and roadblocks and citing specific power and energy solutions on which we should spend considerable resources, money and effort carrying out research and development (R&D). The objective is to find viably scalable technological breakthroughs, in a number of areas, that could take a significant ‘bite’ out of our global 60 billion-plus tonnes a year of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO 2e) greenhouse (GHG) gas emissions. Within that context, I noted how fossil fuels—including coal, oil and natural gas—are significantly more energy-dense than renewables like
wind, solar and hydroelectricity; while nuclear fuels are, kilogram for kilogram, more energy-dense by orders of magnitude than any fossil fuels. (It is worth noting, of course, nuclear fission materials are finite, like fossil fuels, not renewable.)
When I was a postgraduate engineering student at England’s University of London in the early 1970s, the dean told us enthusiastic young engineers-in-training (EITs) we should not focus on any fossil fuels or renewables, but instead should turn our inquisitive and analytical focus toward nuclear energy, which he suggested would become so inexpensive across the planet that utilities would not even worry to meter or charge for the energy supplied.
Of course, as we now know, the nuclear energy nirvana did not unfold. Instead, over the next five
Nuclear fuels are more energydense by orders of magnitude than fossil fuels.
decades, it came seriously unstuck. Starting with 1979’s partial reactor meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in the U.S., followed by 1986’s explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the U.S.S.R. and, more recently, 2011’s nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, the public throughout much of the world has become very worried about the safety aspects of nuclear power.
The public’s concerns relate not only to the aforementioned high-profile accidents and disasters, but also to the very high levels—and long ‘life’—radioactivity associated with operating nuclear plants and the waste fuel, which we euphemistically call ‘spent’ fuel; in reality, it is not ‘spent’ at all, remaining very radioactive for hundreds of years.
Stan Ridley, C.Eng., MICE, BSc (Eng), MSc (Eng), is president of West 2012 Energy Management, based in Vancouver. He is also a member of United Nations (UN) groups of experts on gas, coal mine methane and just transition.
Global energy realities
According to the Energy Institute, on a global basis, more than 80% of all primary energy consumed in 2023 came from fossil fuel sources. About 6% came from hydroelectric, about 4% from nuclear, about 4% from wind and about 3% from solar energy sources.
Our increasing use of fossil fuels, starting in the early 1800s, has released enormous amounts of GHGs, which in turn have formed an increasingly thick ‘blanket’ around our planet that lets in most of the incoming energy from our sun. Some of the reflected energy, however, is mainly in the infrared (IR) wavelength and tends to be trapped by the increasingly thick GHG ‘blanket,’ with some radiated back to earth. Hence, the planet has been getting hotter and its climate has changed.
Fission
Today, there are about 420 nuclear fission power plants operating around the world. Here, nuclear fuel is bombarded by neutrons to split the fissionable nuclei and release and enormous amount of energy, under controlled conditions, in the reactor core. That
energy is used to essentially boil water, so as to produce steam that runs conventional large-turbine generators, which produce electricity on a very reliable basis.
Nuclear plants are typically run as baseload ‘workhorses,’ with a capacity factor (CF) between about 80% and 90%. The comparative typical CFs are 40% to 70% for fossil fuel plants, 40% to 60% for hydroelectric plants, 20% to 40% for wind and 10% to 20% for solar (keeping mind wind or solar generation provides ‘non-firm,’ intermittent energy).
According to the Energy Institute, nuclear energy contributed about
While Canada’s nuclear plants are principally located in Ontario (example pictured, top) and New Brunswick (example pictured, bottom), they could also be developed in interior provinces.
2,740 TWh of electricity around the world in 2023, based on about 372 GW of installed capacity. This accounted for 9% of global electricity production.
Alternative technologies
A number of other promising nuclear technologies are moving ahead. One is the so-called ‘breeder’ reactor. While conventional nuclear reactors use globally limited Uranium-235, breeder reactors can use much more abundant thorium and Uranium-238 fuels. Further, they reportedly use 70% of fissionable material, whereas conventional reactors use less than 1%.
climate perspectives
Small modular reactors (SMRs) should also be mentioned, as a few are already in operation, mainly in China and Russia, for a total capacity of about 300 MW. More are planned and under construction, including a 300-MW facility in Ontario.
Fusion
Many engineers are aware of Herculean efforts, in Canada and elsewhere, to achieve major breakthroughs in nuclear fusion energy, whereby atomic nuclei of hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium are compressed under enormous triaxial pressures and at very high temperatures (greater than 100 million C) to produce helium, an inert gas, and hopefully release enormous amounts of energy, which in turn could power steam turbines to generate electricity.
For many decades, we have been holding our breath hoping experts would make real breakthroughs in nuclear fusion. However, further developments seem to be elusive and/or in their infancy. A great deal more money and R&D are needed if the nuclear fusion dream is to materialize.
Safety
In response to the aforementioned accidents, concerns for the safety of nuclear power plants and the radioactivity of ‘spent fuel,’ the nuclear industry and government regulators have developed and put in place a significant number of safety features, including ‘backup-on-backup-on-backup’ systems.
Nevertheless, Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in 2011 seemed to overwhelm many of the backup safety features of the Fukushima plant.
As the nuclear industry correctly points out, considering the track record of our global energy and power systems over their full life cycles, nuclear energy has actually been one of the safest in terms of
causing loss of life or serious health afflictions. We must recognize, however, that while the probability of serious impacts from major nuclear accidents remains very low, the consequences of such an accident are very high.
Also, the addition of those backup safety systems for nuclear plants came at a price.
Capital and LCOE
At present, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports the capital cost of building an advanced nuclear fission plant is about US$8,000/kW. This compares to US$7,000/kW for a hydroelectric plant, while a combined-cycle, gasfired plant with carbon capture and safe sequestration (CCSS) or an intermittent renewable (i.e. wind or solar) plant with energy storage is less expensive to construct. However, capital costs can vary considerably, especially in terms of overruns. The comparative levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from these plants typically ranges from US$100 to US$200/MWh.
Given the severity of our civilization’s existential crisis, we can afford most of these technologies, providing they (1) work, (2) are viably scalable to reduce emissions significantly and (3) are comparably safe.
Challenges
All this said, a number of significant challenges remain with nuclear energy.
At present, most fission plants use a minute fraction of the input fuels, so the vast majority are then taken out as ‘spent fuel’ while they still have significant radioactive half-lives. (There is some nuclear waste fuel reprocessing, e.g. in France.)
In addition to safety and spent radioactive fuel, another concern is the length of time required for development, licensing, construction and commissioning of nuclear plants, which needs to be radically shortened, closer to the example of China, where it is as little as five years.
Our focus, not only in Canada but across the planet, should be on looking for major breakthroughs in power and energy technologies, making nuclear a very high priority.
The Canadian landscape
A number of promising technologies are moving ahead.
In Canada, all existing nuclear plants that continue to operate are fission-based and aging. They are principally located in Ontario and New Brunswick, with an installed capacity of about 13 GW and total annual energy output of about 83,500 GWh, representing about 13% of Canada’s total electricity generation and about 6% of its total primary energy consumption (TPEC), according to the Energy Institute.
While British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec are blessed with substantial hydroelectric resources (including those already developed and those with future potential), the same is not true for Alberta, which has significant wind and solar energy resources, but is overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels. The way forward in Alberta should be to change its focus to the significant development of both nuclear and renewables.
One important factor is the suitability of locations for new nuclear plants. While there are many variables at play, the major criteria are: 1. Availability of sufficient cooling water (likely facilitated with
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) aims to become the first North American power company to build and connect a small modular reactor (SMR).
towers).
2. Reasonably stable geological foundations, low amplitudes and low probabilities of earthquakes.
3. Nearby high-voltage transmission lines to carry a large amount of energy.
Seismic forces
Nuclear power plants need to be designed to resist very high levels of earthquake shaking associated with very low-probability events (1/10,000 or lower). Any proposed plant should
be located far away from any earthquake ‘hotspots.’
The 2020 National Building Code of Canada’s (NBC’s) seismic isopleth map clearly indicates high risk levels for peak ground acceleration (PGA) on British Columbia’s coast and at certain locations in Eastern Canada. Most of the interior, however, has low seismic risks.
Indeed, Canada is blessed with many highly stable, low-risk areas. It also has significant freshwater, relative to many other countries, for cooling purposes.
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Development time
needs
to be radically shortened.
Transforming energy
A major restructuring of Canada’s domestic energy production and consumption could take 30 years or longer to accomplish. The question is whether we have sufficient leadership and courage to set such long-term national goals and trajectories and the will to accomplish an energy transformation, where nuclear energy would play a much greater role than it does today.
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Converting Offices to Shelters and Housing
Paul Fritze, P.Eng., is a principal with RJC Engineers’ building science and restoration department in Toronto, focusing on renovations and retrofits. As cities like Calgary, Toronto and Halifax offer incentives for converting vacant offices into living spaces to combat Canada’s housing crisis, Fritze addresses these projects’ challenges, which he describes as interesting and nuanced.
How did you become involved in conversions?
My focus started out in maintenance and the structural restoration of building envelopes, but has migrated to renovations and retrofits. In 2018 and 2019, RJC got some significant project portfolios with Toronto, which involved both upgrading emergency shelter infrastructure with increased bed counts and renovating buildings to add affordable rental units.
The city would purchase existing sites as long as they met residential zoning criteria, including a mix of office buildings, hotels and senior and student residences. Some of these, obviously, were more conducive to conversion than others.
We have a lot of vacant office space and a lot of people who require housing, but only a select few buildings can really meet the need from a financial viability standpoint, in comparison to a new purpose-built structure.
What factors need to be in place?
These conversions are attractive for saving time compared to new construction, but not necessarily saving money. There can be savings, however, through thoughtful design
within a building’s constraints, where you retain and reuse existing systems.
Class-A office space isn’t highly conducive to residential conversion, primarily due to fenestration. You have large, unencumbered, open floor plates with flexibility for cubicles or desks, which lends to more of a square footprint. A Class-B or -C office space, on the other hand, may have less efficient fenestration for its purpose, but because it’s more rectangular, it better allows the floor plate to be compartmentalized into apartments with windows, along with corridors that don’t require windows.
Another challenge relates to mechanical and electrical systems. Often you have rooftop equipment for an office building that would be oversized for residential (e.g. given the lower electrical demand), so there’s an opportunity to retain some of the existing infrastructure; but the distribution of HVAC and plumbing needs to be increased to reach a greater number of suites, branching off from a central core.
What role do incentives play?
Calgary is a leader, offering up to $75 per square foot for an office-to-residential conversion. This spurs downtown redevelopment, creating an influx of residential taxpayers and getting businesses to flock to the core that had been migrating elsewhere. That’s been highly successful and you see a lot of other municipalities following suit.
Cities can pay a fair market value for the building, but also have internal funds put aside through grants they receive to support affordable housing or emergency shelter, which private developers don’t have access to.
Can you provide an example of a building that was particularly well-suited for conversion?
One great example is the Centennial Building in Halifax. Three sides of the building are available for windows and it can be compartmentalized quite easily with a highly effective floorplate.
In 2023, with federal and provincial funding, RJC helped the city of Toronto convert three floors of a Super 8 Hotel into affordable housing.
We’re now in the middle of turning a 100-year-old, four-storey, 25,000-sf building in Toronto—originally industrial, then converted to medical offices—into an emergency homeless shelter. It has the right floor plate at the right rectangular shape and size, with enough space to make architectural interventions cost-effectively, e.g. adding the windows needed for living quarters. We’re excited to see what it will look like!
Paul Fritze.
PHOTO COURTESY RJC.
PHOTO BY ROBERT LOWDON, COURTESY RJC.
WOMEN IN ENGINEERING JOIN US ONLINE JUNE
19, 2025
The Advance: Women in Engineering virtual summit will be held on June 19, 2025, strategically timed to lead directly into International Women in Engineering Day on June 23. This is a key opportunity to promote greater gender diversity in one of Canada’s most celebrated areas of expertise, as consulting engineering firms seek to recruit and retain more women for roles at all levels of seniority.
Our goal is to spotlight the accomplishments of successful female professional engineers, encourage more women to join the industry/community and raise awareness of organizations that are already taking a leading role in this effort.
Join the conversation with Advance: Women in Engineering!
WHY SUPPORT WOMEN IN CONSULTING ENGINEERING?
z Recognize the careers of successful women in the industry
z Build your reputation as an industry leader in diversity
z Amplify brand visibility among Canada’s top consulting engineering firms
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z Increase exposure to key audiences across multiple media platforms, including email; website; social media; and the live virtual event.
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