ASPHALTopcs | Summer 2017 | VOL 30 | NO 2

CHAIRMAN’S
CORNER
by Mike McLean
Chairman, OAPC
Challenges, change, opportunities
and growth
Welcome to the first official Chairman’s Corner, and
a special thanks to our previous OHMPA leaders who
have guided our association along its journey to the
new Ontario Asphalt Pavement Council of ORBA.
As we move forward from Donn Bernal’s successful
OHMPA presidency, our OAPC executive, directors,
great staff and ORBA leaders have been working diligently
on our group’s transition, while simultaneously working
on solutions to the challenges we are facing.
The cause and effect of our low bid system, road budget
constraints, the state of our aging infrastructure, design
and Superpave issues, specification challenges, insufficient
pavement preservation programs and the recent quality
concerns have resulted in an overwhelming proliferation
of specifications to emerge in our province, rendering it
the most prodigious and complicated of any province.
All these different specifications, originally designed to raise
the bar, are making it more difficult to have uniform quality
standards across the province and will likely contribute to
logistics and tankage issues, less use of recycled materials,
possible misinterpretation, and costly mistakes down the
road. On top of these concerns, the Auditor General’s
report and the MTO’s follow-up Action Plan have put an
increased spotlight on the quality of asphalt pavements
in Ontario.
On the heels of the hard work and direction from the
Quality of Asphalt Task Force, and our recent amalgamation
with ORBA, OAPC launched a new initiative this spring.
With the guiding support of Global Public Affairs, we held
two Quality of Asphalt forums on March 29 and April 4 to
help highlight the scope of threats and concerns identified
by our stakeholders and members, and to provide
us with recommendations to help guide our future.
Preliminary recommendations have been made to
promote increased collaboration with owners, to develop
more uniform specifications, encourage owner oversight,
promote a fair and competitive market through a level
and transparent playing field, to deliver value to all our
customers, to develop a roadmap and critical path for the
supply of quality asphalt pavements, and deliver long-term
value that we, as taxpayers, all deserve.
Above and beyond the aforementioned challenges, some
of the relationships we have with our industry stakeholders
have also come into question. There has been a lot of talk
lately about the foundation and materials of our pavements,
yet we all know that the true foundation to any worthwhile
relationship is trust.
We have an opportunity to develop a better and more
collaborative working relationship with our members and
partners, to be more responsible and accountable as an
industry, to communicate better than ever before, and to
work on building the trust that will keep us all focused on
mutually beneficial continuous improvements.
As ORBA continues to promote and support the growth
of Ontario’s infrastructure industry, OAPC continues to
advocate for excellence in asphalt pavements. Together,
we need to be the voice of asphalt authority in Ontario.
Together, through our positive working relationships, we
can build a stronger and more sustainable quality of asphalt
pavement system in Ontario, and help reset the ground rules
future generations can be guided by and will be proud of,
as Ontario rides on us.
SUMMER 2017 5