Another issue is the labor. I haven't personally looked into what the underlying reasons might be, but in Quebec, construction workers have all the power. If they don't show up, come late, under-deliver or do sloppy work, there's not much recourse, there's no one else. Given that these jobs are some of the highest paying relative to education level, there must be some artificial constraint that perpetuates this. If you are a general contractor, it's nearly impossible to provide consistent, high quality service, because they simply have little control over their workers.