As of April 1, Ontario One Call (OOC) has the power to fine infrastructure owners for late locates.

The utility announced the news recently, saying that it now has the regulatory capability to issue administrative penalties for non-compliance or violations of the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012 – including digging without locates or not delivering locates within specified timelines.

"Ontario One Call will be implementing this new regulation in a very thoughtful way, relying on existing compliance tools to encourage locate performance improvement over time,” said OOC President and CEO Jim Keech. “In so doing, our objective is to usher in a new era of collaboration between industry participants that delivers industry performance improvement and allows projects to be completed on schedule. As such, our focus remains on ensuring individuals are aware of their responsibilities under the Act and working with them towards a common goal of compliance with the law. As a result, One Call will make every effort to educate individuals on their responsibilities under the Act, with penalties used only where appropriate in the exercise of independent discretion by Ontario One Call's assessors appointed under the Act.”

And while that news would ordinarily be met with enthusiasm from the construction sector, which has been plagued by late locate delivery almost since OOC was founded, actions by one utility in the province are also making news.

Last month, Enbridge Gas announced, and then very quickly suspended, a change that would see the utility charge contractors $200 per locate request it receives through OOC.

The charge, which was originally intended to come into effect on May 1, has since been stayed after the utility received an earful from the province’s heavy construction contractors.

In an email sent to stakeholders on March 24, Enbridge said it would put the implementation “on pause” and use the available time to, “continue industry consultations.”

The National Capital Heavy Construction Association (NCHCA) is among those groups that expressed immediate and deep concern about the proposed locate charge.

In a letter to provincial energy minister Todd Smith, association executive director Kathryn Sutherland warned the charge would, “have a profound impact on the Ontario construction industry,” adding that “we have received information that other underground infrastructure owners are planning to implement similar charges.”

“The volume and collective amount of these charges will completely destabilize the construction industry,” she wrote.

Data on the OOC website shows that between July 2022 and January 2023, Enbridge received 379,399 actionable locate requests. Extrapolated over a 12-month period, that figure rises to 650,379 locate requests.

Assuming that half of those requests came from contractors, a charge of $200 per locate could generate more than $65 million in additional revenue for Enbridge annually.

For its part, Enbridge says the charge is needed to cover the rising cost of delivering locates. The company points to changes introduced in last spring’s Getting Ontario Connected Act, which it says required a series of operational improvements at the utility that have added cost.

The new law empowers OOC to levy fines of $300 for utilities that fail to provide locates within the five-day service window and as much as $1,000 for failing to meet the timeline for an emergency locate. Levying a $200-charge against those penalties would help to offset some of those costs.

NCHCA, for its part, is worried that this change is the tip of a very large, and potentially very costly, iceberg.

“For projects that have already been awarded including multi-year projects, this will impact contractors directly as there is no assurance that project owners will cover the cost of this new unforeseen charge,” Sutherland wrote in her letter to Smith. “Some of our contractor members request 5,000 locates in a season. This charge would result in a cost of $1 million to these contractors for Enbridge locates alone.”

She added that for projects not yet tendered, contractors will undoubtedly pass on the cost of the new locate charges to project owners.

“This may result in a $65,000,000 reduction in work being tendered while municipalities and private sector owners work to absorb the impact of Enbridge locate delivery charges.”

Bigger picture, there is a suggestion that Enbridge won’t be the last utility to attempt to implement locate charges.

During a March 2022 webinar, a spokesperson from Ontario One Call cautioned that the existing Ontario One Call legislation does not promise free locates. Indeed, he explained, “free locates are provided as a courtesy to members. Making the request to Ontario One Call is the only thing that is free.”

Sutherland says that although the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act provides that Ontario Once Call not charge a fee to anyone who makes a locate request, the legislation is silent on whether a buried infrastructure owner can charge a fee for a locate request. She is urging the government to clarify this position on an urgent basis.

“If all five of Ontario’s utilities each charge $200 per locate, you can imagine what that will do to the cost of business for our members and the cost of construction for project owners,” Sutherland said.