New African-Canadian Contractors Association seeking to promote economic development
June 22, 2022
Through a colleague Sean Francis worked with at a hospital, he learnt that her brother was an electrical contractor.
Seeking a more challenging and fulfilling career, he summoned the courage to ask Orville Gayle if he could shadow him.
The owner of 4S Energy Electric Inc. willingly complied.
“He trained and taught me, opening that door for me to get to where I am at,” said Francis who was the recipient of the Contractor the Year Award presented at the Afro-Canadian Contractors Association (ACCA) inaugural awards gala on June 4 in Mississauga. “Before meeting Orville, I had no idea what the field entailed.”
After nearly five years getting his feet wet and learning the ropes, he founded Ultra Enterprise Inc. that offers a wide range of services, including lighting installation and repairs, home and electrical safety inspections and knob and tube rewiring.
Based in Milton, the company – established almost 20 years ago – provides emergency electrical services 24 hours daily across the Greater Toronto Area.
ACCA Contractor of the Year Sean Francis (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
An immigrant from St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Francis graduated from North Albion Collegiate Institute where he excelled in basketball.
“To be honest, I never thought I would have a career as an electrical contractor,” he said. “I aspired to be an NBA (National Basketball Association) star.”
With the odds of becoming a professional basketball player very slim, Francis is thankful for his parents’ practical wisdom.
“They provided guidance and helped me to stay focused,” he pointed out. “When it came to education, they didn’t play around. I could do whatever I wanted only if my schoolwork was completed. At the time, I thought they were harsh. As I got older, I understood where they were coming from.”
Asked who he would dedicate the award to if given the opportunity, Francis chose his brother-in-law.
Dale Sawyers, who was an outstanding basketball player at Milliken Mills Collegiate High School and Canisius College in Buffalo in the 1990s, is a Toronto District School Board teacher and advocate for young people in challenged neighbourhoods.
“He’s always out there in the community helping to uplift youths and bring the best out of them,” said Francis. “He has put his heart, soul and his own money into this work he has been doing for many years without getting any kind of recognition.”
He and Christopher Smith, the Director and Project Co-ordinator at Hummingbird Electric Inc., were the award finalists.
“I play a role in procuring contracts and the estimation process and am very hands-on on job sites,” the Clarkson Secondary School graduate noted.
Christopher Smith was a Contractor of the Year finalist (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Hummingbird is an extension of Island Electric Inc. that his father, Brian Smith, launched in October 1989.
“I am very fortunate because I didn’t have to seek out a summer job,” Smith said. “Dad would just take me with him when he was going to work. I was introduced to electrical contracting at a young age and I got to see all the possibilities that exist in the field.”
It however took a little while for him to gravitate to the field.
After a year of Social Work studies at Mohawk College, Smith figured his impact on young people and the community could be bigger if he was in the construction field.
Enrolled in Sheridan College’s apprenticeship program, he is pursuing the Red Seal program that sets common standards for tradespeople in Canada.
An ACCA co-founder of Director of Outreach, Brian Smith is proud his son is following his footsteps.
“For him to recognize what I have built and the barriers I had to go through to become a licensed electrical contractor and business owner is something I don’t take lightly,” he said.
In charge of Electrical Maintenance at Sangster International Airport in Montego, Bay, Jamaica, the family patriarch came to Canada in 1986.
The transition was difficult.
While working as an electrician at the Jockey Club condominium in Thorncliffe Park, Smith recalled finding a dead cat in his lunch pail on a few occasions.
“It was not easy then, but I persevered in spite of the racism,” he said.
While employed in Mississauga where he resided, Francis received a request to go to Pickering to work at another site.
“I told them to lay me off because I was getting up at 5.30 a.m. to go to work,” he said. “With all of that, I was making more money working in the early evening and weekends at sub-division houses. Also at the back of my mind was something that some of my work colleagues had told me which was, ‘Brian, if we know what you know, we would be running our own company’. I figured that was the time to take the risk and do that.”
In addition to Smith, the other ACCA co-founders are Bass Installation owner Stephen Callender who is the President, Kubbie Construction owner Sephton Spence who is the Vice-President, HVAC Services founder George Lloyd who is Director of Services, Kara Morgan who started Planlt Efficiency Solutions and is Director of Operations and Strategic Partnerships Director Evan McLaughlin who established Column and Joist Brokerage & Consulting Inc.
The ACCA was launched in February 2021.
“There was a meeting in Ottawa and one of the contractors was saying they could not find Black contractors to bid for work,” recounted Callender whose daughter, Natasha Callender-Wilson, is Vice-President of Bass Installation that specializes in glass installation. “There was no organization that could say, ‘Here, we have a list of Black contractors or we know of Black contractors’.”
George Lloyd (l), Stephen Callender, Brian Smith, Kara Morgan, Evan McLaughlin & Sephton Spence co-founded the ACCA (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
The ACCA seeks to foster economic development in the African Canadian community by growing and transforming the Afro-Canadian contractors into cohesive and economically viable entities through communication, collaboration and education.
Metrolinx Chief Planning Officer Karla Avis-Birch delivered the keynote address at the gala whose team was ‘Bridging the Gap’.
“Data tells us that we are woefully under-represented in the contractors/construction workforce and even less so in roles and positions that enable us to realize the words set out in your mission,” said the civil engineer who co-launched the National Society of Black Engineers Canada. “I can’t propose to know the answer, but I have an idea. After a beautiful and inspirational evening of celebration, don’t think about the next level. Be the next level. What gets measured gets done, so hold those around you accountable for where we all collectively know we want to be.”
Metrolinx Chief Planning Officer Karla Avis-Birch was the event keynote speaker (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Avis-Birch, who sits on the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority Board of Directors overseeing the construction of the six-lane cable-stayed Gordie Howe Bridge across the Detroit River, reminded contractors, designers and engineers that cracks always pop up in a foundation.
“Some are out there to deliberately stress and force a predictable fault line and others grow as a natural cause by the environment or other external factors,” she added. “You never know which of the cracks will cause a break to rebuild and reimagine on new ground. The fact that there is an organization like yours means you are bridging the gap.”
A Royal Bank of Canada thought leadership group report released last September revealed that Canada will face a shortage of at least 10,000 workers in nationally recognized Red Seal trades over the next five years. That number is expected to increase when 144 provincially regulated trades are included.
Recruiting the workforce of the future will mean tackling core challenges, including conscripting from under-represented groups and battling outdated biases, the report indicates.
Individuals interested in joining the ACCA can send an email to info@accacan.com or call (647) 424-2230.
