Breaking New Ground—Stories from Defence Construction Breaking_new_ground | Page 26

In the early 1950s, DCL’s Head Office
was located at the CHMC Headquarters on
Montreal Road in Ottawa. CMHC provided
DCL with personnel, as well as manage-
ment and supervisory services, until DCL
assumed full administration and supervision
of its contracts in April 1954.

Appearing before Parliament
In 1953, with government spending on defence
reaching into the millions, Dick Johnson recalled that
the opposition members of the House of Commons
Committee on Defence Expenditures were rigorous in
their questioning.
They fielded a strong team: General Pearkes, Donald
Fleming, Davie Fulton and several other leading
parliamentarians. It was almost like a baseball game,
with nine innings, each lasting about two hours, over a
period of several weeks. At the end, DCL was rewarded
by seeing that great family journal, The Toronto Globe
and Mail, carry a headline that read ‘No Waste on
Defence Construction.’

Asking for a raise…
Ottawa, Early 1950s—Alec Lawson
Back in the early 50s, we engineers felt ourselves to
be underpaid. All of us were young and married with
children, so times were rather hard. I remember
arguing our case—without much success—with
Don McLaren, the chief engineer at the time. About a
week later, I was in his office discussing a project and,
when I got up to leave, the cloth of my right trouser leg,
16
which was worn thin, caught on the front lip of his
desk and tore horizontally about four or five inches.
I hadn’t noticed, but Don had and, as I turned to go,
he said, “Maybe we should look at giving you young
engineers more money so you won’t be dressed in
rags.” I didn’t understand him right away so he told me
to look down at my right leg. After an embarrassed
moment, we both laughed. Shortly afterwards, we got
a modest raise.
A former quarterback with the Ottawa Rough Riders,
Alec Lawson worked three separate stints with DCL
during his career: from 1954 to 1955; 1972; and from
1975 to 1986. He retired from the position of Manager
of Technical Services at Head Office in Ottawa.
Going out alone
Late in 1953, defence construction began to slow
down, just as CMHC was facing a significant jump in
housing construction as a result of proposed changes
to the Bank Act. It was the right time for DCL to cut the
apron strings and go it alone, which it did officially in
the spring of 1954 by assuming full administration and
supervision of contracts. DCL handled those contracts
on a centralized basis, with most of the responsibility
BREAKING NEW GROUND
DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA