WSP offers a wide range of services to assist municipal and public sector clients with engineer planning , design and project delivery. Our portfolio includes projects of varying size and scale in urban centres, towns, and rural regions. The strength of our municipal engineering team is rooted in our ability to generate both innovative and practical solutions to the increasingly complex challenges in today’s communities. Our team of professionals has experience and specialized expertise coupled with an ideal blend of education and hands-on experience that enables fresh, forward-looking, practical and cost effective approaches to be brought to all of our clients’ projects.
Our team has delivered on large, complex growth related and infrastructure renewal projects across Canada, ranging from the management of crossing agreements, stormwater and drainage for major bridge, light rail transit, and road projects; to municipal projects providing drainage solutions within both new and existing neighbourhoods; and designing, tendering, and construction management for water, storm and sanitary systems involving collection, distribution and treatment. Other services include the coordination of shallow and deep utilities for projects and working with service providers to bring electrical and telecommunications services into communities and the areas between them.
We are Future-Focused Improving Community Life with Innovation
Wilderness scenes and wide-open spaces are slowly decreasing as Canada is urbanizing. Most of the recent increase in the urbanization of the Canadian population is accounted for by the country's largest urban areas. Almost 90% of the total population growth in Canada since 2001 has occurred in the country's 33 census metropolitan areas (CMA). While the largest metropolitan areas account for most of the overall population growth in Canada in recent years, a number of smaller cities have also grown substantially.
At WSP, we care about your city, town, and rural community because we live there too. There are certain infrastructure challenges that every community is confronted with as our country grows and ages. Cities must be intelligently designed to rehab aging infrastructure and incorporate new infrastructure that enable opportunities for employment while offering comfortable living situations.
There is also a pressing need to reduce the energy and water use of established cities as well as the amount of waste they produce, amidst the realities of the many social, political and economic barriers to the substantial changes that are required. Cities are where future economic growth will be concentrated – and that growth needs to interwoven with the mitigation of environmental and social impacts. Thanks to our local presence in over 500 cities around the world, we know how to do this and how to design comprehensive, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that make those communities more livable and at the same time meeting the needs and requirements of each client through the optimization of the public infrastructure.
We are Locally Focused Supported by National Reach
With offices located throughout the provinces, WSP has a vested interest in supporting our communities and making our region a better place to live. Through this long term presence, WSP has acquired a wealth of knowledge on the various forms of infrastructure, staff have extensive experience in regional and local rural water and sewer systems, water and wastewater treatment for small remote communities, stormwater management, earthworks, roadways, and climate change adaptation projects. Our services also extend to geotechnical, hydrogeological, environmental and building (structural, mechanical, electrical) services. We regularly work with small municipalities and Regional Districts to help them understand the processes involved in delivering a complex multi-discipline project from inception through design, construction and operation.
Our strength is our ability to adapt to our clients’ culture and local rural markets. We have a multitude of smaller offices all across Canada and this allows us to provide personalized support to our clients with local staff while being able to leverage our highly specialized in-house national expertise to bring innovation and proven solutions to allow our local teams to undertake our clients’ most complex and mission critical projects. We achieve this by remaining agile, and adopting a “common sense” practical approach, and by keeping our structure and business model simple and lean.
WSP's success is a result of our ongoing commitment to building long-term partnerships in the communities where we live, work, and play, and growing alongside our clients who have come to depend on the efforts of our responsive team to help them achieve their project objectives. Our partnerships succeed because we offer technically superior solutions that contribute to healthy and vibrant communities, and perhaps more importantly, because our experienced planners, landscape architects, and engineers are passionate about building mutually productive and beneficial relationships that are based on trust, honesty, dependability, and responsiveness. We don't focus on the size of the job; we care about meeting our clients' needs on every project, and we utilize our industry expertise, resources, and insights to assist every client in making informed decisions that ensure they are best positioned to achieve their long-term goals. At WSP, incorporating principles that promote sustainable communities and infrastructure development into our work is a daily commitment, and our staff work together in multi-disciplinary teams to deliver economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable projects.
A Unique Partnership
Every Indigenous community is unique – with different experiences, histories, social customs, traditions, governance and social circumstances. What they share is an interest in making decisions that bring sustainable benefits, both now and in the future.
WSP has a long history of partnering with Indigenous Communities, with an opportunity to provide a full range of services to several communities across Canada. These projects have been framed by goals unique to each community and strengthened by sustainability and the preservation of cultural values.
WSP recognize that success depends on building long-term partnerships and reinforcing a culture of sharing alongside Indigenous people – Inuit, Métis and First Nations. As a company with deep roots coast-to-coast, we understand the challenges these communities face and recognize the need for frequent, open and honest communication.
Responsibly delivering on a variety of projects, we are proud to support the growth and strengthen the communities we work in, while fostering opportunities for training and local initiatives that create a future for Indigenous youth.
We Have the Local Expertise
With over 8,000 readily available and qualified field resources and office support staff across Canada, including specialists such as anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, socio-economists, geographers, surveyors, GIS experts, community planners, and engineers from multiple disciplines, we have the knowledge and experience where and when you need it. We form strategic partnerships with local Indigenous experts to enhance our capabilities on projects and to help us better understand the needs, expectations, concerns and beliefs of these communities. WSP has also cultivated multiple joint venture agreements and key community partnerships throughout Canada to maximize the benefits to the local community through training and employment of qualified band members and the participation of Indigenous businesses.
We Understand and Respect Indigenous Culture and Traditions
We have an Indigenous Relations policy within our organization to provide a framework for the way we initiate, maintain and manage our relationships with Canada’s Indigenous people. We respect the legal rights of Canada’s Indigenous communities, along with their cultural traditions, economies, beliefs, knowledge and use of lands and resources.
We Are Responsible Custodians of a Shared Landscape
Responsible to our people and our projects, we use built-in quality assurance and quality control procedures coupled with a clearly defined safety program. Sustainability is embedded in all that we do, influencing our use of resources, designing solutions that are future-ready and engaging in activities that support local communities.
We Believe in Open Communication
We build strong relationships with Indigenous leaders and their communities through ongoing, transparent and effective communication. We believe that it is important that our clients have the right information to inform and shape their decision-making processes.
We Value Indigenous Relationships
In addition to designing essential buildings, roadways and vital infrastructure, we apply our expertise in protecting cultural resources by using traditional knowledge and conducting social impact assessments and follow-up monitoring. We ensure that cultural specialists are on site or involved to preserve cultural heritage.
