October 8, 2025
Parteek Singh Mahal
While B.C.’s new construction prompt payment rules will not carry criminal penalties, Attorney General Niki Sharma has emphasized that the legislation includes robust non-criminal consequences designed to fundamentally change the industry’s payment culture.
The British Columbia government has announced a new legislative initiative aimed at ending chronic payment delays in British Columbia’s construction sector.
Speaking on RED FM’s Harjinder Thind Show, Minister Sharma addressed the critical question of how the new 28-day payment deadline would be enforced, especially on non-compliant owners and contractors.
The Minister clarified that a contractor would not go to jail for missing the new 28-day payment deadline. “It’s not a criminal fine,” she stated.
Instead, the enforcement mechanism will rely on financial and legal pressures. “There are ways to get really really other fines and other ways to apply pressure and put liens and get your payments,” Sharma explained. These tools, coupled with a new fast-track adjudication process to quickly issue payment orders, are intended to compel compliance.
More than just a punitive measure, the consequences are intended to create a systemic cultural shift in the construction sector.
Minister Sharma expressed confidence in the model based on similar legislation elsewhere: “What we’ve found in other jurisdictions that have done this… is that just by putting in clear rules and clear consequences the industry changed.”
The new rules target decision-makers at the top of the contractual chain, forcing them to prioritize timely payments. “Those people at the top decided, ‘We need to pay on time or else we’re going to have real consequences,’ and money starts to flow better through the system just by putting in these clear consequences and clear timelines,” she asserted.
The Attorney General concluded that while tools are available to “really push if you need to get your money,” the overall purpose of the legislation is to transform the entire industry’s cash flow practices, ensuring that electricians, construction workers, and small businesses are no longer forced to wait months for work they have completed.
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