{"id":513549,"date":"2026-03-04T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T10:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513549\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T10:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T10:33:09","slug":"city-of-toronto-countersues-contractors-who-want-83m-for-st-lawrence-market-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513549\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Toronto countersues contractors who want $83M for St. Lawrence Market project"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

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After Toronto was hit with an $83-million lawsuit from two companies who worked on the new St. Lawrence Market North Building last spring, the city is alleging it\u2019s the contractors who should pay the city at least $8 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The joint venture of Atlas Corporation and Buttcon Ltd. was awarded a $92-million contract to build the five-storey glass and metal building in 2019. The project was in the works for years\u00a0and replaced the old north market building that was demolished in 2016. <\/p>\n

But after delivering equipment, labour, materials and other services to complete the project, the contractors alleged<\/a> they\u2019re still owed about $83 million for their work, according to a statement of claim filed in March 2025 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The contractors alleged the city breached its contract by not paying. <\/p>\n

In its statement of defence filed in November, the city said it owes no debt to the companies, referred to as BAJV in the documents. None of the allegations made by either side have been proven in court. <\/p>\n

The city says the requested amounts are \u201cexpressly denied, are exaggerated, excessive and remote\u2026and are, in whole or in part, the result of the actions or omissions of BAJV or persons other than the City.\u201d<\/p>\n

WATCH | New St. Lawrence Market building opened last year:\"\"<\/p>\n

St. Lawrence Farmer’s Market moves back indoors as new building opens<\/p>\n

The St. Lawrence Farmer’s Market opened today at its new location in the New North Market, a building a decade in the making. As JP Gallardo reports, the market is a key community fixture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The city\u2019s general government committee will be having a confidential discussion on the lawsuit next Monday.<\/p>\n

The contractors are also seeking at least $8.9 million for additional labour and materials costs tied to delays they say are caused by the city or parties it\u2019s legally responsible for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City seeking $8M in damages due to delays<\/p>\n

In its statement of defence, the city says the work was completed nearly three years behind schedule and the delays were caused either by actions and inactions of BAJV or forces outside of the city\u2019s control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its counterclaim, the city wants at least $8.3 million for delay damages and \u201coutstanding deficiencies\u201d from the contractors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is evident that BAJV failed to properly supervise, manage and perform the work so as to conform with the contract time,\u201d the statement of defence said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"DroneIn its counterclaim, the city wants at least $8.3 million for delay damages and ‘outstanding deficiencies’ from the contractors who worked on the new St. Lawrence market building. (Michael Charles Cole\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The statement of defence lays out a number of reasons for its claim that BAJV caused the delays, saying their construction plan included \u201cinconsistent and faulty logic\u201d and \u201cclashed\u201d with subcontractors working on the project.\u00a0The statement does elaborate on what is meant by “faulty logic.”<\/p>\n

The city alleges it had to retain a \u201cscheduling expert\u201d to give BAJV advice on how to improve its planning practices. While the project was delayed, the city says its Saturday farmers market and Sunday antiques market had to be housed in a temporary location for three years longer than anticipated, causing increased costs and lost revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawyer representing BAJV in the lawsuit did not reply to CBC Toronto’s request for comment. <\/p>\n

Details in defence could complicate things for plaintiffs: expert<\/p>\n

The fact that the city had to bring in a scheduling consultant could complicate things for the plaintiffs, says Jiwan Thapar, CEO of JTE Claims Consultants, a consulting firm specializing in construction claims and dispute resolution. <\/p>\n

“In essence, what city is saying is: the documentation that you’re going to advance to demonstrate delays [is] not good enough to stand the test of time, because you needed us to bring in a consultant to put [the schedules] on the right track,” Thapar said in an interview with CBC Toronto.<\/p>\n

He said what makes a lawsuit like this difficult for the contractors is that they have to pass a “but for test.”<\/p>\n

The test, he says, essentially means a contractor has to prove they would have completed a task on time, but for something the city did. <\/p>\n

“I think it’s going to be a tough battle for a contractor to prove that there was no concurrency,” he said. “Like, if a contractor was running into their own issues and let’s just say the owner contributed to something, essentially the but for test is not fully satisfied.” <\/p>\n

He said the question then comes down to one of proportion, sorting out what part of what delays should be attributed to who. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-513549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}