About

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted prior to March 2020.

Charles Caza is senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Bird Construction. Caza leads the company’s risk management team, consisting of legal, compliance, insurance, regulatory and risk management functions, through a collaborative approach between its head office and operational centres across Canada. His background as a civil engineer, knowledge of the construction and engineering industries, and a practical business sense, provides Bird with one of the best specialists in this field. Caza is recognised amongst his peers as one of the leading construction lawyers in Canada. He is designated as a certified specialist in construction law by the Law Society of Ontario since 2002. More recently, he was an active member of the Lien Act Committee of the Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA), which was instrumental in getting the new Ontario Construction Act passed into legislation. He is also a member of the program faculty of the Osgoode Hall Law School’s Certificate in Construction Law. He is a past member of the executive of the Ontario Bar Association’s construction section and a current member of the executive of the Construction Sector In-House Counsel Forum. Before completing his bachelor of laws, Caza was employed as a civil engineer with a Toronto-based general contractor. He later developed his legal and management career in private practice, moving into in-house counsel with a national contractor, an international construction and engineering organisation before joining Bird Construction in 2009.