The Canadian sense
The whole set: every document the owner and the contractor sign up to.
What are construction documents in Canada, and which ones must be in both languages?
In Canada, the construction documents are the contract documents: the agreement and its conditions, the specification organized by the National Master Specification's divisions, the drawings and the addenda. Which of them must exist in English and French depends on the owner: a federal solicitation sets it, a Quebec public body requires French.
What are construction documents in Canada?
In Canadian practice, construction documents are the contract documents of a project: everything the owner and the contractor sign up to. The Canadian Construction Documents Committee (CCDC), a national committee formed in 1974 of owners, contractors, architects, engineers and specification writers, with a construction lawyer, publishes Canada’s standard construction documents, including its contract forms. Its stipulated price contract, CCDC 2, names the contract documents in its agreement: the agreement itself, the definitions and the general conditions, then the specifications, drawings and other documents the parties list.
The narrower American sense
A design phase: when the drawings and specifications are completed for tender.
The term also has a narrower, mostly American sense: the construction documents phase of design, when the drawings and specifications are completed for tender. This post uses the Canadian sense, the whole set.
Which types of documents make up a construction set?
Eight kinds, from the contract to the addenda. The specification is organized by MasterFormat divisions, the numbering of the National Master Specification, which is published in both English and French by the National Research Council.
The set, front to back
- D-01The agreementThe parties, the work, the price and the list of contract documents.The contract form (CCDC 2 for a stipulated price contract)
- D-02The definitions and general conditionsThe standard terms both parties sign up to.The contract form
- D-03The supplementary conditionsThe owner's changes to the standard conditions.Listed in the agreement
- D-04Procurement and contracting requirementsSeals page, table of contents, list of drawing sheets, instructions to bidders.Division 00
- D-05General requirementsHow the work is run: schedules, submittals, quality, closeout.Division 01
- D-06The technical sectionsThe materials and workmanship, trade by trade.Divisions 02 onward
- D-07The drawingsThe design: plans, sections, details, schedules.The drawing set, listed in Division 00
- D-08The addendaChanges issued before closing, which become part of the set.Issued during the tender
After the award: shop drawings, submittals, O&M manuals, record drawings
After the award, the set keeps growing: shop drawings, submittals, operation and maintenance manuals and record drawings follow from it. They are where the set’s terms travel furthest, as our post on shop drawings in French shows.
Which document governs when they disagree?
The contract sets the order.
The contract decides. CCDC 2 sets an order of priority among the contract documents for when they conflict, in its general conditions; other forms set their own. Check the order in your own contract before relying on any summary, and ask counsel for your case.
The order matters in two languages too. Which version prevails when the English and French disagree is for the contract to say; in a Quebec public contract, the French prevails unless the parties set the legal value of each (Regulation respecting the language of the civil administration, s. 14).
Where do Division 00 and Division 01 fit?
At the front of the specification. Division 00, Procurement and Contracting Requirements, holds the documents that frame the contract: the seals page, the table of contents, the list of drawing sheets and the instructions to bidders. Division 01, General Requirements, sets how the work is run for every trade: submittals, quality control, temporary facilities and closeout.
00
Procurement and Contracting Requirements
Seals page, table of contents, list of drawing sheets, instructions to bidders.
01
General Requirements
Submittals, quality control, temporary facilities, closeout: how the work runs for every trade.
Both divisions exist in the official English and French of the National Master Specification. Our guide to the NMS divisions in English and French gives every division and section title in both languages.
Which documents must be in both languages?
It depends on the owner. What follows sets out what the texts say; it is not legal advice.
Whose set
- A federal owner
- the Official Languages Act does not by itself set the language of drawings and specifications; the solicitation and the contract do. Under the Treasury Board’s guide to official languages in federal procurement (s. 3.1.2), posted bid documents appear in both official languages, accompanying specifications and architectural drawings included. See our guide to official languages on federal projects.
- A Quebec public body
- contracts with the civil administration, and the documents sent to enter into them or tied to them, are in French, with the exceptions the Charter lists. See our guide to Bill 96 and construction documents and our post on Bill 96 and public construction contracts.
- Any other owner
- the contract and the owner’s needs decide. A set may need French for the people who build and maintain it, even where no law requires it.
What does a real set look like?
Three sets we translated show the range:
122,000
words · 99 sections · 25 drawings · 118 questions
72
drawing sheets · then the specification, then its addenda
NMS
sections · general requirements to dewatering
Two of these sets arrived in parts and over time. That is the point to plan for: the drawings, the specification and the addenda must name each thing the same way even when they reach the translator months apart.
Where do the two versions drift apart?
Where the two versions meet
- A drawing=Its specification section
- An addendum=The original package's terms
- A schedule on a drawing=The section it lists
Where the documents meet. A part named one way on a drawing and another in its specification section; an addendum translated without the original package’s terms; a schedule on a drawing that no longer matches the section it lists. Each is a small difference in one language that becomes a contradiction across two.
The fix is to translate the set as one set: settle the terms first, in a term base, then translate the drawings and the specification in parallel from those terms, and the addenda in the same term base. See how we work across a whole set in our engineering translation services.
The specification needs its own preparation. Our posts explain what the National Master Specification is, how it maps to MasterFormat, and what a specification writer can settle before translation; our National Master Specification translation service covers the rest.
Common questions
What are the contract documents in a CCDC contract?
The agreement, the definitions and the general conditions, then the documents the parties list, such as the supplementary conditions, the specifications and the drawings. Check your own contract’s list.
Is the National Master Specification available in French?
Yes. The NRC publishes the National Master Specification in both English and French, so standard text has an official French version.
Do shop drawings form part of the contract documents?
Shop drawings follow from the contract documents and are reviewed against them. Whether a given contract counts them as contract documents depends on its own terms.
Which language governs if the English and French versions differ?
The contract decides, and in Quebec public contracts the French version prevails unless the parties set the legal value of each.
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