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cutbacks by government, which then accounted for roughly a quarter of jobs in the region, the city is to- day reaping the fruits of an unparalleled period of entre- preneurial-based economic growth and expansion. Recent numbers from the Institut de la statistique du Québec, which tracks public and private building projects, show nearly $7 billion in con- struction and equipment has been invested in the region over the past year alone — only $600 mil- lion of it from government. They include two massive residential developments, a $41-million "green" office building that will reportedly be the province's most environmentally friendly place to do business when it opens in 2009, a $1-bil- lion upgrade to the Ultramar gas plant in Lévis and — if it gets final government approval later this year — the construc- tion of the $850-million Rabaska natural gas refinery, also in Lévis. Add to that a Pierre Cimon half-dozen other construction projects of between $25 million and $115 million for local, provincial, national, and multinational companies, and it's easy to understand why Quebec City has had the high- est increase in non-residential building permits in Canada for the past three years. "It's amazing the number of big construction projects going on here right now," says Mathieu Comeau, a specialist in con- struction law and one of the more than 40 lawyers with Faskens' Que- bec City office. "Construction is prob- ably the city's most dynamic sector. It's providing work for a lot of lawyers here." In addition to the presence of many of the province's biggest public and private real estate owners and developers — such as the Société Immobilière du Qué- bec, which owns and operates most of the provincial government's properties; the 11 national banking and insurance companies that are headquartered here and which own about one-third of all real estate in the region; and local build- ers like the Germain group, which has a chain of award-winning boutique hotels across Canada — Comeau credits the three-year-old l'Agence des partenariats public-privé du Québec with helping to sustain the building boom. "[The PPP body] is definitely the new buzz in real estate here," he says. Other indications of the city's prosper- ity are seen in a recent report issued by the Desjardins Group, which suggests the Quebec metropolitan area experienced a 3.1-per-cent growth in GDP between 2001 and 2007. Desjardins credits that performance — the third-best in Cana- da, behind Calgary and Ottawa — on the fruition of efforts aimed at diversifying the economic structure of the capital. By comparison, rival Montreal experienced growth of only 1.9 per cent, a lacklus- tre showing blamed on big losses in the number of manufacturing jobs there. Likewise, Conference Board of Canada figures released last year show personal 48 A UGUST 2008 www. Law ye rmag.com