laws Article Building Information Modeling in Quebec’s Procurement for Public Infrastructure: A Case for Integrated Project Delivery Gabriel Jobidon 1,2, *, Pierre Lemieux 2 and Robert Beauregard 3   Citation: Jobidon, Gabriel, Pierre Lemieux, and Robert Beauregard. 2021. Building Information Modeling in Quebec’s Procurement for Public Infrastructure: A Case for Integrated Project Delivery. Laws 10: 43. https:// doi.org/10.3390/laws10020043 Received: 27 April 2021 Accepted: 20 May 2021 Published: 1 June 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 CIRCERB–CRMR, Université Laval, 2325 Rue de l’Université, Ville de Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada 2 Faculty of Law, Université Laval, 2325 Rue de l’Université, Ville de Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada; pierre.lemieux@fd.ulaval.ca 3 Academic and Student Affairs, Université Laval, 2320 Rue des Bibliothèques, Ville de Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada; vice-recteur@vre.ulaval.ca * Correspondence: gabriel.jobidon.1@ulaval.ca; Tel.: +1-581-992-6478 Abstract: The Province of Quebec is currently in the process of adopting building information modeling (BIM) for major infrastructure projects. However, legal and contractual concerns such as the tendering process, adjudication criteria, intellectual property and risk–reward sharing mecha- nisms hinder the implementation of an efficient BIM process. This paper addresses the following question: How do norms, whether legislative, regulatory or contractual, functionally or dysfunc- tionally affect the effective implementation of BIM in Quebec’s public infrastructure framework? This paper suggests that the use of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) should help mitigate legal barriers hindering BIM implementation, while preserving balance between fairness and encouraging collaboration. Quebec’s normative framework, which includes legislation, regulations, contracts and infra-regulatory rules, should be modified to standardize collaborative mechanisms, integrate two-stage negotiated processes such as rank-and-run or best and final offer and enable the assessment of tenderers’ objective qualities and more subjective qualities. Furthermore, a risk–reward sharing mechanism should be implemented through target costing, and upstream participation from a wide range of stakeholders should be encouraged. Keywords: building information modeling; integrated project delivery; public procurement; collabo- ration; infrastructure contracts 1. Introduction In the past two decades, the productivity of the Canadian manufacturing industry has nearly doubled, whereas in construction it remained stagnant (McKinsey & Company 2017). To help achieve better productivity, the construction industry has turned towards build- ing information modeling (BIM) (Succar 2009). BIM is a digital technology to establish a computable representation of all the physical and functional characteristics of a facil- ity and its related project/life-cycle information, intended to be a repository of infor- mation for the facility owner/operator to use and maintain throughout the life-cycle of the facility (NBIMS 2007). The BIM process is essentially a method to align design members of a construction project and ensure their collaboration through information- sharing, notably through a multi-dimensional 3D model providing visual and physical properties of the asset, which can be used throughout the life-cycle of the infrastructure (Attrill and Mickovski 2020). BIM maturity levels are defined within a range from 0 to 3. Level 0 means no collabora- tion and the use of traditional 2D drafting, while level 1 implies low collaboration between different stakeholders who are individually responsible for creating and managing their own data. Level 2 promotes collaborative working by ensuring each party is responsible for a 3D model which will then be combined in a federated BIM Model. Level 3 BIM involves multidisciplinary work and needs contractual frameworks encouraging open Laws 2021, 10, 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/laws10020043 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/laws