Finance committee  Unfortunately, I was not born in 1982.

Finance committee  What I do know is that the budget is good at identifying big issues, which include the cost of housing and also the lack of productivity. However, the solutions will make matters worse. I cannot understand what the thought process was.

Finance committee  No, it's not.

Finance committee  It is an absolutely self-defeating measure. Even when you look at the prospect of raising government revenues, we are faced with government spending that increases year over year, each time reaching new levels; meanwhile, this proposed tax has regressive revenues, in that it is slated to generate fewer and fewer revenues over time.

Finance committee  What Canada needs is a low-tax environment and a light touch on regulation. We need to make sure that we have assessment processes that ensure projects can actually happen in this country. It does feel like we are unable to get shovels in the ground, either because of various regulations or because the numbers don't make sense.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank you for inviting us to discuss issues that significantly affect the quality of life of all Canadians. One of these issues is productivity. This topic may seem harsh and difficult, but it has real implications. For example, lagging productivity means that Canadians work more hours per week than Germans.

Finance committee  I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'd say the government definitely has a role to play in social housing. The thing is, we're talking about building 5.11 million units in eight years. Given the scale of the problem, I wonder how much of the demand is for social housing.

Finance committee  I'm not sure about that specific element of it. One thing that's certain and that worries me is that when you look at the construction sector as an industry, you see that it is one of the very few sectors of the economy—it might be the only sector—that has had no productivity gains for decades.

Finance committee  We are not. If we go back to 1973, 50 years ago, today we are building the exact same number of units at the exact same pace. The population has gone up by 78%. The pace at which we build has gone up by 0%.

Finance committee  I think we've been looking at solutions that were targeting the demand side of the equation for way too long, looking at foreign investors or short-term rentals and all of these things that exist at the margin but are not core to the issue. The issue is on the supply side of the equation.

Finance committee  If we look at the evolution of prices in Montreal in particular, we have observed upward pressure on prices since the start of the pandemic. The market in Quebec may have been a bit of an outlier when prices were lower than elsewhere. However, low supply produced the only possible effect, which was a considerable price increase over the past few years.

Finance committee  Definitely. Since 2018, the City of Montreal has prevented or delayed the construction of about 24,000 housing units, and those are only the projects that made headlines. That is equivalent to the number of units typically built on the Island of Montreal in a single year. It's like we missed out on one of the five past years because of bureaucratic control over housing construction.

Finance committee  Yes. That's for the median-income owners. That's a study done in 12 large American cities by Evan Mast. I can send it to you. Then it's 17 for the very last quintile of earners. In Helsinki, there was another study that's even more striking. In that case, it was houses built at market prices, and not only luxury units, which is the extreme example of the Mast study.

Finance committee  This is the exact logic of it.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, let me thank you for the opportunity to come and speak to you today about an issue that is important not just to the Montreal Economic Institute, but to all Canadians. I also want to note the presence of Cam Guthrie, the Mayor of Guelph, a leader by virtue of his dynamic approach and dedication to implementing policies that offer real solutions to our housing challenges.