Thank you.
Mr. Poilievre, you should have done your homework. Special rapporteurs are unremunerated, in fact.
We were momentarily on the same page. Like you, I am worried about the fact that people who work in cities, whether they be teachers or baristas in coffee shops or nurses, are often unable to live in the cities where they actually work. They're commuting long distances at some cost and at some fragmentation to family life, etc. That is a real concern of mine.
I'm not sure I would agree that it's zoning laws only that are creating this phenomenon. What I'm seeing worldwide is something else. I actually see here in this country and elsewhere quite a bit of supply being built. Actually, if you go to Toronto, they're now calling it the vertical city, for example. When you look up, what do you see? You see tons of high-rise towers and tons of cranes.
The issue isn't that there isn't stuff being built. The issue is what's being built, and for whom. What's not being built is affordable housing. At the same time, I'm seeing a phenomenon whereby private equity firms and multi-billion dollar, multinational asset management firms are scooping up affordable units across our cities and turning those into less affordable units for higher-income people. They're even going so far as to buy single-resident occupancy homes—that's for the lowest-income folks—and convert those to fancy bachelorettes for students and also higher-income people.
I think there's a plethora of issues to be dealt with in this country and elsewhere, and I think that [Technical difficulty—Editor] in actual fact, Mr. Poilievre, you and I could have a very constructive conversation about zoning and other issues confronting cities.