Evidence of meeting #108 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A video is available from Parliament.
Reeve, Regional County Municipality of Témiscamingue, Fédération québécoise des municipalités
Yes, I do. Thank you very much for inviting me. Ms. Drolet will stay to answer your questions.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Okay.
Dr. MacKinnon, are you aware of some efforts to quantify the cost of inaction?
Professor and Department Chair, Urban and Inner-City Studies, Manitoba Right to Housing Coalition, The University of Winnipeg
Again, we only need to look around us to see the cost of inaction as we look across the country at the number of people living without homes. We know the impact on the health outcomes. We know the impact on education outcomes. We know that lack of housing or inadequate housing has an impact on people's participation in the labour market. We know about criminal activities as a result of poverty and lack of housing. On and on, we can talk about the impact.
Yes, it is expensive, and it's only becoming more expensive as we ignore the reality. It's going to cost us money to address housing for low-income people, and there's just really no away around that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, MP Blaikie.
Members and witnesses, we're moving into our second round. The times are a little different in this round. We are starting with MP Chambers for five minutes.
October 16th, 2023 / 5:35 p.m.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to our witnesses today. My brevity doesn't imply rudeness. I want to get as much in as possible.
Mr. Lee, the National Research Council has come out with the new national building code for net zero by 2030. How much is that going to add to the cost of a new house? Has your organization done any work on how much that will add to construction costs?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association
Yes. It's probably over $50,000 per unit.
Conservative
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association
It's homeowners, homebuyers.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
They are first paid by builders. They float the charges until the homeowner—
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association
Exactly. They finance them until.... It's in the cost of the house.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
They're financed by the home builder, and then the homeowner has to pay for them.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
When a city increases development charges by 49%, from $94,000 per unit for a semi-detached home to $140,000 per unit, the homeowner pays, as does.... Someone has to float that charge until the homeowner pays. Is that correct?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association
Yes. You're paying interest on that charge until you then pass it on to the homeowner.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much.
This is my last question for you.
Has StatsCan asked you for any data on who is purchasing new builds? Are they all used for primary residences? Are they foreign investors? Have you been asked by StatsCan for any of that data?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association
We don't have that data. Unfortunately, nobody in Canada has that data, which is a problem. There's a “flying blind” element to not having that data.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much.
I'd like to explore that further at a future meeting.
Mr. Morgan, one thing we can do as a committee or as parliamentarians is to get information. I don't know the answer to this question; it's genuine. Do you have good information on, as an example, how many units in London today are now short-term rentals, let's say, such as through Airbnb? I don't like using names of corporations, but do you know how many units today are Airbnbs in London?
Mayor, City of London
I don't know that off the top of my head.
We had previously done an analysis of that because we changed the rules around Airbnb to say that you had to live in the unit to be able to rent it out. It had to be owner occupied or owner owned, so you couldn't have three or four of them. That was a legislative change we made.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much.
Would you appreciate data from these platforms that show how many units are available nine months a year, 30 days a year or 12 months a year? Is that something you'd be interested in as a mayor?
Mayor, City of London
Yes, I'm always interested in data. Data-driven decision-making is always a good way to go.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Perfect. I'd like to help you with that at some point.
Mr. Richardson, how do we find out what surplus lands are available from the federal government? It seems hard. They're in a bunch of different places. Who knows where they live? Do you think we have a good idea of where the surplus lands are?
Technical Lead - Volunteer, HousingNowTo
Sadly, no.
HART UBC, the program we're working with, has tried to create a tool that has surplus lands from all levels of government in a single view. The federal government isn't very good at it because it's distributed among different organizations. Here in Ottawa, some of it might be with Canada Lands. Some of it might be with the National Capital Commission or with the RCMP.
As for any question you want to ask about data, from our point of view, we want more of it, and we want more of it to be transparent. We're nerds. Let us loose on the data, but in order to do that, you have to make the data open and accessible.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Would you recommend that this committee ask for a list of all federal surplus lands so that we have it in one place?