My name is Gaetan Royer. I'm the CEO of Massive Canada.
In my 40-year career as a military engineer, city manager and urban planner, I worked with tens of thousands of housing units and with many general contractors who somehow managed the chaos of a construction site. Almost every project faced mistakes and delays. Hundreds of times I shook my head, saying, “There has to be a better way.” Three years ago, with Massive Canada, I decided to work on delivering a better way to build.
We need 3.5 million homes. We have all levels of government, including the Canadian government, providing direct investments, assistance and grants and loans. We have the highest demand ever and the highest government incentives for decades. In any sector, this would be a fantastic opportunity, so why aren't we building faster? The answer is low productivity.
Productivity flatlined 60 years ago. We bring a million pieces to a construction site and we assemble them by hand. The industry is fragmented, with too many subcontractors and suppliers crowding each site, making site coordination a nightmare. We can't keep using the same slow methods and expect faster results. That would be insanity.
It's not far-fetched to compare modular construction to cars and rockets. Ford went from one car per month to one car every 93 minutes in 1914. NASA took eight years to build one rocket and SpaceX builds four rocket engines per day.
Those who disrupt an industry that way use the same recipe: They spend as much time designing the industrial process as they spend designing the product.
Massive Canada spent three years designing our assembly lines and three years in designing our new products. We're the first to combine the remarkable strength of mass timber with the speed of modular construction. We trademarked a series of products called “Condo Core” to build modular apartments. We moved every part of an apartment that's time-consuming to build into a factory environment. Condo Core is the kitchen, bathroom, water heater, electrical panel, wiring, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, smart home system and kitchen cabinets. We move everything that's tough to build inside that box.
Think about this. The wall between the living room and the bedroom in a condo apartment costs nearly nothing to build, but for the core, the mechanical systems, that's where trades spend months—on their knees to install plumbing and on ladders to wire lights. Seventy per cent to 75% of the value of an apartment is inside that core.
We pack all that into a module that is roughly the size of a shipping container. Condo Core units are load-bearing, and we can stack them up to 12 storeys, just like Lego blocks. Our first plant will produce 2,500 units per year by the end of 2026. You can imagine that large machines and automation at that scale will never be available on a construction site.
The catch is that off-site manufacturing requires huge capital investment. We secured a $10-million grant from the B.C. government, and we applied for a matching federal grant. Massive Canada achieved national brand recognition earlier this year, when I was featured in the Maclean's “Power List” of 100 Canadians shaping the country. Thanks to my team for that.
One of our directors operated a plant that produced over a million appliances per year. Through his eyes, a 15-minute construction task is 5,000 hours to take away from the assembly line. Studies show that mass timber and precast can save months from framing the structure. Condo Core can save 10 to 12 months on site.
I urge Canada to invest in industrialized construction. Our company has an approved, shovel-ready, 124-unit rental housing building waiting for our manufacturing plant. We need federal government support right now to de-risk our manufacturing equipment for our first plant in B.C. and our second plant in Ontario.
That's my five minutes. I'd be happy to answer questions.