Evidence of meeting #130 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
Absolutely. That should be Canada-wide.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Yes, as should be the ability to move from province to territory and territory to province.
Mr. Facette, go ahead.
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
It's a challenge. The late Norman Schwarzkopf said that logistics win the war. The logistics of remote communities present a problem in terms of getting prefabricated materials up there. You have to do an awful lot of planning in advance. It's not that it cannot be done; it can be done, but it's all about the logistics. It depends on what you want. If you want multi-unit facilities to be built, you need to prefabricate as much as you can off-site, bring it up there and then, as my colleague to my left said, have the right people on site to assemble the units. Logistics become a challenge.
Having had a son who has worked remotely for a large multinational corporation, I know that finding people who will work in remote sites is difficult. There are younger people in construction who don't want to do it; that is the simple truth. My son did it; he loved it, and he got paid for it. He got paid handsomely for it as a young guy. I tease him a bit about making too much money at 23. However, it's the truth, so you have a challenge there.
As for things that governments can do, perhaps look at the tax structure. Are there incentives governments can offer people to work in more remote locations? Are there incentives they can offer companies to do work there? It does present its own challenges to work in the north. It's not about who's living on the land or who has it; that's not the issue at all. It's not there. It's more about the logistics and getting people to be there who want to be there. There's a lot of work to be done all across Canada, no matter where you are. It's just finding the time and giving the businesses and the people the right incentives to say, “Hey, we need you in this community to build X, Y and Z.”
NDP
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
It's good to make it clear that additive construction has a lot of applications. The application I have the most experience with is on-site printing, which means bringing the printer to the site to use local material and to use as much as you can from the local community to deliver your product. We are shipping a printer that is considerably big equipment, but it's not as large as some of the equipment. It fits inside a 20-foot shipping container, so it's not a big challenge to move this component to remote locations.
I also had the chance to work on a specific project that was accomplished in Alberta for the Siksika first nation community. The project was in a remote area more than an hour outside Calgary. We were pretty successful in accomplishing that project, because we were using local material, meaning that we were using local sand and gravel and trying as much as we could to use local Portland cement as well. Another thing we are working to reduce is the use of Portland cement, to improve the environmental efficiency of the technology.
This on-site additive construction is suitable for remote areas. In terms of what we can do to further improve the application of this technology for this specific problem that we have, that would involve the things I have already mentioned throughout my comments here.
It's pretty much a new technology. It's still new in this country. We still need to work on standards and updating building codes. That also brings attention to research, because those standards—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Madam Zarrillo and Mr. Silveira. You can continue on with that, I'm sure, with another member's question.
We'll now go to Mr. Seeback for five minutes.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
All of you have talked about skilled trades, which is something I want to delve into a bit because it will, of course, affect building innovation.
I wanted to say, Mr. Facette, that my family started in the roofing business. My grandfather started a company, Seeback and Sons Roofing, in Toronto in 1935. I understand the importance of getting work like that done.
We have a trades deficit. You've all talked about it. I know that from my travel across the country. The Red Seal program is fantastic.
One of the things the government has done is to cut the apprentice completion grant. If you don't know of that, the apprentice completion grant will give you $1,000, up to $2,000 for every level you complete on your Red Seal as you go through it. At level one, you can get $1,000. At the next level, you can get another $1,000. It's a great incentive for keeping people in the skilled trades and drawing people into skilled trades.
Do you think this cut is going to help recruit people into the trades or help with the trades deficit, or is this going to be a problem? Any one of you can answer that.
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
I'll go first, Mr. Chair.
Anything that can be done to encourage people into a trade is welcome. Cutting something could have the opposite effect.
That said, it's not a simple equation. If we go back in time to the 1950s, we had a large number of people come from Europe post World War II. My in-laws were part of that. They had a trade, although not construction-related.
Society valued trades in the bigger picture. I question whether that value is there today in society, and that's a bigger problem. When I suggested encouraging your children, your grandchildren and your friends to go into construction—I said that to the Minister of Immigration in a meeting in October of last year—I meant it. The old expression is, “Charity begins at home.” That's a small way to encourage your own family to at least consider it.
As I mentioned earlier, there are levers that the federal government has to encourage people to look at a trade in construction, the tax system being one of them, and then encouraging provinces and municipalities to get rid of some of the regulations that Daniel talked about a little earlier.
Yes, I think cutting any kind of incentive could diminish the ability of people to pursue a trade, but it's really important that everybody really value their role in society. It's changing in certain pockets, but it's not changing enough.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
My family has gone full circle. My grandfather was a carpenter. My dad became a lawyer. I became a lawyer. My son is now a carpenter's apprentice, so we've gone full circle. We're certainly trying to do our part.
Innovation's great, but input costs are also a problem. We have an affordability problem with respect to homes and building homes. I think everyone would agree with me on that. Input costs are a big factor. I did my own little investigation, and Canada produces 13 million tonnes of cement. Cement is obviously used in construction. It's 0.6 tonnes of CO2 that's emitted for every tonne of cement. At $65 per tonne, the carbon tax works out to be half a billion dollars that's added to the cost of cement.
Would you agree with me that making inputs in the construction industry more expensive increases the affordability challenge that Canadians have of buying homes?
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
Obviously, any increased tax or any other levy that may be put on construction materials or labour is not helpful. That's obvious.
Now, the carbon tax is a whole new subject, which I'm certainly not an expert on. If you say to me that because of this, it's now more expensive and it's now going to get passed down to the homeowner, who now has to borrow more money, perhaps at a higher interest rate than they're used to, and so on and so forth, it's obviously not going to be helpful in increasing our houses on the ground program.
You mentioned the removal of the $1,000 incentive for an apprentice. I would look at this from a different perspective, actually. That $1,000, obviously, is a nice gift to give to an apprentice. Would that be enough to entice him to go into the trades rather than into IT? I wouldn't think so.
What you may want to consider—again, it's a much bigger subject to discuss—is where the incentive is for the employer, the trades guy, the existing tradesperson, the existing Red Seal tradesperson. What is his incentive? He's offering his time to train up a young man or woman to become an apprentice. Truly, where is his incentive?
We have many tradespeople retiring and no one coming up from behind. Where is their incentive to bring on new apprentices? They're being paid minimum wage now. Next year, it will be $25 or whatever it might be, but that apprentice may leave at any given time. They have a five-year apprenticeship of 9,000 hours or whatever it might be, but in year three, they may go. That's a big problem.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Seeback.
We'll now move to Mr. Van Bynen for five minutes.
Liberal
Tony Van Bynen Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My first question will be for Mr. Silveira.
I had the opportunity to visit your site at York University and was quite impressed with the progress you're making.
You mentioned a project that you had in Leamington. Can you tell me more about that project? Was it a group of single-family dwellings? Was it a multiple-dwelling unit?
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
It's important to mention that my involvement in that project was through my employment with the university when I was a research associate there. It has nothing to do with my current employment right now.
That was a one-storey building for four tiny units, and that building is being used by an institution called The Bridge. They deal with youth in need in Leamington, Ontario. It's a residential building, but it is being used by that institution right now.
Liberal
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
Yes. I had involvement in multiple-storey projects as well. The maximum that we accomplished here in Canada was in Kingston, Ontario. It was a three-storey building. We printed the basement, the main floor and part of the second floor.
The technology right now.... There are a few printers available, and we have two different printers. One of them is able to print up to three storeys without needing to move the printer up. With just one position, you can print three storeys.
The other printer is a bit more flexible. We can print multiple storeys by moving the printer up. It's a very light printer. It's 2,500 kilograms. With a small crane, you can bring the printer to the next floor.
Liberal
Tony Van Bynen Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
You mentioned earlier that to realize the full potential of this, and I think other innovation technology, we need to address some key issues.
There's advanced, targeted research to fill gaps identified by industry players and rapidly updating building codes. We keep hearing this over and over again. You've said that time is money. There are delays. It takes up to seven years.
How do we crack that logjam?
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
One of the good things about technology is that you can build faster. However, when you are applying for the building permits, for example, it's going to be a longer process, because the current building code.... For example, the Ontario building code doesn't have any specific guidelines for innovative solutions, so you fall under, for example, the alternative solutions chapter. If you have the chance to look over that chapter, you're going to see that it's a one-page chapter that gives the building official the ability to require whatever they want to have from you in order to approve that project. That means that in most of the cases they're going to be asking for—requiring—tests like fire tests, fire-rating tests, some structural testing, some thermal testing.
Those are just the tests on day one. It's going to take more than a year or two for you to get that testing done. Across municipalities, this is going to change, because if you go to a different building official, they can require a different thing.
I think number one would be to have the building code allow for innovation that has already been proved through research. If you have research data that can back up your claims, you potentially don't need to redo all that testing. The second thing would be to develop the standards specifically for additive construction. That technology has been shown to be a good technology to produce faster and more efficient structural components.
Liberal
Tony Van Bynen Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I have only one more minute, but I'd like to ask one question of all three of you.
Can you give me an example of a municipality that has an expedited and efficient process for the approval of buildings that we might invite here to give us examples of breaking the logjam of having the building code and development approvals?
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
I could actually speak to that.
In fact, our show home for Flexobuild is in Pelham, Ontario, just south of St. Catharines. In actual fact, that building permit, I believe, was approved in less than eight days.
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
An example would be the city of Vancouver.
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
I would add Leamington, Ontario.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.
Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.