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.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I will let Mr. Pascoe answer the question I asked everyone earlier.
Workers have told us that all innovative processes have to take workers into consideration because they are also part of the solution. They have to be involved up front. They said that sometimes great plans are presented, but the workers have not been included in the process.
What role do you see for workers in the innovative processes which are being implemented and which we commend?
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
Thank you.
You were mentioning before the safety-on-site aspect, I believe. Obviously, workers' safety is of paramount importance to everyone in the construction industry.
Workers play a tremendous role. We have had automation in factories for some years now. In the construction industry, any prefabricated product—be it the whole house itself or elements of that house—in a factory environment.... Safety procedures are a lot easier to control, because you have machine guarding, automation and so on. You have a known entity being done, whereas on a construction site, as you know, there are many variables that could be caused by simple things such as the weather.
In our particular case, which I can speak to with authority, we do not have any high work environments. If we have a two-storey home, it's only two storeys. We don't use heavy equipment per se, so that in itself is very safety-driven. The power tools we use are handheld, battery-powered tools. There's no danger in that regard with common sense and, obviously, fundamental training.
In the prefabricated world at the factory level, I think safety is a lot easier to control, as I explained. Construction sites always have an element of risk. Proper safety training and adherence to those standards are of paramount importance, and that starts from the foreman down, as we all know.
Bloc
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
I don't know the exact number, but I would estimate around 10%, 15% or maybe even 20%. When you go to a trade school now, there are a lot more women involved in the trades, which is obviously fantastic. We should be encouraging all genders to participate in a trade program.
As I explained before, I think incentives can be given to the students themselves, but I think more incentives should be given to the final employer, the Red Seal tradesperson. I think that would be a much more effective method of spending money to entice trades to become more spoken about around a dinner table.
Liberal
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
I'm going to ask this of Mr. Facette and then Mr. Silveira.
The Bank of Canada has been really bothering me for a couple of years. I know that tomorrow we're going to have an announcement on the interest rate. There are many discussions that the Bank of Canada went too far on the raising of interest rates.
What really has me bothered is the mandate of the Bank of Canada, which is part of the government's jurisdiction. The finance minister sits on the governance model for the Bank of Canada. We're continually told that the Bank of Canada has one tool, and it's keeping inflation stable. That's it. The Bank of Canada Act does not talk about people and the impact on people. It's to protect Canada as a state.
Unfortunately, the Governor of the Bank of Canada refused two invitations to this committee. He didn't come and doesn't think that housing has anything to do with him. I would like to see some modernization.
You mentioned, Mr. Facette, that the workforce is modernizing. It has a different thought process and a different culture. I really think the Bank of Canada needs to do the same. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what the Bank of Canada should be measuring in the modern economy and how it can help get homes built.
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
That's a loaded question.
I can tell you that, from a monetary perspective, the Bank of Canada's decisions likely have an impact on private investment in the longer term. There is uncertainty in the marketplace right now. I have a board member whose company has had three jobs delayed due to the uncertainty.
In terms of this mandate, Mr. Chair, through you to the honourable member, to be honest with you, this is probably outside of my scope. There are many other jurisdictions that can look at that question more carefully. There are pros and cons to having the Bank of Canada expand its mandate, and it's out of my purview, Mr. Chair.
NDP
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
I'll say the same; it's out of my scope.
NDP
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
I'll join that train, I think.
Obviously, money is everything in this day and age. The Bank of Canada has been very influential on private investment over the last five or six years, as we know, and we're all anticipating that tomorrow will be a big news day.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
What would an announcement of a significant drop tomorrow do to the industry for house building?
Chief Commercial Officer, Flexobuild Incorporated
For private clients—not talking about general contractors, but obviously they're included as well—if their interest rate drops down by half a per cent or three-quarters of a per cent, whatever it might be, that is real money in the back pocket. That is money they can now invest in their home and the future, for themselves or their children.
For property developers, it's enormous. There are millions of dollars that a property developer has to put up front many years from completion before he gets that money back in home sales.
Bank of Canada interest rates are fundamental to what's happening in the building industry, in my humble opinion.
Liberal
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Silveira, I'd like to start with you. You made a comment regarding a project that you were able to be a part of, an hour outside of Calgary.
That's not remote by any means. That might be rural, which is very different from remote.
I come from rural Saskatchewan, a landlocked province. Everything has to come by truck, by train or by air. There are communities in my province, some first nations communities in particular, where the only way you have access to them is by plane. That's the only way. There are no major runways, so planes are very small in order to get things up there. There's even a point where you're going so far up north that you don't have paved roads. If you're driving, you're driving on dirt roads.
Are any of you able to provide services to remote communities, those that are fly-in? Are you able to take your materials, plop them on a plane and send them?
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
I'll take that.
The short answer is yes. The non-residential construction world has experience doing it.
Conservative
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
That's right.
Our industry has a lot of experience in doing that already. If you look at the number of remote sites, as I said earlier.... I'll reference my son for a third time. He worked an hour north of Kapuskasing, and it was fly and drive. They can produce local materials on site, but logistics are a major part of it, as you referenced. They're critical.
Regardless of whether you're building homes or what you're doing, you need to plan in advance and do as much as you can in fabrication in advance. If you have to fly things in on smaller runways.... I do have a bit of an aviation background. There are some aircraft that can land and take off in some shorter areas, but road access is always preferred.
If you look at the ring of fire project in the province of Ontario, the first thing they're doing is they're building a $1-billion road to alleviate that very infrastructure need of having to fly things in to remote areas and engage with the local first nations communities.
We do have experience doing it. We do it now. We can build those multi-unit facilities that are required on-site, but it really does boil down to logistics.
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
I can also comment on that.
You're right. We got there by road, which, by the way, was a decent road. It was not a back road—
Director of Engineering, Printerra 3D Construction Printing
Yes, thanks for the correction.
Our technology comes down to three main components: We have the machine, the robot; we have the materials; and we also have the structural engineering design, the final product itself. When it comes to the machine, we have a machine that is very flexible. It goes through a regular doorway. The weight is 2,500 kilograms, so that can go into a small plane for sure.
To have a solid response for you in terms of whether it's possible to build with this technology in a remote area, it's going to depend on the materials that we have available in that remote area. Again, we want to be using as much as we can from local materials, meaning sand and gravel—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
I just want to challenge you guys to not leave out the rural and remote places. When you're inventing and being the innovators that I believe a lot of businesses are, I challenge you to not forget about those communities that are rural and sometimes far up north. I think that's very important.
I just want to follow up quickly, because I don't have a lot of time. We know that the carbon tax costs...on everything. We know that. That's something that everybody knows, especially Canadians. Therefore, I'm wondering, how does the added transportation cost impact the interests of Canadians or business in taking up these projects? You mentioned commercial, Mr. Facette. Is that a deterrent for people to invest in this?
Executive Director, Canadian Roofing Contractors Association
It can be. When someone looks at investing in a construction project, they're going to look at all of the input costs, and they'll make the determination on whether it's worth it or not. To the extent that you're able to lower those input costs, it increases the feasibility of the project's getting done. It's as simple as that. It just boils down to the math, so the short answer is yes.
