Human Resources Committee on Oct. 24th, 2024

[Andy Berube]

That's correct.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Falk.

We will conclude with Mr. Van Bynen for five minutes.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've learned an awful lot from a number of witnesses we've received during this study, and I'm certainly interested in the options you're offering.

Through our government's industrial strategy for homebuilding, we are investing in new models of homebuilding technology that will rapidly increase the housing supply. Can you further develop the model you've put together, and how you have innovated to cut down on building times?

[Andy Berube]

How has our factory...?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

How have your operations...? How does that help?

[Andy Berube]

I'm sorry. How have you helped...or what are we doing?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

What are you doing? What does your business model provide in terms of reducing the construction time of the house?

[Andy Berube]

That's, I think, a very key focus for every factory and for ours obviously. For our system right now, I can say that we're looking to the global market to bring in technology and partnerships that have been doing this for years. For us, we're forecasting where we can produce two fully finished modules per day. We're going to get to 10 to 20 finished modules per day. I can't get into specifics, but every factory—speaking on behalf of the industry—is always looking at this. How do we produce faster?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Some of the other models we heard about were effectively a house in a box. You put it on a trailer, and you construct on site. Is that what your business model is as well?

[Andy Berube]

House in a box...? I'm sorry.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It was referred to as a house in a box, where they effectively put all of the components of the unit onto a flatbed truck, take it to the site and construct it there.

[Andy Berube]

Yes, it's volumetric construction. “Volumetric” just means you're building a module where your interior is fully finished, which expedites the construction at site. You build it in tandem. The site work is done in tandem with the second floor or the fifth floor. When you finish that, this part of it is already done, so you're combining them to expedite it. Our facility is a volumetric structural steel modular factory.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

You send units out and put them on the site.

[Andy Berube]

That's correct.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

How does that compare or contrast to the traditional forms of homebuilding? How much time are we saving?

[Andy Berube]

I don't think we're at 50% reduction just because of the system, the collaboration, the education and how we're getting better. We're certainly at 30%, and there's a lot of room to improve as we collaborate. From the factory, the design, the construction, the development side and from the capital partners that go along with the whole construction ecosystem, once that continues to evolve and to get better, I think the industry believes that we're at a 50% reduction in speed.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

If we were to do an end-to-end analysis, it would seem to me that a large part of the barriers lay in the approval processes and in taking raw land to the point where there's a foundation. Is that the way you see it? Have you had any experience on how we might expedite the process from raw land to foundation?

[Andy Berube]

That is the way the industry and we see it. It's really the front end—the developers who we work for and who want to build on that property—that is impacted the most, because they have to go through the entitlement process and the permitting process. What we're talking about today is that removing those barriers and being more consistent across multiple layers of government will help that by reducing the costs and the steps associated with it.

I think that question is probably better served to developers who have to deal with that every day. We're ready to go. They can't.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Would you say that this committee should more effectively be spending some time on how we get through the barriers that take raw land to the foundation?

[Andy Berube]

Absolutely.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

There are certain directions that we need to give some thought to in order to provide incentives. Are there any certain directions for investment that you would encourage others to pursue that might help the industry and our objectives?

[Andy Berube]

Yes, specifically in the off-site, there is a difference in the draw for the project. In a conventional project, you draw small amounts continually, and everybody is used to that. Banks and capital partners understand that. In off-site construction, if you think about.... We're doing floor two to 10, and floors one and two, for example, are podiums. We acquire the entire building on day one. We don't buy parts and draw from a fund. As far as understanding how to solve the problem of funding a model where we, as a factory, buy everything today because it's so rapid to run through and finish, we need the majority of our money to build up front. That's a big problem to be solved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

On behalf of the committee, thank you, Mr. Smith, for joining us virtually for today's meeting, as well as Mr. Berube for coming in and providing your testimony to this particular study.

We'll suspend for five minutes while we transition to an in camera session to do committee business.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Berube, you are free to go.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.