Human Resources Committee on Oct. 24th, 2024

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

All right. I'm going to go to our second witness.

I am interested in egress. You said that you've done a lot of work on elevators and stairwells. In B.C., the B.C. government just recently approved the ability to have single egress. However, the disability community is really very concerned about it, and so are the B.C. fire chiefs. They're writing to the provincial government and saying that this hasn't been thoroughly thought out and coded.

I want to just quote a very high-profile disability advocate in B.C. A CBC articles says, “She [said] that the province's building code changes do not take into account disability or old age—especially given B.C. had mandated that single-stair buildings not be put [in] seniors' residences”. That reminds me of when I was in China and in a seniors' residence. There was no elevator, no way to get them out, and the workers were actually putting the seniors on their backs to get them up and down stairs.

I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on these comments from a disability advocate and also on the fact that the B.C. fire chiefs are saying that single egress isn't a good idea.

[Stephen Smith]

In regard to disability, I think there is sometimes some confusion. “Single exit” refers specifically to what's known in building codes as “the exit”, which is the stairway. It doesn't speak to how many elevators or whether or not there should be an elevator. My understanding is that building codes in Canada, at least for what are called part 3 buildings—that is, larger buildings—generally require elevators, and those would remain required.

A general fact about housing is that newer housing is always more accessible and generally safer in every way than older housing. The details of how you regulate newer housing are not quite as important as new versus old. To take a concrete example, older housing in British Columbia, including Vancouver, is much less likely to have an elevator. It's much less likely to have step-free thresholds for getting in and out of units. The actual standards are much lower. The electrical standards and clearances for turning wheelchairs or whatever in kitchens or bathrooms were much lower back then.

You have to weigh the smaller details of new construction against all of the improvements you get in a new building to begin with, so—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Ms. Zarrillo, we're well over time.

You may want to finish that thought process in another question, Mr. Smith.

We'll go to Mrs. Gray for five minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here. My first questions are for Mr. Smith.

Canadian architectural company RealSpace 3D wrote an article that's on their website. It says:

Building codes, while essential for safety and sustainability, can significantly influence construction costs in Canada. Compliance often requires additional materials, specialized labour, and time-consuming administrative processes, all contributing to higher housing prices.

Would you agree with that statement, and is Canada an outlier when it comes to building codes adding unnecessary costs to construction?

[Stephen Smith]

It's a pretty general statement, so it's pretty easy to agree with, I would say.

As I said earlier specifically with regard to multi-family housing, yes, Canada is an outlier. The cost curve as you go from single-family to low-rise multi-family to mid-rise multi-family is quite steep in Canada compared with other places—more so than even the United States, but especially compared with countries outside of North America.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Smith, several not-for-profit organizations that build affordable housing have been before this committee talking about the Liberal government's federal housing agency having burdensome regulatory requirements—more than what standard building codes require—resulting in delays and cost increases.

Based on your experience, are burdensome red tape and regulation at the federal level and others undermining Canada's ability to build more affordable housing units?

[Stephen Smith]

I think I could agree with that.

I would say that, in general, most of what's in a building code and a regulation is sound. However, there are elements that I think go overboard in multi-family housing in particular. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and be too anti-regulation. In a lot of ways, I think regulations could stand to be a bit stricter, but in other ways not.

What I would advocate for is a different framework, not necessarily more or less—although there should probably be a bit less in certain areas.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Smith, is it wise to layer a building code with new regulations, red tape or bureaucracy if they don't necessarily improve building safety or increase accessibility, for example, but only increase the cost to build? Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Stephen Smith]

Taking the question for granted, certainly that would be a very bad idea.

Some of the difficulty is in knowing exactly what's going to increase safety and what won't. The buildings have become so complicated that, when you're writing codes—especially on a municipal or provincial level, but even on a national level, honestly—it can be difficult. This is why I think it's important to look to international standards. These have been vetted in a much wider community. As you start to take it down to more local places, your resources to weigh the costs and benefits—even to investigate what the costs and benefits are—start to diminish.

It can be very difficult to do this in a small jurisdiction. You end up basing it on instinct and opinions rather than science.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Smith, you just talked about international standards.

In comparison with other jurisdictions—I know you're very familiar with European jurisdictions, in particular—where do Canada's national building code and standards rank in assisting to deliver affordable homes, in your opinion?

[Stephen Smith]

For multi-family in particular, I think they rank quite well. I was looking through the national building code of Canada today and looking at the reference standards. You guys are referencing a lot of U.S. and Canadian standards and not so many international ones.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Do you have any specific recommendations you can provide that might be international standards that Canada might want to consider?

[Stephen Smith]

It's difficult to say there's any particular one, because a building is made up of so many different parts. Each one is sort of a de minimis cost, which is how these costs increase. You say, “Well, this is just a little thing. It's just a little part of the building. What does it really matter?” An elevator, for example, is only 2% of the total cost of construction, but you find these costs in the entire building. It's hard for me to isolate just one or the other. There are some things that I know about, such as ventilation and plumbing, that go a bit overkill. I know a lot about elevators and a lot about stairways. You have separate standards for windows. It's every part of the building. It's hard to isolate just one.

I guess my general recommendation would be to go through the building codes systematically, look for differences in the global standards, which tend to derive from the European ones, and try to fix them all, ideally. That's really the task of a lifetime, but I think it needs to be done. It's hard to pick just one. I know the ones I've studied, but that's not to say these are necessarily even the most important ones. They're just the ones that, with limited resources, I've looked into.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gray.

We'll go to Mr. Coteau for five minutes.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair,

Thank you so much to our witnesses today.

I'll start with you, Mr. Smith. The national building codes you made reference to are not specific law but recommendations to provinces. It's up to them to adopt their own specific building codes. Is that correct, from your perspective?

[Stephen Smith]

I don't know the specifics very well—you should probably ask a Canadian—but my general understanding is that, yes, they're model codes and then the provinces can—

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Yes. My understanding of these building codes that we're talking about is that the federal government puts out recommendations and provinces can actually adopt them. They come from the National Research Council. It's really up to provinces and territories to design their own specific codes when it comes to fire, health, safety, accessibility, energy efficiency, etc. One of the challenges we have....

I don't know how it works in the States. In the States, is there a national building code that is actual law and governs the entirety of the United States, or are states responsible for their own codes, like in Canada?

[Stephen Smith]

In general, states and cities are responsible for their own codes. The national one, which is actually not even written by government in the United States, is just a model to follow. Most of the time, like in Canada, I believe it is followed, but yes, states and cities ultimately have the authority. They determine the—

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

It's because I think the tone being set was that the federal government is responsible for all of these codes in law and that it's federal regulation or law that's actually slowing things down. These are just recommendations. I wanted to mention that.

I also wanted to mention the European-North American comparison. When both Canada and United States started to build cities, it wasn't too long ago. In the U.K. or in Europe, some of these cities are more than a thousand years old. How do you compare Yorkshire, England, where the infrastructure has remained the same for 500 or 600 years, to Ottawa?

[Stephen Smith]

Europe was heavily damaged during World War II. There are countries, especially in southern Europe, where as a tourist you go into these ancient city centres, but most of the housing stock in a place like Spain or Italy is actually quite new. I don't think the age is actually all that different. As a tourist, of course, you don't want to visit some 1960s suburb of Madrid. You want to visit the beautiful little city centre. Most Europeans are not living in 300-year-old buildings. They're living in much newer ones.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Right.

Mr. Berube, thank you for being here. I know that you said some growth is occurring in your sector. As a company that might represent a lot of growth, and for Canadians and development in our country as a whole, do you see your sector spreading rapidly across the housing sector? Could you take a minute to explain how large this sector is within housing?

[Andy Berube]

I would say the demand is increasing and the growth is stagnant, and I'm probably exaggerating the stagnant part of it. We're growing as an industry and we're building more and more off-site, shortening time frames around construction, but the demand is increasing rapidly just because the population....

People aren't going into the trades. We don't have the people to build, so what is the solution? You can't make people.... Well, you can make people, but you can't force your kid to be a tradesperson. At the factory level, we're able to help resolve a problem around labour in the market. It's one of the reasons we.... That's a picture of the industry and the growth part of it. The demand is there, but we're stagnant because of the organization in total.

You made a comment earlier about the federal government being responsible. I would say it's not necessarily responsible, but it should be supportive and encouraging—

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Setting the tone.

[Andy Berube]

—setting the tone, educating and putting out the understanding that, if you put a policy or a suggestion in place with provincial or municipal.... If it's not, it's just contributing to the problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.