I'd say it's a significant factor. Housing prices and what goes into the cost of a home are complicated. Essentially there are the land component, the materials component and the labour component. We're having a lot of challenges in filling positions in Hamilton and across Ontario, and I'm sure Mr. Lee could attest to that right across the country.
I think you'd be shocked if you walked around the average construction site in Hamilton and saw what the average age is. You have people doing some pretty difficult jobs who aren't exactly spring chickens. We need to attract more people into the industry, and part of that's on the industry to promote careers in construction. We certainly work with our local community colleges and high schools trying to get more young people to choose that career path, because it can be a very rewarding career path.
I think one of the challenges we have that we're looking to the federal government for help with is the economic immigration stream to bring in more skilled workers to help us fill those job positions. Anecdotally I hear from our members that the labour situation is so tough that you actually have different homebuilders almost poaching labourers from each other off their sites. This is a challenge across southern Ontario. We do have a housing supply challenge in terms of population growth, and we are building a lot of homes, but that certainly requires labour, in particular skilled labour.
A home is a complicated system. It does not require general labour, but a lot of skilled labour, particularly from different trades like electricians, plumbers, carpenters, roofers, etc. There are tremendous opportunities in the sector.