Human Resources Committee on May 16th, 2022

[John Taylor]

I want to summarize by saying that the housing accelerator fund is one part of a much bigger program in which a variety of approaches are needed to accelerate transitional housing, rental housing, subsidized units, portable benefits, housing trusts and affordable ownership. Each of these approaches must be accelerated in order for us to begin to claim progress in our efforts to provide affordable housing. That is why I have stressed the need for a flexible program so the accelerator fund can work with and support a variety of approaches to housing affordability.

I have been at the community level for 15 years working on each of these approaches to providing affordability, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Let me stress that this is not just about increasing supply, and it is certainly not just about improving the municipal process. It is about the need to invest significantly in many different approaches to affordability. It's about providing a variety of housing types and tenure to meet the different needs of a wide variety of residents.

I'll stop there. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mayor Taylor.

We'll now go to Mr. Liepert for six minutes.

Mr. Liepert, you have the floor.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for attending today and to all of those who are participating in this study. I've listened quite intently through the various presentations over the past couple of weeks.

I want to take a little bit of a different approach to the questions today, because many of the presentations are quite similar. Almost all ask for more money. Almost all cite issues with money getting to where it needs to go. Most cite bureaucratic hiccups along the way. I believe that the rental market and the purchase market are very much tied. If rents are high, then that impacts the price of a home.

I know that as Conservatives at this table we're probably in the minority. In fact I'd say we're probably the only party that sits at this table that doesn't believe that government is the answer to everything. In fact, I believe many of the issues that we find ourselves in today are due to government getting itself in the middle of where it shouldn't be.

The one issue I want to throw out here today, which I haven't heard anybody talk about—I don't think I've heard one single presentation mention it—is the issue of rent controls. I don't know which provinces have rent controls and which ones don't. I do know that Ontario does, because they apply to the apartment I rent in Ottawa as a member of Parliament. I know that in Alberta, for example, we've always resisted the idea of rent controls, and I don't think our housing problem in Alberta is anywhere near as dire as what has been presented from other parts of the country.

I'd like to hear a little bit more about what each one of the presenters thinks about rent controls and what impact rent controls have on the housing market in their particular province. I'll start with the Mayor of Newmarket.

Go ahead, please.

[John Taylor]

Thanks very much.

I'll be quick. I'm no expert in this area, but I will say that I've spoken with a number of people—private developers—who are either attempting to produce or are producing market-rent buildings. I would say it's a fine balance. With no work or legislation related to having rent controls, it is very difficult to provide anything close to affordable housing. At the same time, there is certainly no question that it does pose a considerable concern for those developing purpose-built rental housing with respect to the impact it can have on the viability of their project.

What I heard in the end though was that most of them would be comfortable with the rent controls if they would just be stable and predictable. They would like to see governments—one government to the next government to the next government—not constantly changing the rent control rules and regimens so that they know what they're dealing with and their pro formas can reflect that. So, I think I would say that a multi-multi-year stability in approach to rent controls is very valuable, but it certainly is a concern to those building and we need the supply to increase as well. It's a fine balance.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I think someone had their hand up, but I'm not sure.

Are there any other comments to make?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Collin.

[John Collin]

If I may again, this is John Collin, city manager in Saint John.

When it comes to rent controls, I agree it is a fine balance. One thing to consider for smaller communities such as ours is the reality that we do not have a plethora of developers. Therefore, anything we do that affects their bottom line would cause them to reflect as to whether or not the development is worth proceeding with or whether they ought to go elsewhere for that development.

Rent controls can be a double-edged weapon if you are not careful, and certainly, from our perspective, we are carefully looking at the challenges associated with rent control. We may solve one problem and create a larger one in the process that dramatically affects our supply.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Go ahead, sir.

[Benoit Dorais]

I think there does need to be a balance. We must ensure that a lot of housing units are created. The number of units on the market needs to be increased, but it must also be possible to take action on, or control, prices.

There must be a balance. However, eliminating rent control is not a solution in my opinion. It's really about striking a balance by boosting supply and controlling prices for some of the population.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have 35 seconds, Mr. Liepert.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to throw one other thing out there, and somebody can comment on it quickly if they would like to.

What factor does Nimbyism play? In Calgary, we had a real issue with initiatives to develop things like basement suites, yet it was opposed by the neighbourhoods.

Would anybody like to comment on that?

[John Taylor]

I'll say something really quickly.

I hear this conversation all the time. It exists. It's a factor. But I think it's considerably overblown what role it plays in building purpose-built, affordable rental housing, etc. I think it's a much, much smaller consideration than it once was.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We have to conclude with that.

We'll now go to Mr. Long for six minutes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses this afternoon, especially the ones from my riding of Saint John.

As a member of Parliament in this riding, certainly one of the most frustrating things I've seen and dealt with are the lack of affordable housing units and the crisis that we're in with respect to affordable housing. I'm certainly pleased to hear our mayor and you, Mr. Collin, recognize that it is an emergency.

We've also heard consistently through the testimony so far that we need to get money in the hands of municipalities and cut through the red tape. Again, we've heard and we've learned who knows better how to invest that money and who should have their own strategies to deal with their own unique situations. Obviously further to that, we certainly know that not all municipalities are the same. They have different needs.

My first question is to Ms. Hamilton or Mr. Collin.

Share with the committee how that money could best be used. I won't lead you, but could it be invested in land or administration, what have you?

[John Collin]

If I may, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, the short answer to that question is through a variety of different ways. I do not believe there is one Holy Grail that will solve the affordable housing crisis in Saint John. We need to take a look at it all, from subsidies to land acquisition, to special training programs for developers and architects to find ways to drive costs down, to increasing horsepower in staffing to get the programs moving forward to keep our very enviable permit turnaround times and zoning change times to reasonable levels to achieve the supply. There are a variety of different aspects.

During my opening remarks, I commented, please keep the number of criteria to a minimum. I'll be a bit cavalier to conclude my remarks by saying that the only criteria I believe should be in place is that the municipality have a plan, have a well-thought-out plan—period. If that is the case, then let the municipality look at all of their different innovative approaches to solving their problem.

Thank you.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you for that, Mr. Collin. I want to drill down on that with you a little more, though.

Certainly, in my experience, we can get money from the federal government to a municipality through the federal co-investment fund, which we launched a few years back, or the rapid housing initiative, which has had great success, and certainly is over-subscribed, but.... We recognize as a federal government that we need to do more. We can't wait for the provinces to move on their affordable housing money to something that has to be matched by the federal government.

Can you elaborate a bit more? Again, from the City of Saint John's standpoint—and I certainly recognize that you have an affordable housing action plan—can you give us some recommendations as to what the accelerator could do to help you move that affordable action plan forward?

[John Collin]

First of all, in terms of distributing the money, I respectfully suggest that maybe stealing a page out of the gas tax fund approach would be useful, where the money is provided directly to the municipalities. We've spoken about that.

What could it achieve for us? At the end of the day, we have to get the cost per door down. Without the cost per door coming down, rents will simply not be in that 30% of total family income, which is a good measure for affordable housing.

How do you get the cost per door down? You come up with clever land acquisition schemes. You come up with building incentives. You come up with special training programs to design and develop buildings that are less costly to build.

We can do all of those things within the affordable housing plan. The beauty of such an approach is that you can also roll in all of your key stakeholders within the municipality—not-for-profits that have been doing this for a very long time—and you can align your efforts so that you take advantage of the strengths of all of the various entities within a municipality to drive the cost per door down.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to share the rest of my time with MP Van Bynen.

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

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have one minute and losing....

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll direct my questions to Mayor Taylor.

We've heard a lot about how the funding should go directly to municipalities.

My question for Mayor Taylor is this: What kind of criteria do you think we should be using to determine which municipalities would be able to access funding?

I'm saying that in this context. You have single-tier municipalities. You have large metropolitan areas. You have municipalities that have regional oversight. How do we go about selecting which municipalities should be candidates for funding?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We need a short answer.

[John Taylor]

I think the money should go to the service provider. In Ontario, that means either the large single tiers, such as Toronto, or the regions, such as York or Peel. They have the expertise, the sophistication and the staff resources to make sure this money is being used in the best possible manner, and they have multiple ways of deploying it in the appropriate areas of need at that time.

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

Do I have a few seconds?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have four seconds.