Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I really appreciate opening up this conversation around demand. I agree that it's been largely ignored in this conversation.
I have a question for Mr. Pomeroy and potentially for Mr. Moffatt on what they see as the goal of this housing affordability accelerator and what they're hearing in their circles on the interpretation of the goal.
I really appreciate the comments on tying it to outcomes.
Before I get into it, I would like to share with you some of the things I have seen on the demand side. For example, we have created demand with low interest rates, with immigration services centralized in large urban centres, and with OCP changes that encourage intensification—which are in fact creating gentrification and renovictions, or destruction of purpose-built rentals. This also includes the short-term rental market like Airbnb. These are all of the demand-side pieces that I've seen.
I've even heard today some talk about the family-friendly and the larger [Technical difficulty--Editor]. I can tell you that in my experience we got transit funding along the route, and the development community said they were going to take the incentives they got for three bedrooms, but then came back and asked to turn them into lock-off suites so they could also rent out one or two of those bedrooms. Moreover, they then wanted interior bedrooms and didn't want to put windows on these bedrooms. It actually drove up the price. I'm really, really worried about this.
I want to dig in more on this demand side.
Mr. Pomeroy, I'm going to start with you. You named a few of the ones that you feel are driving demand.
Can you say what you think we need to focus on with the demand side? Also, what do you think is the goal of the housing accelerator fund, and what are they saying in your circles on what they think this is?