Human Resources Committee on Dec. 5th, 2022

[Romy Bowers]

Absolutely.

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

I would argue that almost every task is difficult, but when there's a will to fix something, there is a way to get it done.

I heard you mention a couple of times today a delay to move-in time because of construction time. Was that in regard to data collection or just in general?

[Romy Bowers]

Yes. The housing-construction life cycle is quite long from the design of the housing unit to the actual construction process to when the units can actually be occupied.

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

What's the average?

[Romy Bowers]

It depends on the city. For example, in the city of Toronto, it can take up to six years from the conception of a project to the actual move-in date.

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

Why is that?

[Romy Bowers]

There is a large number of reasons. The creation of housing, especially the creation of multi-unit housing, is complex. It requires multiple levels of approvals at the municipal level. We also have a very serious shortage of skilled labour in Canada, so it's very challenging to—

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

Red tape and bureaucracy, then, are some of the reasons we can't build quickly.

[Romy Bowers]

They can be an element, but there can also be opposition from neighbourhood groups, because it is very difficult to build housing, especially in Toronto and other large cities.

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

Okay. Thank you.

I also want to quickly ask about Infrastructure Canada and CMHC. It seems to be that they are not aligning, from reading this report.

What commitments are being made other than this working group, which, from the sounds of it, was actually struck before this AG report? What are CMHC and Infrastructure Canada doing to work more collaboratively?

[Romy Bowers]

CMHC came under the Infrastructure portfolio only fairly recently—about a year ago. I work very closely with the officials at Infrastructure Canada. We have collaboration at all levels of our organization.

We take seriously the reports and the comments made by the Auditor General. In the way we work on a day-to-day basis, we make sure there's alignment between our work and the work of the infrastructure department.

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

How so?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Falk. Your time is over.

[Rosemary Falk]

Could she respond, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Okay.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Thank you, Chair. Thank you—

[Romy Bowers]

On a personal level, as the head of CMHC, I work very closely with the deputy minister of infrastructure, Kelly Gillis, so that's one example.

Nadine, who is the head of policy, works very closely with their head of policy.

That level of collaboration exists throughout the organization.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Falk.

Mr. Long, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to my colleagues and thank you to CMHC and Ms. Bowers for coming before us today.

I want to start with co-op housing. In my riding of Saint John—Rothesay, Housing Alternatives has a wonderful project moving forward in the co-op housing sector. We know that co-op housing is critical when it comes to expanding the supply of affordable housing. Through budget 2022, our government is making the largest investment in 30 years in the expansion of co-op housing. To your point earlier, it's been a long time.

Can you speak to the work CMHC is already doing with the co-op sector, as well as the work being done to partner with that sector and the rollout of these new investments?

Thank you.

[Romy Bowers]

I'm a member of the national housing council, and the head of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada is also a member, so I have very close collaboration and conversations with that individual.

In addition to that, you mentioned that in the most recent budget there was a $1.5-billion commitment to create new co-op housing in Canada. This is quite transformational, because there haven't been federal investments in co-op housing for many decades.

CMHC is working collaboratively with the co-op housing federation to co-develop that strategy. It's not ready for prime time yet, but there has been a lot of work done in terms of program design and making a program that's really going to create the new generation of co-op housing in Canada.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Bowers, I want to give you an analogy. In my past life, I was president of a hockey team. I talk about it often: the Saint John Sea Dogs. As president of that team, if I had consistently had season ticket holders coming to me or season ticket holders out in my community saying that dealing with the Saint John Sea Dogs was difficult and dealing with the Saint John Sea Dogs was cumbersome, I would have recognized that there was a problem internally, maybe culturally or in process or bureaucracy, or what have you.

We have some great proponents in my riding, two of them, and to be perfectly blunt, I've seen them age before my eyes over the last few years of trying to get through the coinvestment process and the frustration and the delays. Another one, for a shelter that was funded through rapid housing—I'm very appreciative of that—used to call me at times, so frustrated that, to be blunt again, she was crying. She just couldn't get through the process.

I ask you sincerely, as the head of CMHC, whether you recognize.... I'll qualify it. I know, as you said earlier, that it's very difficult—it's complex—to move forward with affordable housing, and that there are a lot of challenges, whether it's to get builders to build it, the cost per door or what have you. As the head of CMHC, though, do you recognize that there are problems with the process?

I've always said I'd like to see CMHC become less bureaucratic and more entrepreneurial, and I know that's not easy, but sometimes it seems like a lot of the non-profits just get so frustrated because they have one barrier after another. I know there's a process in place, but can you comment on that, as the head of CMHC, on what you see, what you recognize and what you can do to potentially turn that around?

Thank you.

[Romy Bowers]

Mr. Chair, I take comments like this very seriously. I'm responsible for the culture and processes at CMHC, so I welcome feedback like this. When I meet MPs at gatherings like this, I always encourage them, if there are pain points they're experiencing with projects of mine, to please let me know, because it's really important for me to look into it so I can learn from the process.

We have, as I mentioned previously, definitely learned lessons from the rollout of the coinvestment funds. The processes were too cumbersome and too bureaucratic. We have tried to simplify them. I think Yannick talked earlier about having a contribution-only stream for the coinvestment fund, which enables us to get back to proponents within four to six weeks. We've decoupled the loan process from the contribution process to make things easier.

We also have instituted a process whereby, after every client interaction, we have a very simple survey that we send out to clients to measure the level of client satisfaction. When the level of satisfaction is not satisfactory, we take actions to remediate that.

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

I'll just jump in. Are you able to share what the level of satisfaction has been?

[Romy Bowers]

We're very happy to provide that.