Evidence of meeting #30 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to my colleague for sharing time with me today.
Thank you, Minister, for coming.
It's kind of funny that we get accused of slogans all the time, and the bureaucracy has been named a slogan. I find that amusing. I just wanted to say that.
How many homes have been built within the last year, since election time and since the government has committed to building more homes?
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
The housing completions last year in Canada were 260,000, which is a good year for Canada—I think top five in terms of housing starts and housing completions. In the Build Canada Homes pipeline now, we have over 10,000 homes in the works.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
You asked about how much housing we're building in Canada right now. Last year, there were 260,000 completed homes. Build Canada Homes is in start-up mode. As of now, we have over 10,000 homes in the pipeline through the new agency.
Conservative
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
It varies. The focus is on modern methods of construction—modular, panel-based manufactured products, which speed up homebuilding. For example, I was in Nunavut a few weeks ago. Nunavut homes, through Build Canada Homes, are already in place now. People are moving into those homes, as we speak, in Nunavut. Those are modular homes. They're shipped to Nunavut by sealift and finished on site. In some cases, the build can happen very quickly. In other cases, it takes time.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
I'm running out of time, but I have another quick question.
We had a witness here a while back from the building trades speaking on a different study. They mentioned that there's a lot of under-the-table labour in the construction industry. I'm wondering if Build Canada Homes has put anything in place to ensure that this massive amount of money is not going to contractors who are paying under the table. Ultimately, we want to see our people working and paying their taxes, and some of this money coming back to the government through taxes. Are there any guardrails in place to ensure that this doesn't happen?
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
Certainly, Build Canada Homes will be accountable to Parliament and will be a transparent Crown corporation. With this act being approved, we will be having regular updates through the minister to Parliament on the organization and its activities.
Conservative
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
At this point, Build Canada Homes is just putting together these initial agreements for development that will take place. Obviously, the laws of the land apply to all the agreements we are making.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. It was a good question, though, a very good question.
Mrs. Church, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Minister and Deputy Minister.
I want to start off by saying that I have personally noticed how quickly Build Canada Homes has been moving. Whether it is the investment in the Arbo site at Downsview and the waste-water infrastructure that goes along with that, which will help unlock literally tens of thousands of new homes very close to my constituency, or it's a really innovative project in my own community, which will be breaking ground on 500 new rental units, 150 of which will be affordable, and unlocking municipal land in the process, these are examples of the type of housing stock we need right now in Canada. That's what I wanted to start with: I'm noticing how quickly some of these projects are moving, in a short amount of time, very directly for my community in Toronto—St. Paul's.
Minister, maybe I can ask you to help explain and clarify for all of us what it means to transition Build Canada Homes into a Crown corporation and how that transition will help deliver results for Canadians and help Build Canada Homes achieve the mandate you've set out for it.
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
On the collaborations we're already seeing, proposals are coming forward from provinces, territories and cities, first and foremost. We have a number of those already announced and public, with building commencing. That's in combination with taking action on federal land, wherever we have federal land available that we can build housing on, some of which has been in the works with the Canada Lands Company. It now becomes part of the Build Canada Homes portfolio, and we can expedite.
To speak to an earlier question on this, a number of us have served at local levels or provincial levels of government. It has always been challenging to get all levels of government at the table and focused on delivering faster. We are in a housing crisis. The design of Build Canada Homes, and the purposeful addition of the tools in the Build Canada Homes act—having more financial tools available to move faster, having federal land as part of the strategy—will speed things up.
I know that it can be frustrating at the local level, for those of us who've served there, when the federal government tends to move historically a lot slower, not recognizing local challenges. We can flip that around here, with me sitting in my current role, making sure that the local level is also delivering their piece around approvals and permitting. We need everyone to work together on this.
What I'm excited about here is Build Canada Homes having the tools to really push the pace with this team Canada approach, getting everyone on the same page to deliver affordable housing. We need a mix of housing. Our country is complex, with different markets. We need to deliver all different types of housing. We're seeing very innovative proposals coming forward that bring lots of partners in. I think there are some fantastic housing opportunities, because we will now have the tools available to support that.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
My colleague across the way mentioned labour issues. I want to submit that I had a great discussion yesterday with Unifor. Representatives were here in Ottawa. They were talking about their members who actually work with and have a lot of expertise in modular construction. They were very excited about that.
How will Build Canada Homes support new and innovative building methods? What are these methods? How will we be supporting the workforce needs that will go along with building this quickly?
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
That's a great question.
It's an industry that is much smaller in Canada than we'd like it to be. In Europe and Asia, the modular or off-site manufacturing industry is much larger. In Sweden, we hear that over 50% of homes are now manufactured in factories. It's less than 5% in Canada, and that's in comparable climates.
There's a huge advantage to manufacturing parts or entire homes, but in many cases it's panel-based construction that happens in factories, and then those panels are put together like Lego on site. Those factories can run 24-7, year-round, regardless of the weather, in the winter in particular. They have much more flexibility in terms of job sites, so they are great opportunities for jobs and partnerships with labour.
We've had real excitement around that and making sure we're building faster and more affordably. When you get scale and when you get three shifts in a factory, you can deliver more affordability faster.
Liberal
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette—Manawan, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to say hello to my colleagues and the entire committee team.
Thank you very much for being here, Minister, Ms. Boldt and Mr. Haloucha. I find that these are some very interesting discussions on the bill.
We in the Bloc Québécois have been burned by the former programs of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Since projects in Quebec are, on average, smaller than those in Ontario and the rest of Canada, Quebec systematically doesn't receive its fair share. When we look at the housing market, the price has started to fall in a number of places in Canada, but not in Quebec, where the market is still overheating.
Minister, since Quebec accounts for more than its share of the population in terms of needs, do you plan to ensure that our share of funding reflects that reality?
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
Certainly, I think Quebec will be a real driver in partnerships with Build Canada Homes. We've seen an unprecedented willingness to form a partnership and work on this combination of housing and the related infrastructure together. I'm really optimistic that we're going to see significant delivery.
The Quebec government is showing all the signs of strong collaboration and scale, like building larger projects. We were able to move the biggest project, probably, in Quebec at the hippodrome in Montreal. We made an investment in the infrastructure on that site to get that. That's 20,000 homes in the middle of the island, in Montreal.
As said earlier, we also have to focus on smaller communities across Quebec, and I know the province has flagged that in our dialogue. I think we're going to see a real willingness to go fast and go as big as possible in terms of the delivery.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette—Manawan, QC
Thank you very much, Minister. I have one last question.
Tenant protection organizations, such as FRAPRU, are concerned that Build Canada Homes is primarily being used to fund private, for-profit housing projects, in which only a small portion of the units are dedicated to affordable housing—not social housing—rather than primarily supporting social housing. What do you have to say to them?
Liberal
Gregor Robertson Liberal Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, BC
Thank you for the question.
It's very important that we deliver on the affordability piece.
At its core, Build Canada Homes is about ensuring that the federal government is working with the provinces and territories to deliver non-market housing. We have to get our non-market housing percentage up significantly. As I said, in 30 years, it's dropped from 10% to 4%, and many countries have between 10% and 20% of non-market housing. That will leverage a lot of middle-market housing in the process.
You need a mix of housing and projects, but we have to make sure that these projects come forward with deeply affordable housing in the mix as well. We must be able to cross-subsidize within projects, but we want to be building that deeper affordability at every opportunity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.
Mrs. Goodridge, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today.
On March 12, you said, “it is no surprise that Canadians are challenged with buying a home right now, when there is a war in the Middle East.” I'm a bit confused. I've never built a house. I've never been involved in the house construction business. How does a relatively new conflict impact house building in Canada or house purchases in Canada?