Good morning, Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
I'm the president and CEO of Collecdev-Markee, a housing developer in Toronto, and a member of the National Housing Council. Last week, we celebrated the topping off of Cielo, a 34-storey residential development we are building in partnership with the United Church of Canada. The project includes the restoration of a national historic site and will deliver hundreds of homes in 2027.
Looking out at the more than 200 people in hard hats and steel-toed boots, I was reminded of the single most important fact about housing delivery in Canada: Housing takes a long time to deliver. We acquired the site in 2018 and started sales in 2021. Excavation followed in 2022 and 2023. The building reached grade in 2025, and then it was recognized as a housing start. Residents will move in in 2027. From acquisition to occupancy, it's taking a decade.
That timeline is not unusual. Before a project becomes a housing start, it moves through land acquisition, financing, partnership formation, design, approval, sales and marketing, procurement, construction and, ultimately, occupancy. Every stage requires capital, expertise, coordination and confidence. Housing starts are important, but they capture only one moment in a much larger process.
That observation is particularly relevant to this study. Housing starts do not begin when a shovel enters the ground. They begin years earlier, with a decision to invest, and those investment decisions depend on confidence in the future. Housing developers already manage uncertainty that they cannot control: interest rates, labour markets, construction costs and global supply chains.
Government cannot control those things either. What government can control is the policy environment in which housing is built. At a time when the industry is already navigating significant uncertainty, government should focus on minimizing uncertainty in the areas it does control. That means stable housing programs, clear policy direction and alignment among immigration, infrastructure spending and housing strategies. Since immigration is a primary driver of housing demand, Canada needs a long-term immigration strategy that is aligned with its housing supply objectives. It's difficult to plan housing supply when the future drivers of demand are uncertain.
The same principle applies to federal housing programs. Projects take years to prepare. Too often, by the time a project is ready to access a program, funding has been exhausted, eligibility criteria have changed or the federal program itself has been replaced. The industry can adapt to almost any program design. What it struggles with is continual change. We already have examples of programs that are working. You know them: ACLP and MLI Select. These are unlocking a new generation of housing supply. HAF is also having a meaningful impact.
If this committee is examining housing starts in relation to federal programs, my message is straightforward: Federal programs are having a real impact. Many of the housing starts being counted today exist precisely because of federal programs that supported those investment decisions made a very long time ago.
Here's the rub: The challenge is that there is often a significant lag between policy intervention, housing starts and when they're measured. As a result, we can underestimate the effectiveness of programs that are already working, and we become too quick to replace them with something new. I was encouraged to hear greater clarity around the prospective roles of BCH and CMHC. Clarity matters when you're making an investment decision, whether through CMHC, BCH or other federal initiatives.
The objective should be clear: complementary programs with measurable housing outcomes. We should be measuring homes delivered and housing starts enabled, not simply dollars spent or committed. Housing delivery requires long timelines, long-term capital and long-term confidence. The most valuable contribution government can make is not constant reinvention but rather certainty—certainty around policy, certainty around financing tools and certainty that successful programs will remain in place long enough to be measured in order to achieve their intended outcomes. We need to measure outcomes and scale what works instead of reinventing, in order to give the industry the confidence to build. The industry will build with that confidence.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.