Human Resources Committee on June 4th, 2026

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rosemarie Falk]

Good morning, committee members. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting 40 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Pursuant to the motion adopted on Thursday, February 5, 2026, the committee is meeting on housing starts in relation to federal programs.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using Zoom.

Before we begin, I would ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including our interpreters.

I would also like to remind participants of the following points.

Please wait until you are recognized by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and mute yourself when you're not speaking.

For those on Zoom, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation at the bottom of your screen, and this is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I'd like to now welcome our witnesses.

From the Keesmaat Group, we have Jennifer Keesmaat, and from the West End Home Builders' Association, we have Mike Collins-Williams.

We will start with five minutes for Ms. Keesmaat.

[Jennifer Keesmaat, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Keesmaat Group]

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.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rosemarie Falk]

Thank you, Ms. Keesmaat, for your testimony.

Next, we will head to West End Home Builders' Association and Mr. Collins-Williams.

[Mike Collins-Williams, Chief Executive Officer, West End Home Builders' Association]

Thank you, Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

My name is Mike Collins-Williams, and I'm the chief executive officer of the West End Home Builders' Association. WE HBA represents more than 300 companies involved in the residential construction, land development and renovation industry in Hamilton, Burlington and Grimsby. Our members build the homes, communities and neighbourhoods where Canadians live, work, raise families and build their futures.

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in your study examining housing starts in relation to federal programs. Today, I want to leave the committee with a simple message: If buyers cannot buy, builders cannot build.

Over the past several years, governments across Canada have rightly focused on increasing housing supply, yet despite this attention, housing starts for ownership have declined significantly while new home sales in many markets have fallen to historic lows.

Housing starts are often discussed as a single number, but the composition of these starts matters. Purpose-built rental construction has increased, supported by important federal initiatives and financing programs. This additional rental supply is needed and welcomed.

However, rental housing should not be replacing home ownership opportunities. Most Canadians still aspire to own a home. They want the stability, security and wealth-building opportunities that home ownership provides, yet for many young families, that dream continues to be further out of reach.

The challenge is not a lack of builders willing to build. Our members have land, skilled workers, supply chains and shovel-ready projects. The challenge is that the economics of housing no longer work.

It is important to remember that housing starts do not occur in isolation. They are ultimately driven by consumer confidence and the ability of families to purchase a home. Across Ontario and much of Canada, many prospective buyers have moved to the sidelines. High housing costs, taxation, mortgage qualification barriers and economic uncertainty have reduced demand for new homes. When sales slow, housing starts inevitably follow. This is why policies that improve affordability and help qualified buyers re-enter the market are every bit as important as policies that support housing production itself.

Development charges, taxes, government fees, approval delays, financing costs, long-term labour shortages and escalating construction costs have combined to create a situation where many projects simply do not proceed. Too often, housing policy discussions focus exclusively on unit targets.

Housing is also an economic development strategy. Every new home built supports construction workers, tradespeople, planners, manufacturers, suppliers and local businesses throughout the supply chain. When housing starts decline, the impacts ripple throughout the economy. Increasing housing starts is not only about creating homes. It's about protecting jobs and strengthening local communities.

In Ontario, taxes, fees and charges imposed by governments can account for approximately 25% to 30% of the cost of a new home. At the same time, approval timelines continue to grow longer. In Hamilton, for example, a recent national benchmarking study ranked the city dead last among major Canadian municipalities for development approval timelines. Every month of delay adds costs and ultimately results in fewer homes being built.

When housing construction slows, the consequences extend far beyond the housing sector itself. Construction workers lose jobs. Manufacturers receive fewer orders. Municipalities collect less revenue, and economic growth slows.

In Ontario alone, industry forecasts have warned that tens of thousands of residential construction jobs are at risk if market conditions do not improve. That's why recent federal actions are encouraging. Measures to reduce the tax burden on new housing, support infrastructure investment and expand construction financing represent important steps in the right direction. These policies recognize a simple reality: Governments do not build homes; builders build homes.

The role of government is to create the conditions that allow for housing to be delivered faster, more efficiently and at greater scale. Federal programs are most successful when they unlock private sector investment, improve project viability, reduce unnecessary costs and create certainty.

What our industry needs right now is continued collaboration between all three levels of government. We need policies that support both ownership and rental housing. We need predictable and streamlined approvals. We need continued efforts to reduce taxes and development charges, and we need mortgage policies that help qualified buyers access the market. We need a coordinated national housing strategy that recognizes housing as both a social priority and an economic imperative.

The good news is that the solutions are known. Canada has the builders. We have the workforce. What we need is a policy environment that allows the industry to do what we do best: build homes.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rosemarie Falk]

Thank you very much, Mr. Collins-Williams.

We'll start with the Conservatives for six minutes, with MP Aitchison.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you, Madam Vice-Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here. It's great to see both of you.

Ms. Keesmaat, it's a shame that you're not here in person, but it's nice to see you on the screen.

I'm going to ask a question of both of you. I appreciated the opening remarks. I think you both made really important points about the broader question of housing and how we get more housing built.

This, of course, is a study about housing starts, which, now that we're into it, seems a bit limited.

I'll start with you, Mike, and then go back to you, Jennifer.

What's the most important thing this committee and the government should know about housing starts? We've heard a lot about what they are, what they mean and how useful a tool they are.

Mike, give us your thoughts on the question of housing starts.

[Mike Collins-Williams]

Housing starts are an important metric, but they are a lagging indicator. They recognize the strength of the economy and investment decisions made yesterday, not today. As Jennifer articulated in terms of the timelines in one of her projects, that investment decision to purchase a piece of land and go through the planning approvals and entitlements process occurs years before the start.

In the residential construction industry, we typically look at sales in terms of where the health of the market is currently. In the sales in the GTA and in Hamilton, those numbers are far worse than housing starts right now, and that would indicate that housing starts and the actual economic activity are likely to get worse in the months and years ahead.

It is an important metric, but my key message would be that it's a lagging indicator, and it does not represent the current health of the residential construction industry, be it in Hamilton, Ontario, or in Canada overall.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thanks.

Jennifer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that too, please.

[Jennifer Keesmaat]

I agree with the comments Mike has made.

Essentially, the challenge that I believe we have right now is that we don't have a good way of understanding what's happening in the housing market and the role that federal programs are actually playing in delivering housing. We don't track this very well.

I will give you an example. In the city of Toronto, we had a groundbreaking ceremony about 12 months ago, and the city council showed up to celebrate this groundbreaking. The mayor talked about the money that the City of Toronto was putting into the project through DC forgiveness, but in fact, that DC forgiveness money was coming from the housing accelerator fund program.

The DCs were the tipping point between the viability of the project and the project not being viable. The link between the housing start and the role the federal program played was not made on the ground, and I don't think it was picked up in any way. Also, I don't think it has been tracked in any way, the relationship between that funding and that program.

Of course, now we are in a different landscape around DCs in Ontario, but that link wasn't made. If we don't understand what's happening on the ground and where housing starts are being driven, there's a risk that we won't have the kinds of programs in place that are actually driving housing outcomes, or that we'll get rid of the programs.

The second key point is that the investment decisions are not made at the moment when we count the housing starts. To the point Mike made on the example that I gave, the investment decision was made five years earlier. Given that we've gone through an incredible period of uncertainty over the course of the past five years—a series of outcomes that some anticipated but others didn't—there is a reluctance to make any kinds of investments.

What is the policy context going to look like five years from now? What is the policy framework going to look like once a developer goes to apply for MLI Select or ACLP? We don't know that, so how can an investment decision be made? Right now, the industry very much has its pens down: There's too much uncertainty and too much risk.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thanks to both of you for that.

I really appreciate your comments about certainty. Capital requires some measure of certainty before being invested, particularly in a longer-term play like housing. I'm not sure people realize how long a term a play like housing development is.

Just quickly, Ms. Keesmaat, can you, in the context of Toronto and some of the projects you've seen in your career as a director of planning.... I'm sorry, but I don't know what you called it in Toronto. Was it maybe the “commissioner of planning”? I can't remember.

[Jennifer Keesmaat]

I was the chief planner.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

In your role now of actually getting homes built, what's the timeline? How long does it take from start to ribbon cutting?

[Jennifer Keesmaat]

It depends on the complexity of the project and whether we're talking about a low-rise residential home or a low-rise residential subdivision versus a one-storey tower, or what we would call in Toronto a “complex” project, one that usually involves multiple towers and a significant amount of public realm and infrastructure investment. It depends on where you sit on that spectrum, but it's rare that any project, even the simplest one, takes less than five years.

We have a large-scale project on Bayview Avenue. It's 12 buildings over multiple hectares. It involves building out new sewers and new roads. That project has taken almost seven years to get the shovel into the ground. It will take another 10 years to build out the project. A piece that's often—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rosemarie Falk]

Thank you very much, Ms. Keesmaat and Mr. Aitchison.

We will move on to the Liberals.

MP Villeneuve, you have six minutes.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Madam Chair, thank you and good morning.

Ms. Keesmaat, in your opening statement, you mentioned that we're obviously going through a period of greater economic uncertainty. I think everybody can agree about that. Could you talk about the impact this uncertainty is having on housing starts and how it could be mitigated?

[Jennifer Keesmaat]

The biggest impact on certainty, to the point of the previous questions, is that it's incredibly difficult for capital to invest in a long-term project when it doesn't know what the outcomes will look like at the end of that project. The biggest risk right now is that capital sees the instability and is unprepared to back and invest in housing projects. That is the biggest risk right now.

That can be mitigated. One of the highest costs, other than soft and hard costs, on any project is actually government costs at all levels of government. Development charges have been talked about at length at this committee. As an example, the costs and uncertainty in the regulatory process, but also those associated with government fees, could be addressed through the government.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Collins‑Williams, I heard you say earlier that development charges account for 30% of costs. That was what you said, right? I wonder if you could tell me more about what's included in that 30% and what the federal government can do to mitigate that.

[Mike Collins-Williams]

Thank you for your question.

The 25% to 30% would encompass all taxes, charges and fees. That would include items like the land transfer tax; the GST in Ontario and other provinces; in some other provinces, the provincial component of the HST; and development charges, which are often the largest components of that stack of government-imposed charges.

In Hamilton, where I'm from, they have a development charge on a single detached home. It's just over $100,000. There are a number of municipalities in the GTA where it approaches $200,000 a door. These are significant charges, and they've increased significantly over the last couple of decades. In Hamilton, they're up 87% since 2021, and they were increased by just over 30% a couple of years ago, through one review of the background study.

We know that infrastructure needs to get built. Development charges are a component of that. I've been doing this for 20 or 25 years, and I often hear that growth needs to pay for growth. I'm appearing before you as an expert witness, and I can tell you I have no idea what “growth pays for growth” means anymore. The definition in 2005 versus 2015 versus 2025 and the different components that go into development charges have changed significantly over the last couple of decades, and, unfortunately, what we're including in development charges, at least in Ontario today, includes a variety of items that benefit the entire broader community rather than having that direct nexus between the new housing developments and the infrastructure required.

Unfortunately, that has created, in my view, a generational wealth transfer or generational inequity in which younger people are being saddled with the cost of infrastructure that previous generations were not. When that is paid for up front and in advance through a development charge on a new home, those younger people are often paying, putting it into their mortgage and amortizing it over 25 years for infrastructure that's being built to last 30, 40 or 50 years, rather than those costs being spread more equitably across the broader community and being a big spread over time.

The development charges system, in my view, is broken. I think we need development charges, and I think there's a role for them in terms of paying for infrastructure. This falls more in the provincial jurisdiction, but I certainly appreciate that this committee is interested and that the federal government, through the build communities strong fund, just a couple of days ago, on Monday, announced some of the parameters around the development charge reduction program. I'm hopeful that many municipalities in Ontario and my home municipality of Hamilton will participate in that program.

[Louis Villeneuve, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you very much.

During this study, we've heard some important discussions about the timing of when housing starts should be recorded and the fact that Canada measures them differently from other countries. In 30 seconds, could you share your opinion on that?

[Mike Collins-Williams]

Dr. Mike Moffatt, who I know appeared before the committee previously, has done some great research and analysis showing different stages that development charges are measured at. I think, on the low-rise side, when you get to the foundation stage, the lag isn't as significant as when construction starts. The challenge is the way that we measure it around the foundation and when the building comes up to grade.

When you're building those much larger buildings, whether it's in downtown Vancouver, downtown Toronto to an extent, and downtown Hamilton, you break ground. It takes potentially a year to dig down four or five storeys to do the excavation for the underground parking and, in some cases, another year to come back up to grade.

As I previously mentioned, it's a lagging indicator as it relates to the investment decision around a sale, but it's even a lagging indicator in and of itself as to—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Rosemarie Falk]

Thank you very much.

Madame Larouche, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank our two witnesses, Mr. Collins‑Williams and Ms. Keesmaat, for joining us this morning.

It's plain to see that it's getting harder and harder to find housing. This morning, there was some talk about a study on homelessness in Laval. Young families are having a hard time buying their first home. The issue of housing starts goes to the heart of something that every family needs: a roof over their heads.

I'll start with you, Ms. Keesmaat. For the past few years, we've seen Ottawa announcing new housing programs, yet the number of housing starts is still too low. You mentioned this, but I want to give you a chance to tell us more. Is the problem that there's not enough money, or is it that the federal programs are too complex? I'm pretty sure I know what your answer will be, but I'll give you a chance to elaborate.

[Jennifer Keesmaat]

Relevant to this question are the answers that Mike provided related to development charges.

At different stages in the process, there are different pressures on a development project. As an example, at the outset of a project, when making an investment decision, I would argue that one of the biggest risk factors relates to immigration policy. If immigration is going to continue apace or immigration is going to stop, that is going to have an impact on demand, and an impact on demand is going to have an impact on price. One of the biggest issues that developers find today is that it costs more to build a new home than they can sell that home for, so there's an issue around pricing.

There are uncertainties, of course, that are not controlled, like global wars and tariffs, and we've been impacted by tariffs on things like purchasing windows in the project that I mentioned at the outset. Cielo has been impacted. There's a whole variety of different factors. One of the biggest levers at the municipal level—there are two—is development charges, and to Mike's comments, development charges, I would argue, have lost their useful purpose. They have been used as a way to replace a larger strategy for investment in infrastructure.

An immigration strategy is a federal initiative and a federal responsibility. Thinking about how we develop and build infrastructure across this country is something that I would also argue is a federal responsibility. In the absence of having funding, municipalities have leaned too deeply into and too heavily on development charges, to the extent that they've added outrageous costs, almost to the point of absurdity, to delivering new housing. That's another factor that drives up the cost to build.

I think those are two critical factors.

The housing programs created at the federal level, such as the ACLP and MLI Select, and, if we talk about the not-for-profit sector for a moment, programs to incentivize transitional housing and not-for-profit housing also need stability, because often the timelines are longer for not-for-profit projects. If the program isn't going to be in place at the time of construction or at the time of drawing on a construction loan, that means the project can't advance. There are quite a few shovel-ready projects in the not-for-profit sector as well that are caught in the instability and the changes in federal programs. Hopefully, BCH is going to play a critical role in changing that, and we're on the cusp of change, but I think those are some of the key factors.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much. You added some very pertinent details. The impact of the tariffs is another thing that needs to be considered.

You talked about federal responsibility for housing, but obviously, there are some things that Quebec and the provinces are responsible for. Some municipalities in Quebec say that the federal programs are too onerous and are hindering projects.

Do you think it would be more efficient to transfer the money directly to the provinces and Quebec for them to administer in accordance with their priorities? What I mean is that they're more familiar with their own needs in terms of starts and housing.

[Jennifer Keesmaat]

One of the challenges I think we face nationally is that different provinces play very different roles in housing delivery.

In British Columbia, for example, BC Housing plays a critical role in housing delivery. We have nothing equivalent to that in Ontario. In Quebec, housing is delivered, again, in a fundamentally different way. This is one of the reasons devolving to the provinces carte blanche is challenging; in some instances there isn't the infrastructure at the provincial level to play a role in precipitating housing starts in a substantive way. I would argue for a differentiated approach based on the capacity of each province to participate in driving housing starts.