National Defence Committee on Nov. 30th, 2023

[Serge Tremblay]

Thank you. I would have to get back to you to provide those details. Off the top of my head, I cannot comment on a delay of that nature.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I appreciate that. Would you be able to comment perhaps on what measures would be taken through the department to ensure there are faster turnaround times, so that those types of renovations can be done more quickly?

[Serge Tremblay]

If it's for a simple—well, simple.... If it's for a “march in, march out”, which is a turnover of occupancy from one to the other, the turnover timing is not very challenging. I would conjecture that for a larger turnover of this nature, there's either a larger degree of intervention required in the house or there's a problem.

Again, I can't really respond directly to that particular question. I will get back to the committee as far as the lengthy preparation time that was quoted here.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Okay. I appreciate that. Any information you are able to get to us with, of course, will be a help. I might not be sitting here the next time that information gets here, but I know my colleagues would certainly appreciate that.

Quickly, with some of the time that I have, I'd like to talk about how this whole situation impacts retention. I think it was during Mr. Bezan's remarks that you noted the gap that we're seeing in terms of how many people we need to fill the positions we have. I'm wondering if you could put that back on the record. How many vacancies are there, and how big is that gap?

[Serge Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, I mentioned earlier the principles of the CDS to justify the housing program for DND. One of those principles was “unique military lifestyle”, and I would call particular postings for senior members who have to be posted to a given location as part of that. Those numbers are integrated into the numbers we were talking about.

Depending on the nature of the position we're talking about, occasionally they get attributed with something we call a “designated residence”. That means that the individuals are given a specific address for that position to which they are posted. This is something that we maintain directly with the chief of military personnel, and those can be requested directly as required.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I don't think I have much more time. I'll maybe ask this quickly.

With regard to the inability to find adequate housing—people who are losing money—do you have any comments on those who are either already members of the armed forces or those who are interested in joining and how an issue like this, obviously becoming more and more public, would impact those wanting to join or wanting to stay?

[Rob Chambers]

Mr. Chair, I'll just mention something that we commented on a bit earlier in the meeting. There is a whole range of accommodations available to a member, and sometimes their families, over their lifetime in the forces. With regard to those quarters that are available or of interest to someone who's just joining, someone a little bit younger maybe, my colleague mentioned the benefits that are provided to them to help them pay for.... Well, in fact in certain circumstances, they don't have to pay for the costs of their room and board.

There is an entire accommodations program here that offers different things to different people as they move through their careers. From a recruitment perspective, I guess I would recommend that folks take the time to talk with us to find out those options. The housing crisis that's affecting people like you and me is not necessarily going to show up the same way for everyone who's looking to join the Canadian Armed Forces.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Melillo.

Mr. Collins, you have five minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I have a quick question on the whole issue related to the stock in terms of its built form. I served for over a decade on our municipal non-profit...prior to my election here. I know that the most expensive types of housing to maintain are the singles and the semis. As an organization, we gravitated away from singles and semis and tried to build more medium and high-density housing.

Through you to the witnesses, what percentage of the housing stock managed by the agency is singles, semis, and I guess medium or high density?

[Serge Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, I do not have those statistics available. I can definitely return that information to the committee.

I would, however, comment on the fact that all of the new forms we have been building—the numbers I quoted earlier and for the foreseeable future—will be more densely built forms, very much for those reasons. It's not just for operations and maintenance, but also to reduce the departmental custodial load, as far as having additional houses is concerned.

If I could have one building with 12 apartments in it, it would be much better than having 12 singles, so we are on that path at this moment.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Great. I know that because of the location of wings and bases, in some cases you're faced with infrastructure challenges. I've met with many rural housing providers in my time here, in all provinces and territories, and they highlight the fact that it's not just about building the house or the stock in a medium- or high-density form. There are water and waste water issues. There might even be other infrastructure issues, like transportation.

Do you run into those as an agency in trying to accommodate housing needs in areas outside of urban centres?

[Serge Tremblay]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

Yes, we do, but we have the benefit of being located within Mr. Chambers' group, which is responsible for that municipal infrastructure. As we've been progressing with the acceleration of our construction program, we have been going for what we would call the low-hanging fruit in the sense that we are targeting infill development in locations where we already know the servicing can be provided by the base or wing. That will give us the time to work with our colleagues in the real property operations group to put in place the infrastructure to support our remaining growth.

Here's the perfect example. In the last two or three years, the RP ops group in Edmonton has been extending the local municipal infrastructure for us to plug in the apartment buildings that we plan to be tendering in the next couple of months and start construction on very soon.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

That's great to hear.

I want to talk about the pandemic. You mentioned that earlier. Looking back on my time on our city's housing board, we were substantially impacted by the pandemic. It impacted our ability to get into units and make the necessary repairs. There was a reference made earlier to the condition of the units. When there were provincial lockdowns—I'll highlight that they were provincial—our staff had challenges getting into those units to make timely repairs.

We were also subject, obviously, to the provincial rent freezes that were extended to all landlords. That created, for an organization much like yours, which relies on rent revenues to pay for maintenance...it impacted our ability in future years to, again, undertake necessary repairs that were delayed through the pandemic.

Can the committee get a glimpse of how the agency was impacted by operating under standard operating procedures with the pandemic in place, and what you've done coming out of the pandemic to make up for lost time?

[Serge Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, throughout the pandemic, as the member mentioned, we minimized the amount of time we interfaced with the houses as much as possible. We tried to not go into the homes. We only did emergency repairs over the course of that period of time.

We saw the effect in the sense that we were getting eyes on all of our assets on a regular basis in a cyclical way, as we normally would. We saw some degree of degradation, hence the numbers we've seen of more houses in “below average” condition.

In addition, our houses continued to age, regardless of the pandemic, and some of the older homes...our condition assessment template doesn't count for the aging of the asset. We had a very large investment in our housing portfolio back in 2015-16 from the federal government. We built those houses, and after five years, they fell into a category that is no longer new, but now they're average. That is a degradation in condition that is simply the passage of time. Unfortunately, that five-year window hit during the pandemic, so it was a double whammy as far as why our condition dropped.

Since the pandemic, we have put the ship back on track. As I mentioned earlier, our “below average” housing numbers are decreasing, and we are getting back into those houses and catching up on those inspections that we missed.

As some of the members mentioned, in our case, the housing portfolio is inspected by our public servants. We contract those services out, but we have our personal eyes on them and we take care of them directly, so I'm very confident in the condition of our assets.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

That brings to a conclusion our third round.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for your participation. It starts our study off on the right foot.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Can we do one more round? We have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm open to that if others are. We finish at 5:30, so that's 15 minutes. Divided, that's five minutes for each party. That's way too much for down there.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

It's too much math.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I am okay with doing that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We'll have four minutes each.

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you. I will be quick.

We hear stories all the time of people struggling to pay for homes, especially in Esquimalt, Cold Lake, and, as we're also hearing, in Halifax.

I just had a couple who transferred from Shilo to Halifax with the Canadian Forces. They are living out of a camper because they can't find a home. I know a young guy from my hometown who has been serving in Esquimalt for 10 years. He and his wife live in a one-bedroom apartment with a young family. To afford that one-bedroom apartment, on top of being a 10-year veteran of the Royal Canadian Navy, he has to work a second job to make ends meet. We need more homes. We can be either part of the problem or part of the solution.

When you talk about the Canada Lands Company and about federal assets that we can build more homes on, have you looked at everything from private-public partnerships to getting more expenditures from the government? You talk about $40 million for capitalization. Has that $40 million changed in the last number of years? Has there been a flat set rate?

Has the ask gone in that we have to build 7,000 more homes, we want to do that over the next X number of years, so we need this much more in expenditures to get those homes built? If we can't get it from the government coffers, can we do it through private-public partnerships?

[Rob Chambers]

Mr. Chair, I would say there are three lines of effort that we're currently working on right now. There's the Crown housing, which is what the agency is delivering directly for CAF members and their families. There is the capital funding—public funds—that's made available to them, which they're implementing. They have a construction program; we've talked about that a little bit already.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Well, we talked of 20 homes a year. That's nothing.