I am going to make you even more disappointed. The situation is even more disastrous.
In the past two weeks, three or four home builders have gone bankrupt. They were selling their products only in Quebec. I will not name anyone here, but my group, the QWEB, includes home builders and structure manufacturers, such as Maisons Laprise.
The problem is that Alberta is the main importer of houses. Why is that province importing houses from the U.S. when we could provide them with houses and we could do the same in eastern Canada or in British Colombia? It is because of the price. It is cheaper to bring the homes from large U.S. factories that produce small standardized units in large quantities. We need to change our business model. In the prefabricated homes sector, our business model comes from companies like Maisons Laprise, Modulex-International Inc. and Viceroy Homes. They work with smaller and more specific contracts.
We must change our model, produce more and adopt standards. We need to change our structure to be able to increase our productivity, reduce our prices and become competitive. There might be fewer businesses, but they will be larger. The small ones will continue to operate on the local market. Once we leave our local market, we must be competitive. To do so, we must invest, whether in development, innovation or robotics. We must integrate into these new markets.
The reasons are clear: we have not been competitive and we need to be. That is the goal of the project.