Thanks for the question.
I'll focus on the issue you raised with respect to the ideas we put forward about how to build more homes in Canada.
The investments by the government to date in terms of the Canadian housing strategy have been very important. In our report, we talked about the fact that the ability to build those homes requires attention to workforce development. This is where we're seeing incredible challenges with respect to impending retirements.
The average age of a construction worker is 55 years right now. One of the issues we raised was how we can work with the Canadian public college system to develop more pre-apprentice programs to support more students choosing to go into the trades to build the homes we need.
A related issue, and an issue related to this study, is the issue of how you leverage the opportunity to build better homes faster through innovation. One of our ideas has been to set up a housing challenge fund through the applied research program at NSERC, which would set a challenge for Canadian colleges to come together to develop innovative approaches to modular housing and different ways to look at building efficiencies.
This is where I guess I would respond to the question. I think we are very interested in finding ways to leverage the capacity of the applied college system and its partnerships with industry. Housing is one of the key sectors in which our members are very active, so how can we do that to leverage the housing challenge that we have right now?