Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for joining us today.
Mr. Ness, I'm going to start with you and your presentation. I'm going to focus on zoning and building codes. You made comments and recommendations about transparency as well, and about risk and loss and how transparency is important for communities and individuals.
My constituency was hit with a massive hailstorm. We had up to $1.5 billion in damage, with 35,000 homes damaged. One area that we identified was the roofs. If we had had better and more resilient roofs, we could have prevented damage to those homes, and potentially 35,000 home insurance claims could have been avoided.
When it comes to building codes, municipalities have a role and our provincial governments have a role. We had an extensive dialogue on this issue. The City of Calgary came forward with a resilient roofing program, which was very successful and actually was nationally recognized.
When you're in Calgary, you're in hailstorm alley. These storms come, and they're ferocious and do a lot of damage. Wouldn't it make sense to maybe mandate resilient roofs and provide incentives for homeowners to do this?