Transport committee  There is so much going on right now in the building codes and standards environment that we have a lot of challenges. We know we need to be more energy-efficient with greenhouse gas emissions. There's talk not just about carbon emissions, but about carbon embodied in buildings. T

Transport committee  That's the big public policy question of the day, isn't it? I think when it comes to affordability of individual housing units, as we look to this.... We've talked a bit about subsidies. It's going to be really important, when we look at regulatory changes, to make sure that the

Transport committee  I do think the idea of providing incentives where you have regionally specific climate events makes a lot of sense, because that will also help address the existing housing stock, which is so critical. We're talking about trying to double housing starts, so hopefully we'll add mo

Transport committee  The house operates as a system, so when you make certain changes to it.... For example, an easy one that people would understand is when you tighten a home for airtightness, you need to add ventilation. You put in heat recovery so that you still have fresh air, but now you have a

Transport committee  Yes. We're heavily engaged in the national building code process. Our association is at three levels—local, provincial and national. Of course, there's a move right now towards harmonization with the national building code, which offers opportunities. The national building code d

Transport committee  Good morning, everybody. Thank you for this opportunity today. CHBA is the voice of the residential construction industry in Canada, with more than 8,500 member companies from coast to coast. Our industry is responsible for more than 1.5 million jobs, $107 billion in wages and $

Finance committee  Yes, of course. We are heavily engaged in all aspects of building code development. Yes, the move to net-zero ready levels would have cost about $30,000 prior to the pandemic, but now that price escalation is upon us, it would be quite a bit more at this stage. We're definitely

Finance committee  I think what we really need to do is focus on the right people, and we need to listen to employers when it comes to immigration, as well, to bring in the right skills. Sometimes it's just the right disposition. In residential construction, we don't always need a Red Seal carpente

Finance committee  You're absolutely right. There was the mortgage deferral cliff that the past-president of CMHC was warning about, and nobody was agreeing with that at the time either. There's so much risk aversion right now with respect to the financial system writ large. We lost sight of the f

Finance committee  About 12 years ago now, we made our final march down, from 30-year amortizations down to 25, coming down from 40, which was probably too high. That last hit, from 30 down to 25, really knocked thousands of potential buyers out of the market. We suggest that it is time to return

Finance committee  When you look at it, certainly, if you are on the side that thinks the stress test is very good, you would say, “Look at the arrears rate.” Conversely, if you are on the side that thinks we need more Canadians able to buy homes, you'd say that the arrears rate is at a historical

Finance committee  Yes. Over time, we have seen starts tail off, for sure. What I'm saying is that our housing market index is suggesting they could drop by 30% moving forward. We're seeing the slowdown now. We look at the lag of sale starts.

Finance committee  It's pretty much everything I outlined. It has to come at it with a multipronged approach.

Finance committee  You're very welcome. I'm in Vancouver, so I didn't even know where I was going. It worked out okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak today. As you likely already know, we are in a construction slowdown thanks to the inter

Industry committee  Yes, all the time. A lot of the time municipal plans are actually in place and fine, and a development is going to start, and then the Nimbyism starts. The development actually complies with the plan, but local politics enter, and as I was saying earlier, for municipal officials