Human Resources committee  I think what I would say is that the targets are really important. To be able to say that we need 3.5 million houses over the next decade starts to point out everything that needs to fall into place in order to get there. We have a labour shortage that didn't just materialize ov

Human Resources committee  I think the industry feels very positive. I wouldn't call it pressure; I would call it support. This is something we've been talking about for a long time. We've been talking about the issue of accelerating house prices since long before the pandemic. This became a much bigger

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, or CHBA, and representing some 9,000 member companies in the residential construction sector, I thank you for the opportunity to provide the association's input on the development of the housing accelera

Human Resources committee  Maybe I can start off and pass it on to Mike. It's definitely something we've been very active in, because it's critical that we get the next generation interested. We have quite a few initiatives in this area, just to encourage and overcome different barriers and perceptions. I

Human Resources committee  Sure. I'm happy to talk about that. With regard to inclusionary zoning, in principle the challenge is really just making sure that if you're going to allocate and require a certain amount of housing to be affordable housing.... There are different levels of affordable housing. A

Human Resources committee  I could jump in, if you like, and start in the residential sector.

Human Resources committee  This is not a surprise to us. This is not new to us. This is something that has been of concern for quite some time and something we've been talking about. We don't rely heavily, as a sector, on foreign workers as much as we do on immigration. For example, we're not big users of

Human Resources committee  In addition to the delays.... They are due to labour, but pretty much every product you can think of that goes into construction is being held up in some way, shape or form. On top of that, what we've seen across the industry, like in many other sectors, is rapid price inflation

Human Resources committee  We're definitely seeing construction delays. As Mike mentioned, our housing market index is showing a delay of 10 weeks on average across the country. Remarkably, this past year, we had a very strong year in housing starts. We got 271,000 starts across the country under way. The

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's Kevin Lee here. I'm the CEO of the Canadian Home Builders' Association. CHBA is the voice of Canada's residential construction industry. We represent some 9,000 member firms from coast to coast, including home builders, renovators, trade contractors,

International Trade committee  I think what you are seeing in the United States are not only the supply and demand issues that are driving up prices, but also this added cost of the duties. As Mr. Lalonde outlined earlier, Canada is a huge source of lumber and historically a trusted trading partner, if you wil

International Trade committee  I suppose one could say that, unfortunately, they have been listening a lot to their own lumber lobby, which is why we're in the situation we're in, rather than following international law, in which case we wouldn't be in the situation we are in. Definitely it's something that

International Trade committee  We mostly have been working with our U.S. home builder counterparts, the National Association of Home Builders. They have an entire lobby and legal effort there. It's a very large organization, well organized, and doing some good work. To be frank, one of the challenges in deali

International Trade committee  We've certainly been engaged with the National Association of Home Builders in the U.S. over the years on this issue. They've been forthright from the start on their opposition to all of these tariffs, and have been quite vocal about it. We've lent support where we can, but this

International Trade committee  Certainly, from our perspective we've been very supportive of all efforts by the Canadian government to bring the softwood lumber dispute to an end. Mr. Lalonde has outlined very well the situation and how in all cases, at international levels, the courts have always sided with C