Finance committee  There were quite a number of females. There were a number of newcomers and a lot of youth at risk, youth with barriers to employment, so thinking outside that box and giving anybody and everybody an opportunity.... If you don't mind, Mr. Chair, just for a second, I don't mind us

Finance committee  There's only so much capacity. It can only do so much. Going back to my statement, industry has been working at 120% and 130%, so just—

Finance committee  From my perspective and an industry perspective, we need skilled people.

Finance committee  That becomes immigration and training.

Finance committee  In my opinion, there's way more to that. The construction time on site was a little faster, but if you look at it from start to finish, it was no faster. It may have been a little longer. The cost of production was more—

Finance committee  For sure.... Why couldn't we build it here? Why are we importing? Why couldn't we be building that modular here with something similar to what we're doing? We have to train people. We have to get people to create employability skills. Last year in my own programs that have been

Finance committee  There's been a decrease for sure. I think the latest CMHC report speculated that, as an industry, we need to build 3.5 million more homes than what the industry has the capacity to build. Again, going back to the capacity of the industry, we don't have the people to build it—end

Finance committee  That's a great question. First off, I have to ask: Are you looking for work? I've got a job for you.

Finance committee  It's tremendously important. We've been saying for years as an industry that sitting at the table and talking about what's going to be rolled out in the future is more important now than ever before. Not only are we looking at federal programs and provincial programs; we also hav

Finance committee  That's a great question about the rising costs and how we're going to get them down and what the process involved is with industry being in such demand. For 20 years plus, we did not send our people to construction. We sent our youth elsewhere. The trades were very heavily impact

Finance committee  Yes. Back about a year ago, we created a platform. The number one thing that we heard about from our members here in P.E.I. and across Canada was the shortage of labour. How do we create labour? How do we create employability skills? We've been working for a number of years wit

Finance committee  Yes. Everything we do today costs more money. From the person who is planting the tree to the person who is cutting it down to the person who is driving the truck to the person who is milling it to the person who is building the house—it all costs more. We've seen about a 30% in

Finance committee  There are a lot of really great projects out there, and there are many winners. Every new project is a winner because it's creating housing.

Finance committee  I don't currently have the exact number, but we do know that a few projects have come through that fund. You have to remember that, from an industry perspective, the availability of industry to build more is just not there. You can have all the announcements in the world, but if

Finance committee  Good morning, and thank you very much for the opportunity to present here this morning. To build P.E.I. and Canada together—between economic uncertainty, the high cost of living, a workforce shortage in essential industries including construction and a housing crisis—Canada is