The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Why Can't Housing Developers Get Shovels in the Ground?

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Even before tariffs and higher interest rates pressured the economy, housing starts were lagging in Ontario's bigger population centres. A look at the obstacles to construction and affordability – including higher fees, taxes and even NIMBYism – with a panel of pros who know what the holdups are. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Supply, supply, supply. We have been hearing that this is the answer to Ontario's housing crisis. Until recently, there was no shortage of demand. Economic activity in the province may be slowing now, thanks to tariffs and related job uncertainty, but not enough homes were being built even when the economy was good and demand was higher. How come? What are the big obstacles to increasing that supply and getting more families into homes they can afford? For a closer look, we are joined by the cast of Ben Hur. Brad Carr, CEO of Madamy Homes Canada. Ene Underwood, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, GTA.

Jason Burgraff, Executive Director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association. David Wilkes, President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association. And Stephane Jiguerre, CEO of Ottawa Community Housing. And as I told everybody, we've got a big cast for a big subject today. So thanks to all of you, particularly you guys for coming in from the nation's capital to join us here at TVO tonight. Dave, to you first, before all of this economic uncertainty, the tariffs, the trade business, all of that, how big was the supply gap in the province of Ontario? So our bias is around the GTA, but we certainly had a supply gap that we had had with us in

the hundreds of thousands of units for some time. And what we've recently seen is because of the economic uncertainty that you mentioned, Steve, and because of a cost to build crisis that I'm sure that we're going to talk about today, we've just seen demand stop, right? And so the combination of the consumer not being certain of, you know, possible recessions and whatnot, combined with the inability to To purchase what the industry is able to offer because of that cost to build has really put the brakes on the industry Since you mentioned cost to build I forgot to mention and this is where I should mention that my brother is a homebuilder

In the province of Ontario in southern Ontario So we put that on the record for everybody's edification is it as bad in Ottawa as it is in the greater Toronto area? Yeah, Ottawa is facing very similar challenges. And I would add also some elements around complexities in terms of approvals and in terms of the layers that we have. From 40 years ago, 50 years ago, when our grandparents were building, it was kind of a three-step process.

You were acquiring a land, going for financing for the next 30 years, you know, with fixed mortgage rate, and you were building. Now, today, we talk about so many layers of regulation of financing, construction financing, to mortgage financing, and to refinancing. And in all of those layers, what is interesting is that there are a lot of financial interests. And it's important to recognize that we need to start thinking about looking at corridors or fast track lanes so that we can start building and looking at those regulations not as obstacles, but as an opportunity to really create that fast-track lane to go. We'll come back on that issue of rigs soon.

Jason, you wanted to add? Yeah, just to add in that even just before COVID, Scotiabank put out a report on Ottawa and the supply gap. And we were already 20,000 housing units behind before COVID. And then it's just gotten worse. Ottawa, like the city of Ottawa. 20,000 in Ottawa alone.

Before, just to catch up. And I think Scotiabank put out another report as well on the below market affordable housing and said that in this country we actually have to double the amount of below markets affordable housing that we have just to be at the G7 average. And so that's the other part of the supply conversation over the last few years it's what kind of supply, because the market has disproportionately delivered supply that, at least in the GTA, we've ended up with a lot of supply of the very small 500, 350 square foot condos that people don't want and not

enough of the family size units that people want and not enough of the below market housing that so much of the population needs. You're one of the biggest developers in this province. Are you guys moving any product these days? Well, we certainly are still selling, but we're not selling it anywhere close to the rate that we'd like to. And while we build a lot of houses here in the GTA and in Ottawa, we build right across North America.

And one of the things that we really like to highlight to anyone here in the province who will listen is this is the most difficult jurisdiction in North America to build homes. Ontario? Ontario. The fees are the highest and the approval timelines are the longest of anywhere we build. I got something on that. Can I call an audible here control room? Because you talk about approval times and we've got some cities here in the province of Ontario. Sheldon, I'm on page three now. Can we put this graphic up at the top?

Greater Toronto area, municipal approval timeframes. Okay, here we go. Barrie, 11 months. Whitby, 12 months. Oakville, 14 months. Brampton, 14 months. The city itself, the capital city, 25 months. Mississauga, 25 months. Caledon, 27 months. The city itself, the capital city, 25 months. Mississauga, 25 months.

Caledon, 27 months. Richmond Hill, 34 months. Does that feel like a long time to get stuff done? Well, those all feel like a long time and I hate to say it but that's only a portion of the full journey. Oftentimes, Steve, when we are buying land that is in an official plan, designated to be housing, it can take as much as five to seven years from raw land to someone moving in. What I find fascinating, whether it's a low-rise subdivision or a high-rise condo,

everybody knows construction takes a while. What they don't realize is it takes longer in Ontario to approve something than it does to build something. The physical construction is the fast part. Is it any easier for you, given that you're a well-known charity? Not at all. And so let's contrast this, because what you just heard Brad talking about will be subdivisions and multi-unit tower projects

for hundreds and thousands of new units. So the story for us, for a 12-unit, a 15-unit tower projects for hundreds and thousands of new units. So the story for us for a 12 unit, a 15 unit, a 50 unit development is going to be very similar. We've got a 33 unit mid-rise property in Toronto. We bought the property in 2019, understanding that it was almost shovel ready. They'd gone through two rounds of site approvals. We just needed to change it from a bunch of one bedrooms to family size units.

We will start that project this summer. Six years later. Six years later. And that is not unusual. Like I look at the numbers you put on the screen and think, I wish we could get approval from the time we acquire land to 25 months later. And keep in mind all of that time is money.

So, and what is the money? The money is our own staff, the money is the outside consultants that we're hiring, the money is the people on the municipal approval side that are going through things again and again. And all of that money, the money is the financing cost. And all of that money adds up to, for us as a nonprofit provider, how many homes can we actually deliver? Why has it taken so long?

I think it takes so long because of, we've got two challenges. We have a culture challenge. It's easier in some cases to say no than yes. We have a resistance within existing communities for change as well. All human nature things and let me just put a fine point on what Ian and Brad have been saying. The average in the GTA, the average if you look at the chart that you had for approvals is 23 months. We know it can be faster. We look elsewhere

even within our own province. London is at 5, Calgary 4, Vancouver 7, Edmonton 3.4 months. They are moving things along much faster and... So what are they doing that we're not doing? So there's two things that they're doing. We look at Edmonton for example, they've used artificial intelligence. Whereas some of the, you just look at the application complete, right, of the checkbox. They're limiting the number of studies that need to be done. We've seen the province move in this direction with the recent Bill 17 that was introduced a

couple of weeks ago. So there's streamlining and where I also see that there's opportunity and we look at Mississauga and Vaughan and its early days they have a phrase three strikes and you're in, right? Which is a turn around of course on the baseball phrase But if an application is looked at three times, it's approved. You can't go for round and round and round of circular requests and not get to a decision. And I'm sure Brad could offer a perspective on that. But the cost is real, Steve.

It's around $2,700 to $5,700 a month in added cost with those delays. And to put the fine point on it, that's after you have a complete application. That's after the developer has done their work and is moving through the municipal cycle. Did you want to add that perspective? I would just say that I have a line that I use a lot.

Speed is supply. We talk a lot about the need to add more land to the planning environment or designate more land for housing. We don't actually need to add more land to the planning environment or designate more land for housing. We don't actually need to do that right now. We need to speed up what we have. Dave talked about Edmonton. We build in Edmonton and what I find interesting is how those general economics of supply and demand prove themselves out between Edmonton and the GTA. In Edmonton the average price of a single family home

is 525,000. We turn over that land very quickly, we can build very quickly, we get approvals very quickly. And by the way, a DC is $36,000. Development charge. Development charge, thank you. Is that a lot or a little?

That is a little. In the GTA, it takes us, as you just pointed out, years to get approvals. Development charges are $180, as you just pointed out, years to get approvals. Development charges are $180,000 for an equivalent home, and the average price of the house is $1.3 million. What's going on? Can I build?

Sorry, Steve. Let me just build on Brad's numbers. If you look at the total cost put on by municipalities, sorry for my interruption, for a condo it's $225,000 to $250,000, and for a single it $225,000 to $250,000 and for a single it's $350,000 to $400,000. So DCs are just part of the challenge and that's where I think we really need to focus around that cost of building solutions for them. My apologies. Not at all, not at all. Jason, what do you see for development charges in Ottawa? Yeah, the scale is slightly different but the issue is still troublesome in terms of

DCs are somewhere between say $40,000 40 and 65 thousand dollars depending on what type of housing you're building and where it is located within in the core or outside of the suburbs but again we're still having the same sort of issues of the length of time it wasn't in the chart but Ottawa's approval timeline is 18 months so it's right near the thing and if you look at Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver like Dave said all of them are doing so much better you can't say that they're having a worse planning regime right than we are. And they're also producing housing.

They're putting up much higher units in terms of actual construction than what we are in Ontario. Stephane. And just to add something, when we're looking at the supply side, we have to look at the throughput. And one of the challenge right now is the economics are changing along the way. So for you know the audience it's important to realize that any chargers, any delay will translate

into a different type of an economic cycle where the risk will be greater, different and typically that's why you know builders will just with all their project because the risks are becoming too high. You start a cycle two three years earlier where interest rates are say at two three percent goes up to five you slow down your project you're still going through the permit application but yet your financing is not you know being approved or advancing or you're just deciding your board is suggesting to withhold and not advance because you know the cost of servicing the debt would be too high. So again the economics are very important and it's all attached

to that cycle and we have to look at planning financing all together and we need predictability in our sectors. And now if we bring this back again to the affordable housing providers. Affordable housing providers of course have been trying to work with all levels of government to reduce these fees that we pay and there have been a number of changes made. You paid development charges too? Well we did and so in Bill 23, which is now a few years ago, the Ontario government exempted non-profit housing developments from development charges.

But if we do a deal with Brad at Madamee, who's a for-profit developer, but if we can make an arrangement with Madamee together with municipality to buy some of the units in one of their development, those units are not exempt from development charges. Because when Ontario put that legislation through, they didn't contemplate those kind of opportunities to deploy the capacity of the for-profit development sector to build more affordable housing. So it's just so it's more time that we continue to take to get those kind of adjustments made

for the affordable housing side. And it's very important. The future is about the partnership between nonprofit co-op and the private sector. We have many deals in fact that we did with other corporations like Dreams. We're working with Matthew Perry's foundation right now in an hospital where we're transferring land. So the future is about building those type of partnerships where affordability will be reached but also the supply and the demand will be also met in those instances.

So partnering, building that capacity, and again having that funnel or that corridor to fast-track when we have a project where you can meet affordability, it shouldn't be facing resistance because of regulation. It should be in in fact, a catalyst for new regulation and changes. Can I add to that? Because I think there's a key partnership that we're all knowing needs to be discussed.

And that is the partnership between all three levels of government. Four, in some jurisdictions. What's the fourth? Regional. So municipal, regional, provincial, and federal. NCC and Ottawa on top of that. I think that what is unfortunate about the challenges

of unlocking the housing supply in this country is oftentimes the different levels of government are at odds with what they're trying to accomplish. And we need each level of government to participate. We're very encouraged by the fact that the federal government is finally entering the housing conversation. They've announced some really exciting ideas through their platform. We need to quickly see those become policy. But then what we need or what we perceive we need from our

lens is everyone to stay in their lane. It's when government kind of works at odds with each other and instead of complements each other that things slow down even further. Can you give me an example of how they don't stay in their own lane and how that has an adverse impact? So Bill 23, we'll go back to that, there were some parts of that that were designed to really speed up the municipal timelines. What the municipalities did in response to that is, or many of the municipalities, I shouldn't assume everybody's the same, but they basically said, okay, if we have to do that within that timeframe,

we're gonna go add this policy over here. So they put a pre-approval process in front of the process that they were told to speed up. Okay. I have heard people talk about inflation, and then I have heard them talk about housing inflation. And they are two very different things. And again, we're going to bring another chart up here because we want to show you what construction

inflation over the past six years has been like. There is an 80% increase in costs to put up an apartment building and a 100% increase in the cost of building a single-family home. That's running a little faster than the regular rate of inflation. David, why? So I think there's a number of factors why. There's the market-based factors around material, around land, around interest charges. Where we focus on from a bill is what is the influence that government is having on those

numbers and if you look beneath those, and we talked about this a little earlier, DC's have increased between 2011 and 2025 by 350 percent. So if those numbers are aggressive from an inflation perspective that certainly is. And so I think there is, there has you know the current market and to steal a phrase from history, you never miss a good crisis. This market is in a crisis. We have the lowest level of housing in the G7. Our population growth is outpacing the housing starts. It was beforehand, it

continues to be so now even with immigration being slightly lower than it was. So if we don't use this opportunity to change from the word crisis to take a hard look on the way that government treats housing then we're never getting out of this challenge. So the the construction costs that that we focus on is those that are influenced by government and we truly believe there's an opportunity to both temporary reduce DC's that we've seen in Vaughan and Mississauga but more importantly to structurally change the way DCs are calculated. There's a number of things that the province has put forward around the treatment of water and wastewater, the treatment of land, the treatment of things that are called community

benefits that could fundamentally lower those costs that are referred to by about 50%. Well, let me, okay, can I follow up Jason with you on that? One of the reasons municipalities say they need to impose these development charges is because someone's got to pay to put in the pipes, right? Someone's got to pay to set up all the services that come associated with housing developments. Who should be responsible for paying those if not the people who are buying the actual homes? So there's not a really issue with growth paying for growth overall, it's that

there's so many other items within a development charge in every municipality that is arguably not really about growth. Like in Ottawa, there are two prime examples. One is an Olympic quality swimming pool. Now, I'm not saying Ottawa doesn't need a swimming pool for that, for swim meets and tourist attraction and all that.

But the vast majority of that cost shouldn't be paid by new home buyers. It's a very specialized thing overall. The other is Ottawa's interest payments on its borrowing for LRT, the light rail transit, that first stage, homebuyers for the next 10 years who are only moving in now are paying the full cost of that interest payments because the DC Act allows you to do that. So homebuyers are coming in on cost of that interest payments because the DC Act allows you to do that. So home buyers are coming in on a system that's already been running for five years

and was built before that. Like you can't tell me that that's a strictly growth piece that only home buyers moving forward from today should have to pay for. Whose political decision was that? Who made that call? The city of Ottawa makes that call. Now the Development Charge Act allows them to do that,

which is also hopefully one of the changes we'd like to see in that the province has also said in Bill 17, you know, we're going to start scoping down what you can put into a development charge, specifically, I think, to work on items like that that really are arguably not strictly growth-related. Brett? I think that what's important is that we look for models right

across North America that are working in functioning differently There are lots of examples for how development growth is paid for in other jurisdictions For example in many of the markets that we work in in the United States There's something called community district development bonds. We're essentially you finance growth for a specific node where essentially you finance growth for a specific node privately and then you add that on to the property tax bill of those homeowners for the next 50 years. Great way to have the private sector do it. Private sector is highly motivated to do it very quickly,

very cost effectively, because the reality is those CDD charges, as they're often referred to, are a competitive advantage for your community. The lower they are, the more likely you're going to be able to sell your homes into the open market. When you have a competitive element for your development charges versus one that's just a tax, you're likely going to deliver them cheaper. Are they considering that at Queen's Park, a similar kind of instrument?

We're certainly having conversations with the new minister, and we're very impressed again with the open-mindedness to solving this crisis. Can I build on that? So the answer is here. Yes, is what there is. So within Bill 2017 the water and wastewater model that they're looking at is exactly what Brad had talked about and has been done in Quebec, Texas as well as in Florida. And not to get too weedy here, but what it does is, rather than charging for the water and wastewater that is required for new development, all within the DC, the development charge, not paid by the first homeowner,

spread that over the useful life of the asset. So make it over a 25-year period, treat it like a utility, so those that are actually using the wet water and wastewater services, so if someone buys a home and is in it for five years they pay for it then they sell it the next person for in the next ten years pays it so there are changes that are being contemplated excuse me and land is another one rather than compensating municipalities for estimated land that

they'll need for things like libraries compensate them for the actual land that is purchased so make it more precise and, I want to build on a point that you asked earlier. We're not arguing that DCs play a role. Municipalities need to have the monies that they need to facilitate growth. It's in everybody's best interest, our industry, the new home buyer, the community. But what we were arguing is that this act has not been updated since 1997, much like the HST, which I suspect we'll get into a bit later. It's time for a change and those two changes alone around the treatment of water and waste water and the treatment of land fundamentally reduce DCs. Yeah, Dave hit the point on the utility model. I mean that's how we deliver

electricity infrastructure, that's how we deliver gas infrastructure to new communities. So it's just the same sort of principles overall. If you took water, wastewater out of the development charge, at least in Ottawa, that's a third of the cost of that charge right there, right off the top of the purchase price. And on your fees question, and Dave is now hit on it, then there's the GST component that in the line of the federal election we had both the leading parties make a commitment to get at GST and new homes That's critically important

But when you think of the the run-up of housing prices over the years that has meant GST the GST component has continued to grow and grow and grow which has been this exponential increase in housing prices Including on us at Habitat for Humanity because we paid GST and HST based on the full market value of the homes. Don't you get it back though? We do not get it back. Rental, yes, we don't. So for every five homes we build at Habitat GTA, we'd build another one if we weren't paying GST and HST. Now the good news from this last federal election is now the government has made a commitment to move on GST. Now we'll be urging them move fast on that and make it for all new homes, not just for first-time home buyers,

in order to have the impact that we need on the market. If that's a financial change, a tax change, does that not normally happen at budget time and isn't the budget not coming out till November, in which case you all want fast action but that doesn't sound fast to me. Well this government has made a commitment about a middle-income tax cut effective July 1 2025 and I would certainly challenge them to make the same commitment for GST on new homes. I love the way you looked in the camera. I hope you're listening. Mark Carney and your team in Ottawa. I think what's really important about that is just to understand how right at this moment, at a time when we need housing moving for this country, we're way behind in starts,

there's one of the things that you said earlier, David, is you said there isn't demand. I believe there's fundamentally demand. I mean, I believe that demand is locked up and frozen right now. And one of the reasons why it's locked up is because of the promise of a substantial tax cut It's an unintended consequence of a good thing that at a moment when we need people buying houses They're saying I'm gonna wait and see if this tax cut comes So I agree let's get that unlocked and get that one off the table No exactly what I was gonna say, we're seeing it right away. Once even just the HSC promise came out,

people were calling me up asking, how do I get it? Like, how do I get that discount off this house? But we've had builders in Ottawa saying, there are no first-time buyers in sales centers anymore. Because, of course, they're waiting for this promise to kind of come through. So it is the uncertainty and how long this drags out is just going to kill the market even more than we already are.

Last time we did this subject on this program, we had Mike Moffat on. You guys in Ottawa would certainly be aware of him. Actually, everybody's aware of Mike Moffat now because he's all over the place talking regulatory reform and other things that need to happen in order to get housing going. Here is some of what he had to say.

Sheldon, if you would. A lot of it has to come with sort of right-sizing our regulations. You know, we've seen, you know, we talk a good game when it comes to density, but, you know, we're not kind of allowing the sort of family-friendly density we need. We need changes to building codes.

A lot of the great, you know, small apartments that we love when we go over to Europe aren't legal here. We need to change that. I think one of the biggest things that we love when we go over to Europe aren't legal here. We need to change that. I think one of the biggest things that we need to change is development charges and taxes which can take up about a third of the cost of constructing a home in the GTA. Okay, Stefan, we've mentioned some of those things here. Anything else you'd put on the list of regulatory reform?

Yes, affordability because everything that we're talking about, any layers that we want to remove, right now is playing against affordability across the spectrum. And it created, Brad, you touched on it, you know, that gridlock effect that I call in every segment of the market, you know, you own a million dollar home, you're not selling it because, you know, if you're selling it, you may have selling it because you know if you're selling it you may have to reduce you know your foot square footage to get something that is a more expensive and then you know you go down and you have renters that they are not able to rent up because you know people are not moving to home ownership and then you have the people that they are in the deep

affordability that they were waiting also to move in term to habitat to amenities or to you know a rent that would be affordable somewhere but now you have to move elsewhere from the GTA the core downtown of any areas like in Ottawa people are moving an hour away from Ottawa to find affordability the same in Toronto right now. So it's creating a lot of pressure on the transit system. It's creating pressure also on the families and in terms of all of the services that you need to build because you need to service now those areas that they are way away from the core downtown. Let me raise another factor here if I can, an acronym you all know and love.

Dave, NIMBYism not in my backyard never heard of it yeah how much of a factor is that a play here I think there's that's always going to be a factor I think it's part of the the the what we have as a community is that people resist change whether it's a new housing development new roads it really is something that is just part of who we are I think. I think where it becomes a factor is when it's responded to in an exaggerated way and we see this mostly at the municipal level. It leads to some of the changes that, sorry the delays that we've talked

about earlier. We're local councillors and you know I want to be honest but and fair but it's easier to respond to somebody that's living there as opposed to the somebody that is wants to live there. So it is definitely a factor. I think there's a change and a recognition though without new housing we are affecting the economic strength of our communities and the social fabric. So hopefully we will see some more courage out of our local politicians in order to balance the needs of existing... Well, it's not just local politicians. I've heard the Premier say, look it, there's no way we're putting floorplexes up in residential neighbourhoods. Can I double-click?

That kind of densification is necessary, isn't it? 100%. And I'll just jump in and really double-click on what you said, Dave. To solve a housing crisis, you actually need to focus on home seekers, not homeowners. Our entire system is designed to give an amplified voice to those who already own a home.

And we need to change the conversation, I believe, in Canada to where we're really focusing on our kids, our grandkids, and thinking about those people who are coming who will be priced right out of the housing market if we don't add supply. But they don't live in a politician's riding right now. Today. And I think the last time I checked the best best way to get reelected is to think four years at a time, not decades at a time. To solve a housing crisis, you have to imagine things that need to be put in place today to ensure the health of the country in 10 years from now and 20 years from now.

Yeah, and I think, so I do think we're making some progress on NIMBYism, and some of that is being through regulation, like in Bill 23 the the change that was made that if you're building anything that's 10 units or less you can go straight to build permit you don't need site plan approval so it's a small thing that changes it so I think we're making some progress but but I think Brad has put it exactly right we need to shift this to be future home occupants. But in Mike's comment that you had earlier, he talked about the increasing regulation. And Dave and I were on the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force

a couple of years. One of the things that we pointed out in that is that the Ontario Planning Act, which is the act that kind of sets the general framework for anything that gets built, in 1970 it had 17,000 words. In 2020 it had 96,000 words. In 2020 it had 96,000 words. How many good ones? And that's only one of the acts that prescribes the work

we do on the ground to build homes. And so that then translates into all these personnel that are working through all of those words and regulations. And as was referred earlier, the conflict that creates between all the different people and the lack of coordination is also what slows things down. So to use a quick example, we have a development in one of these upper tier, lower tier municipalities.

Went through a whole process with the lower tier, including neighborhood opposition, was already going to build permit. and then it was discovered that they had forgotten to share it with the upper tier engineers. Who's the they? The lower tier municipal planners had forgotten to share it with upper tier engineers. When upper tier engineers looked at it, they had a different view than lower

tier on that whether there's enough room for fire trucks. So then we have to redesign to create more room for fire trucks. That causes the building to move back and then the conservation area behind the property says well now you're impinging on the environmental considerations. So this is just a microcosm of what all of us deal with and my observation is the challenge in our desire to get everything right, what it has meant is that housing is what comes last after you've considered environmental, transit, traffic, neighborhood character, historical,

after every possible other consideration is taken into account Whatever little piece is left is what you get to build and that's not the way to respond to a crisis speaking about whatever little Piece is left. We have a minute left. So Jason, let me go to you on this. I Don't know how you satisfy both Constituencies in this housing crisis the people who are currently in the market who do not want to see a diminution of the value of their property, plus satisfying the people who want to see

a diminution in housing crisis, because how else are they going to get in? How do you resolve that? It's supply. Like, there's been a lot of talk about prices kind of coming down, but without more supply, it doesn't matter. Like, I often speak about my 90-year-old neighbour.

She can't move out of her family-oriented... Like, she's in a house that's meant 90 year old neighbor. She can't move out of her family oriented. Like she's in a house that's meant for five people, but she can't move out. There's no alternative for her to go. Okay. Prices go down 20%. What odd she still that dynamic hasn't changed for her. She still doesn't have anywhere else to go. So it's really supply, supply, supply.

Like you said, right off the top. That is the thing that's going to change the change the equation. Stefan. I will add to this the right type of supply, because we're seeing also larger families where four, five bedrooms is a requirement. And we're one of the rare ones in Canada building right now in that type of model, where typically you will

have seen two, three bedrooms. And clearly, we need to adapt also to our demographics and making sure that everyone together, and this is where partnership is very important, where the economic models are there for the two, three bedrooms, and the nonprofit and the co-ops and the housing sector can be there

to service the specific need that some families have in Canada. Do you know, Brad, I do have one last question for you. Matamé Homes, right? Named after Matt and Amy. Correct. But Peter had and me homes, right? Named after Matt and Amy. Correct. But Peter had a third kid, right? Well, he actually had six more.

He had six more. Well, are they not unhappy about the fact that they're not named in the name of the company? Well, if that was our only problem, Steve, I think we'd be in really good shape. Good point. Mr. Director, can I get a wide shot, please, as we thank all five of you for coming into TVO tonight and helping us out with this.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.