#162: Developer Fees are Adding to Toronto's Housing Crisis.

i'm on the call

hi richard how are you

good morning how are you

i'm well i'm so excited to have you on because you are the president of the residential council of ontario construction council ontario and i wanted to talk specifically about what made you get into the sector as you've been in the sector since nineteen ninety one as i can recall

ah now you know that's an interesting question i started off when i was going to university and even prior to university i worked in construction now there were various sort of family

yeah

related businesses and that kind of thing and and i actually worked on job sites and and any

oh

number of jobs and it was good to me and i was able to for example get through university

oh

no family

yeah

money on that by the way it was

wow

it's all you know that's

yeah

part of our i guess tradition but you know

yeah

i was able to pay my tuis and pay

yeah

for an apartment have a car and

wow

and you know worked hard i often ended up going

oh

to she is with boots on and stuff like that and then

wow

after that i did a couple of things but my real goal was to work as a reptraderepresentative for the government and econom development and that was related to my studies and then

oh

so i did

yeah

that and spent some time doing that and for a number of years and then when

yah

i left

yeah

ver ment i came into the industry

oh

and

yeah

you know and it was something i was close to so it's near and

yeah

dear to my heart and of course

oh

i love the industry because i'm very you know i'm sort of h

m oh

i like to think i've got an intellectual side to me but i love the

you definitely

tact

do

yeah and i love the tactile element of things you know at college

hm

i was a roller i love chopping wood so it's sort of

out o way

um so it's been great and and and and of course relative to economic development housing is one of those

no

very unusual things in world it's

oh

a need

yeah

is not optional for most people it's the biggest thing that people spend money on and you know family and homes are critical to the well

m

being society in a community and things like that so it was attractive and you know i've been here since

i'm fascinated to know more about your time and university and how you kind of boot strapped your way through it you know even in today when we have really high tuition costs really high cost of living in general in our urban centers

yeah

there's a lot of talk about how unaffordable it is but one thing that i don't hear enough about is a really strong work ethic and

h

you know even back

m

in the eighties and nineties my parents even tell me you know they would always tell me you know you never come home with excuses you

uh

know what what you know if you didn't

oh

get the job what didn't you do right it's not the employer like how can you didn't measure up and so what can you tell me about that work ethic how did you develop that at such an early age

well i guess a few things i mean i'm probably one of the only members of my extended family on both sides that's ever worked for anybody else

wow

the so it's a deep entrepreneurial background very independent you know we don't

wow

get along right

yeah

lot up a lot of interesting

oh

family arguments and

sure

and

oh

so when it came to

yeah

university i know i was a truck driver i was a car jockey i

wow

did a couple of intremrial things in fourth year i started a lighting company uh

okay

you know i worked as an orderly in a porter in a hospital

wow

that was actually really good money i used to do every saturday night i do

ah

a double shift downtown toronto hospital um which

oh

got busy you know

yeah

the emergencies and stuff like that and and did that for a number of years also did some volunteer work too and and and then

oh

of course you know i had that interest in economic development um

oh

and because actually a good part of my youth it's a most of my youth was spent i

yeah

was in the curabean that's another

hm

story

on no way

but it was a great one and i went to high school where they had um justice under god it was a jesuit school and when you broke the rules you did hard labor they had all

wow

so projects on the go and and and so on and it was physical work and so i actually

oh

learned construction skills that way which came

oh

to good use when

yeah

you know and i went to where the money was right so

sure

you know i made money in those different areas that i worked at it at various times but construction a kind

i

of always stayed with me and

yeah

and and the real advantage of that was i learned what it's like to be in sub zero weather in very uncomfortable positions

mhm

you know knowing and understanding what it is that you know the people that build things that actually

yeah

do the building go through and the differences between the different elements that go into producing how so you've got the government role the

yeah

regulatory role you got the design role the architects and engineers and you have um you know the finance role and then you've

m

got

hm

land planning

ye

and all that stuff uh and and development role and then you

m

have the people that actually put up the buildings and they're they're

yeah

a pretty unique group within our society

yeah

you know some of the most independent people i know and the people

m

that have very insightful opinions

yeah

on things are skilled trades people the really good

m

ones because

yeah

they can get a job anywhere

m

and they don't

right

put up with any nonsense from anybody and

right

you know so some of the best political debates i've ever had have been on cob sites

uh

of all things right when i was

uh

when i

yeah

was doing doing my university work and you know an i pursued that and it was fun and i you know i had i learned a lot working in government in pauls and as an economic development officer so you know

yeah

one was really kind of at the center on what are the policies and programs and the delivery of those things but the other thing was actually deliver the programs the industry

m

and going out to factories and plants and things like that you know i can

yeah

remember when i was coming up we had you know government was doing some interesting stuff you know they put some money into little opera sons like black berry and max

m

you know

m

that

yeah

were these quirky little things that

m

became very big

yeah

things and so

yeah m

but you know coming down sin since you know i've been at this for a long time and and and really the the main problem with with the housing situation is systemic um

yeah

you know it's kind of like there's a thing called parkinson's law you know when when any entity is created whether it's private sector republic sect or it's going to seek to grow uh

hm

sometimes now in the private sector you've got a bottom line right and so

right

if you can't cut it you can't make a profit you're not goin to be in business for long in the public sector you don't have those it's of guard rails and you can have mission creep and we've

hm

had a ton of mission creep

m

over the earth and we've had you know further and further sort of int ventions in the market place and the problem with those is that when you lay intervention on top of intervention on top of intervention you

h

end up where we

m

are where we've got a glace

m

more abundduninnovative

yeah yeah

delivery system and and

ah

it's really stalled the market development of housing and you know less so the housing

oh

is so big

yeah

and construction is so big it's not something that government can sort

right

of take over you know the next

h

biggest thing is cars

m

and now i like i like to say that people imagine if the government was building cars

oh i wouldn't drive it

no it wouldn't wouldn't be able to it wouldn't work right so um and and the problem there is just that the market markets com native market spring a discipline

yeah

that you don't have in the public sector and the other problem is you know we do have competition laws but government s exempt from that but when competition

yeah

laws were introduced over a hundred years ago there wasn't really much in the way of government service delivery now we've got a lot of government and entities that are delivering services especially in the approvals area and for exam well building and development but there's no real disciplines there

oh

they're not subject to performance standards time lines things like that and it's

yeah

and then now we're at a point where got forty five different government agencies in

yeah

and in the approvals process and you know it's it's so hard to get really to get anything built and then you get two taxes fees and levies and that's that's the whole other story because

oh

we

yeah

you know we're now way out of whack on that

richard you mentioned

m

and we'll get to that and because i really want to discuss that with you but you mentioned the trades and you know this is one thing that i always kind of think about myself is when it comes to not only public policy and public servants but also when we think of the higher echelons and government ministers prime minister were seeing less and less people at least from me that are in the skilled trades going for those positions are at least getting to those positions and i

hm

why do you think that there is this kind of

m

reluctance to embrace skilled trades workers in terms

ah

government decision

m

makers but also in our society writ large i just feel like the police sometimes are written without that kind of knowledge

well you know you always have to understand the history of something to really break you know you got to break it down to understand okay

yeah

what's the problem now where did it come

yeah

from and what

yeah

do we need to do fix it i

right

think and there's a long history to this you know the post where era

yeah

you know

yeah

the the we won the war right so we were brilliant

hm

and we had we did that based on our ability to produce things manufacture and

yeah

innovate innovation was huge and so

m

after the war we had tremendous immigration

yeah

but there was this went into this world where science and technology could basically solve everything you know the jet sons right

yeah

sort of the space he

ah

family and all

yeah

that stuff is very big and so and then you the baby boom and and this explosion of wealth after the war to the g p

hm

numbers and productivity numbers were off the church so

yeah

a lot of

right

young people were naturally driven towards college

yeah

and well we didn't really have colleges and they came in the sixties but we had universities and

mhm

and that was the big drive and and

m

some other stuff and um gradually as we went

ye

through the sixties and seventies into the eighties the the vocational training elements in our school system were public education system were denewed uh

m

the and and and

yeah

you know we did benefit from a massive influx of skilled trades immigration that so we we really didn't have to go there

hm

and

oh

of course the whole income picture and everything else like that was

oh

changing dramatically

yeah

over time

yeah

uh and and so we lost that capacity

m

that's why you know only i think it's maybe maybe one percent

yeah

of high school graduates in canada are registered apprentices

yeah

you compare that to germany and it's a totally

ah

different story you know

oh

germany the average age of an apprentice is nineteen

m

were twenty nine years old

wow yeah

and we we lost that respect

oh

and part

yah

of it was the english cast system

oh

too like you know the trades

m

person was you go around at the back door or you don't

m

come in

eh

the front door and so so

how

now

interesting

as as time evolved the value of skill traces went up i mean just think about it you know when

m

when you get that pipe

yeah

that bursts in your house and the water is going

we

all over the place what

yeah

re you what are you going to pay a plumber to fix that pretty much pay him

she's

anything right

pretty much

you know

pretty much

and and so and then you know the price of housing went up

m

and then and then it really ran away i mean you know a few adjust

m

the cost of housing for inflation

m

relative to other products automobiles and so on and so forth for the last forty years you know housing is right off the charts you look

yeah

at automobiles on the other hand adjusted for inflation automobiles are no more expensive than they were fifty years ago

right

you're getting a lot you're getting a much better car now though right

definitely

your bags and all the technology and everything

yeah

so

yeah

so you know with with with housing

oh

and construction that was quite different and then so we we we lost that and now we've read and then and then for a long period of time it was kind of like what happened with transit you know we used to have the best transit system in the world

yeah

and we kept saying we did for about ten years after we didn't

yeah

because and so

yeah

the with respect to skill trades it was well young people don't want to enter the skill trades their lazy they don't

m

want to work hard and of course all that is mumbo jumbo i mean young people

all right

to day are

oh

as good as they ever were in eve generation

hm

always says the young people are lazy

m

and they don't want to do

yeah

things right because you know there's a lot of behavioral

oh

psychology that but

a

but we we we lost the ability in the pacity to introduce skill trades to young people

mhm

the system systemically still we do not utilize aptitude testing properly

m

we have a one size fits all process to direct hits towards colleges and universities we don't invest the resources time or effort into finding out how does that kid learn what are they really interested

hm

in and maybe they would be really good in the skilled trades and the skilled

yeah

trades now is not you know we're

m

often treated still it's funny as a as sort of an area of employment of

my

last resort and we're not you know

hm

skill the skill trades are is becoming you know a lot of technology

a

in it now and

yeah

it's very interesting and you know i know some young people who've got

oh

their tickets they're working in the skill trades through twenty two years old they have no debt they're making great money

wow

and they've got

amazing

the opportunity if they want to uh start their own businesses and and

right

some do i mean that's where you know are our builders and in

oh

the world we live in are quite often come out of the traits and become super visors and then evolve into project managers and start companies and and

m

that's their origin and you know

oh

their net worth is not bad right

yeah

so

much better than many m b a grads that's for sure

that's right so we're re discovering the value of the skill trades the parents aren't the problem somebody said to me well seventy five percent of parents don't want their kids going in the skill trades i said okay that's not a problem so what you

hm

know i did at that

hm

number

yeah

if the parents were fully informed and so on and so forth but let's say it is seventy five per cent well twenty five percent is plenty right

right

we can you know what do we wnt we want maybe up to ten per cent that would

yeah

go into the construction industry skill trades and so on and so forth

hm

and that's fine it's just that that pathways weren't there

ye

and the supports because

yeah

you know in the skill trades in the world of apprenticeship who is the educator here right well it's actually

right

it's actually the employer

right

right

right

and how is the employer being supported in this effort well i can tell you on a dollar volume basis it's nothing compared to what colleges and universities get so on a

yeah

per capita basis every year for example the last numbers i saw were about two three years ago every university student that states kicking and sixteen grand ahead for public education is about fourteen thous it had for

uh

college is

h

it was twelve thousand ahead you're not

m

getting that in

m

skill trades and the employers aren't getting that and then the way the

ah

system was structured

yes

it's antiquated so

oh

you know we had the system where you go you go to school for a while then you go to work and then you go

at

back to school and so on it's very difficult for employers

oh

especially smaller employers when they lose their apprentice back into a pool they don't know if they're gonna them back so that kind

mhm

of has a chilling effect on the the wherewithal of the employer to actually take on an apprentice and really invest the time in because

hm

i say well you know i spend time training somebody and then i lose them

m

so there are things there there are some systemic

m

things there that need to be changed and then one of the big problems

oh

we have right now is

yeah

that our technology

ah

and change is happening

eh

faster than

yeah

rigid bureaucratic systems adjust

one hundred percent

you know markets are more nimble but not governments and

that's right

and government bodies and you know one of the problems with

yeah

the provision of government services is again

my

the lack of performance standards and what happens if you don't get something done on time

right

if it's a monopoly

oh

service provider even and quite often you know the fee for services so look if you look at that velopment building applications approvals process that's all fee for service it's a monopoly and if somebody is saying sorry g we lost your drawing so

oh

we can't get this done on time or you know we'll get back to you or hey it looks good we'll send you that confirmation and then you

oh

get at you know six months

yeah

later there's really

yeah

much you can do about

ah

it and you really can't complain about it you know i had a call the other day from

ah

journalist who said i'd like to talk to a couple

yeah

of builders about this and i said i bet you would but i said i can't get anyone for you it's

m

a short notice but

m

be nobody wants to be the complainer because then you might end up on the wrong list right

yeah yeah yeah

so and

so

by

true

the way and that's not just true that's true to the markets also true to to social services providers that are non governmental

mhm

they've got to be careful that they're getting along with the people because they might get

yeah

on the wrong list to with respect to the supports that they're receiving

m

through you know the tax the tax person right

that's

oh

right richard just on that

ye

point of skilled trades for

yeah

young people you know you've written a lot about exposure

yeah

and i want to discuss that with you because in high school we were not exposed to this trades at all in fact it was looked down upon you know if you're taking shop classes like oh all you'll become is like a mechanic of a now car at a dealership and that was it

ah

it was really frowned upon and

here you get the

you know eh right

right

exactly and nobody but the pathway to go to a to do your academics and go to university was well laid out people showed you that hey you know if you get eighty five and you'll definitely get into u f t u t you'll get a four year degree

oh

and you'll get this really nice paying job that was really promoted

ah

very high in high school um and not skilled trades and so i want to know from

oh

you how can how can we work with the school

yeah

boards to make it make it ubiquitous

oh

that both skill trades and academics can get you to that place but kids need to be opposed to both not just kind of

what

one over the other

you know it's it's that it's a fantastic question

m

there's a lot to unpack there

yeah yeah

let me say this i think school boards to a certain extent are trapped within their own their own restrictions world what ever they're not

yeah

not particularly nimble then you've got

yeah

the school you've got the teachers unions right

yes

um so and they all have their different objectives and generally speaking systems like that don't really like change that much because change

yeah

is the pro oblem you know within organizations like that

oh

you're not necessarily rewarded for being at the cutting edge of things in fact

oh

you're often

yeah

a problem

yes

no matter

yes

how right you are and so you know one of the big problems we've got in the school system is for example that we identify was in the counseling offices right for years because

m m

the

oh

councilors we're often teachers

m

and quite often you know the teachers the people that went to high school went to university and then went back to high school i don't really

hm

know anything about the skill trades

yeah

so they're not well equipped to discuss them quite often schools for example do not have the connection s with local industry you don't have the

right

structure

yeah

where for example you could take a bus load of kids and you know take them on side a tour of a construction site or something like that those things

right

are not really there there's you know for example in toronto there's this wonderful program called the step program which is the skill

m

it's

oh

exploration program

yeah

run out

yeah

of northern secondary high school fantastic

hm

program i've been involved and sponsored and i love going to the graduating class every year and it was about

yeah

you know thirty

oh

six kids a year and they go through a specialized skill

yeah

program that get they go up with various contractors and and a week here in a week they are experiencing different trades and really getting hands on and some real hands on education you know some project

wow

management education fantastic

yeah

program and we've been you know from ting this thing should be expanded and whatever it finally was it was doubled so now it's seventy odd students a year that's one

oh

high school out of a hundred and one high schools in the t s b right

wow

so

yeah

you know and the leader the person who runs that philiboname of el ve moro is so committed to it he's been he's just he's

oh

one of those fantastic educators and i got to tell

m

you you know you go to the graduating

ah

classes every year they always have eight kids that get up and tell their stories and you want to talk about good speakers and they're not they're not doing that what they're

yeah

being educated for but

right

you know when you learn about how this program

ye

has changed their lives that they were lost in the system and

huh

of course you know now we've got this really bad habit of just passing kid whether or not you know

yeah

you rarely fail that's not a healthy thing either and then you get these kids

yeah

that are coming out of high school you know graduating with a sole fifty five or sixty average and

hm

really no where to go right

yeah

and when in fact you've got you know

ah

a significant percentage of kids i don't know what the number would be but i think it would be somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent of young people

oh

are really ideally suited for doing the kind of tact ile visual the visual learners right

hm

because you know are our school systems not set up for visual learners and a lot of kids are visual learners

m

um

right

you know in other words you can get them a book of instructions and they're lost right

yeah

if you show them how it's done they get it

right

right away and they're all over it and

yeah

so you have these stories

yeah

about kids to go through this program and it actually i have i don't want to say on every occasion

ah

but just about most of them i've cried because

wow

they're

ah

because you see how young person's life has been fundamentally changed but systhemically

yeah

the capacity to evolve and adjust

yeah

isn't there one of the other problems too i think is that the cost

yeah

there's two other problems here

hm

the cost of running these kinds of vocational

oh

programs there's equipment

m

and it's expensive

hm

it's not like in english or something like that where you know now

yeah

it's even just tonic here you've got

yeah

to have equipment and tools and things like this there's that element to it too and then the

hm

other element is they don't have the teachers right

right

so

right

where are you getting your teachers from well teachers college and teachers college are mainly drawing from called university graduates right

that's right

and and nothing wrong with that don't get me wrong it's just that they

yeah

don't have the pool of teachers there but this is

yeah

where technology comes into play where in counseling offices if we were really alizing current modern up to date technology

oh

we would be doing the aptitude testing so we would understand how each individual kid learns right

yeah

and then we would be also finding out about what are they really suited for

ah

you know i've got two

hm

daughters that look like runaway

ye

models and they

yeah

went through they went through the career testing at their high schools

yeah

this wasn't

yeah

long ago and

ah

both of them one of the kind of scared me a little bit i started

yeah

locking my bedroom door and i went i

uh

was sleeping because i thought you know

oh

this could go the wrong way but

yeah

they

yeah

to the profession picked for both of them one of them was tax a journey

wow

yeah

amazing

yeah what is that right

yeah

i thought maybe i got a couple of psychos on my hand here

yeah

here if if there if their careers are supposed to be stuffing dead animals i mean this

yeah

is not good not a

uh

good thing but you know like where

yeah

does that come from i mean

yeah

and you say this is this is utterly like it's hilarious but

yeah

there's so far behind now imagine if you had a count clean office okay so you can't do all the tours you can't do that stuff but imagine if you had a counseling office where you were utilizing a r and p r and a and this kind of thing and i could

yeah

go in there and put on

yeah

the helmet or imagine

yeah

it was like ready player one because we do have that technology know they can get on a unity directional platform with the gloves and a helmet and they can

yeah

actually walk through a nucular power plant

wow

or walk through a subway tunnel and see what's going on you know

yeah

um

yeah

so that would be you know we've got the technology we can make use of that um and and there should be an all out effort to modernize our counseling offices and modernize our approach to education

m

i mean it's just

yeah

it's rim markable

ye

that each kid in the system hasn't got a personalized assessment as to their learning capabilities

ah

aptitudes and interests

right

like but

right

but getting those changes through the system you know is

it's got yeah

it's it's

yeah

it's so hard and this is where you know for example

okay

like all of my kids i've had outside too orson to one degree or another which the system benefits from by the way you know their higher great point averages and whatever else

yeah

like that are results not necessarily of what they got in the in the in the system it's the outside tutoring right

m

and

hm

stuff like that

yeah

but but that's where you have to go because you know frankly the quality of education is declined and we're not

yeah

we're not meeting our needs if you think of and measure this right we know what the shortage of skill

yeah

trades is costing us it's

yes

in the billions of dollars on terror its

ah

measured and that's why you know we've got a wonderful you know the current government ontario is all over this which is fantastic you know

hm

minister money mcdonn you know

yeah

at the risk of sounding biased but i mean he really

yeah

is doing a remarkable job in this whole area and long overdue

yeah

so but we

yeah

we need we need and it will continue and these things will

yeah

happen there inevitable but you know that's another thing systemically is that i am finding

ah

that

oh

you know canada and ontario were so rich right like we've got resources

yeah

water food people stability safety

oh

we've got the best neighbor in the world which is

yeah

to be the most powerful country in the world doesn't

yeah

hurt beats russia right so

definitely

um you know so we're doing

yeah

well that way but but

ah

you know systhemically

yeah

it's almost like that wealth has enabled

yeah

us to sort of sit back and be

yeah

the last to innovate be the last to introduce

oh

the latest techniques and ways and abilities and so on

yeah

you know i once had a question put to me by someone who said you know the germans are curious why why do the canadians keep coming over there eurftrur saying how do you do it and then we wish show them all the stuff we do and they go home and then the next year the same institution in canada sends another group over with the same questions

oh

and year after year after year like what's going on we don't get it and

yeah

i was asked why is that happening i said because it's a nice trip

yeah

it's not making you know they're getting a good

yeah

trip to germany but it's not they're not bringing it at home

that's

and

right

and part of that again is that systemically and this is the power of competitive market systhemically when you're a monopoly and you don't have to change you the

yeah

on't

that's right

you'll still

i've

seek to grow though right

a hundred percent i always i was tell my friends about there's a historian i read that said you know the

oh

moment the

oh

romans the as tex the inca felt invincible they kind of they rotted from the inside and all it took an external

yeah

power who wasn't more powerful than them to kind of hit the nail in the coffin and it's so true it's like

yeah

i always think canada is such a wealthy nation

oh

but people don't realize how geographically blessed we are to have one neighbor that we get along with so well

yeah

we're surrounded by oceans like no

oh

one is going to really attack us or it would take a lot to attack us and we kind of kick up our heels when it comes to that we don't think of some of the inter all issues that we have with as much urgency as perhaps other countries do

yes

i wanted to

yeh

ask you specifically on that because you're talking about skilled

oh

trades and how important it is

oh

you were speaking and i thought i wouldn't it be amazing to

yeah

also do partnerships for high school so you know government of ontario says you know tesla might come up here our hand is building a new plant how

okay

awesome would it be to have you know neer auto

oh

engineers come down to grade eleven great ten class and say hey let me show you around

yeah

the plant

oh

up in that wood stock you know let me show you how we're building the hondo pilots or something you know because at fourteen fifteen who knows if they

oh

want to go to university or college or the skilled

oh

trades and i see myself in my own career people who went through undergraduate masters did liberal arts got into government or private sector

oh

there still kind of trying to figure out what they want to do in their

yeah

career and they're still kind of trying to think of oh i could do

oh

a side hustle as a lighting company i could do a side hustle as

yeah

a plumber and

yeah

man i always think if only

yeah

we were exposed to someone those things at an earlier age

yeah

we could have gone down different paths

oh absolutely well this is part of where you know one of the one of the great pieces of research and it still hasn't hit home here yet is that

hm

kids buy in large also

ah

people will debate this make up their mind about what they're going to do with their lives and what they're going to work on what really turns them on grade six seven and eight

wow

you need to reach them then

wow

almost if you get them in high school it's almost too late so

interesting

for example some of the trade

oh

exploration type

oh

and

ye

career exploration type programs that have been introduced in other jurisdictions

yeah

though their getting to the kids earlier like for example there is one great program the u s where for about two weeks they take kids and they'd actually design

yeah

a house they would do a takeoff list and create a gant chart of all the things that have to go into that house and then they do a gant shirt on building it again hurt meaning you know

hm

chart as to what happens when along the process they

m

sit out right

hm

and and then they build a model a little you know a small model

yeah

of the house

wow

and

fascinating

yeah you

ye

know and it's been hugely successful

mhm

and i'm sure there were other things

kay

like that relative to other careers and professions i'm not

h

i'm not sure

m

about military police you don't want them swinging

sure

buttons in great sector where is my

shooting

assault

a rifle

but you know i'm making fun but

yeah

the fact is is that

yah

need to get to the kids

y

then and not

yeah

be judge mental about

yeah

it and also i mean one of the great stories that i think it is getting out through effective now one of the things we did for example we sponsored and led the way to create a fifty different videos of young people half women half men in wentyfive different trade sectors who are working as skilled trades people and it's their story it's not some

nice

old guy like me coming along

yeah

and talk into

m

a classroom the kids in saying hey you should

right

do what i did no

yeah

don't like get this

yeah

guy out of here

oh

like oh my god you know unless they showed

right

up with like a cinaplex movie pack citizen

yeah

pizza coupons and stuff like that they don't want to

m

they don't ant

so

to hear from me but

sure

if you

sure

can make this cool you

yeah

can make it interesting

yeah

you can be nonjudgemental about it and you can also one make were sown now is you know the kind of money you can make in a skilled trade sere

yeah

and but you've

yeah

got to get in there early and and then you but you need to have a pathway then right

yeah

so

exactly

you mentioned earlier on and it was a very good point for example you said that you know

ye

when it comes to going to university there's very clear pathways you know exactly what you have to do and wan and sell

yeah

and so forth

yeah

you don't have that with the skill trades

no

and that is something that is there's attention being paid to that now but there's

yeah

a lot more work that has to be done there

and in starting a business being entreprenurial you know thinking

yeah

back just thinking about all the different avenues that so many of my friends could have gone down i always think about that

oh

i'd be remissed if we didn't talk

yeah

about the residential construction

yeah

council ontario with

right

your president of

yeah

andrescons mission is to work in co operation with government and related state holders to offer realistic solutions

oh

to over riety of challenges facing the

yeah

residential building industry here in toronto and municipalities across canada there's

oh

always that approval process for

oh

new buildings which leads into development costs and then final prices for

yeah

consumers housing

yeah

is like seems to be the number one issue on everyone in especially now with rising inflation and the cost of living bloom book recently wrote that some of the biggest municipalities in the world are are wrestling with

m

massive housing prices what are some

m

of the biggest challenges that municipalities wrestle with when approving

oh

new buildings in the city because in toronto we have a big issue of supply

yeah

for the amount of demand that we have yeah

yeah well i mean you know i've

oh

mentioned systemically so the first big problem that we have is in the area for example zone and site plan approvals land use

oh right

you know frankly the rules are antiquated

yeah

the there are reforms that are here and will be coming that need to address that i mean you know the big problem that we had there was when we introduced the growth plan at two thousand

m

and five in the green belt they

oh

kicked the density can down the road and what mean

oh

by that was they said okay we're going to restrict sprawl and we've got a plan now so we know you know what growth means and what we need to do and whatever else like that but then when came to allowing for higher densities and changing official plans and changing the planning system those kinds of things it was put off so

m

all of a sudden you took a huge amount of land out of the system and investment you know markets work on perception people said to me oh there was still lots of land to build on whatever now markets are always future looking and they work on of perception and the perception was there's going to be a shortage to land in fact there turned out to

m

be a shortage to land

m

because the systems we had in place to track and insure that we had an adequate supply of land a support development m went kind of missing let me put it that

m

way you know and and

m

and then the second big thing they did in fact this came out was in the news recently in twenty seven team when they did the last view of the growth plan guess what

hm

they were using

yeah

old demographics

oh jees

now how do you do that

yeah

like you know heads would be rolling in the private

yeah

second in the private sector organization of somebody cooked up something

oh

like that because it would be a plan for failure and that's what we have

hm

a huge

hm

failure in house i supply

m

and and

yeah

eighty to ninety percent of the housing crisis we have right now is a systemic self inflicted wound i mean look

m

you're you do

m

have people in our society that just don't

m

have any money to pay for housing and that's

yeah

that's where sharing carrying society and the role of government is to

oh

sort of step in and deal with that that's what i call socia housing but you should have functioning and effective marketplace and we don't because

yeah

so many different balls were

oh

dropped i remember reading something about four years ago where one group i won't say who it was announced that they were going to start aligning housing planning

m

with transit planning and i thought

m

and my

m

an inch instant reaction was you mean you weren't doing that

yeah

like are you guys idiots

yeah

you know you know and then we've got

right

these debates over

yeah

whether or not we should have high density housing around major transit hubs well of course we

right

should

yeah

every advent city in the world does you know like this and then you know i get these

yeah

i remember getting a call from a journalist saying

h

oh hey market lane way housing

m

is this going to solve our housing crisis action

yeah

broke out laughing

yeah

you know like what are we going to get out of this a thousand two thousand units may be right

yeah

you know we need we need

yeah

an extra seven hundred and fifty thousand over the next ten years

oh

i don't think this is going to solve our housing crisis right but

right

you know

right

the worst thing all humorous side the worst

yeah

thing and it's like with the development charges and the taxes

ah

fees and levies on how seeing they've grown exponentially eight hundred

yes

to a thousand per cent just over ten years the

yeah

regressive so who's really getting hammered by that are the people and this is a ding i mean

yeah

we've got battalions

yeah

of policy makers running around talking about equity equity equity well you want to talk

yeah

about inequitable we're hammering the people who can least afford it the ones most vulnerable with these regressive flat unit based taxes and it's not a

okay

develop nentricity talk about growth pace for growth you know de ces originally kind

cool

of came up with new subdivision development where there was no community there and whatever but now the stuff is applying to everything and they've gone

hm

through the roof in file housing where you do have infrastructure in place largely where the surrounding community benefits

yeah

from that and they're saying no they got to pay for a hndredpercent of it growth pays for growth well guess what and oh and you

oh

know the developers can afford

yeah

that they can pay for it

m

i've said to people

m

what are you smoking the developers

yeah

and builders don't pay for this this goes to the new home buyers it goes on ax

yeah

is the new renters

that's right

and so you've got that problem and then they cook up so they've introduced this you know toronto just came up with forty

yeah

six percent increase

yeah

forty six per cent and and

yeah

we're supposed to say oh that's okay what does that say to everybody else in the supply chain and then

yeah

on top of that they came up with this inclusion are zoning plan now inclusion

that's right

ary zoning is in principle i

oh

like it not a problem

ah

but what they did here is ludicrous and it was dead on rival because they said okay

oh

if you've got a new hundred unit building the new rule say twenty you know ten per cent of those units save for example have to be affordable for you know a very extended period of time like ninety

m

nine years whatever

hm

and and that's it we're not going to get we're not going to say okay we want ten per cent of fordability but we'll let you

yeah

build two more floor

m

on the building or whatever you know where you have a

yeah

city what they call dan city bona say no you're just going

hm

to cost this up

m

well

yeah

you know and and then you have the developers

yeah

can pay for this you got city counsellors people like that saying oh the developers gonna pay for the developers don't pay for this it goes on the backs of the consumers

m

and and

that's exactly

and then who does it hit the most there the ones who can barely afford the product and in fact often get

oh

knocked out of the market because

that's right

it's moved beyond

yeah

them and it's it's it's not a development

yeah

church its tax right

hm

let's get one thing and it's a completely inequitable

m

regressive tex and now

uh

they've since come out and said well

oh

we won't charge it here or we won't apply it there or whatever like that okay you know that it's

oh m oh yeah wow ah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah geez yeah ah yeah yeah oh mhm m m mhm that's right that's right yea ah yeah yeah yeah yep yeah oh that's right um m yeah yeah right you're totally right in fact i've i've thought about long and hard about whether or not toronto is for me long term um just the way things are going austin and florida seem to be really much more tractive especially with this podcast i always thought to myself that would be amazing but but i don't want to just leave