Would You Ask a Plumber to Cure Cancer? Would You Ask a Doctor to Build Your Home?

cz1635
Sep 29
3 min read

Updated: Oct 1

If you were diagnosed with cancer, would you call a plumber? Of course not. You’d want a doctor—someone who actually treats patients. And if you wanted a new house built, you wouldn’t ask your family physician. You’d call a builder, an architect, or a tradesperson who knows how to pour a foundation and raise a roof.

So why do governments keep making this exact mistake when it comes to housing policy?

Who no BC or Alberta Home builder on the federal expert panel? — Why no BC or Alberta homebuilders on "expert" panel?

Time and again, housing “solutions” are drafted by think tanks, consultants, politicians (and their staff), urban planners and academics—people who’ve never built a single home in their lives. They've never laid a foundation or overseen a construction project. These individuals may be intelligent and well-meaning, but they don’t build homes. They produce reports, statistics, and theories. Meanwhile, the people who actually know how to bring a house from blueprint to reality—contractors, trades, developers—are often left on the sidelines. Yet, these are the people who secure permits, source materials, pay trades, and finish a project on time and on budget.

FEW BUILDERS ON FEDERAL 'EXPERT' HOUSING PANEL

Case in point: the federal government recently launched an expert panel on homebuilding. Only two of the five people on the panel appear to have any real building experience. They are: the CEO of the Canadian Homebuilders' Association and a Modular Housing Association Director. Others are academics, PR people, or finance partners. The full panel:

Isabelle Demers, Vice-President, Advancement & Strategy, Innovation & Transformation, Public Affairs, APCHQ (Quebec's Residential Building Construction Association)
Emma Kozak, Vice-President of Real Estate Lending, Royal Bank of Canada
Kevin Lee, CEO, Canadian Home Builders’ Association
Bryce Nugent, Director, Modular Housing Association Prairie Provinces
Carolyn Whitzman, Adjunct Professor, University of Ottawa

No builders from British Columbia (where we have the most acute housing affordability issues) or Alberta where both rental and purchased housing are still considered more attainable, are represented on the panel. BC HOUSING ROUNDTABLE NEEDS BUILDERS

British Columbians, including politicians like Poco Mayor Brad West and the BC Real Estate Association have recently called for an expert housing "roundtable" that includes builders who can convey the real-world costs of all the government policies. Yet the BC NDP Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon has apparently dismissed the idea of having so many different voices as "inefficient". Quadra Homes builder VP Shawn Bouchard notes the BC government's Energy Step Code (regulatory carbon reduction changes) will add as much as $25,000 in costs to each new home. “That’s gonna take 114 years to pay back on the energy savings — so why are we doing this?” he told Western Standard News. One can be sure the end result of these endless consultations from non-builders is more of the same: higher taxes, endless red tape, zoning fantasies, and billion-dollar subsidy schemes that ignore reality. Governments pat themselves on the back while construction grinds to a halt and housing costs explode. It’s all talk, no building.

Here’s a radical idea: if you want more homes, ask the people who actually build them how to get it done. Trust the trades, the developers, the contractors. Stop outsourcing housing policy to those who aren't in the trenches. As West stated in the North Shore News: the housing "roundtable won't make any difference if the government refuses to listen.

He said it must be apparent to them that a bunch of unintended consequences are unleashed from their policies. "So, the real question is to the province: are they going to listen? Are they going to get their ego out of the way? Are they going to not be so stubborn?" asked West.

He said it must be apparent to them that a bunch of unintended consequences are unleashed from their policies. "So, the real question is to the province: are they going to listen? Are they going to get their ego out of the way? Are they going to not be so stubborn?" asked West."

Because when you let non-builders design housing policy, it’s the same as asking a plumber to cure your cancer: pointless, expensive, and guaranteed to fail. We welcome your thoughts. Please take our poll!

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