Mike Collins-Wilson: 'Industry Forecasts Have Warned That Tens of Thousands of Residential Construction Jobs Are at Risk if Market Conditions Do Not Improve'

By Pepper Parr

July 8^th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Last week we did a very short piece on comments Mike Collins Wilson made before a House Standing Committee. We followed up to get a transcript of everything he had to say and commets from the Standing Committee members.

Here is what was said:

Mike Collins Wilson, the CEO of the West End Builders Association (WEHBA) was testifying on development charges and the impact they have on the cost of a house.

He was joined by Jennifer Keesmaat, who spoke to Burlington residents on a different form of community that has been successfully developed in Toronto.

House of Commons Standing Committees are permanent panels identified in Chamber rules, which also list the jurisdiction of each committee. Because they have legislative jurisdiction, standing committees consider bills and issues and recommend measures for consideration by the House.   Each political party nominates members to sit on the different Standing Committees.

This article focuses on the testimony given by Collins-Williams

My name is Mike Collins-Williams, and I’m the chief executive officer of the West End Home Builders’ Association. WE HBA represents more than 300 companies involved in the residential construction, land development and renovation industry in Hamilton, Burlington and Grimsby. Our members build the homes, communities and neighbourhoods where Canadians live, work, raise families and build their futures.

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in your study examining housing starts in relation to federal programs. Today, I want to leave the committee with a simple message: If buyers cannot buy, builders cannot build.

Over the past several years, governments across Canada have rightly focused on increasing housing supply, yet despite this attention, housing starts for ownership have declined significantly while new home sales in many markets have fallen to historic lows.

Housing starts are often discussed as a single number, but the composition of these starts matters. Purpose-built rental construction has increased, supported by important federal initiatives and financing programs. This additional rental supply is needed and welcomed.

However, rental housing should not be replacing home ownership opportunities. Most Canadians still aspire to own a home. They want the stability, security and wealth-building opportunities that home ownership provides, yet for many young families, that dream continues to be further out of reach.

The challenge is not a lack of builders willing to build. Our members have land, skilled workers, supply chains and shovel-ready projects. The challenge is that the economics of housing no longer work.

It is important to remember that housing starts do not occur in isolation. They are ultimately driven by consumer confidence and the ability of families to purchase a home. Across Ontario and much of Canada, many prospective buyers have moved to the sidelines. High housing costs, taxation, mortgage qualification barriers and economic uncertainty have reduced demand for new homes. When sales slow, housing starts inevitably follow. This is why policies that improve affordability and help qualified buyers re-enter the market are every bit as important as policies that support housing production itself.

Development charges, taxes, government fees, approval delays, financing costs, long-term labour shortages and escalating construction costs have combined to create a situation where many projects simply do not proceed. Too often, housing policy discussions focus exclusively on unit targets.

Housing is also an economic development strategy. Every new home built supports construction workers, tradespeople, planners, manufacturers, suppliers and local businesses throughout the supply chain. When housing starts decline, the impacts ripple throughout the economy. Increasing housing starts is not only about creating homes. It’s about protecting jobs and strengthening local communities.

In Ontario, taxes, fees and charges imposed by governments can account for approximately 25% to 30% of the cost of a new home. At the same time, approval timelines continue to grow longer. In Hamilton, for example, a recent national bench-marking study ranked the city dead last among major Canadian municipalities for development approval timelines. Every month of delay adds costs and ultimately results in fewer homes being built.

When housing construction slows, the consequences extend far beyond the housing sector itself. Construction workers lose jobs. Manufacturers receive fewer orders. Municipalities collect less revenue, and economic growth slows.

In Ontario alone, industry forecasts have warned that tens of thousands of residential construction jobs are at risk if market conditions do not improve. That’s why recent federal actions are encouraging. Measures to reduce the tax burden on new housing, support infrastructure investment and expand construction financing represent important steps in the right direction. These policies recognize a simple reality: Governments do not build homes; builders build homes.

The role of government is to create the conditions that allow for housing to be delivered faster, more efficiently and at greater scale. Federal programs are most successful when they unlock private sector investment, improve project viability, reduce unnecessary costs and create certainty.

What our industry needs right now is continued collaboration between all three levels of government. We need policies that support both ownership and rental housing. We need predictable and streamlined approvals. We need continued efforts to reduce taxes and development charges, and we need mortgage policies that help qualified buyers access the market. We need a coordinated national housing strategy that recognizes housing as both a social priority and an economic imperative.

The good news is that the solutions are known. Canada has the builders. We have the workforce. What we need is a policy environment that allows the industry to do what we do best: build homes.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.

The process is to have Standing Committee members ask questions of each person.

Conservative MP Aitchison asked:

What’s the most important thing this committee and the government should know about housing starts? We’ve heard a lot about what they are, what they mean and how useful a tool they are.

Mike, give us your thoughts on the question of housing starts.

Mike Collins-Williams:

Housing starts are an important metric, but they are a lagging indicator. They recognize the strength of the economy and investment decisions made yesterday, not today. As Jennifer articulated in terms of the timelines in one of her projects, that investment decision to purchase a piece of land and go through the planning approvals and entitlements process occurs years before the start.

In the residential construction industry, we typically look at sales in terms of where the health of the market is currently. In the sales in the GTA and in Hamilton, those numbers are far worse than housing starts right now, and that would indicate that housing starts and the actual economic activity are likely to get worse in the months and years ahead.

It is an important metric, but my key message would be that it’s a lagging indicator, and it does not represent the current health of the residential construction industry, be it in Hamilton, Ontario, or in Canada overall.

Conservative MP Aitchison

I really appreciate your comments about certainty. Capital requires some measure of certainty before being invested, particularly in a longer-term play like housing. I’m not sure people realize how long a term a play like housing development is.

I heard you say earlier that development charges account for 30% of costs. That was what you said, right? I wonder if you could tell me more about what’s included in that 30% and what the federal government can do to mitigate that.

Mike Collins-Williams:

Thank you for your question.

The 25% to 30% would encompass all taxes, charges and fees. That would include items like the land transfer tax; the GST in Ontario and other provinces; in some other provinces, the provincial component of the HST; and development charges, which are often the largest components of that stack of government-imposed charges.

In Hamilton, where I’m from, they have a development charge on a single detached home. It’s just over $100,000. There are a number of municipalities in the GTA where it approaches $200,000 a door. These are significant charges, and they’ve increased significantly over the last couple of decades. In Hamilton, they’re up 87% since 2021, and they were increased by just over 30% a couple of years ago, through one review of the background study.

We know that infrastructure needs to get built. Development charges are a component of that. I’ve been doing this for 20 or 25 years, and I often hear that growth needs to pay for growth. I’m appearing before you as an expert witness, and I can tell you I have no idea what “growth pays for growth” means anymore. The definition in 2005 versus 2015 versus 2025 and the different components that go into development charges have changed significantly over the last couple of decades, and, unfortunately, what we’re including in development charges, at least in Ontario today, includes a variety of items that benefit the entire broader community rather than having that direct nexus between the new housing developments and the infrastructure required.

Unfortunately, that has created, in my view, a generational wealth transfer or generational inequity in which younger people are being saddled with the cost of infrastructure that previous generations were not. When that is paid for up front and in advance through a development charge on a new home, those younger people are often paying, putting it into their mortgage and amortizing it over 25 years for infrastructure that’s being built to last 30, 40 or 50 years, rather than those costs being spread more equitably across the broader community and being a big spread over time.

The development charges system, in my view, is broken. I think we need development charges, and I think there’s a role for them in terms of paying for infrastructure. This falls more in the provincial jurisdiction, but I certainly appreciate that this committee is interested and that the federal government, through the build communities strong fund, just a couple of days ago, on Monday, announced some of the parameters around the development charge reduction program. I’m hopeful that many municipalities in Ontario and my home municipality of Hamilton will participate in that program.

Louis Villeneuve a Liberal MP spoke next

During this study, we’ve heard some important discussions about the timing of when housing starts should be recorded and the fact that Canada measures them differently from other countries. In 30 seconds, could you share your opinion on that?

Mike Collins-Williams:

Dr. Mike Moffatt, who I know appeared before the committee previously, has done some great research and analysis showing different stages that development charges are measured at. I think, on the low-rise side, when you get to the foundation stage, the lag isn’t as significant as when construction starts. The challenge is the way that we measure it around the foundation and when the building comes up to grade.

When you’re building those much larger buildings, whether it’s in downtown Vancouver, downtown Toronto to an extent, and downtown Hamilton, you break ground. It takes potentially a year to dig down four or five storeys to do the excavation for the underground parking and, in some cases, another year to come back up to grade.

As I previously mentioned, it’s a lagging indicator as it relates to the investment decision around a sale, but it’s even a lagging indicator in and of itself.