SAINT-GEORGES, Quebec — “Good year, bad year, Americans will always buy our stuff,” Vincent Boutin says. He’s one of a legion of maple syrup farmers in Quebec who export more than 100 million pounds of the stuff to the US each year—and the tariffs don’t bother him one bit. …His confidence stems in part from the caramel-coloured liquid gushing from his wood-fired boiler. It’s hot and sweet, with all the complexities of a good sherry, and you can hardly get it anywhere other than Quebec, home to 66% of the world’s maple syrup production in 2024. …Still, La Beauce’s close relationship with the US has made its economy uniquely vulnerable to the whims of the Trump administration. More than 65% of La Beauce’s businesses export directly to the US, chief among them softwood lumber, construction materials, machinery, steel and finished metal products.
To reach Ontario’s bold goal of 1.5 million homes by 2031… we have a proven solution — and much of what we need, from innovative building techniques to mass timber and Canadian steel, is right here in Ontario’s backyard. …The Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) released a new policy report, titled Building More, Building Faster, outlining the importance of embracing factory-built homes as a key part of the solution to address Ontario’s ongoing housing supply and affordability crisis. …Factory-built, or prefabricated housing, is a fast-growing area of homebuilding where homes are constructed in a factory — often using prefabricated 3D components — and assembled at their final address. …OREA’s new report highlights five policy recommendations that would cut red tape and create favourable conditions for investment to significantly boost factory-built housing construction with “Made-in-Ontario” solutions that can eventually scale nationally.