“We’re catching up after COVID,” said Patrick Gill, senior director of operations and partnerships of the Business Data Lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce., showed that 56 per cent of businesses in the second quarter cited inflation as an obstacle, followed by input costs and interest rate/debt costs . The survey was based on responses from 15,401 businesses in April and May.
Dave Wilkes, president of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, said builders have been under pressure from rising materials costs, and the pain has been felt most acutely among smaller companies. For example, Statistics Canada’s construction price index for residential buildings has risen 65 per cent between the second quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of 2023.