The Leader of the Opposition should know, of course, that there is no law banning this province-wide. What we have said is that we trust our municipal partners to make decisions that are in the best interest of their community. That is something that we have been talking about for months in this place, Mr. Speaker.

At the same time, we will allow communities to make the decision if that is appropriate in their areas. I think it’s become very clear that some communities, like Toronto, have approved, as-of-right, four, while other communities have said that they don’t want four-storey buildings to be built in parts of their communities. They neither have the infrastructure, nor were they built around four-storey buildings in the middle of communities.

So what I’m saying to the Leader of the Opposition is that we will continue to trust our municipal partners to work in the best interests of the people of the province of Ontario along with us, Mr. Speaker, but we will not force them to do something blanket across the province of Ontario. That is not in the best interests of—

That, of course, is incorrect. What we’re saying is that we’re not forcing municipalities—a blanket policy across the province of Ontario. Of course, municipalities have the right already to make this decision. We’ve seen Toronto make that decision, Markham has made that decision and a host of other municipalities.

Still, others have said to us that allowing a four-storey building in the middle of a community that was neither built to accommodate a four-storey building, that does not have the infrastructure in place to accommodate a four-storey building, is not in the best interest of communities across the province.

So what we’ll continue to do is be targeted in our approach, remove red tape, ensure that our municipal partners can meet the goals of building the 1.5 million homes. That is why we are doubling and ensuring that sewer and water infrastructure is in place so that we can build not only hundreds of homes, but millions of homes across the province of Ontario.

And we’ve listened to our municipal partners who have said one thing and one thing only, that the biggest obstacle to building 1.5 million homes across the province of Ontario is the availability of infrastructure—an infrastructure deficit that we inherited from the Liberals. And that is why last week the Premier made an historic announcement of over $1.8 billion to get sewer and water. We don’t want to build hundreds; we want to build millions of homes.

Again, Mr. Speaker, there is no law that forbids municipalities from having this type of development. But what we have said quite clearly is that we will continue to work with our municipal partners to ensure that we meet the goals that we’ve set with respect to housing, but overwhelmingly, Speaker, what we have heard from our stakeholders, from municipal partners and from those people who actually build homes, is that the real problem is the infrastructure deficit that was left behind by the previous Liberal government.

We have looked at that and we have said that although we have been asking—every single provincial Premier across this country has been asking the federal government to redirect funds into infrastructure. Because they have refused, we are going to go it alone, Mr. Speaker, because we’re not interested in building hundreds of homes, we’re interested in building millions of homes for the people of the province of Ontario, and the only way you will do that is if you put infrastructure on the ground to unleash the building of millions of homes in every part of the province, and that’s what we’re doing.

Surely the member knows that affordable housing in the province of Ontario is done by our municipal partners through service managers. In fact, the province of Ontario—through its partnership with municipalities, which is the law of the province—has constructed over 11,000 units of affordable housing, which the federal minister has rejected and said, “No, it doesn’t count.” The federal minister has said, “No, long-term-care homes that are subsidized don’t count. No, student housing doesn’t count.”

At every turn, the people of the province of Ontario had been making investments and the federal government has unilaterally decided to cut funding to the province of Ontario. They are treating Ontario differently than any other province, and that is a hallmark of this federal government—they pit one region against another.

So, I say to the member this: If you want the $350 million, if you want the $400 million, then get off your backside and have those members do something: call their partners in Ottawa and—

Interjections.

In fact, the mayor of Guelph, who I met with just last week, said the number one obstacle to building homes in his community is the lack of sewer and water in that community. In Niagara region, the lack of sewer and water is holding up the development of thousands of homes across the spectrum, Mr. Speaker.

When I go to every community across this province, they say, “You can choose to build hundreds of homes, or you can choose to build millions of homes.” Millions of homes come with sewer and water, and that is why we are doubling down on the things that actually get homes built.

I will let them talk about pie-in-the-sky discussions on how you get things done. We’ll get it done because we’ll put the investments in place to get it—

Let’s be very clear what the opposition is talking about: They are talking about building four-storey buildings in communities that were not built to handle that, in communities that don’t have schools, in communities that don’t have parking. What we’re saying is that we trust our municipal partners to understand where it is best to meet the housing challenges and targets that we have set.

In Guelph, in his own community, they said the number one obstacle is sewer and water capacity. So when the members opposite talk, what they’re really saying is that they don’t actually want to meet the targets. They’re the ones who want to stop homes from being built. They are terrorized by the fact we’re going to put billions of dollars of infrastructure in the ground that will help us build 1.5 million homes across the province. We’ll get it done, and we won’t allow—

Interjections.