It’s an honour to speak to the initiatives in our government’s proposed Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act.

I want to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Minister of Red Tape Reduction for his remarks this morning, and also for his tireless work to create an environment in Ontario where the dream of home ownership will not just be a dream but, ultimately, a reality for all.

I’d also like to thank the parliamentary assistants, the member from Perth–Wellington and the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore, who will be speaking to the bill shortly. It’s great to see them here.

As the Associate Minister of Housing, I naturally want to focus on the initiatives in this bill that relate to housing, and I want to break my time into two components: reviewing the performance of our government to date on the housing front, including both the challenges and opportunities we face in this province; and secondly, how Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, creates more pathways, better pathways, for more homes to be built faster in Ontario.

I think we all know the population of this province has more than doubled in the last 40 years. In my opinion, we don’t have a housing supply crisis; we have a supply crisis—period—and we need to keep up with the population growth by getting more homes built. We have a lot of opportunities to do that.

Innovation is key, and we’ll talk about that today, but we need solutions-based results. We’re going to break it down in this bill. That’s why I think this bill, again, offers some pathways to better performance and better results to get homes built faster in Ontario, and we’ll talk about those today, but I think before we do, we have to put the bill in context of what has happened already with our government on the housing front up to this point.

Let me begin with what we’ve accomplished. I’ll keep reiterating that provinces, municipal governments and federal governments don’t build houses; community home builders do. Our job is to create the environment for those people to succeed. The challenges we face require an all-of-government approach to work together so that we can create the conditions that enable community builders to get the job done.

Over the last month, I’ve had the honour of presenting funds from the Building Faster Fund to municipalities that met or exceeded their targets, whether it was in Chatham-Kent, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Caledon, Brantford—lots of unique communities throughout the province, not just large cities. We’ve had an interesting experience. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ll conclude on that point at the end of my remarks.

As I’ve travelled the province over the last six months, I’ve learned a lot about this file. I want to talk specifically about the ROMA conference in January—the Rural Ontario Municipal Association. I’m going to use one word, and it’s going to be “infrastructure.” People have heard me say this as I’ve travelled the province: Wherever I went, the word “infrastructure” was key in everybody’s presentations. Through the speed-dating events we had at ROMA and AMO with municipalities, I think the word “infrastructure” was first and foremost in everything I listened to, every delegation I was part of.

Whether it’s in my own riding of Elgin–Middlesex–London, whether it’s in the Ottawa Valley, northern Ontario, the GTHA, or all parts of southwestern Ontario, infrastructure is key.

And when I look at the 2024 budget that has been presented and is still being debated, I would say, in my humble opinion, this is an infrastructure budget. This government has listened, learned and has now acted to make sure that we create the environment to get infrastructure in the ground that’s housing-enabling infrastructure, again, to get more homes built faster.

We made historic investments that include the $1-billion Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program that was presented in the budget. We introduced the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, which was quadrupled to $825 million. This is in addition to the $1.2 billion in the Building Faster Fund. So over $3 billion has been targeted towards building housing-enabling infrastructure.

Speaker, creating the conditions for gentle density in Ontario is key, and building up and building in is important. You are now permitted, in this province, to build up to three residential units as-of-right on most residential lots without needing a bylaw amended in your municipality.

I want to make this point clearly: Every municipality in Ontario is unique; with 444, plus the north, there are a lot of different needs, and they’re all unique. That is why each of them can determine their own paths and make their own individual choices about density in their communities. The province is a partner with our municipalities, not an overseer, as some might suggest or try to dictate.

The results speak for themselves. I would note that, in the last three years, there have been more housing starts than there have been since the 1980s. Over the last 10 years of our former government, the Liberals averaged just under 68,000 starts per year. Since our government was elected in 2018, we’ve averaged 87,000 starts. That’s an increase of almost 20,000 starts per year. But we know that more is yet to be done, and that is why we’ve introduced Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act.

Our government has also set the groundwork for building more rental housing. This is key. We have lowered development charges, and we worked with our federal counterparts on removing the HST on new purpose-built rental construction, and we’ve seen success—again, up 19,000 starts last year over 2022, or a 27% increase. I am very impressed with those results. In fact, after just over five and a half years in office, Ontario has more purpose-built rental starts under our government than it did in the 15 years the Liberals were in office.

So, again, we’re on a clear path to success, but I’ll keep reiterating, more is yet to be done. These facts clearly show that our government’s actions are working when it comes to building more homes and market housing across the province. And Ontarians recognize we have more to do.

Again, we’ve talked about listening, learning and acting. We had a housing supply forum back in November 2023, and we had all the stakeholders there, everyone who was involved in the housing continuum. I want to thank them. Their input into this bill has been very important, especially those on the HSAPIT committee—the Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team; it’s a unique acronym—led by Mayor Drew Dilkens from Windsor. They have a wealth of knowledge, great experience. We appreciate their input, and we see the results of that input in this bill today.

Now I would like to talk about how this proposed bill is going to focus our efforts in getting more houses built faster.

Student housing: I want to hit on not all initiatives, but some of the key initiatives I think are important. First, let’s consider some of the proposals for student housing.

I’ll tell a quick story. I have a neighbour down the road whose son was going to the University of Guelph. I went to the University of Guelph, and I remember it was easy for me to get into a residence my first year. Housing was—you just didn’t even think that it was an issue. This poor guy had trouble finding anywhere to live in Guelph—anywhere. Residences were full. Basement apartments were not available. Finally, after about two or three months, he found a spot to hang his hat and lay his head every night. It’s wrong.

That is why in this act we’re proposing, we will remove barriers faced by universities when building student housing, that will accelerate approval times for those institutions. The change would enable universities to build faster and better and meet the needs of their student population. This would also ensure that students have access to and are aware of student housing options that are safe, affordable and within an easy commute to campus. Importantly, it’s also better for local communities because it frees up housing, creating more supply, which, again, at the end, is the bane of the housing crisis in this province.

Speaker, the building code—I know it’s not exciting, but when you think about building codes, I’ve learned a lot, and I would like to highlight some of our measures that would build homes faster, and at a lower cost.

The building code is being updated. We’ve also recently completed building consultations on advanced wood construction, like mass timber or encapsulated mass timber, which I think is an important part of our housing supply issue. Although the code is not part of the proposed legislation, its focus on increasing housing supply, innovation and supporting public safety are completely aligned with the goals of this bill.

The building code allows buildings using encapsulated mass timber construction to be up to 12 storeys tall, now moving to 18 storeys—which I think, again, supports going in and going up. The use of mass timber would provide the home building sector with a great opportunity to build innovative new housing. It’s a great opportunity to lower our carbon footprint, and it will be a great boost to our northern economy in this province.

We also have Ontario’s Forest Sector Strategy, which offers significant opportunity to shift housing construction off-site and into factories—like modular homes. This would support even more efficient and rapid construction processes, using renewable forestry resources grown and harvested right here in Ontario, by Ontario workers and for Ontario families. Our province is blessed with abundant natural, renewable resources and a highly skilled forestry sector, so let’s put these magnificent assets to work.

Improving consultation and providing municipalities with greater certainty to get homes built faster is key, and this is a part of the bill I really, really like. When home builders start a project, they may be obligated to provide financial assurance to put infrastructure in the ground to support the homes they will be building—infrastructure such as sidewalks. This financial assurance is commonly provided through a letter of credit or cash. We will be consulting on a potential regulation that would enable landowners to specify the instruments municipalities may use to secure obligations that are municipal conditions of land use planning approvals. I know it’s a lot of words. You can think about it. It may not be exciting, but this is key. This will include pay-on-demand surety bonds.

Speaker, wider acceptance of surety bonds by municipalities could help free up money, free up cash, free up capital for home builders so they can pursue additional home building. It would also make some projects, which currently can’t obtain financing, more viable. So, again, it’s another tool in our tool box to allow us to get more homes built faster, more shovels in the ground in a better way.

These targeted changes will have a far-reaching impact on increasing our housing supply.

As you see, Speaker, our government has been working hard to help get shovels in the ground faster and lower the costs of building new homes, and the red tape reduction part of this bill is going to be key. I know the parliamentary assistant to red tape reduction will be speaking about that shortly and will do so very eloquently. A lot has been done. A lot needs to be done.

Let me just finish with a story or two that I think complements what we’re trying to accomplish on this side of the House with respect to getting more homes built faster.

I was amazed, as I’ve travelled the province, met at ROMA, met with the mayors, met with those that received cheques from the Building Faster Fund, those that earned the funds based on meeting or exceeding minimal targets of 80% of their housing target—again, communities over 50,000. Every one of them was so appreciative, because that money is going to be invested into water, waste water, roads—whatever infrastructure they need. It’s key. It’s important to get things done.

What I found interesting as well is, in the last month, I’ve had many members come to me and, as I travelled the province, many municipalities talked to me, phoned me and said, “I don’t think the numbers were right. Can you go back and check the records? Can you go back and see? Because I really think we qualified for some funding in the BFF.” And of course, we did our due diligence and took a look at it effectively. We have a standard across the province; CMHC does the adjudication.

The point is—it reminds me of my business days—that when you incent people effectively, properly, with the right tools, they listen and they watch; they’re measured, and they want to be accountable. What I found exciting was that in the whole process of handing out these cheques, people want to earn these funds.

We didn’t hand out our proportion of the $1.2 million—all of it—this year, but it’s important to note that what’s left over, what municipalities didn’t earn, they can apply for to get some of those infrastructure dollars, again, for waste water, water, roads, whatever it may be, to support infrastructure in this province. It is the one constraint we have in Ontario to get more homes built faster—it is the biggest constraint we have, bar none.

I’m excited to go back and talk about the budget, the “infrastructure budget,” as I call it—the $1 billion added for infrastructure, the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund, $825 million; and the Building Faster Fund, over the next two-point-odd years as we move forward.

Speaker, everyone deserves a roof over their head. It is crucial for everyone, wherever you are in the housing continuum, whether it’s affordable, whether it’s attainable—and we’ll talk about that in a minute—or market-based housing. One of the things I’ve been tasked with is to look at the whole attainable portion of housing, whether it’s modular housing or factory-built housing, and I’m pretty excited about the opportunities that we have there.

People often say, “Define ‘attainable’”—well, we can do like we did with “affordable,” and we will define it based on community. What “attainable” means in northern Ontario versus, say, Kenora, versus London, versus Hamilton, versus Toronto, versus Brockville, versus Renfrew—it’s different everywhere. But I see it simply as, “attainable” means you do not qualify for affordable housing because you make too much money, but you don’t qualify for a mortgage because either you don’t have enough of a downstroke or down payment to qualify, or you can’t cash-flow the mortgage rates.

We would put a call out to the federal government to continue to advocate for getting these interest rates lower, to take a look at the indexing of interest rates that CMHC has put on—maybe taking a look at reducing that. But ultimately, we need to repurpose some surplus lands we have in this province, surplus lands municipalities have, and look at new and innovative ways to get shovels in the ground faster so everyone can get a roof over their head.

We’re not just talking about first-time homebuyers; that’s important. We’re also talking about seniors who want to downsize. In my own community of Dorchester, I can tell you there are a lot of people who would like to downsize to a smaller home. I think my wife and I would be on that list; we don’t need the house we have. But to find a smaller home at the right value—that inventory doesn’t exist.

Again, if we can create the environment—like this bill supports and concludes—I think we can see those results in the coming weeks, months and years ahead.

Speaker, I will conclude here. Thank you for your time. I yield the floor to my honourable friend from Etobicoke–Lakeshore.

It’s wonderful to rise this morning to talk about our most recent red tape bill and ensuring that we get more homes built across Ontario. I hear often in my riding that we need to do more to help the people of Ontario have a home that meets their needs and their budget, and I want to present some of the details about these various themes in our proposed bill, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, as well as some targeted housing measures in that piece of legislation.

To begin, I’d like to touch on some additional aspects of this bill and supporting initiatives that address our goal of building homes faster at a lower cost.

Our government continually seeks ways to help reduce the cost of building new homes, whether it’s through the most recent legislation the Minister of Energy has brought forward or whether it’s ensuring that we are proposing building code amendments that ensure costs remain low for our builders, ensuring that they continue to build the homes we need.

That’s why we’re proposing to remove requirements to have at least a minimum number of parking spaces for developments in certain areas near most major transit stations.

The proposed changes to the Planning Act would apply to the lands, buildings or structures that are located within certain areas near transit called protected major transit station areas. It would also apply to areas where municipalities choose to accommodate more housing around subway, rail or bus rapid transit stations, which is what we mean when we talk about higher-order density.

Instead of mandating minimum parking requirements, our proposal would let homebuyers and home builders decide for themselves, based on the market needs, the number of parking spaces for new residential development near transit. I think this is a very important proposal, a very good proposal, from a Progressive Conservative government—letting the market decide how many parking spaces would be needed around a major transit area.

Importantly, this proposal, if passed, could remove construction costs of between $2,000 and $100,000 per parking space per project, helping to make more projects viable.

I know we are in very challenging economic circumstances with the high interest rates, and I was discouraged to see the Bank of Canada not choose to cut interest rates yesterday. Our Premier continues to call on the Prime Minister to do more to lower interest rates as soon as possible.

We will continue to take action to ensure that we reduce the costs of building homes and apartments near transit, and this initiative, if passed, would do just that. Under existing requirements in some municipalities, this could save $50 million for a 500-unit development and make it cheaper to build and purchase new homes near transit. It will also make transit more accessible for the people of Ontario.

In keeping with the same theme, we’re also proposing changes to the Planning Act that, if passed, would help eliminate barriers to building additional residential units. We would do this by providing authority for regulations related to ADUs. Our proposed regulation-making authority would support the creation of additional residential units such as garden, laneway or basement suites. The importance of these additional suites cannot be overstated. Even in rural Ontario, which I have the honour of representing in this place, these additional residential units are a way for our seniors to downsize. I know a common term is “over-housed individuals”—who may live in a larger house but have nowhere to downsize within their community. Having these additional residential units gives them that option to remain in the community that they helped build, be close to their children and grandchildren potentially, and to enjoy their golden years. These basement suites, laneway suites and garden suites are just ensuring that we have those options for a variety of housing that our government continues to support being built across Ontario. We will enable future regulations that can eliminate municipal barriers such as maximum lot coverage and limits on the number of bedrooms allowed per lot.

I have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy, and we were travelling recently across Ontario for regional governance review and that study. We heard very often from our municipal partners on a use-it-or-lose-it policy. I’m pleased to see our government bring forward this aspect in this bill before this place right now. It is important to prioritize the infrastructure for ready-to-go housing projects, and that’s what this use-it-or-lose-it policy will do.

We have heard many times from our municipal partners, as I mentioned, that stalled development and unused service capacity can be a barrier to meeting provincial housing targets. For example, seven municipalities have reported that over 70,000 housing units with planning approval have remained inactive for at least two years. For that reason, we’re proposing a use-it-or-lose-it process. This process will help address stalled developments and support efficient allocation of housing-enabling infrastructure, such as water and sewage servicing capacity.

If passed, our proposed changes to the Planning Act, Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act would enable municipalities to adopt policies setting out how sewage and water servicing capacity can be allocated or reallocated to developments that are ready to proceed. This will result in fewer barriers and fewer delays prior to construction—or put another way, this will get shovels in the ground faster.

I know the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing spoke earlier. We meet often with AMO and ROMA as well as many other municipal associations in Ontario, and they have stressed the feedback to us around addressing stalled development.

Consulting with our municipal partners was very important with this legislation, and so we are enabling municipalities to better use existing revenue tools to pay for the development of housing-enabling infrastructure and other needs. We would do this through our proposal to eliminate the five-year phase-in of development charge rates.

Speaker, let me remind you that development charges are fees that municipalities can apply to a new development or redevelopment to help pay for the capital costs of infrastructure that may support this new growth.

Our proposal to eliminate the five-year phase-in would apply to development charge bylaws passed on or after January 1, 2022. For municipalities that have to amend their development charge bylaws to remove the phase-in, we are proposing that they be able to do so using a streamlined approach.

What’s more, this June 1, Ontario will bring into force exemptions and discounts on municipal development charges for affordable residential units. I think we can all agree in this place that it is important that we do not levy development charges on non-profit—the good work that Habitat for Humanity does. They were here a few weeks ago in Queen’s Park, meeting with a variety of members, and they told us time and time again, “Thank you for removing the development charges on Habitat for Humanity homes.” That is helping them get more homes built for those who need it in our communities, and I know our non-profit sector appreciates that—in ensuring that our affordable residential units do not have those charges levied on them. This would provide incentives to build more affordable housing across the province.

Speaker, obviously, this bill looks at amending the Planning Act, a document that I have the pleasure of reading often. I’m not sure if my colleagues in this place read it as much as myself and the minister and the associate minister. This time, we’re proposing to amend the Planning Act under the theme of improving consultation and providing municipalities and builders with greater certainty to get homes built faster. This proposed change would streamline certain third-party appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal to help communities get quicker planning approvals for housing projects. This would help reduce building costs and, in some cases, reduce project delays by up to 18 months. That could mean getting shovels in the ground a full year and a half earlier, meaning people and families will move in even sooner to new homes, faster. To put that into perspective, between 2021 and 2023, approximately 67,000 housing units were subject to third-party appeals of official plans and rezoning. This simply cannot continue.

We’re proposing further changes to the Planning Act, and these would allow appeals when a municipality refuses an application or simply does not make a decision within the statutory timeline or a settlement boundary change that would accommodate future growth outside of the greenbelt.

We know that times change, and along with that, so have the methods for consulting on and communicating land use planning changes. That’s why we’re proposing a regulatory change to enhance public engagement on new planning applications and other Planning Act matters. We would do this by modernizing public notice requirements to enable municipalities to give notice on their website if there is no local newspaper available. Unfortunately, in many rural communities, there are no local papers still present. So this provides an opportunity for our rural municipalities, in particular, to have those public consultations on their website or through a newsletter they may mail out with their property tax statements, for example, giving them that flexibility to be even more accessible to the residents they serve.

Similar regulatory changes are proposed under the Development Charges Act. If our bill is passed, we will work with our municipal partners to develop best practices for modernizing public engagement and consultation. This could include expanding our reach to include multilingual notices. Ontario is a very large province, a very diverse province, which is wonderful, to see the variety of cultures represented in Ontario—but ensuring that our consultation process and our municipal consultation process around development is accessible to all. I look forward to having those consultations with our municipal partners as we move forward.

Our fourth and final theme is related to building more types of homes for more people. Under this theme, our proposal is to get shovels in the ground faster for priority projects. Under the Planning Act, municipalities can make decisions that determine the future of their communities. This includes making decisions on official plans, zoning bylaws, plans of subdivision, and site plan control.

We know a new development may require many municipal planning approvals before construction begins. Unfortunately, some Ontario priority projects have encountered delays when navigating the planning approval process. To solve this, we will consult on a new expedited approval process for community service facilities. We’ll be starting that with, for example, K-to-12 public schools, potentially extending in phases to long-term-care facilities and hospitals.

I know our government has put forward an ambitious infrastructure plan, which was announced in the budget a few short weeks ago—whether it was the over $1.8 million in housing-enabling infrastructure; whether it’s the Building Faster Fund that we announced last year at AMO, $1.2 billion; whether it’s the doubling of our capital budget for our schools, which I know was very well received across Ontario. We have many growing communities. I know this government is committed to ensuring that we build complete communities with schools, child care, hospitals, and ensuring that those planning approvals get done as quickly as possible, ensuring that those processes are seamless. That is what our goal is through these consultations—to ensure these priority projects are moving forward.

Speaker, we’re also moving forward with our consultations around the PPS, or the provincial planning statement, ensuring that we are putting forward a provincial planning statement that will get more homes built faster and sets out the rules for, obviously, land use planning in Ontario.

I know this is a very ambitious piece of legislation—ensuring that we work with our municipal partners who we heavily consulted with and with our home builders and our other community builders across Ontario; ensuring that we build the homes that Ontarians need, whether it’s the home for a grandma and grandpa, or whether it’s a home for a new family or a new Canadian to our shores. It’s ensuring that we have those places for those individuals too—it’s not just a building; it’s a place that they can build a community, they can raise their family, they can enjoy those golden years. That is what our government is focused on—ensuring every Ontarian has the opportunity and the ability to achieve home ownership and an affordable place to rent.

In northern Ontario, we are very interested in getting rid of red tape for government-owned homes that need to be put up on the market.

I have given the example of Gogama. Three years ago, I wrote to every single minister to say, “There are 11 homes in Gogama that are owned by the government. There are 1,800 workers across the street who sleep in bunkers, who want to buy those homes. Please put them up for sale.” They told me they had to go through due process. I wrote back two years later and got the exact same letter—they have to go through due process.

When are we going to get rid of the red tape that keeps this government from putting the houses in Gogama, in Foleyet—all over my riding—that they own up for sale? People in northern Ontario want to buy those homes.