It gives me great pleasure to present the following petitions on behalf of Dr. Sally Palmer, professor emerita at the school of social work in the faculty of social sciences at McMaster University. Now, to Dr. Palmer: Unfortunately, we’re not entitled to read directly the words from petitions within the Ontario Legislature due to recent changes by this government, so this will be my summary.

The petition is titled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates.” The petition points out that Ontario’s rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line. It also points out that a letter was sent to the Premier and to cabinet ministers, and it was signed by over 230 organizations, and it recommends the doubling of these rates. It points out that people who are on social assistance are unable to afford food, they are unable to afford rent, and that the government of Canada even recognized this with its CERB program, that the basic income of $2,000 per month was a standard support.

I fully support the petition to double social assistance rates, will affix my signature and deliver it with page Simon to the Clerks.

It is my honour to present the following petition entitled “Support the Gender Affirming Health Care Act.” Within the petition, it points out that two-spirit, transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse and intersex communities have a great deal of difficulty when it comes to receiving the health care that they need in Ontario. Within Ontario, people should not have to fight for a health care that understands and recognizes their identity.

So this petition is to pass the gender-affirming health care act, something that I believe everyone, if they’re listening to their conscience, should pass, should support, and I hope that this government will finally decide to listen to its conscience once and for all.

I support this and will deliver it with page Armaan to the Clerks.

I’d like to thank the member from University–Rosedale for a very balanced presentation about the current housing crisis within our province. It seems this government could benefit from a little bit of balance, whether it’s balancing books or balancing ideas, for heaven’s sakes.

My question to the member, though: The member has pointed out that if a municipality approves sprawl, you can’t appeal, but if the municipality denies sprawl, you can appeal. What are some of the Pandora’s box of issues that that opens up?

With the House’s indulgence, it’s my honour to rise today. I would like to take a moment to recognize the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games in Calgary and some of the winners from London.

Winning gold was the London Blazers floor hockey team. They overcame illness and injury. They even played short-handed in the semifinals. I’d like to congratulate Chris Lauzon of London as well as Zack Griffith of St. Thomas.

Head coach Todd DeSilva said, “They played like nobody’s business and the results speak for themselves. I’m so unbelievably proud to coach them and help them achieve their goals.”

I want to give congratulations to London Blazers teammates Dylan Baughman, Jesse Clifford, Kodi Cronk, Jonathan Figg, Christopher Freeman, Mike Hitchcock, Richard Horner, Kevin MacMullin, Sam Samwell, Scott Tenant, Jacob Thomas and James Walker, as well as these Londoners: alpine skier Ben So, who won two gold and one silver; speed skaters Cameron Banerjee, who won one gold and one silver, Sara Albers, who won a gold and two silvers, as well as Jackson Tomlinson; and bowler Kathleen Mills, who came in fourth in singles and fifth in team play. Congratulations to all of the athletes.

Speaker, as we take a look at Bill 185, it’s almost as though this government wants to stack up and rack up as many red tape bills as losing lawsuits. I believe this is their 13th red tape bill.

When we look at the government’s intention—I always begin with the intention of legislation, and according to this government, their stated intention is that they want to build more housing; they want there to be more housing. The very simplest answer to this question, if indeed this is their intent, is to build more housing. And yet, this government chooses not to build. They choose to do everything but actually get into the business of building housing—it is strangely ironic—despite the number of titles that we have to this effect.

What is needed right now in this province is a wartime effort to make sure that people who are currently deprived of housing—people who are unable to start in life, and seniors who are at risk of becoming homeless—are guaranteed safety.

Post-World War II, the government recognized its moral and social responsibility for the veterans returning from World War II, so they provided very reasonably rented homes—those strawberry boxes, those simplified Cape Cod designs—to make sure that we would look after the greatest generation.

What happened as a result is those returning veterans were able to then purchase those homes, and it realized the tremendous economic potential of the baby boomer generation. That is something that could be realized within the province right now, yet this government has chosen to vote against NDP proposals to have the government get back into the business of building housing, which is such a shame.

Now, if the government’s intention was for there to be more housing with Bill 185, they would ensure that there were more types. They would ensure investments in co-ops. They would make sure that there was more RGI. They would make sure that there were as-of-right fourplexes within this legislation. And yet, they have chosen not to. The Canadian Real Estate Association has recommended that there should be more middle housing options that this government should invest in, such as low-rise apartments, duplexes, townhomes, and really include that as-of-right zoning.

This government would, in their NIMBY way, foist responsibility for this onto municipal councils rather than taking a leadership role within the province. Isn’t it ironic, Speaker? They talk about building homes; they choose not to build homes. They talk about leadership, and they lead from the back, expecting somebody else to stand up for them.

Additionally, if we want to look at ensuring that there are enough homes, we need to ensure that the people who are currently housed remain housed. We need to do so in a variety of ways. We need to make sure that there is rent control. Yet this government has, through the changes that they have made back in 2018 for apartments first occupied after November 2018—that rent control be abolished whatsoever.

What this government has created is a system of exploitation. They have driven prices up. Analysts from many different industries have looked at that decision and shaken their heads. We can easily say that the cost of housing, to purchase, has also gone up as a result of this. There are fewer people entering the buying market because they simply cannot save money because they’re having to catch up continually with ever-increasing rent.

We could also change—and fix—the Liberals’ mistake of opening up vacancy decontrol. We could plug that hole. We have NDP legislation on the table right now to make sure that people wouldn’t be subject to that horrible, unwritten rule that kicking good, long-term tenants out will allow that landlord to jack up the rent to whatever the market can withstand. They’ve created a system of exploitation, and they could end that.

Yet, in the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, this government has made more barriers. They’ve wrapped tenants in red tape, in actual point of fact. And yet, they don’t protect people who are currently housed because we still see demovictions, we see renovictions, we see AGIs. Those really unethical, wealthy, corporate landlords are simply able to apply for an AGI without even proving that they need to. And who bears that cost? The people who bear that cost are the tenants.

If this government really wanted more housing, they would actually ensure that we are building in areas that are suitable for housing—where it’s easiest to make sure that those developments can happen quickly, can happen effectively, with the infrastructure necessary, and make sure people can get in as soon as possible. And yet, this government, instead, is really working against that.

It was our housing critic, the member for University–Rosedale, who has quite accurately pointed out the glaring gap that this government has created in this very strange way that, if a municipality approves sprawl, you can’t appeal, but if the municipality denies sprawl, you can appeal. That seems contrary to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, who have really warned this government that we are losing 319 acres of prime farmland every single day, and yet this government would still include measures such as this, with Bill 185 and the provincial policy statement working in tandem to create yet more sprawl.

This government, as well, would be wise to take a look at instituting a vacancy tax. That would make a great deal of sense. We see in many communities, post-pandemic, that there are office spaces that aren’t used. We see land banking, where people are simply just sitting on available land and available office space that could be redeveloped to address the homelessness crisis that we have within all of our communities, and yet we see nothing.

I wanted to point out a presentation that was made to this government during the pre-budget consultations, and it indicates that downtown commercial vacancy has created a domino effect. Higher vacancy has led to less foot traffic, and it’s created so many more issues with safety, vandalism, unclean environments, decreases in economic activity.

We need to make sure that we are revitalizing our city cores by making sure that there is more and more and more housing within them. If landowners aren’t going to develop their commercial properties that they’re sitting on, then they need an incentive in order to do so.

I also wanted to point out that—and I want to thank the member for Niagara Centre for his advocacy in making sure the use-it-or-lose-it policies would finally be recognized by this government. That is something we do see within Bill 185, and I’m very thankful for that. However, this government simply does not go far enough. We don’t see measures for affordability. We don’t see measures to keep people housed. We don’t see measures to really crack down on short-term rentals such as Airbnb and others.

The question I have for the government is, why are they so afraid of building? Why will they choose and continue to choose not to do so? But further, when we look at Bill 185, some of the questions I have are, why is this government so ideologically against people who rent? Why do they create policies and create situations where people are exploited simply for needing a safe place to call home?

When we look at rent control itself, this government has an ideological opposition to it. It is beyond belief that during the time of an affordability crisis, that the Premier would get rid of rent control altogether, as I’ve mentioned, on buildings first occupied after November 2018. It makes little sense. It’s like pouring gasoline onto an affordability fire.

Ricardo Tranjan of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said, “You could drive a very large truck through the loopholes in our rent control system.”

Recently, the CCPA has reported that over the last decade, landlords have increased rents by 16.5%, and average rents have actually increased by 54.5%—54.5% over the last 10 years. That is an obnoxious number, an obnoxious number that this government should be taking seriously.

In this scenario, as I’ve said, it’s a system of exploitation. People are being taken advantage of. David Hulchanski, who is a professor of housing and community development at U of T, says, “The market isn’t functioning properly because landlords are taking advantage of a scarce resource—rental units. The state has to step in and do something.”

It’s not a matter of simply creating more units without controls because that has actually, in a very strange way, driven up the cost of everything else because vacancy decontrol still exists. We have not plugged that hole. So it’s allowing everyone within that market to keep squeezing and squeezing and squeezing people until they can’t take it anymore.

When will this government act? When will this government listen to all of the people within your communities who you know are being exploited right now because of this system you’ve created, the system you have neglected, the system that you have ignored? It’s absolutely disgraceful.

What I also find rather strangely ironic, and possibly, darkly ironic by the way in which this government operates, is Bill 185 reverses a number of different things that this government has previously brought into law. It reverses many of the changes that were within Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, which is a very strange thing when you think about it because, quite ironically, they’re actually building homes slowly. In fact, I believe that in order to meet its own targets, this government, if it wants to build 1.5 million homes by 2031—news flash, it is not going to happen—it needs to build at least 125,000 homes annually. And, in the 2024 budget, there will be about 88,000 housing starts this year. We are not on track and it is not going to happen—certainly not under this government who refuses to get their hands dirty and won’t get shovels in the ground.

The Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada has quite rightly pointed out—that’s another thing that could happen within this legislation: We could see investments in co-ops, making sure that we are including housing of all types—“As the province continues to development policies surrounding the provision of government-owned surplus land,” they encourage the government to take an “affordable-housing-first” approach; “focus on getting the maximum long-term public value out of these lands. Non-profit, affordable housing offered in perpetuity gives the province better value for money over the medium to long term, compared to the one-time cash provided by sale at market value.” That’s something the official opposition NDP fully agree with. We need those investments within our co-ops.

If we look, historically, at what has happened in housing over the last number of years, it was a Conservative government that got out of the business of building housing. Had they continued at the rate that was happening, we would have somewhere near 1.3 million more affordable homes. What’s the stated deficit? It’s 1.5 million.

The Ontario Big City Mayors also wanted to point out, “We also made it clear that development charge exemptions will continue to make a significant impact on municipalities. We have always operated on a ‘growth pays for growth’ model, and by moving away from that, any financial burden shifts to the property tax base. We continue to call upon the province to sit down with municipalities for a municipal fiscal review, which includes how they will address their commitment to keeping us whole.”

Again, we see this government engaged in sleight of hand, in this shell game, where they don’t want people to pay attention to what is actually happening. They’ve gone and removed the ability for municipalities to charge development charges with Bill 23, costing municipalities around a billion dollars per year, according to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and then they have their community water and infrastructure fund changing things around, and, yet, again, we see them backpedalling with Bill 185. It’s like they don’t really have a solid plan. They keep coming forward piecemeal; one step forward, two steps back. This is just another example of a government that really doesn’t understand what it’s doing.

The CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association, someone who’s well known to this House, Tim Hudak, said, “Finally, we are disappointed that two key recommendations by the province’s own Housing Affordability Task Force (HATF)—strongly supported by Ontario realtors—have not been included in” this “bill. We need to build more homes on existing properties and allow upzoning along major transit corridors if we are going to address the housing affordability and supply crisis in our province.”

Hudak goes on to say, “The province is making significant investments in transit and passenger rail, and building more home along those lines is common sense.” And then states, “Eliminating exclusionary zoning and allowing four units, as-of-right, province-wide is an essential key to unlock affordable home ownership, and several municipalities, including Toronto, London and Barrie, are already leading the way.”

Yet, this government doesn’t even listen to people who are in its universe. They don’t listen to their own task force, they don’t listen to their own people. They’re blundering ahead, probably creating more legislation that they’re going to have to backpedal in the medium-to-not-too-distant future.

If this government was truly serious, and serious not by way of naming of legislation without actual action, but serious in thought, word and deed; if they wanted to have more housing in the province of Ontario, they would, number one, build more housing. They would engage in the war-time effort that is necessary. They would ensure that they’re supporting people who will create more types of housing, including co-ops, not-for-profits in municipalities. They would expand rent-geared-to-income housing. They would have as-of-right fourplexes within our city, and they would make sure that there were entry-level houses being built within our communities. They would listen to experts like the Canadian Real Estate Association and the Ontario Real Estate Association. They would listen to the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. They would also protect the people who are in housing right now. They would re-establish rent control for buildings first occupied after November 2018. They would pass NDP legislation to make sure that current renters are protected from renoviction, from demoviction, from AGIs and from all the systems of exploitation that they have fostered and created with their haphazard and half-witted approach to renter rights within Ontario. They would also plug the hole of vacancy decontrol opened up by that Liberal government, who did not care about people who are renting within this province.

They understand this issue. They understand it’s a problem. It’s time for them to act.

But they would also crack down on short-term rentals. They would make sure that there is a vacancy tax so that people are incentivized to provide that housing. The government is the largest landowner in the province and has the opportunity to provide that land at cost to non-profit housing providers and co-op housing providers, to provide that stability that people want, the stability that people need, allowing them to start a life, start a family or allowing them to retire in dignity in a place that is safe, not having the axe hanging above them with the fear of their building being sold, their building being demolished or having some unscrupulous landlord who has just decided that no matter how good they are as a person they’ve just lived there too long.

Speaker, it’s unconscionable. It’s something that this government—it is incumbent upon them to act. We are here to support you. We could pass NDP legislation that’s on the table in laser speed, in lightning speed. So let’s get it done. Let’s work harder.

I’d like to thank the member from Markham–Thornhill for his question. I am pleased to see that within Bill 185 the government has recognized the mistakes that it has made. It realized that with Bill 23 they were stepping on municipalities, that they were insulting municipalities, that they weren’t working as true partners with municipalities. They were instead transferring money over to people who don’t need more money. They were transferring money over to wealthy developers by allowing them to not pay development charges, and, really, who is going to pay for that? Who is going to pay for all of that missing money? That will be shifted onto the tax base. That will be shifted onto everyone paying taxes within Ontario, and that is the reverse of Robin Hood. It should make absolutely no sense to them.

But I do want to point out that municipalities should be treated as partners. This government’s words don’t go far enough. Many housing stakeholders are calling upon the province to engage in that dialogue, engage in those meetings.

Instead, they’re transferring wealth over to people who don’t really need more money. They’re privatizing health care, but through Bill 23, they’re giving shovelfuls of money to wealthy developers while forcing regular taxpayers to pay for that infrastructure. It’s disgraceful. It’s unconscionable. It actually strikes at the heart of true fiscal Conservatives. They should be more wise with their money. They should be spending money in homes, not-for-profit housing, where there’s that long-term economic viability.

This legislation itself is not completely awful. I will say with schedule 8, it’s pretty benign in a lot of ways, but it is updating something that is really archaic. I think it modernizes language that’s actually there, things like “forthwith,” that I don’t know that many people—maybe the member from Essex likes saying “forthwith.” It’s not something we hear very often in modern speech in the vernacular.

But I think there are also a lot of opportunities within this legislation that this government has missed. Number one is making sure that renters are protected, that people who currently have homes will remain in those homes.

Again, thank you to the member from Essex. I’m glad that they’re bringing forward the concerns from their area. I think that’s incredibly important. I think it’s also important that we note that, within Bill 185, it does not address the concerns of northern Ontarians in a very effective way. In fact, Greater Sudbury ward 10 councillor and planning committee chair Fern Cormier said that they haven’t seen anything in the proposed legislation that will dramatically affect the city. And in North Bay, Mayor Peter Chirico says that “a lot of that legislation is directed at the GTA and high-growth areas.... We don’t have a lot of development that’s just sitting. When they have the opportunity, developers in northern Ontario go forward with it....”

So I don’t believe that this government has actually adequately consulted on this legislation. There is so much more that needs to be in there and actually address the situation.