I listened very intently to the member opposite. Of course, I know he will be reminded frequently by members on this side of the House that it was a former Liberal cabinet minister who agreed that the housing crisis actually started under the previous Liberal government and went before a committee. Of course, the provincial planning statement talks about building around major transit station areas. That is in there. Of course, he lives in a city that has four units as-of-right that has built next to nothing in that category.

But I wonder when the member became such a fierce advocate for density. Because when he was running for office, he was at a community meeting, and he said he would do everything in his power to stop density in his community around a transit station area. So I’m wondering when he converted to being a warrior for building housing in his community, housing that he vowed he would work to stop when he got elected.

We’ll now have questions to the member for Don Valley East.

The next question.

The next question.

Interjection.

Interjection.

Start the clock. The member for Don Valley East.

Further debate?

I appreciate the opportunity to stand in this chamber and speak to the legislation before the House, Bill 185, the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, the 12th iteration of our government’s commitment to reducing burdensome regulations on the people of Ontario and continuing our work, as we’ve done every year since I was serving in this government, to bring forward legislation to make it easier, to make it faster to build more homes in the province of Ontario.

I’m pleased to walk through some of the pieces of the legislation, and we’ve heard some excellent debate already this afternoon on particular components of it. But I feel there have been some parts of the legislation that haven’t been really addressed yet and some of the more nitty-gritty details. So I apologize those who are watching at home; this is going to be a bit more of a technical overview of some of the components of the legislation and not some of the higher-level pieces.

I did want to perhaps just provide some contextualization to this legislation, specifically on the importance of reducing red tape. I’ve spoken in previous participations around red tape reduction measures about the need to reduce and change the trajectory, the ship of state that’s heading in one direction with its ever-increasing amounts of red tape, like we saw under the previous Liberal government, and our decision to take an approach that reduces red tape. We’ve seen a 6.6% reduction overall in red tape across government through measures reducing a number of those red tape requirements and the regulation count across the board.

I’ve spoken before about a quote that Alexis de Tocqueville spoke about when he visited North America a couple of hundred years ago now, and when he spoke about the concerns that he had around the potential infringements on people’s liberty. I’ve spoken about this before, and I want to again raise in this chamber to those who haven’t had the opportunity to hear what I believe is a really pertinent warning to all of us who have the privilege of serving. He spoke about what kind of tyranny or soft despotism could come if a government failed to recognize its role and failed to ensure that the liberty and the rights of those who it served were protected. He spoke about a soft despotism, saying, “After having thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having moulded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

“I have always believed that this sort of servitude, regulated, mild and peaceful, of which I have just done the portrait, could be combined better than we imagine with some of the external forms of liberty, and that it would not be impossible for it to be established in the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people.”

The soft despotism that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about is really just that series of tiny rules, one after the other, in ever-growing bureaucracy.

In previous debates, I’ve spoken about this concern that I think we should all be aware of, and members of the opposition have risen to share their concern.

I believe the member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas referenced Thomas Jefferson. I think ensuring that Thomas Jefferson’s perspective on this, as well, is considered is valuable, so to pay tribute and recognize the members of the opposition, I want to quote Thomas Jefferson. He said, “The ... pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”

He also said, “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government....”

I believe it’s very important that all of us in this chamber recognize that our philosophical underpinnings as a government understand the importance of respecting and recognizing the common sense of common people, the hard-working men and women who make this province an incredible place to live, work, play and grow.

With that context, I’m going to speak to some of the specifics of the legislation that we have the opportunity to debate today, recognizing that it comes in the context of a continuous iterative approach to reducing red tape. We know that not any one bill is going to be a one-and-done bill. We know that it’s not just this bill alone that is going to get all of the homes built that we need in the province of Ontario, but it continues a legacy towards simultaneously reducing that burden on free enterprise and free people here in Ontario and also ensuring that those people who come to our province—people like Phil and Rose, immigrants I spoke with recently, who have moved to Smithville after having lived in a basement in Brampton for 10 years after they immigrated, and were able to purchase their first home, a brand new townhome in Smithville, and were ecstatic about what this represented for them and their families—that families like Phil and Rose’s are respected, and that more and more of those new Canadians and young Canadians, those who may have been born in communities like mine and yet saw that dream of home ownership slip out of their grasp because of the rising costs and the rising supply challenges that we had in Ontario. This is a testament to our commitment to helping them.

The Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act is part of a spring red tape reduction package that will help build a stronger economy. It will help keep costs down. It will save time and improve service delivery for businesses and Ontarians. And the proposed legislation that we’re debating today focuses on cutting red tape where it’s needed most: on building homes. Red tape is one of the biggest barriers to getting shovels in the ground. The initiatives that we are debating today will take significant action to streamline approvals and increase housing and infrastructure development across Ontario. It will also, through this legislation, include measures to remove unnecessary burdens and foster a strong business climate while ensuring appropriate regulatory oversights are still in place—those that protect the public, that protect workers and protect our cherished environment.

First, we have, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, an important amendment to the Line Fences Act. We know that this legislation is proposing to modernize legislation that provides a cost-effective tool to resolve fencing disputes between adjacent property owners. We know that the proposed Line Fences Act amendments will remove outdated aspects of the legislation and reduce burden for municipalities.

We are also amending the composition of the board in the Université de Hearst Act, 2021, which will reduce the size of the university’s board of governors, following a request by that institution. We know that this change will allow the university to have a board proportionate to the size of their institution, aligning with sector best practices.

We’re also making changes to An Act to Incorporate the Trinity College School of 1872. Specifically, we’re proposing to remove non-active members from the governing board of the school, such as the chancellor of Trinity College and the provost of Trinity College, to streamline governance and also reduce administrative burden. We know that these board members are not active in governance activities and it’s not feasible to have them participating in many future meetings.

We’re also proposing to amend Redeemer Reformed Christian College Act of 1998 to reduce the size and simplify the composition of Redeemer University’s board of governors, following a request by that institution. These changes would allow the board to operate efficiently and govern effectively, as well as aligning it with sector best practices.

We’re also taking a number of steps in the Ministry of Energy. Specifically, we’re modernizing leave-to-construct approvals for utility relocation projects. We’re proposing a change that would allow for regulations to broaden the Ontario Energy Board exemption from leave to construct for hydrocarbon pipeline relocations or reconstruction. This would include relocations with land requirements, if certain criteria are met, that currently are part of priority transit projects or projects by a road authority.

The legislation would also clarify that for pipeline relocations not needing new land, leave to construct is only required if pipe size increases. This proposal would help reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, delays and costs for pipeline projects to help build more roads faster.

Through the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, we are bringing forward a burden reduction strategy for Ontario’s producer responsibility framework. We are considering changes to the producer responsibility regulations, which will reduce burden, increase flexibility and also provide better ways to oversee the market.

Ontario will be consulting on a number of changes, including reducing administrative burden and duplication by ensuring that reporting requirements are not duplicative or onerous. We will be clarifying rules for activities that are not shared by producer responsibility organizations, or PROs, such as when they share collection sites. It will also allow more flexibility for how producers and PROs establish and operate collection networks, while ensuring consumers continue to have convenient access to recycling, and also review technical details in the regulations to make it easier for regulated parties to comply, while also maintaining recycling outcomes.

We know that the changes proposed under this legislation will aim to improve Ontario’s competitiveness, support stronger supply chains and make it easier for producers and businesses to work with the government.

In the Ministry of Health, we continue our commitment to ensuring that we are putting patients ahead of paperwork. We’re streamlining the registration for internationally educated health professionals. We will be working with health regulatory colleges, such as the College of Nurses of Ontario, to streamline the registration process for internationally educated health care professionals while ensuring that applicants can still provide high-quality and safe work.

This work will make it faster and easier for internationally educated health professionals to start working in Ontario. It will provide greater access to care, choices in care providers, and shorter wait times for patients and the public. This is in addition to Ontario’s as-of-right rules, which make it faster and easier for out-of-province physicians, nurses, medical lab techs and respiratory therapists registered in other provinces and territories to immediately start working in Ontario’s public hospitals and long-term-care homes without first having to register with one of Ontario’s health regulatory colleges.

There are also changes in this legislation, Speaker, to ensure that we are cutting red tape when it comes to assisting, getting more people into the skilled trades.

In this legislation, we are proposing amendments to the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, 2021, which would allow Skilled Trades Ontario’s registrar to delegate their duties and powers to one or more Skilled Trades Ontario’s employees. This would help prevent delays in service and would support Skilled Trades Ontario in responding to the growing demand we see in so many corners of this province as the government continues to promote the skilled trades as a rewarding career path.

We are also proposing regulatory changes under the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, 2021, to allow notices and documents to be served via email. The proposal would allow ministry inspectors to serve certain notices and documents via email, as well as offer email service as an option under this act in order to streamline processes and save time.

With the Northern Services Board Act modernization initiative, Speaker, we will undertaking consultation with local service boards and the public at large on potential legislative and regulatory framework changes to modernize the Northern Services Board Act to also reduce the burden, streamline processes, cut red tape and promote northern economic and community development.

Speaker, I’m very pleased to also speak about some of the work that the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery is doing that is part of this important spring red tape reduction package—again, the 12th red tape reduction package brought forward under this government.

We are committed to advancing reconciliation and making it easier and more affordable for Indigenous peoples to access records and services. We are now bringing in a one-window process to eliminate the need to request death searches from two offices, the Archives of Ontario and ServiceOntario’s Office of the Registrar General. As part of this process, fees are being permanently waived for death registration searches, death certificates and certified copies of death registrations. Fees are also being waived to register a delayed registration of death for children who attended Indian residential schools. These permanent fee waivers provide ongoing financial relief for impacted Indigenous communities and families.

The Ontario government is also introducing a regulation under the At Your Service Act, 2022, to require ministries to develop business service standards for permits and licence services delivered to businesses and to report publicly on the service standards. It’s a new regulation which will help businesses understand how long they can expect to wait for a decision about a permit or a licence so that they know they can plan for their work. In combination with Ontario’s single window for business initiative, this will make it easier for businesses to quickly find information about and track the progress of their permit and licence applications.

Speaker, we are also bringing in a change at the Archives of Ontario. Ontario will no longer be charging fees for third-party vendors to film at the archives. Previously, third-party vendors had to pay $6,300 a day to film at the Archives of Ontario, and this often inhibited new and emerging artists and creators from considering the Archives as a site for their work. This change will directly reduce financial burden for businesses, for artists, for creators, for organizations, and provide them with easier access to the historical information available at the Archives of Ontario.

Additionally, the Ontario government will change a regulation under the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund debtor repayment modernization plan to allow the government to accept credit and debit cards and other modern forms of payment from debtors who owe money to the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund. Currently, a debtor must repay the government in cash or by certified cheque, bank draft or money order.

Additionally, the transfer payment modernization launched under this suite of red tape reduction changes is the Ontario public service’s single digital enterprise-wide platform for administering transfer payments. It helps ensure a common approach to transfer payments. It simplifies program administration by streamlining access to funding and reducing the administrative burden for recipients. In addition, it helps the government make data-driven decisions while making it easier for citizens and organizations to interact with government.

Speaker, we are also proposing to amend the Coroners Act to require the Ministry of the Attorney General to provide additional information, including phone numbers, email addresses and language preferences, from the jury roll to help reduce the time and effort by the coroner when selecting prospective jurors. This change will improve communications with potential jurors and will ensure that the Office of the Chief Coroner is able to conduct inquests efficiently and effectively.

We are also repealing the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Corporation Act, 2023, by way of an order in council to eliminate a law that is no longer required, as this law was always intended to be transitional in nature.

Speaker, in my ministry—a ministry I am very excited to be working at, tourism, culture and sport, with Minister Neil Lumsden—we are seeking to make changes which would help the Ontario Arts Council, Destination Ontario and Ontario Creates support brand awareness and remove needless complications by matching the legal names with their common publicly recognized names. So the Province of Ontario Council for the Arts will be changed to the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corp. will be changed to Destination Ontario, and the Ontario Media Development Corp. will be changed to Ontario Creates.

Additionally, we’re proposing amendments to the Niagara Parks Act which will remove the requirement for an annual appointment resolution for municipal representatives to the Niagara Parks Board of Commissioners. This change would not affect municipal representation on the board, but it would align the Niagara Parks Act with other similar agency acts that include municipal representation on their respective boards. And to put it very clearly, Speaker, these changes will ensure that instead of having to pass a motion, a municipal motion, every single year for the municipal representatives, they can pass one motion at the beginning of the term of council to ensure that that representative is serving on that board for that period of time.

Under the Ministry of Transportation, in the spring 2022 red tape reduction package, we eliminated licence plate renewal fees for passenger vehicles, light-duty trucks, motorcycles and mopeds, saving vehicle owners hundreds of dollars a year in southern Ontario and $60 a year in northern Ontario. Now, the Ontario government is proposing changes to the Highway Traffic Act which would allow for the transition to automated renewal of licence plates for drivers in good standing.

Additionally, we’re increasing Ontario’s collision reporting threshold. Given the rise in the CPI, we are increasing the dollar amount of damages required to report a motor vehicle collision to police. Where the collision involves damage to property only, the requirement is shifting from $2,000 to $5,000. Collisions involving personal injuries, property damage exceeding $5,000, or the door of a motor vehicle coming into contact with a cyclist or a moving vehicle will still need to be reported to the police, but raising the amount for damages for reporting collisions where no one is injured to the police will help reduce the administrative burden on drivers, commercial vehicle operators and police services alike.

Speaker, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it through a substantial portion of the bill, which is all of the housing components of the legislation, but I think it was important to also shed some light on the number of changes that are coming forward through this piece of legislation that builds on, again, an iterative approach that has been taken by this government when it comes to reducing the regulatory burden on the hard-working people of this province. So I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been able to speak to Bill 185 this afternoon. I look forward to having more debate with my colleagues across the way and in every corner of this Legislature, and I look forward to seeing this bill become law.

Thank you to the member for his comments. I just wondered if the member could share with the House some of his opinions on the necessity for us to build a lot of non-market housing. It really seems it’s the only way we can get that deeply affordable housing stock back into the system. I know, in my city, there’s a study that comes from Carleton University—Steve Pomeroy is the author of it—that for every one deeply affordable housing unit we are building in our city we’re losing 15, because real estate investment trusts are swooping into our community, buying up aging apartment buildings, barely renovating them and kicking a lot of those tenants out who are paying reasonable rent.

So I’m wondering if the member could share with us some of your thoughts about how this House, this province, could prioritize building non-market housing to keep those people in homes.

Thank you very much for the question. Regrettably, we do not see anything that addressed the root causes of the housing crisis in our midst right now. We do not see anything that will increase affordability for our constituents across the province, nothing to increase supportive housing for people across the province.

While there is a pillar of this plan that purports to build more kinds of housing, the foundation for that simply isn’t there. It’s merely words and lacking in any sort of substance whatsoever.

We’ve already seen—as we face in our health care sector. We have a shortage of health care workers. We have hospitals that are now being forced to go into the business of development, and we have now a government that wants colleges and universities to go into that business as well. If they want and feel equipped for that, that’s one thing, but the reality is that we have an underfunded post-secondary sector right now that is barely keeping afloat, and making this an option for them when they can barely keep afloat is really not fair and will be a drop in the bucket for a major crisis.

Interjections.

Interjection.

In any case, I welcome the opportunity to work with the other members. Evidently, there’s a proposal that needs a bit more review, and I absolutely will advocate for my constituents. That being said, there are many reasonable recommendations coming out of the Housing Affordability Task Force report that I have zero qualms in defending in this chamber to my constituents, because I know that when build more housing we are building it for our friends, for our neighbours and for our families.

I’ve been very clear, as I mentioned in my remarks, that one of the really important things that we could be doing is, when provincial lands are sold off for development, that a commitment to 20% and 30% be set aside for affordable housing, once we have clarity on what that definition is. Only if we can do that, ensuring that we have that kind of affordable and supportive housing in place, can we ensure that we get to the root cause of the housing crisis here and help those amongst us who are the most vulnerable here in the province of Ontario.

I would implore the Minister of Housing to do something like that, but I suspect he’ll remain with his ideological blinders and all of Ontario will suffer as a result.

I wanted to ask my colleague from Don Valley East about one part of his speech, and that is the potential exemptions to planning rules given to post-secondary institutions to build housing. The post-secondary institutions that I’m familiar with are not in the business of building a lot of housing. It’s not their key competency. They also don’t have a lot of capital to invest in starting such a business. I could see a post-secondary institution hiving this off to, perhaps, a private company to take advantage of all the exemptions that a post-secondary institution would get to building housing.

I wanted to ask my colleague if he thought this was a wise or even practical course of action.

Withdraw.

I indeed do have a question to the member from Niagara West. I do enjoy our hallway drive-by chats, so I wanted to comment on you quoting de Tocqueville. You will also know that de Tocqueville, his study on the democracy in America, is what led to that quote that I said to you. He also was very concerned and turned the phrase “the tyranny of the majority.” And you will also know that in using that phrase, he was concerned with the impact of a majority government and the well-being and the welfare of minority rights.

I would just like to say to you, your government has a huge majority, and you use it every single time. I would like to share with you my disappointment in the many times—for example, at committee when we or other members bring forward amendments that are there to ensure that everyone has a voice and that bills are reflective of the welfare and well-being of everyone in Ontario.

So I guess my question to you is, what do you think de Tocqueville would think about the fact that you often use this majority to shut out debate or shut down debate on these important issues?

I think de Tocqueville would be very, very pleased to see that the government of Ontario, with a majority that has been granted by the voters of Ontario, is bringing forward policies to ensure that those who were being left behind under 15 years of Liberal and NDP waste and mismanagement here in the province of Ontario finally have an opportunity to achieve the dream of home ownership, have the opportunity to ensure that their lives are getting better, that they have the opportunity to obtain good jobs, that they have careers available in those jobs, that they’re able to not have to worry about hundreds of dollars going out the door every year towards licence plate stickers, that they don’t have to worry about the incredible increase of red tape upon them and their families as they go about their business.

I’m sure de Tocqueville, when he would look at the measures that are brought forward not just in this legislation but that have been brought forward by every one of this government’s bills, that represent what I believe is the founding philosophy of not just de Tocqueville but I know our Premier and our entire party, and it is that ensuring that everything that we do in this chamber, everything we do as a government, is for the best interests of the people—all the people.

Questions to the member for Niagara West?

Thank you to the member from Niagara West for his debate here today. I know, like me, he shares the frustration of seeing red tape that slows down the building of housing, and in particular, infrastructure.

I know the member from Perth–Wellington touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to give the member a chance to maybe talk about some projects in his riding that have just taken so long to come to fruition because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of availability from the municipalities to be able to participate in this. So maybe I’ll give him an opportunity to touch on some great projects in his riding that he’s looking forward to seeing move forward.

Questions? The member for Perth–Wellington.

I recognize the member for Ottawa South.

The member for Niagara West.

The member for Niagara West can finish up.

Thank you, Speaker. That was the right answer. He wants to make sure I tell his family he’s treating me well here, which are great constituents in my riding of Perth–Wellington.

My question, obviously, to my colleague from Niagara West: He did allude to it in his speech, but I know he reads the legislation before this House in great detail, so I will obviously ask a housing question. I was wondering if the member can share with this place what is the number one challenge that your municipal colleagues in Niagara West are finding to get houses built in Niagara West and across Ontario? What is the number one thing they need?

Yes, one word, and it’s infrastructure. We had the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing visit my riding recently, coming to St. Catharines and speaking with the mayor of St. Catharines through the Building Faster Fund, and also had the opportunity to meet with officials from the town of Lincoln, who have a remarkable project just shy of 100 acres where there will be 15,000 people able to live on just shy of 100 acres—a really remarkable mixed-use community of density, mixed-use and then also single-family homes. And they spoke about the need to get water infrastructure, waste water infrastructure and how so many of their housing targets have been held back by the need to make sure that those investments happen.

They spoke glowingly about the investments that this government is making in infrastructure, that we’re not just listening to our partners across the way in the NDP but really listening to municipal partners, who are actually working day in and day out to get those homes built, working with the partners in the building industry. They said that the game-changing investments that this government is making in our budget are going to supplement many of the actions we’ve taken and ensure that homes get built.

This is the legislation we have in front of the House, and this is legislation that is going to be bringing forward one of the pieces that I’ve heard about from my municipality partners, as well, which is the use-it-or-lose-it component. They want to be able to have some tools to push and prod some of those builders who maybe need a little bit of pushing and prodding in order to get going.

I think, in my riding of Niagara West, when I look at some of the projects that are under way in Smithville, where they’re going to be doubling their population over the next 10 to 15 years; in Grimsby on the Lake, where they are expanding a massive number of new projects, intensification around a major urban transit area, I see that these partners speak about the tools that are in this legislation, and I’ve had a lot of messages, texts and emails from elected officials and those who work with them saying, “This legislation is going to help get that job done and we thank you for it.”

Interjections.

He’s going to have to talk to his grandkids, he’s going to have to talk to his great grandkids about how their opportunities were throttled by that government when they were in office, and how it’s only under the PCs and Doug Ford that we’re able to ensure that opportunities, again, exist for this generation, here in the province of Ontario.

A while ago, I met with the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, and they talked about how they were engaging with elected officials here in the Legislature and talking about how important it is to keep our existing heritage buildings because they are already buildings that are in stock of housing and it’s good for the economy, it’s good for the environment and it’s good for cultural benefits.

I know the member talked about archives and how it was costing $3,600 to film historical information. So I want to ask the member: This government has reversed many things on housing. One of the things in Bill 23 is that they’re asking municipalities to register heritage properties and designate them by January 1, 2025. We have about 36,000 to be registered and the ACO was asking if this government will extend that extension in order for municipalities to get that work done because staff are so busy because of all the reversals this government has done.

Will the government consider changing that date to January 1, 2030, as per the ACO?

It’s a pleasure to rise today to talk to Bill 185. I’m just going to talk in my 20 minutes about the housing aspect of this bill, which is, I believe, the driving force behind this bill. This is one of the biggest issues I hear about at home, and let me begin—I’m going to zoom in and zoom out in these 20 minutes.

Let me begin by zooming into something very local that happened in my constituency office last Friday. I’m in meetings in the community, and I get a text from my colleague Erica who says, “Joel, there’s a guy in our office who needs a pair of shoes.” No joke, Speaker: There’s a guy in our office who needs a pair of size 12 shoes. He’s spending his nights couch surfing with different friends. He can’t find a home. He lives on social assistance. Our shelters, as I’m sure is the case with shelters everywhere in this province, are full. The average rent in our city is $2,000 a month. For someone on social assistance, on Ontario Works, in particular, making an income of less than $800 a month—brutal. There is a housing allowance that can maybe get you into a home if you time it correctly. This gentleman has worked with our offices, and a number of times, the timing just never works for him. But last Friday, he ended up in our office, asking for our help for a pair of shoes.

I was across town in a meeting with Professor Carolyn Whitzman—big room—with parliamentary assistant to the federal housing minister, Peter Fragiskatos. I may have mispronounced the parliamentary assistant’s last name. But it was a rich discussion about what we need to do for housing in the province, and my phone goes off from a colleague asking some advice about how we find someone a pair of shoes in the course of shuttling around the city, trying to find something other than the couch. So I think that’s the zoom-in picture, Speaker.

We have a situation in our community in Ottawa of 45,000 people, according to Professor Carolyn Whitzman, who are one or two paycheques away from homelessness, one or two paycheques away from eviction. And it depends upon the outreach worker from the city recording the data at night, but we have hundreds of people sleeping rough all year round in our city. Our shelters are full. That’s the zoom-in context of housing. So when members in this House say we need pieces of legislation to expedite the construction of deeply affordable housing, the answer from my community is, “Yes, yes, yes. What can we do? What can we do?”

I do know that in 2018, the government signed a contract with the federal government that committed the government to build 19,660 affordable housing units. Let’s be clear what we mean by affordable housing units, because the federal government has often slid around in its definition of what this means. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., according to housing experts like Professor Whitzman, Steve Pomeroy from Carleton University, Kaite Burkholder Harris from the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, the definition that makes the most sense is 30% of income—30% of income. And it used to be 20% of income in the post-war period, when we built all those victory homes for veterans who were otherwise facing poverty and homelessness after serving our country, making the greatest sacrifice overseas. It was 20%, but it became 30%. But then that definition lapsed.

But that was what the government agreed to in 2018, to build 19,660 affordable housing units—units that cost 30% of income. But how many units have been built in six years in Ontario? It’s 1,180. That’s barely 6% of the target.

Now, I don’t want to hang all the blame on this government particularly. I think we have had a problem for generations because we’ve put faith in the wrong place. We have put faith in the fact that the housing market, on its own, is going to resolve the issue we have—that I felt in my office, personally, last Friday—of the need for deeply affordable housing. And the market, by any measure, has manifestly failed.

For me, for affluent folks, sure, there are opportunities. They’re getting harder and harder to come by in major urban centres. But for the people like the gentleman in my office last Friday, it has manifestly failed, because we put blind faith in the notion that governments should play no direct role in provision of housing. But it was not always so. It was not always so.

That’s why, when I hear the member from University–Rosedale hold forth in this place, it raises my heart, because she has said time and time again that it’s time for the public’s money to be invested in creating that deeply affordable housing because it is the only way it will ever be created. We have given the private market three decades to pull this off. And at this point in the housing and homelessness crisis, we have people sleeping in tent cities, we have people coming into MPP offices without shoes.

But there was a time, Speaker—and I want to say this for the record—the period of 1989 to 1995 that Professor Whitzman spoke about last Friday was a period in which over 14,000 co-operative homes were developed in the province of Ontario. I had occasion to talk to former Premier Rae about this. I had occasion to talk to former municipal housing affairs minister Evelyn Gigantes, who was the MPP who had this seat for my community. She told me, former Premier Rae told me, that under that government, in that period—there’s some overlap there, 1989 to 1990 to the previous government—over 14,000 co-operative homes were created in the province of Ontario.

They were created because there was a program at the federal level that funded, through financial terms, advantageous financing for co-ops to grow quickly. There was a willing partner to get the financing. Cities and provinces worked together. And what was the result? A significant amount of homes. But almost overnight—almost overnight—in 1995, Ontario stops funding the development of affordable housing, co-operative and social and community housing in a significant way.

In 1998, rent control is removed from vacant units. So you have that problem of people moving out of a unit, paying a vastly different rent to the person coming in. And then in 2018, as the member for University–Rosedale said, as other members have said, under the current government, you have a situation that, for any form of rental housing built since 2018—no rent control.

The cost of rent is $2,000 a month, on average, in my city. In this city in which we’re standing right now, that would be a bargain.

So the question is, if we’re going to reckon with the evidence—the evidence is telling us that the market has had three decades to solve it and can’t solve it. So how do we solve it?

Well, I look, frankly, to the very west of this country; I look to the province of British Columbia, not only because it’s an NDP government, but because they’re following the evidence. They’ve created a $500-million acquisition fund in the province of British Columbia. If older, private rental market housing—because it needs to be renovated; it needs to be repurposed; it needs to be reutilized—is coming up for resale, the province of British Columbia has an acquisition fund to make sure that housing stock can stay in the hands of its current rent providers, and it gets refurbished and renovated on a not-for-profit basis, and those people who are currently living there get to stay in their homes. What’s happening in too many places across this country, and certainly in Ontario, is that large real estate investment trusts are swooping in at that very moment to buy up old, affordable housing, lightly renovate it, kick the tenants out, charge whatever the market will bear.

I want to point to an example from Hamilton—we have some Hamilton members in this room: Kevin O’Toole, interviewed by CBC’s The Fifth Estate. Mr. O’Toole was talking about the fact that he spent his life working in the service industry as a waiter, and he was talking about the fact that his rent, almost overnight, after light renovations to his building—the building having been bought by a real estate investment trust—was going to double. The landlord was going for an above-guideline increase that was substantial, that would have driven him out of his home. The tenants fought back. They went to the Landlord and Tenant Board. They waited a long time to get there. They managed to cut the rent increase in half. But he is barely struggling, right now, to make ends meet.

Real estate investment trusts are returning dividends to their shareholders that are very handsome indeed. The research that I have available to me is that we’re looking at over $2 billion in profits, in the last six years, being returned to the Blackstones of this world, being returned to the large real estate investment trusts, whose one goal is to buy up these large apartment buildings in municipal areas in Canadian jurisdictions, lightly renovate them, ditch the tenants, jack the rent. Has there been a single law in Ontario to stop this? There has not.

The country of Denmark has literally passed a law to make sure that large real estate investment trusts can’t buy up large swaths of the rental stock and throw people out onto the street. There has been an active approach to create that balance between responsible ownership, taking a responsible margin in the rental housing business, but maintaining affordability in the downtown.

I find the lack of action in this place on the creation of non-market housing and the protection of renters to be astounding.

What I know now is that there are consequences if we fail to protect tenants and renters. People aren’t just statistics. If in one moment they are a tenant in an affordable unit that they can no longer pay for after their rent has been jacked by who knows how much, they could become homeless. The cost to that person, the loss of dignity to that person in losing their housing is one thing, but there are also the financial implications for the province of what happens when someone is homelessness.

In our city, we have something called a portable housing allowance benefit to try to keep people in their homes; we’re talking about an expenditure per person of about $6,000 a year. I remember, when this got proposed, there were more conservative-minded colleagues in my city saying, “This is too expensive. We can’t afford it.” But if you look at what we can’t afford, it’s the cost of homelessness. Steve Pomeroy from Carleton University has told us that the same per-person cost of somebody being homeless is not $6,000 a year; according to Professor Pomeroy, it is $53,000 a year—talk to any paramedic, talk to any police officer, talk to anybody working in an emergency room, and they will tell you exactly why. All of those interactions with those critical nodes of community safety in our system are unnecessary if we can find people an affordable home in which to live. They’re all unnecessary if we can find people an affordable home in which to live.

So the government wants to build housing quickly. I think it’s a fantastic idea. They are reversing some of the decisions they made previously. I like the aspects in this bill that have to do with the rapid construction of timber buildings. I like the idea of telling developers that they have to use properties they have slated for development or lose it. I like all of these sticks, Speaker; I like all of these different carrots and incentives. But what I don’t see in the government’s bill before us today are specific provisions to deal with the predatory behaviour of real estate investment trusts or specific protections for renters or specific plans about how we’re going to build non-market housing.

My landlord back home, of our community office, is the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp. It is the largest non-profit landlord in the province of Ontario: over 17,000 residents, of which our five in our community office are one, on the commercial side. They’ve had a very particular mandate. Their mandate has been to charge appropriate rents. So the CCOC, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp., has a stream in their buildings of people who pay rent-geared-to-income units, but they also have a stream of residents in their system that pay market-rent units. I’ve always felt that’s a much more progressive model of housing. Rather than saying everybody who is having a hard time paying the cost of living, let’s have everybody living in one building together—when the goal should be to build diverse neighbourhoods, where we get to live together and get to know each other.

The minister has been to Ottawa many times. I’m sure he’s aware of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corp., but if he hasn’t met with them yet, I would encourage those interactions now. If we think about how to build housing now—what if Ontario did have, rather like the province of British Columbia, an acquisition fund, a community land trust? What if you worked with community land trusts so we could keep the housing we have, so Mr. O’Toole in Hamilton and others like him aren’t thrown out onto the street—another person who may one day show up in my office looking for a pair of shoes.

In the time I have left, I also want to talk about the issue that I was concerned about. I asked the minister a question after his one-hour lead, and he did respond. I know it’s an issue that he cares about, and it’s the issue of urban boundaries, Speaker. Because overnight in our city, we were told by a previous housing minister that our urban boundary in Ottawa had increased by 654 hectares. Now, that’s a big deal in Ottawa, Speaker, because we have literally one of the biggest urban boundaries in Canada. You could fit the cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver inside Ottawa’s urban boundaries. We are massive. We’re rural, we’re suburban, and we’re urban. But overnight, our city was told it’s going to be 654 hectares bigger. It was quite a shocking thing to learn.

We also learned that there was a farm bought right at the previous fringe of the urban boundary by a group of five gentlemen from the Verdi Alliance group of contract companies for $12.7 million. It was bought for $12.7 million, Speaker—a family farm that overnight was massively worth a lot more. The minister, to his credit, responded to letters from city councillors who sniffed something deeply wrong. We’re losing arable land that we can grow food upon, but we’re also seeing land speculation which did not pass the smell test. Councillor Shawn Menard, for Capital ward, raised the alarm bells. He got 11 people on city council to sign a letter to the minister. The minister acted.

But here’s what I’m worried about in the revisions to the provincial plan statement contemplated by this bill, Speaker: I worry we’re going to be going back to this kind of chaotic housing development. The ministers often talked about it in this place, and it’s a good topic, about how we can build enough water and sewer infrastructure to make sure that the housing that we want to build can be built. It’s not just the structures that you see, Speaker: the apartment buildings, the individual homes. It’s the services that need to be run to all those communities in order for those homes to be built.

But in this case, of this development, which now won’t happen, it would have cost the city massive amounts of money to pipe all of those utilities out to that development. We thankfully won’t have to deal with that. We’re going to be having the discussion of how we intensify development in the downtown and the suburbs, for which I’m a willing partner. But if we allow smaller municipalities who could potentially be more open to persuasion to these kinds of developments, I worry about the cost of it, Speaker.

I’ll point to one that is sadly going ahead. It’s the Tewin development in the far south end of the city. City staff actually encouraged the previous city council—not the current but the previous city council—not to green-light this development. Why? Two reasons: The cost of running sewer and water out to that community, given how far south it is in our already large boundary, was—get ready for it, Speaker—$600 million. That’s $600 million for water and sewer in this community. The federal government has just announced a new program, the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund of $6 billion. People at home are telling me our likely share is maybe $180 million. That one project on its own is too expensive for what the federal government is prepared to offer us to build housing quickly.

So my point to the government is, if you’re going to be encouraging housing to be built, we have to be thinking about what kind of housing we build. Asking for homes to be built far outside the periphery of existing urban boundaries is expensive, inefficient.

I grew up in rural Ontario. I grew up in Vankleek Hill. The member for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell is here; he knows he represents a beautiful community. I grew up there. I love the bucolic countryside. I love that part of our province. But the municipalities of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell are intact units with their own systems that work. If we’re talking about major cities like Ottawa and Toronto and we’re saying the future development for housing in our communities is pushing outward into arable farmland like what we stopped at Watters Road, we’re courting disaster. We’re not going to be getting to where I believe we need to go, which is working with allied partners to build the kind of non-market housing.

What Professor Whitzman and Professor Pomeroy tell me: If we do that, we can house people potentially quickly. The one successful program that the federal government has introduced is their—I’m going to forget the acronym here as I speak, Speaker, but it’s the rapid housing fund. What it’s been doing—rather like our municipal fund of $6,000 per person helping people pay the rent—is helping people who would otherwise be surfing on couches or surfing in shelters pay the rent that they have to keep them housed. I want to believe this bill that we’re debating now could be improved to have some provincial assistance on that front. There is the Homelessness Prevention Program, which I’m aware is doing some of that work, but that’s like in the $200-million region. I’m talking about an ambitious rent bank program that can keep people housed.

It won’t just be those 45,000 people in my city who could be potentially homeless that will be happy for that help, it will be all the first responders, it will be people in the emergency rooms, it will be people who will otherwise be dealing with those folks in crisis that will also be happy. There is a multiplier benefit, Speaker—long story short—to keeping somebody housed. We restore dignity to the person, we restore opportunity to that person to contribute back to our society and we avoid spending a lot more money later. I encourage the government to listen to that advice and make changes to the bill.

While we’re on the subject of red tape, do you think that the fact that the Premier doubled his office budget in just five years and increased the staff from 20 to 48 on the sunshine list—that that just doesn’t add more red tape? I’d ask the member: If he wants to stop the gravy train, it’s starting from the Premier’s office.

Interjection: Choo-choo.

I’m thankful for the clarification.

What I would say to the minister is, the people of Ottawa that I know well who are housing experts that work for the city, research experts that work for a university—they’re ready and willing to work with you. I’m sure you know that already. But we have to get things moving quickly, and the best evidence that I’ve seen—again, that I tried to offer in the 20 minutes I’m contributing to debate this afternoon—is the more money you can get directly to the person, the more efforts can be made to save the affordable renting stock we have, the more success we can have in this moment right now. Because none of us wants to see the suffering that we’re seeing in our cities, I’m sure—no one.