My question is for the Premier. The housing crisis is getting worse. It’s like a forest fire raging out of control. But the government’s new housing bill is like bringing a garden hose to put out the fire.

After wasting six years putting wealthy, well-connected insiders ahead of building homes that people can actually afford, it feels like the government is admitting defeat, begging municipalities to bail them out, when the Premier says no to building homes that people can afford in the communities they know and love.

Will the Premier stop saying no to an entire generation of young people who just want a home they can afford, and say yes to legalizing gentle density and mid-rise housing across the province, as-of-right, so we can start building homes people can afford now?

The government’s failure to fix the housing crisis is making life in Ontario unaffordable. The Premier says no to gentle density, no to mid-rises, no to missing middle, no to rent protection, no to federal funding for homes. It’s time to say yes to housing in this province.

The government has the power to say yes to six- to 11-storey buildings along major transit corridors, to say yes to multiplexes. Will they do it now so we can get building homes in this province?

It is my distinct pleasure to present a petition that I’m not allowed read but focuses on the crisis in mental health across this province, in particular the experience of the Roth family, where they were denied access and timely care and their daughter Kaitlyn died by suicide. We can do better in the province of Ontario. I fully support the alternative destination locations for care instead of emergency rooms.

With that, I’ll be affixing my signature to the petition that I cannot read.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 11, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 185, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 185, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

I would remind my honourable friend across the way that, in the last 10 years of the Liberal government, they averaged 68,000 starts per year. We’ve averaged 87,000 starts per year. Our population has doubled. We have a supply crisis; there’s no question about it.

So the part that I’m finding frustrating—I understand your passion; we all are passionate about getting more homes built—is the biggest factor to not getting homes built in this province is infrastructure. We’ve added $3 billion: $1.2 billion to the Building Faster Fund; $800,000 to the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund—new infrastructure dollars. What part of the $3 billion we’re going to invest in the province don’t you want us to invest in?

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.