I have a couple of people to introduce—one is the charming communications branch from the Ministry of the Solicitor General. I ran into them in the hallway, and they’re here. Welcome.

I also have energetic Eldon Mascoll to introduce. He’s an iconic cultural hero and the producer of Canadian Black History Experience, which is an immersive touring show celebrating Black Canadian trailblazers.

Welcome to your House, Eldon.

This week, we found out once again how short-sighted this government is. They are putting rural communities at risk by proposing to eliminate free well water testing in Ontario and close more than half of Ontario’s public health labs. You do not cut corners on water quality. It is a human right. And it is our job, as leaders, to protect Ontarians.

Hello, Walkerton. Do we need a trip down memory lane? We should all remember the horrible tragedy that sickened over 2,000 people and killed seven because of neglect. Surely the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, who represents this beautiful town, would be fighting for the health and safety of her community and against this negligent proposal.

The government is willing to risk the lives of Ontarians to save a buck.

News flash to the penny-pinchers out there: Walkerton cost priceless, precious lives and $155 million.

My question to the Premier: Do you understand the importance of providing safe, clean, accessible water to the people of Ontario?

Does anyone here remember Roland Caldwell Harris, the supremely clever public works commissioner at the city of Toronto from 1912 to 1945? That genius had incredible foresight. The initial design for the iconic R.C. Harris water filtration plant down in the Beach was only half of its current length, but he made sure the whole operation was scalable, because he knew a growing city’s consumption of water would invariably increase.

I urge this government to look ahead. Think of the three million Ontarians who rely on well water. There should be no financial barrier to clean and safe water, especially in an affordability crisis.

This Premier has no problem spending millions on doubling the size of his office, but he cannot spend the money on clean water.

My question to the Premier: How do you justify raising your office budget to $6.9 million while cutting essential public health services like free well water testing?

Today, I will be sharing my time with the member for Ottawa South—the amazing member for Ottawa South, actually.

Bill 185, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act: The government is being a little sneaky because, yes, the Minister of Housing did put forward this bill, but it was under his role as Minister of Legislative Affairs, not as Minister of Housing. This is all they would let the minister get away with, I suppose, after what I hear were some intense cabinet meetings. And the thing is, it is literally so far from an actual housing bill that they cannot even call this a housing bill and propose it by the Minister of Housing. So that’s telling. That is very telling.

The legacy of this government will be how it failed young people, families and newcomers by making the dream of home ownership a nightmare. What a shame. What a wasted opportunity. When I’m out and about in my community, I hear from young people—I also have two young people I call my children—and they’re so disheartened. They’re just so disheartened; some of them leaving Ontario. Yesterday I heard prices of homes in Scotland are a third of what they are in Ontario. It’s such a shame to lose our youth because we can’t get it done.

The province is proposing to study the building code and the changes that would make four-storey buildings easier to build. That’s great. Yet, they refuse to allow fourplexes as of right across Ontario. How does that even make sense? I think cutting red tape should mean skipping these extra steps and implementing provincial zoning standards, not relying on municipalities to do this for you. We’ve proposed to do this with the BUILD bill put forward by my colleague the member from Don Valley East, and what was the government’s response? A bill that is not even enough about housing to be put forward by the Ministry of Housing. Where is the leadership?

Parking minimums in protected major transit station areas are to be prohibited, as well as in areas where minimum densities are required by official plans or provincial policies. So Bill 185 will eliminate parking minimums near major transit stations. Again, this is good. It’s a good thing for densifying these areas. However, the Minister of Housing has still not approved the MTSAs in Toronto. I think he’s getting tired of me asking where these approvals are, but I will not be quiet about it until he approves them. What is the point of the elimination of parking minimums if these areas don’t have approval yet to build? As I have said before: Tick tock, you need a clock, Minister.

Something Bill 185 does do right is to allow 18-storey mass timber construction, which is a step in the right direction, as it will help bring down construction costs and mass timber can store carbon for generations, keeping it out of the atmosphere—more of that, please, and more of removing the requirements to drywall over this cross-laminated timber.

However, changes to the rules around development charges are disappointing. Development charges in municipalities like Toronto have increased much more rapidly than property taxes, unfairly burdening newcomers and young people entering the housing market.

Limiting the rates of increases to these taxes is reasonable. It does not make sense to excessively tax construction of new housing during a housing shortage, yet the province is backtracking to allow this.

The government’s proposed provincial planning statement, coupled with this bill, seems calculated to ensure that the greenbelt sprawl and real estate scandal—still under an RCMP criminal investigation, may I remind you—spreads and expands into a wave of suburban greenfield scandals. I think they could have called it the cutting environmental protections and building more sprawl act. That would be a much more accurate title.

Bill 185 would hinder efforts to speed up housing construction by promoting the wasteful, low-density sprawl that has already caused Ontario’s housing shortage.

Why does the government continue to ignore the advice of experts? They refuse to follow the advice of their own Housing Affordability Task Force as well as this year’s Blueprint for More and Better Housing, which was co-authored by former federal Conservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt.

Time and time again, we hear the same thing: Focus on new housing in cities and communities where there is existing infrastructure to cut housing costs, speed up construction times, reduce carbon pollution and prevent catastrophic loss due to climate threats like wildfire and flooding. Yet with Bill 185, they would effectively wipe out the protective settlement area boundaries and municipal comprehensive review processes that prevent low-density sprawl from destroying what remains of farmland and natural areas.

This government is refusing to take responsibility for building housing in Ontario. They’re at risk of losing federal funding for housing and I don’t think the non-housing housing Bill 185 is going to cut it. They want to pass the buck onto municipalities because they don’t have the courage or foresight to be bold and build housing themselves.

The truth is many of these municipalities are made up of NIMBY councillors and groups. But hey, so is this government, so we really can’t be surprised that they too refuse to act.

Here we are, six years later into this government reign, and we are no longer closer to solving the housing crisis. Bill 185 is not even a housing bill. It does not do enough. This government reverses so much, they seem to only be driving Ontario backwards.

Thank you very much to the member from London North Centre. I was not here at that time. As you know, I came in in June 2022. I’m happy to consider anything I can to keep people housed—from an equity point of view, from an affordability point of view. We were just evicted from our constituency office. It’s different than a home, but my whole team has experienced what that feels like now and have a lot more empathy in that situation.

But I’m really perplexed that the government isn’t looking at bold and brave measures, as they have been told by their housing task force, as has been mentioned in this House a million times. Our own backyard is looking at provincial lands.

Many cities like New York, Manhattan, they don’t have downtown surface parking lots because they put the parking underneath and they build housing on those. So we are not looking at—I’m looking at the Minister of Housing over there, when he’s going to sign off on the MTSAs, things like that. There are many tools in the tool box we could be—