It’s a pleasure to rise and speak about Bill 185. There are some good things in this bill: the use-it-or-lose-it, the reversal on the development charges. It’s not too late to do the right thing, even when you’ve done the wrong thing, so it’s good to see that.

One of the things, though, that—speaking of reversals—we may end up in a reversal on is the proposals for bonusing, allowing municipalities to bonus people who want to come to the city, usually large corporations who are looking for a corporate tax break. Of course, that wasn’t allowed in Ontario because we didn’t want to pit communities against each other—like Cornwall against Ottawa, or an even smaller place like Arnprior against Ottawa—that couldn’t afford to bonus, that it would bankrupt them if they provided a great benefit to a corporation coming in.

And we can see that it’s kind of a mug’s game when it comes to—well, people call it “corporate welfare.” You have the Ford plant, which is going to have lay off workers for, I don’t know, a couple of years because they’re not going to get it done, but they got millions and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars.

These corporations, they’re not anchored here. They change; they get sold. You get different leadership. So this bonusing is not the right thing to do, and I think what we’ll find out, once we go through this, is we’ll be doing the same thing that we’re doing on development charges. We’ll go, “Oh, my gosh, we did this. It wasn’t the right thing to do,” because we’ve got all these small municipalities who stuck their neck out to get a corporation that came to town, and they wanted to beat out somebody else or a bigger city, and they won’t be able to afford it. And do you want to know who gets stuck with that bill? The province.

So I don’t understand why this is in this bill. It smells to me—feels to me like development charges—so this one we’ll be driving in reverse again, which seems to be the favoured gear. R is not for race; it’s for reverse. I can’t support this bill for that reason, that reason alone.

I think it’s a risky financial move for the province, not just municipalities. In the questions, I would like to hear why it’s a good idea, why it hasn’t been a good idea. Maybe it’s actually just downloading the costs of attracting businesses on to municipalities and on to municipal taxpayers. It doesn’t make sense.

Building more student housing is a good thing. Now, maybe the whole idea is going to try to create another income stream for universities, like foreign students, that will ensure that the government doesn’t have to fund them better. I’m not sure. I think it’s a good thing. I hope that’s not it. But if I was going to say anything about this bill, it’s that the idea of bonusing is a very risky one, financially. I think the long-term consequences of that will not be good for Ontario, for municipal taxpayers, for municipalities and, in the long run, for this Legislature.

That gives me more comfort. There’s no question about that. I just feel that it’s a slippery slope. I guess we’re going to find out how it works out with Volkswagen. This whole idea—and even when we were in government—of picking winners and losers, it’s a mug’s game, right? Sometimes you come up short. You spin the wheel.

So that gives me more comfort. I still think that there’s risk in there. There will be a lot of pressure inside cabinet to do this, and you may get a lot more requests than you think because they’re going to start to play that against us. More and more corporations are coming for our money—taxpayers’ money—and we have to be very wary about that.

On rent control, here’s the reality: On anything built after 2018, or with an eviction or somebody leaving, rents are out of control, so there has to be some sort of throttle, and there’s none.

I’ll give you a story—I think I’ve told this story here before. I called my pharmacist to get a prescription and talked to a woman who I’ve known for 30 years. She’s in tears on the phone, saying, “I don’t know where I’m going to live. My landlord is raising my rent, and I can’t afford to live there. I’ve lived there for a long time.” Now, that’s a different issue altogether, but that also involves the Landlord and Tenant Board. She can’t wait a year.

It didn’t cut red tape for tenants in any way, shape or form. It didn’t help them. It didn’t help them with affordability, and the member is perfectly right.

I think it’s fair for me to think that the government might do that. Maybe that’s not the intention of the minister, but I could see it being the intention of the government at some point to say, “Guys, you don’t have a problem. We gave you this power; use it. Make some money. Get some income.” That’s the way I see it, and I thank the member for his question.

Here’s the thing I think we need to remember: People are getting gouged for their rent because there are no controls. It’s been six years since that housing was built, and the reality is, it’s too much for them—