Today I rise to celebrate National Volunteer Week 2024, a week to pause, reflect and give thanks to the many individuals who give tirelessly every day in our communities. As we honour this year’s theme of “Every Moment Matters,” it is important to truly recognize every volunteer who adds value to those words.

A volunteer is defined by many adjectives and actions, often including words like “dedicated,” “consistent,” “loving” and “welcoming”. They bring hope, joy, strength and support to all of those they engage with.

In Hamilton Mountain, volunteers support school nutrition programs, classroom activities, food banks, literacy groups, community gardens, co-ops, long-term-care facilities, hospitals, hospices, cancer assistance programs, community sports, neighbourhood associations, events, festivals, and so many other amazing activities.

Volunteers are from neighbourhoods, organizations and groups spanning many diverse interests. They’re working together to support one another, sharing common visions and goals, and inspiring future generations to continue this important and much-needed work.

To all volunteers, I sincerely say thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your commitment to helping others. Thank you for making a difference in people’s lives. Thank you for continuing to show up and lend a hand, a smile and a moment that matters.

Many sayings and expressions have been shared over the years about volunteers and volunteerism. To quote Elizabeth Andrew: “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they have the heart.”

Happy National Volunteer Week.

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to speak to a petition being tabled today, titled “Vulnerable Persons Alert.” This petition is calling on the government to push Bill 74 through the justice policy committee and back to the Legislature, which would ensure that people who are vulnerable and have gone missing in their communities make their way home safely to their families.

This bill is also hand in hand with the over 100,000 people who have signed online petitions, one calling for a “Draven Alert,” which was due to the death of a young boy with autism; secondly, for a senior in my community of Hamilton. Her name was Shirley Love and she went missing, had dementia and was found days later, unfortunately, deceased. This bill would absolutely ensure that the community was aware that someone was missing in their local geographic area and hopefully bring them home safely.

I wholeheartedly support this petition, will affix my name to it and give it to page Simon to bring to the Clerk.

The petition is to raise social assistance rates. We know that people who are on social assistance in the province of Ontario are living in legislated poverty. The lack of funds does not even cover the rent, and we are seeing so many people end up in food banks.

There were 230 organizations that signed a letter to the minister and to the Premier asking them to double social assistance rates. People on Ontario Works have not seen an increase in over a decade—$733 a month, as we all know, is impossible to be able to rent safe, affordable housing, and people on ODSP are truly not much better at $1,308 with minimal increases.

I wholeheartedly support this petition, will affix my name to it and give it to page Audrey to bring to the Clerk.

Thank you to the member from London–Fanshawe for her very passionate debate this afternoon. I also have heard from parents who have adult children with developmental disabilities who are living in supportive housing, and we’re now seeing those homes being privatized. The pay, the fees, the way that’s being delivered is changing, and parents are terrified. They have worked their entire lives and advocated their entire lives to be able to get their children in this supportive housing, and are now seeing a government that has failed to provide the necessary funding to ensure that these homes can stay open.

So maybe the member could just expand on her thoughts when it comes to these families who are so desperate and being left completely out of all legislation.

It’s a privilege, always, to be able to stand in the House. Today, I think this is definitely a topic that is very concerning to my constituents, to the city of Hamilton, to so many folks. When I’m out in the community, all the time, this is the number one issue that I’m hearing from people: the lack of housing and the concern over young people not being able to afford a house, the concern over affordable housing on its own, supportive housing—I hear that often. I hear from families who are concerned greatly, and rightfully so, because they have no idea where their young adult children are going to be able to live out their years and be able to start that family and bring grandchildren into the family because of the affordability measure. And this, unfortunately, is not in this bill. If the government would have taken the time to actually listen to community, I think they could have done a better job in ensuring that affordable measures were built into this legislation and ensure that people have a place to live.

As I’m sure you have seen, Speaker, there are tents everywhere throughout our city. They’re in our downtown. They’re at our city hall. They’re on our waterfronts. They’re through our escarpments. They’re in our parks. Everywhere you turn, there are people panhandling on corners, there are people sleeping in bus shelters. Really, anywhere where they can find space to hopefully stay out of the wind, they’re there, and that’s not okay. That is not the Ontario or the Hamilton that I grew up in. I have never seen anything like that, as I’m sure many of us have not, but now it’s a common occurrence. It’s unfortunate when our young children are seeing this and they think that it’s the norm because this is what they’re growing up with. It’s not the norm. This didn’t have to be this way. I think that the government could have done better to ensure that the legislation that’s put forward—once again, on another housing bill—would have done better to ensure that we did have the ability to build that housing.

Last night I had the privilege of visiting Halam Park co-op housing in my riding. I believe, as you were a city councillor, it was in your area. That is a wonderful example of housing that was built in wartime, for soldiers and their families. The 1970s, I believe, was when it was built, and then 20 years after that, it became a co-op house facility.

The people who come together to ensure that the gardens are done, that there are people active constantly, there are events, there are supports, that all of the wonderful amenities that come with living in co-op housing—Halam Park is a shining example of that. Last night, I had the opportunity to thank the volunteers who really do make Halam Park a wonderful place to live. There were children right to one woman, Shirley, who has lived there for 48 years. Her husband, Hugh, who is now deceased, was part of the enactment of bringing this into a co-op facility.

There is great pride in that community, and that is something that we could mimic. It’s an example of how we can do better. I don’t think there is a better example of good community housing than co-ops, and we never see that in the legislation that’s brought forward.

One of the things that I’m still waiting to see is the definition of affordable housing. Affordable for who? Where does that come from? That is something that is always missed here, but yet they’ve made sure that they took out some other wording that is old school. They could have updated that as well.

This bill will not help you find a home. It will not help protect you from illegal evictions. It will not bring rent control back into the picture.

An offside conversation, talking about rent control: We have members on the government side who say, “Well, the market has gone up, and my mortgage has gone up. The rent doesn’t reflect that.” Well, that’s a different story than just taking all rules away from rent controls. When we see apartments that were built after 2018 have zero rules when it comes to rent control and people who have their rent increase by $3,000 a month—who can afford to do that? I couldn’t afford to do that. Nobody in this place—mainly—would be able to afford a $3,000-a-month increase. This is the problem that we’re seeing when we have bad legislation put forward.

I have to say that it’s good to see some of the reversals that are in this bill because, once again, we have seen this government who has pushed forward legislation that municipalities and other folks were screaming, “No, no, no. This is bad. This is bad”—like Bill 23 and development charges for the cities, Bill 109 and application fees. I think there were a few more other reversals that are in this bill to reverse legislation that was previously put forward by this government that people had been speaking out about. If there’s anything that we should be doing as leaders in our community, it’s consultation. With consultation, they would have heard this feedback of how this would have hurt the city. So I’m happy to see those reversals in here and making sure that municipalities do have the funds to build infrastructure and that municipalities are not on the hook for developers when they don’t keep up their timelines because that’s not something that is in the control of a municipality and yet the government thought it was a good idea at the time to enact that.

I want to quote the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. They’re happy to see that walking back of Bill 23 because that undermined it, “They do not, however, replace the need for a comprehensive conversation to update the provincial-municipal fiscal framework to support sustainability, affordability and economic prosperity.” They have a lot to say to ensure that we are building for the future, and I think this bill misses it.

The interesting one was OREA, which is led by Tim Hudak, who is the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. They say they’re happy to see that there’s some recent progress on a couple of solutions, but “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.”

The affordability task force, which was put into place by this government, is not seen in any of this. The fourplexes that the Premier refuses to implement, probably because Bonnie Crombie said something about it so that just made it all wrong, but this has been something that everybody has been calling for. This isn’t a four-storey building. Fourplexes are not four storeys in the middle of residential. It’s a bigger house, quite frankly, with units inside that house that could quite easily be transitioned into communities and, unfortunately, this Premier doesn’t see that being necessary, but would provide so many people with the opportunity of an affordable place to live, within a community, within walking distance to the schools and the local shopping marts and places where families need to be in that community.

Whether there’s good things in here or not, I think the bill misses the point on so many factors.

Thank you to the member from Toronto–St. Paul’s for that really important question, because if you look at the bill as it’s written, you would not see people who are underhoused or people who are struggling for that affordability piece or supportive housing. You don’t see them reflected in any of the bills.

What we have seen reflected is developers and builders. We’re now starting to see some municipalities and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario being reflected, but that’s from blowback, not really consultation, right? That’s blowback of, “You did this wrong and you need to change it because it’s hurting municipalities.” It’s raising property taxes in municipalities, and that goes against all of the no tax increases that this government seems to claim.

Thanks, because I didn’t have the opportunity to raise the use-it-or-lose-it. That was a bill brought forward by an NDP member from Niagara Centre, who knew and had seen and had consulted with municipalities, seeing that developers were not—they were buying up the space, they were talking about the plans, but they weren’t getting the permits and they weren’t moving it forward. What that did was it left empty lands vacant and municipalities not having the ability to push them forward.

So it’s important that this legislation is here. Like I said, there are good things in this legislation. I just think that it is not near enough to fit the need of what our communities, what our municipalities and what the people who we serve are asking for.

But to ensure that is built into the design—it doesn’t have to be prominent. They can build over it, but the beams are there, the strength is there to ensure that accessibility can be managed in a very quick time for all households. So it’s good to see that some of that’s being enabled in this bill.

It’s good to see bills that are brought from the opposition, because they are done with consultation. They aren’t things that we make up. They’re done by talking to our communities and seeing the need of what needs to be there. We’re happy to see it included in the legislation.

Fourplexes are built right inside communities where there’s other housing, where children who go to school together can play together. These are the types of things that our communities want, that our neighbourhoods are desperate for, so that your mom and dad who live here know that their adult children and their grandchildren can live up the street in these great fourplexes that just truly make a difference for our community.

But we do need to ensure that there is some parking, as was mentioned earlier. So many folks have PSWs coming to their house, they have DSWs, or they just have no choice but to have a vehicle. So I think there needs to be a better mix, and I think that this is possibly a solution going forward that doesn’t force those buildings to have as much parking and take up as much space that could instead be utilized for more housing.

Thank you to the member from Humber River–Black Creek and his debate and always his thoughtful comments when it comes to various debates on this legislative floor. I know that he spends a lot of time in his community and that I’m sure people are also asking him for affordable housing, which unfortunately we’re not seeing in this legislation.

I think the government has missed an opportunity to actually support our communities. Maybe he could share some of the stories that he’s heard from people in his community when it comes to affordable housing.