It’s a pleasure to rise today to speak to the opposition day motion and talk about what I’m hearing in my community, and I wouldn’t necessarily call them “puppets”—to my colleagues here.

I know our government believes that the number one cause of rental unaffordability in Ontario is the lack of supply, Speaker. To improve rental affordability, we need to increase the number of rental units. To do this, our government introduced an exemption to the rent increase guidelines for units first occupied after November 2018. Since this policy was introduced, Ontario has seen the highest number of purpose-built rental starts ever—the highest ever in our history as a province.

At the same time, we have held the 2024 rent increase guidelines at 2.5%, well below the inflation rate of 5.9%, which was last year, and the lowest in the country, I will say, Speaker. I’ll say again: It is the lowest rental increase guideline in the country, lower than the NDP government in BC, lower than any other Liberal or provincial Conservative government in this country.

The rental policy is such as this, Speaker: This helps protect the vast majority of tenants from significant rent increases. Our balanced approach supports the construction of more rental housing, ultimately leading to more affordable rents while also ensuring the vast majority of rental units remain under rent control.

As the members of this House will know, last fall we were pleased to see that the federal government finally accepted our recommendations and advice on removing the HST on purpose-built rentals. This has led to a record start in the purpose-built rentals for a second year in a row. In 2023, we saw the highest level of purpose-built rental housing starts in Ontario’s history. As I’ve mentioned, at nearly 19,000, that is topping the record of 15,000 the year before in 2022. I know many in this place look forward to seeing us break that record again this year—this at the same time, as I mentioned, that we’re ensuring the vast majority of tenants are under rent control still.

Speaker, this is obviously not the first time in Ontario’s history there has been an exemption for rent control to encourage the construction of more rental units. In fact, it was the last NDP government under Premier Rae that introduced the exemption for rent control for all buildings built after 1991.

In budget 2023, our government invested an additional $19 million to increase the capacity of the Ontario Land Tribunal and of the Landlord and Tenant Board to resolve cases faster, address significant backlogs, support a more efficient dispute resolution and increase the housing supply and opportunity. The LTB is currently focused on reducing its backlog to reduce wait times for both tenants and landlords. Implementing a rent registry, as the member from Kitchener Centre has suggested in the past, would delay these starts, Speaker, and we will not do that. Again, we are focused on getting more homes built and maintaining a balance in that approach.

We have tabled Bill 184, Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act, and Bill 97, Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. Through these acts, we required landlords to make efforts to negotiate a repayment agreement if a tenant has entered into rent arrears before the LTB can issue an eviction notice. We also increased the fines under the RTA offences to $100,000 for an individual and half a million dollars for a corporation—the highest level in the country.

We’re requiring landlords to disclose to the board if they have previously filed for an eviction to move into a unit or renovate a unit. This is to provide knowledge to our adjudicators to look for patterns and identify landlords who may be breaking the law. We’re requiring this information to be ready because of the pieces of legislation that we have tabled. It’s because of our actions that this information is available to a tenant.

We’ve also increased the compensation for a bad-faith eviction to allow the LTB to order an additional 12 months’ rent in tenant compensation, and we’re also providing tenants with two years instead of the historical one year to apply for a remedy if the landlord evicts to repair or renovate a unit and does not give the tenant an opportunity to move back in.

Speaker, our government understands the need to increase the rental housing supply across Ontario, not just in Toronto, in downtown Kitchener, in Collingwood, in Stratford also, and ensuring in every community we increase the rental supply in Ontario. We’ll continue to put forward proposals that do just that.

I know some members in this place may be aware of a housing model called the Helsinki model, from Finland, obviously. They have a unique model—I learned about it in my role as PA to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing—where they were focused extensively on increasing market rental supply.

I’ll explain why that’s important. When you increase the market rental supply, those who may be in an affordable rent-geared housing unit who can’t afford to move to market rental will move to the market rental, so they’ll climb the ladder. And then those who may be in a precarious situation or even unhoused can then move into the supportive housing, and obviously those who have been unhoused move into those supportive units. Essentially, every person is able to climb the ladder, but the only reason all those individuals can climb that ladder is because, at the top, for market rental, there is that supply.

In Finland, they’ve focused on this extensively over the years, increasing that market-rate rental apartment, allowing those individuals to move up that ladder, to move into their own place, ensuring that those who may be from a lower income on that ladder move into a unit for them, allowing them to have that stability of a place to call home and move up that ladder.

As the member from Brampton North mentioned, some politicians in this country believe that millennials want to rent forever. I can tell you, Speaker, that is not the case. Many millennials want to purchase a property at some point in their lives, and ensuring that that supply is there as well, ensuring that we get a vast majority of homes built—and different types of homes: of course, single-detached, but townhomes, apartments, multi-residential apartments for families as well.

I think often of a builder in my own area of the world, in my riding, building a great development in Palmerston, Ontario. He has recently presented at a mayor’s breakfast, as many of us in this place attend, where he is building, essentially, a stacked townhouse. It’s unique for rural Ontario; I know it’s very common in some of the larger urban centres. But he is building a stacked townhouse. It is unique in the fact that it has a walkout basement that has separate hydro utilities attached to it, and then three bedrooms, I believe, in the upper unit. The builder told the group that he has traditionally built single-detached. He is about mid-career, I would say. He has built single-detached his entire career. Now, for the next half of his career, he’s only going to build this, because he knows he can move this product.

Why this product is so beneficial: Whether it’s a young person who can then rent out the basement or rent out the upper part and live in the bachelor unit in the basement, they have that supplemental income so that they can then afford the mortgage. They can get into the market and be able to provide that source there. Or, also, very importantly, I have a larger senior population in my riding. Whether it is there for our senior population, who may want to downsize—for example, a younger family can move into this stacked townhome and live in the three-bedroom unit above, and their in-laws or parents can live in the walkout basement. Then they can then move out of their over-housed situation, where they may have multiple bedrooms that they are no longer using, but are looking, though, to stay in the community they helped build.

Our builders are very innovative in moving forward these different types of offerings to the market and ensuring that, as in our most recent piece of legislation, Bill 185, was tabled—there are common themes in that, as has been mentioned already by the Associate Minister of Housing. It’s ensuring that we cut red tape, remove barriers and get shovels in the ground on critical infrastructure.

Speaker, I tell our municipal colleagues often—

Interjection.

I will mention the member from Brampton North. I had the pleasure of speaking with Environmental Defence at committee. As he knows, they’re against the 413, but they’re not against other highways. They’re only just against the 413.

When we’re focused on our most recent housing-enabling legislation, it’s shovels in the ground. I tell our municipal colleagues often. I had the pleasure of a few delegations at Good Roads on Sunday afternoon. I met with them, and I have told them often: I’m happy to open a sewer main, a water main, because I know at the end of the day, us putting shovels in the ground for that type of infrastructure will get many, many homes built.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing says it often. We don’t want to build hundreds of homes. We don’t want to build thousands of homes. We want to build millions of homes. Right now, we are building millions of homes. We are well on the way, as the Associate Minister of Housing mentioned in his remarks: historic starts year over year, despite high inflation, which is a federal Liberal problem. We’re cutting red tape. I know our municipal colleagues appreciate the fact that we’re investing over $1.8 billion in housing-enabling infrastructure, waste water in particular, and another billion dollars for roads, bridges, roundabouts that are vital to getting homes built. Traffic flow is very important.

I know our government is also taking a Team Ontario approach. I know the National Housing Strategy has come up today in the debate, and I know that the minister has written a counterproposal to Minister Fraser federally. It was disappointing that he did not accept that fair proposal. I know our municipal colleagues stand with us in that ask of the federal government to honour its commitment to its provincial partners.

Speaker, I think it is very concerning that we have a federal government that disregards the Canadian Constitution whenever it wants to—I’ll be frank; whenever it wants to. We are seeing record high numbers of separatists in Quebec. I can still remember when the last vote was in Quebec, and I do not want to see this country split apart. The federal Liberal government continues to override the constitutional responsibilities of the various levels of government.

We’ll stand with our municipal partners to ensure that we are there for them and working with them to advocate for the vital funds which are owed to them. We agreed to this agreement. We agreed to meeting these targets, and it’s shameful that the federal Liberal government is not there to honour those agreements.

I know other members have mentioned fourplexes today as well. It’s working with our municipal partners, as I have mentioned. Whether it’s getting roads built, whether it’s getting pipes in the ground, we are working with them to remove obstacles, and if they choose to implement fourplexes and, as was mentioned, we did introduce three as of right, and even within this most recent legislation we have tabled, we are still going to ensure—we’re making regulatory changes to ensure that those three as of rights are across this province, ensuring that a municipality cannot prevent that moving forward.

We’ll work with our municipal partners to ensure that we support, if they choose to do so, fourplexes in their communities, but they know what’s best. The Premier says it often: It’s not downtown Toronto or Queen’s Park that knows best, it’s out there in their communities, listening to the people on the ground. That’s what I do often in my own riding, as I know many members do in this place.

We’ll continue to work, as I mentioned, with our municipal partners to support critical waste water infrastructure to ensure that we get more homes built. I know in my own riding there is the potential in a smaller community to see over 800 homes built, but we need that waste water capacity. I know the Minister of Infrastructure is working very hard to get that money out the door as quickly as possible to ensure we get more homes built across Ontario.

Speaker, I also want to address something the NDP housing critic mentioned on social media recently. The NDP housing critic, the member from University–Rosedale, is advocating for policies that would eliminate the supply of rental housing units in a housing supply crisis and lead to higher rents in Ontario. Don’t take my word for it, Speaker. You can take an independent housing expert who has said it would be a disaster for renters in Ontario, and I quote: “The research is actually clear. What the member for University–Rosedale is suggesting would hurt renters who can’t afford to buy and send gentrification through the roof.”

There is nothing progressive about what is being suggested here, Speaker.

It’s not the Fraser Institute.

Interjections.

I think I hit a nerve, but I know the member from Niagara Falls mentioned homelessness prevention funding, which the member from Brampton North mentioned. In Peel, we increased 30%, I believe, in Peel.

Now, for those in this House, in Niagara, we increased it by 86%—86%.