Thank you, colleagues. Hopefully I’ll get a bit more applause than that by the end of the speech, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

It’s an honour to rise today, on behalf of Ontarians and Canadians, certainly millennials, new Canadians, and also seniors that are simply priced out of the market and that’s even if they can find somewhere to live. The housing supply crisis is a problem that has been decades in the making, and it’s been something that our government has been tasked with fixing since we got elected, and certainly something I’ve been tasked with tackling since I got elected in 2022.

I want to give some context to the members across about our housing need. You know, in the mid-1980s, the average home in the GTA was $102,000. You fast-forward that, with inflation, everything around, and in today’s dollars it’s around $286,000. That same home, as a GTA average is actually over a million dollars now, including in my community in Brampton, which is a community that used to have people come live in Brampton because they couldn’t find an affordable home—or to find an affordable home. Now, they can’t even afford to live in Brampton.

What we’ve seen with this government—there’s no government in history that has done more to build homes, certainly not the previous Liberal government for 15 years, which was backed by the NDP, certainly not the NDP government under Bob Rae.

I want to talk a little bit about what we’ve done, not just in Brampton but also all across Ontario, where we’ve done things like remove maximum heights in major transit station areas around transit—the idea that you can build big towers, build lots of density when people can get on transit to get to work. I think it makes a lot of sense.

We’ve looked at sensible solutions around expanding urban settlement areas so that, if there are places where we can’t build homes yet, let’s think of what we can do to build homes in that place. That’s something that members opposite from the Liberals and the NDP have consistently voted against every single time.

You know, some of the things that we’ve done include reducing taxes on rentals, so we’ve reduced the HST on purpose-built rentals, we’ve eliminated that entirely with the help of the federal government.

We also got rid of development charges on non-profit affordable housing, and we’ve reduced it on rental housing as well. And that’s the approach of our government, led by our Premier. That’s the approach that our government has taken to address the housing crisis, and we’ve seen, in the last three years, more homes built over the last three years than we’ve seen in decades across Ontario.

Our plan is to build 1.5 million homes across the province by 2031, and our plan to build the homes Ontarians need is working, but we also recognize that there is more that needs to be done. That’s why we’re working with municipalities and partners to reduce the roadblocks, cut red tape and get Ontario building.

Ongoing economic headwinds and high interest rates are affecting home building across the country. Ontario’s not immune to that, which is why we’re taking action to cut red tape, support municipalities and build more housing faster, improving the quality of life and creating strong communities for everyone from students to families to people in need. We’re helping our partners to build more housing so that residents can finally get a home that they can afford and realize that Canadian dream.

In order to reach our goal of building at least 1.5 million homes by 2031, we’re focused on removing red tape in the process of home building. Something that we’ve heard consistently time and time and again is the cost of delays, where every month a delay on a project can add, you know, $4,000—almost $4,000—on the cost of a unit. And that was a few years ago, so with inflation it’s probably higher, quite frankly, now, than it was then.

If you look at that over 12 months of delay, that’s a lot of money. That’s almost $40,000 just on one unit—that one year of delay can cost on a unit. So reducing red tape is important. We want to build capacity and certainty around municipal planning approvals and we’re making investments in housing-enabling infrastructure.

I’ll note we just tabled a budget. Our finance minister tabled a budget with $1.8 billion for housing-enabling infrastructure: one of the funds around water, $825 million; and another billion dollars that we’ll be rolling out. And members opposite voted against that, that same budget. They voted against housing-enabling infrastructure, which we know, and we’ve heard from municipalities, is going to help us get shovels in the ground to get homes built.

They talk about fourplexes as of right. I would ask, under NDP or Liberal governments, or the Liberal governments that they propped up, where was the zoning that was permissible for fourplexes as of right? Because under this government we’ve seen Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, St. Catharines and Burlington all pass laws to make fourplexes as of right across their municipalities. We did that by working with municipalities, not by forcing them to take these policies forward.

One of the places that passed a law like this is actually Mississauga where we had the queen of the carbon tax, Bonnie Crombie, as the former mayor. Actually, at a time when Ontario was growing—we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people coming into the province every year—and, frankly, Mississauga being a place that actually has the biggest airport in Ontario, Pearson airport, they actually managed to shrink their population, not grow their population at a time when everybody else was growing their population and we need all municipalities to do their part. We need them all to step up.

This anti-development approach has not only consequences on the population in the area, it has consequences across the province. Look at highways. Every major city has a bypass highway, and then when Brampton—we’ve grown; we’ve doubled over the last two decades in population—finally gets a government ready to build our bypass highway, Highway 413, everybody gets the torches and pitchforks out, and the downtown Toronto environmental activists start to say, “Oh, no, we have a problem. It’s okay to build highways elsewhere in Ontario, just not for Brampton—just not for you.”

We saw that from the leader of the Liberals during her time as mayor of Mississauga when it felt like she actually spent, it felt like, more time opposing a highway which would benefit the residents of Brampton than actually building homes in her own community to support the growth that her population was seeing.

Now I was very happy that we have a different approach in Brampton. We’ve been growing. Brampton’s a very shovel-ready city, and we saw that with the recent Building Faster Fund and the work that we did towards our housing target, $25.5 million—very happy that we had the minister there, the Premier there and my Brampton caucus colleagues all there to support that fund, and we’re looking forward to not only doing what we did this year, but we’re going to smash those targets next year, so hopefully an even bigger cheque from the minister when that gets done.

We need to listen to local communities who want to have their voices heard, but we need to set incentivized structures in place to make sure that municipalities are doing their part. We’ve listened to municipalities on some of the changes that we made around use-it-or-lose-it clauses etc., but we’ve also incentivized them to move in the right direction by setting housing targets.

This is something that was scoffed at when we were first looking at it by the opposition who thought that municipalities would never sign on to our housing targets. Look at where we are now, where almost every single major big municipality not only signed on to the targets, but most of them actually made significant progress at hitting them. Many of them even exceeded those housing targets.

This is an approach that works. It’s unfortunate we hear from the opposition—they talk about the need for non-profit housing. Why did you vote against removing development charges on non-profit housing? Okay. When we moved to have three units as of right in homes, legalizing nanny suites and that kind of thing, why did you vote against it then? When we removed height restrictions around major transit station areas—again, something that makes sense—why did you vote against it then?

It’s an opposition that has opposed housing at every step, and it seems like consistently from the members across that what we hear is, “We need the government to set up an agency, and we need more bureaucracy. If we just put more power in the hands of government, then everything will be okay.” We don’t agree with that on the PC side. We need more power in the hands of citizens, more power in the hands of residents, more power in the hands of industry to actually build the homes, get our market going and get some homes that my generation can afford.

It’s frustrating being a millennial, and people say millennials, oh, you know—you’ve got to realize millennials, some of us are 40. I’m not, but we’re not just kids anymore. We’re a big generation and we’re in our prime earning years. Simply put, my generation just can’t afford to get into the housing market. It’s not through lack of trying.

You hear—what was it—the mayor of Calgary said that people don’t want to own homes. Did you guys hear this? I don’t want to blast another—but we hear some of this rhetoric; she’s not the only one who’s made this rhetoric, that people want to rent.

I just want to be clear, Madam Speaker: My generation doesn’t want to rent. We have to rent—if we can afford the rent. We want to be homeowners. We want to own homes and we want to move our lives forward.

Frankly, nothing in this motion that I see from the NDP helps that and supports that, but everything that I’ve seen from the PC plan and our government’s plan is getting us in the right direction, and that plan is working. We’re going to continue to do what we can to promote development, to not only create jobs but to make sure that we’re building homes that people who are working those jobs can afford.

With the time I have left, I want to talk a little bit about the record of the Liberal leader. This is something that—you know, we hear a lot of talk from the Liberals now. They’re awfully quiet when we mention support of the carbon tax. They don’t want to take a stance on the carbon tax, but they seem to talk a lot about housing lately.

I just want to reiterate that, under their leader’s leadership, Mississauga is the only major city in Ontario to recently shrink in population. You know, under the Liberal leader’s leadership, Mississauga said no to thousands of homes for her community. While we were pushing to build up near transit and reforming zoning to create more gentle density, Bonnie Crombie, the leader of the Liberal Party, called a 17-storey, 148-unit rental development “way too much density.” Like, she’s campaigning to be the Premier of the province—I just want to, you know—just for context. When she was in leadership as the mayor of Mississauga—again, where these quotes come from—she also called a proposed 12-storey, 195-unit development “an abomination.”

And under Bonnie Crombie’s leadership—again, campaigning to be the Premier of the province, wants to be in charge of Ontario. When she was in charge of Mississauga, under her leadership, Mississauga said no to a 4,690-unit development because of sun shadow issues.

That’s not real leadership. That’s not the leadership that we need here in Ontario. We need a government that gets it done for people, not only building homes but building highways, long-term care, transit infrastructure, hospitals, to really get the job done and really get our province back to a good place. So we know that the people of Mississauga certainly deserve better than Bonnie Crombie, but I would also say that Ontario deserves better than Bonnie Crombie.

With the time that I have, I want to take some time to thank the minister as well, not only for the $25.5-million Building Faster Fund for Brampton but also for the 30% increase for the Homelessness Prevention Program that we got in Peel region last year. That money is really helping, really supporting. My colleague from Mississauga–Lakeshore talked about the fund going to Armagh House and other organizations. I mean, that’s a massive help. It’s big for our community and very, very helpful.

So, I’ll wrap it up by asking my colleagues across to rethink their motion and take a second look at our housing plan and what we’ve been doing. I know they voted against it. I know they voted against cutting taxes on rental housing. They voted against eliminating taxes for non-profit housing for Habitat for Humanity and awesome organizations like that. I know they voted against those things, but it’s not too late. They can support us in our plan to build homes. They can support us in our plan to build Highway 413 and to build 50 new hospital capital projects across Ontario.

It is not too late; we’ve still got two years before the election. I certainly hope that our colleagues change their mind, but frankly, when you look at this motion and the content of it, for all the reasons that I’ve talked about, Speaker, I won’t be supporting it and I encourage all my colleagues not to support it as well.

It’s my honour to rise today in support of our opposition day motion. You know, for the government, they often are talking about the current housing crisis in which we are living, which we are experiencing. The first and most obvious answer would be what, Speaker? If there aren’t enough homes, what do we do? We build them. Instead of leaving this up to other people and all these different roundabout ways, the most simple answer is to get shovels in the ground and to build.

I was honoured to table this legislation late last year, and I’m proud that, despite the Conservatives not wanting to get their hands dirty and not wanting to get shovels in the ground and voted it down, we are undaunted. The official opposition will raise the voices of people across this province. The affordability crisis must be addressed in a meaningful way. What is foundational, what is fundamental, what is most often the largest expense in our lives? It’s housing.

While this government blunders ahead and tiptoes clumsily backwards, the Ontario NDP is focused on solutions, and part of that is a commitment to affordable housing. We need a wartime effort to address this housing crisis. We need all hands on deck. We need to capitalize on the strengths and abilities of our community partners such as experts in the field like co-ops, municipal partners and social housing providers.

I recently had the opportunity to congratulate Homes Unlimited London in my riding on 50 years of incorporation. Carmen Sprovieri and Cathy Park were there. It was an amazing event. It was a beautiful and poignant evening. But here is a not-for-profit organization that is phenomenal. They have industry partners. They’re doers. They have industry leaders. They know how to navigate systems. They can easily leverage their own expertise as well as that of others just to get the job done. I sat with Bob and Margo Hahn and Gord and Maria Hardcastle and we had a phenomenal conversation. But it was amazing to see that those are the kinds of organizations that this government could depend upon that could help create that affordable housing.

Recently, in my riding, Richard Sifton of Sifton Properties, with the Anglican Diocese of Huron, are now taking Homes Unlimited into downtown London. There’s going to be at 195 Dufferin Ave., which is going to be 94 residential units—80 one-bedroom and 14 two-bedroom units. It’s going to cost $20 million, and Sifton is donating the building and is going to oversee the reconstruction. It’s a beautiful plan.

But this is exactly what the government could do. Not-for-profits can split a nickel five ways from centre. Co-ops have been in the business of creating and maintaining that housing stock that is vitally necessary to address the affordability crisis that is happening across our province. Yet, this government would talk about recommendations from Scotiabank as being communist. They would talk about how the government creating housing would ruin the free market.

Here on this side, the official opposition speaks to folks who are in the creation of private, for-profit housing. They do not want the responsibility of creating all the affordable housing that Ontario needs. That is not their mandate, Speaker. They are in the business of providing shareholder return. They want to make sure there is a return on investment for all of their people and, quite frankly, there isn’t a great return on investment in the creation of truly affordable housing and long-term affordable housing.

So this government in their reliance—their ideological, their fixed mindset, where they can’t seem to get it through their ears that we need to have the government incent and assist co-ops, municipal partners and non-profits to create that housing. Instead, they have this myopic vision that for-profit is the only way to go. They’re really letting Ontarians down.

We see other disastrous initiatives from this government including the removal of rent control on buildings first occupied after November 2018. During an affordability crisis, what does this government do for affordability? They poured gasoline on the fire. They’ve created a system of exploitation which has destroyed many lives.

I talk to seniors all the time who have been in buildings for decades. They have paid for the apartment building in which they live, and they are afraid, to this day, each and every single day, that that building is going to be sold to a new owner who will want to get them out so they can jack the rent up to whatever the market can withstand. It’s a legacy of the Liberal government, who shot holes in the boat of affordability in terms of renters, bringing in vacancy decontrol.

This government could follow and could implement NDP legislation to protect renters. They could pass this opposition day motion today to create more affordable housing, to stabilize the system, making sure people have a safe place to call home. Yet, I wonder if they will choose to, or if they will continue to act as partisan puppets for their for-profit friends. Time will tell, and we will see today.

Housing is foundational, housing is fundamental, housing is a human right and housing is health care. I hope this government will understand the importance of housing. They say a lot of words. Let’s see some action today.

Further debate?

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.

Only when it’s Brampton.

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%.

That’s huge.

Fraser Institute?

And how you measure is important, because if all one cares about is supply, as I just heard in debate from my friend in the government, then you can say, “Oh, purpose-built rentals are up. Everything’s great. One climbs the ladder. One day you might have a home you can afford.” But the fact of the matter is, if we look at affordable housing by that definition, 30% of one’s income, then we have failed—abysmally failed Ontario.

We’re failing Ontario because—I’m not making these figures up. Look at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the federal agency responsible for measuring housing starts. What are they saying? Housing starts across the board from last month are down almost 14%, and from last year at this time, they are down by 4.6%. That is the market itself, but if we look at affordable housing units—this is the thing that disturbs me the most from Professor Whitzman’s research—in our market in Ottawa, for every unit of affordable housing we built—remember the definition, 30% of your income—we are losing 15, and why? Because greedy real estate investment trusts are sweeping into our communities, buying up real estate stock, prettying up the units, throwing out the tenants.

Councillor Ariel Troster back home just published an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen. I encourage people to read it. What she has uncovered from her research at the city of Ottawa is that the number of N13 notices—those are the eviction notices—has increased—wait for it, Speaker; wait for it, members—by 545% between 2021 and 2022—545%. So we are watching the affordable homes in our community, 30% of market rent, being ripped out of our hands by greedy real estate investment trusts swooping in, buying up units, prettifying them to an extent, kicking out the tenants. And what have we done? Absolutely nothing—nothing—because we have had blind faith, blind faith that the market is going to produce affordable housing. And as the member for London North Centre said, that is not what the market does. That is not what private developers do. It’s actually the role of government. It’s the role of a government to make sure that there are affordable homes for people so they can climb the ladder the member opposite was talking about. But it doesn’t happen by accident.

Let me talk about a government that made it happen. I know about this government because my friend, my neighbour Evelyn Gigantes, who was once Minister of Housing, who was once the MPP for Ottawa Centre, was there and saw it happen. There was a federal government that had very good financing for non-profit and co-operative homes, and between 1989, a period preceding her government, and 1995, more than 14,000 co-op homes were built in the province of Ontario—more than 14,000.

But wait, what happened in 1995? A Conservative government was elected. They immediately ceased the funding of that program, and they immediately ceased the funding of affordable social housing. Why? Because Premier Harris at the time said, “The market will solve these problems.” It hasn’t.

The market has made real estate investment trusts very rich. The market has made sure that people who earn wonderful salaries, like the 82 vice-presidents at Metrolinx I was talking about earlier today, can have not just one home; they can have a vacation property. They can have lots of opportunities. But the average person scraping and struggling, the 50% of Canadians that research tells us are living paycheque to paycheque right now—they can’t find a place to live. So that’s why I’m very happy that our housing critic from University–Rosedale and our party, led by Marit Stiles, has said it’s time for this province, Ontario, to get back into the business of enabling non-market homes, because that’s what we need.

Now, we could have blind faith. Speaker, I could have it too. I could stand here before you and say that after I make this speech, I’m going to get back to my condo at a rate of, per 100 metres, 10 seconds; I can bench-press 300 pounds; I could earn a Nobel Prize tomorrow; I could imagine myself earning a Grammy Award one day. I could have lots of fantastic ideas, but if I’m not partnering with the people who can build the housing, it won’t matter at all. It won’t matter at all.

I’m aware of the fact that the government has talked often about the need to build critical infrastructure so housing could be built—the water and sewer systems. It’s true. But the problem is, if you look at their latest bill, Bill 185, the kinds of homes that are being encouraged here would lead, potentially, as I’m reading the bill before the House, to sprawl development. Let me talk about one project of sprawl development in our city that the staff of the city of Ottawa urged the city council not to authorize but they did: the Tewin development, way in the south end of the city. The cost of running water and sewer to that one development is going to be $600 million, in excess of $600 million. The amount of money my city can expect from the latest federal program, the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund, a $6-billion fund, is about $180 million. That is one housing development that we can’t even pay for with the program that the Prime Minister is talking about.

And let’s be fair in case the government thinks I’m picking on them: The federal government has been asleep at the switch too. The federal government has had a housing strategy—it launched in 2019—that began with the idea that housing is a human right, that said they were going to build affordable homes, and they have not done that. Three per cent of the homes, according to Professor Whitzman, that they have built over the last five years can be described as affordable housing, at 30% of income—3%.

I remember it well, because when I was knocking on doors for the Nova Scotia NDP in the last provincial election, I was in a neighbourhood, Halifax-Fairfax, if I’m getting the riding correct, and it was a wonderful postwar bungalow neighbourhood. Apartment buildings were coming in, and I was getting ready to talk to neighbours about housing opportunities for their kids. What I was hearing from the neighbours, in fact, was that rent in many of these buildings in the city of Halifax was in excess of $2,000 per unit. When I walked by them, I saw big signs saying, “Benefiting from the National Housing Strategy.” Why in the world are the taxpayers of this country providing generous subsidies to developers to make market housing that is not affordable? That’s my question to the federal government.

But my question to the provincial government here is, you signed a deal in 2018 with the feds—a $5.8-billion deal—and you pledged to build 19,660 affordable housing units. You’ve hit 6% of your target. That’s better than the Prime Minister’s 3%, but not much better. So if the market has consistently failed, it’s time to get the state back involved, without apology.

Further debate?

Further debate?

Speaker, through you, today my colleagues in the opposition stand united about the urgent need for Ontario families. That need is to address affordability issues, and that has to start with affordable housing. It is about the dream and the security one receives when they know they have shelter. It’s about the confidence that parents should have to know their children can stay in the communities they grew up in. It’s about recognizing the absence of past provincial governments to adequately address the pain of a housing crisis. It’s about taking action when others did not. That’s leadership, Speaker.

Niagara has the most beautiful landscape. This is why we are a gem for tourism. Yet, for the families that live there, we are facing this reality that more and more families are at risk of being unhoused and underhoused.

Speaker, did you know the average wait time for an affordable one-bedroom apartment can stretch over decades, from nine years in the Lincoln area to a staggering 17 years in Niagara Falls? And in my riding of St. Catharines, for one bedroom, it now exceeds 20 years. That’s 20 years people are waiting for affordable housing.

By the time space becomes available, you are almost literally an entirely different person. Our community need for housing grows while the supply lags dramatically behind. This is unacceptable, Speaker. This is why we are here today debating this.

I strive to do the work to be of service to my community. This is why a guide was written—a guide to provide tenants the knowledge to know their rights, so that they are not bullied out of their affordable housing by out-of-area speculators.

Speaker, this is why I strive to advocate to fix the LTB by addressing the wait-list, benefiting both good tenants and landlords. And yet, without affordable housing, the situation will continue to worsen.

St. Catharines was ranked as the 10th most expensive rental market in all of Canada in 2019. I wish I could say that Ontario has dropped the ball on trying to build affordable housing. However, let’s face it: The reality is that Ontario never even bothered to pick that ball up in the first place.

When the Ontario government struck a task force to address housing affordability six months before the last election, not one single representative from the non-profit or affordable housing sector—there was not one. So, this is why it is no surprise we are where we are right now.

The research by assistant professor Joanne Heritz from Brock University sheds light on the bleak picture. It tells us that the gap between supply and demand in affordable housing is not just a temporary imbalance but a chronic failure of our housing policies.

Recalling the conversation at a round table on housing in Niagara, one that included the Leader of the Opposition, we heard a unanimous call for action. Non-profits alone are spearheading the change for non-market housing with little to no support from current provincial strategies. This is not merely a gap in policy; it is a rift in our moral obligations.

The motion before us today calls for bold steps. These are radical ideas. They are rational. They’re not radical; I said they’re rational. More than any of that, Ontario is at risk of losing billions of federal funding intended for affordable housing, all because the action from this Ontario Conservative government on building houses has always been about politics rather than progress.

Think of a single mother in St. Catharines, the young graduate in our south end, the elderly couple in the north: all of whom deserve real action that hits to the core of every family. We must also look towards solutions that have begun to make a difference.

The recent initiatives in St. Catharines, like the 127 units on Church Street and the 24-unit transitional housing on Oakdale Avenue, are worthy projects that are examples of what our community in Niagara can do. However, it is not enough if we do not have meaningful and active participation by the provincial government.

What does courage look like in the face of crisis? It looks like getting our hands dirty, helping families right now, changing our direction and moving forward together. Today, I invite all members to support this motion and get back into the business of building non-market housing today.

Report continues in volume B.