I want to thank the member from Malton for that excellent question, and I want to thank you for all the great work you do in Malton as well. And being my colleague from Mississauga, thank you. I’m really honoured to have you as my colleague from Mississauga.

As you know, building that 413 will save commuters an extra 30 minutes each way. That’s a total of an hour each day. But not only that, because of the gridlock that we do have, in the next 10 years, every corridor in the GTA will be gridlocked. So we’ve got to look for the future, how this highway will help us get parts into our plants We’re investing in all this automotive investment in the province; we need more highways and more transit in Ontario.

As we are, we are building the LRT line on Hurontario, which is coming right from my area of Port Credit all the way into Brampton, and with the loop too. We are building more transit than any other government has done in the history of Ontario: over $71 billion in transit and $28 billion in roads and highways. We’re going to continue doing this and building Ontario for the future and for our children to prosper here.

As well, I want to talk about the other highways. I know he mentioned the 407, but I want to talk about the other tolls that we have taken off other highways like the 412 and the 418, which is saving us $68 million.

And building new highways, that is very—like I said all the time, it’s about getting things to market. And it’s very important, because if we can’t get things into market, we’re going to lose that advantage that we have. We have one of the best workforces in the world right here in Ontario, and that’s why we’ve been able to attract $43 billion of automotive investment here in Ontario.

I remember when I used to work for an automotive company. They were going to leave Ontario because this is not a jurisdiction for them to produce vehicles. We’ve changed that here in Ontario because of the Premier and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Economic Development, who have been able to attract all these people to come here to Ontario.

I want to thank that member for that excellent question.

It’s Thursday afternoon, as we know, and the real title of Bill 162 is An Act to enact the Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act, 2024 and amend various Acts. That’s the real name of the bill, and it’s six schedules. The layman’s term, or the slogan term, of this bill is “getting it done,” or—I’m going to say “getting it done”; I’m not going to call it the other one. But basically, this bill is strictly a performative bill, because when you look at the schedules that it actually is creating legislation for, a lot of them are really performative. There isn’t a lot of meat behind them.

Specifically, I’m going to look at the first two bills that can impact people to a small degree. The government is going to, of course, exaggerate the type of savings people can have. Under schedule 2, for an example, is the Highway Traffic Act and it sets a statutory driver’s licence fee of $7.50 for each six-month period equal to the existing fee, which is set by regulation. Future fee changes will be required by an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act. It establishes a framework enabling an automatic licence plate renewal system, with details to be determined by regulation.

Again, this is a small piece of affordability. It’s very straightforward and it’s not a complicated schedule. But there are so many pieces of the Highway Traffic Act, Speaker, that we really need to address. When we talk about the slogan name for this bill, “getting it done,” there are things that this government lacks that they didn’t get done and they had to retract. That really took a lot of time up in this Legislature.

One of the things that people have mentioned was the licence plates. The licence plates were introduced by Ford and it was a new blue licence plate, which was part of the 2019 budget—again, putting it in the budget itself. But the government quickly scrapped that rollout after a police officer in Kingston, actually, noted that the plates were barely visible at night. The government is no longer issuing those plates, but as of last year, there are still 170,000 circulating in the province, and the province hasn’t yet articulated a plan to get them off the roads. The member from Timiskaming–Cochrane had mentioned that, I think, they are just going to wait until they fall off. Well, that isn’t really a good plan.

I think the point we want to make on this side of the House is, many times, when small things come to this Legislature and they’re very obviously not going to work, this government doesn’t even listen to that.

The next schedule that’s, again, very simple and is going to be exaggerated as some life-changing affordability piece for Ontarians is the photo card under schedule 4. It sets a statutory photo card fee of $3.50 for each six-month period equal to the existing fee, which is set by the minister’s order, and future fee changes will be required by an amendment to the act.

So, schedules 2 and 4 are somewhat of affordability issues for people—no disputing there; everybody could save a dollar in their pocket. Better a dollar spent on things you don’t need. But those two pieces, again, making this a “get ’er done” act like it’s something that’s going to have a revelation for everybody’s life? The title doesn’t really suit what’s in the act and how it’s going to impact people’s lives to get things done so that we can actually see the great progress this government is talking about.

The other two schedules in this bill are really, again, performative. So we’ve talked about this, where the government has decided that on schedule 5—they call it Protecting Against Carbon Taxes Act. What they’re saying is that they want to have a referendum prior to introducing a bill establishing a new carbon pricing program and establish rules for such a referendum. This schedule does not affect the Ford government’s existing carbon pricing system on industrial emitters, which was established on January 1, 2022—without a referendum, I might add—and the schedule does not affect the federal carbon tax on consumers’ fuels.

So, again, the government has put out something that—they want a referendum on a tax, but they’ve got their own. And they don’t even have a plan for the money, for the compliance fees that they’re going to collect. And if you look up some of these articles—again, why are governments not fully planning and executing their policies so everybody understands that they’ll actually work? So when you throw out an idea, and this government throws out lots of ideas, and when they don’t work, you have to backtrack them. And then, when you throw out ideas, nobody knows what’s really happening with the money. And we want to know what’s happening with the money. The taxpayers want to know, what are you doing with your money—their money? So that’s another schedule, again, that’s kind of performative. Having a referendum—has anybody priced out the cost of a referendum? Did you have a referendum on Ontario Place when you leased 95 years, the spa? Did we have a referendum for that? How much is that going to cost us? How much is 95 years of leasing out that spa space going to cost? We don’t know that.

So when you’re talking about legislation, when you’re talking about policy, we want to have that information. I hope it’s us who’s going to be the government the next time around. The NDP is going to have a majority government in this Legislature; that’s my prediction. And when we do things like that, we’re going to have numbers, and we’re going to tell people what things cost, because NDP governments actually balance budgets when they’re in government. So you don’t just throw ideas out, you don’t know what they’re going to cost. You don’t just throw ideas out. You know the money you’re going to bring in, what you’re going to do with that money. That’s important.

The next schedule on the bill, again, that’s not really doing a lot—it’s a lot of performative—is schedule 6. Schedule 6, we’ve talked about that too. What it’s going to do: It’s going to prohibit tolls on highways, quite frankly, that already have no tolls, and it won’t prohibit tolls on Highway 407. And that’s the highway that needs to be examined. We talked about how congestion is an issue on the 400 series. And right now, we can do something to alleviate that congestion. And I think the minister mentioned about mental stress when you’re in traffic congestion on the 400. That’s absolutely true, but there’s also a safety issue. There are so many accidents that happen on that highway involving congestion and transport trucks.

One of the things the NDP proposed was to alleviate the tolls on transport trucks using the 407. And that is a really good idea, because then you alleviate the imminent traffic congestion that we have today. We’re not going to wait 20 years for you to build your highways before we actually worry about people’s safety. And then, if you’re talking about building Highway 413 to curb the transportation time people have between work and home, well, if you took the transport trucks and put them on the 407 without a toll, you’re going to have better time to get home for everyone, not just people using Highway 413.

So I have to say, with regard to the 407, it’s very important that we note this government really gave the 407 a lottery ticket, $1 billion you waived in fees. What kind of business sense is that when you can collect fees from a 99-year-lease highway that the Conservative government gave away and Ontarians are paying for? Now, they’re able to get a billion dollars back from a business. It’s a business. Do you think that business would waive a toll fee for anybody in this chamber or in this province? No. Quite frankly, it’s a very abusive system. Let’s say you moved and they’re giving you the bills to your home. They keep adding exorbitant amounts of interest to those toll fees. So for us, for this Conservative government to let the 407 off the hook for a billion-dollar price tag, it’s shameful, quite frankly.

And because it’s so underused, you can actually land a plane. A plane actually landed on the Highway 407. So there are ways we can alleviate congestion currently, and if you take off that toll off transport trucks, that’s going to make a huge difference now, until you build your highways that you’re planning to take an undertaking for.

So we talked about schedule 2, schedule 4 and schedule 6. Now, the schedule that is actually very, very crucial in this bill is schedule 1. What schedule 1 does is it amends the Environmental Assessment Act with the effect of confirming that expropriation may proceed prior to the completion of an EA.

During committee, we asked the government to put that back in, because again, you’re creating these policies in such a rush, under the guise of building highways and building homes, and if you make terrible errors, you’re going to have somebody’s highway or somebody’s home built on environmentally sensitive lands that end up, perhaps, with building problems. So we need to make sure that we have environmental assessments put back in. And when we mentioned this at committee, of course that was voted down. The Conservatives didn’t even comment on it.

But one of the things that we have talked about—and the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane touched on it—was Wilmot. That is something that we do have to address because, right now, there is the example of expropriation in that area.

I’m going to read, just quickly, from the news article that was written by the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. They wrote an open letter condemning the expropriation threats to Wilmot farmers and the farmland. These are long-time farmers, so they have some credibility when they write letters about issues. They said:

“The magnitude of this proposed development project not only poses a direct threat to the farming community but also raises concerns about the irreversible loss of fertile farmland....

“‘As president of CFFO, I stand in solidarity with the farmers of Wilmot facing expropriation.... It’s shameful that our farmers, stewards of our land, are left vulnerable to such injustice. Our government systems should protect them, not put them at risk....

“‘All levels of government should be ashamed that these farmers are even in this position.... They have been failed by the very system meant to protect them and our farmland.’”

There was an example where, again, this government had to backtrack when they talked about severing farmland. I can’t even say, “to the government’s credit,” because if you talked to the farmers, I’m sure they would’ve told you that’s not a good idea. If you would’ve done your testing on your licence plates—you know, we drive cars at nighttime, snow, rain, at daytime. Who would have designed these plates without the right procedural testing?

The other piece when we talk about plates: There’s such a high number of auto thefts right now. One of the things that I had seen in the paper recently was on a gentleman named Derek Crocker. He bought a truck from a dealership, and he ended up having an accident. They ordered parts for his truck based on the VIN number. When the parts came back, they didn’t fit. And so, what’s happening is vehicles are being stolen and they’re getting re-VINned and nobody knows, not even the dealership.

So what has happened is there is not a Canadian or a US national vehicle registry, and so police agencies are asking and urging the federal and provincial governments to create one. Because if we’re going to have all this work done of preventing crime for auto theft—and it’s becoming quite violent, and we all agree that that should be curbed. No one should be worried about a car they drive and being attacked. But if we’re going to do that, again, look at the policy and look at the results and go a step further so that they don’t just thwart the system.

The fact that we don’t have to register our licence plates is also an opening. It’s a loophole as such for these vehicles to be stolen and then re-registered.

The last schedule of this bill is schedule 3. The new municipal affairs minister, in a quote—there was a big scandal, as we all know. It’s called the greenbelt. When he was asked about the greenbelt, and you guys were reversing all that terrible legislation, the minister said—it was in the Star. He said he was taken aback by the mess he had inherited. He also said that “reviewing how decisions were made regarding official plans, it is ... clear that they failed to meet this test.”

But then, when you look in schedule 3, there are all kinds of changes to municipalities’ official plans. It’s very difficult, actually, to match the numbers in schedule 3, and they list so many of them. There are so many municipalities that are getting their official plans changed. It leads to the question: Who requested these things?

Because the other piece of this is what I find is a lot of legislation that the government creates, there’s an indemnity clause: “You can’t sue me. You can’t sue the consultants. You can’t sue everybody with good intentions.” There isn’t that in here. So I often wonder, if I’m looking at schedule 3, the official plan adjustment, which is basically a work around the greenbelt and the farmland expropriation pieces, who asked for these official plan changes? You have to ask that question because it’s very important that when we have—allowing schedule 3 to go beyond urban boundaries when we don’t need to build housing beyond that. We know that there’s infill. Your own report, your own housing committee, your own housing commission said that. There are ways to build housing inside the urban boundaries.

One of the ways that we want to build more housing in urban boundaries is having multiplex homes. The government has a triplex already; I think it’s in Bill 23. I was out in my riding over the weekend, and we have fourplexes in neighbourhoods with single-family homes. They’re very beautifully designed, quite frankly. They look like they’re semis, and so one half has two units, front and back, and then the other half has another unit, front and back. So I don’t know what the adversity of this government is to not say, “Let’s do triplexes. Let’s add fourplexes to that.”

But when we’re encouraging people to be small landlords, I also encourage this government to make sure they fix the Landlord and Tenant Board, because small landlords really have a difficult time when things go wrong. They cannot subsidize people’s rents when a tenant goes off the wrong path. Then, there are also tenants who are in big corporation apartment buildings, and they are being mistreated. They can’t get to the Landlord and Tenant Board quick enough to stay in their homes.

So there are lots of ways we can clamp down on—people who have homes right now, let them stay there by having rent controls, by eliminating renovictions, by making sure we build non-profit, non-market homes like homes geared to income, like co-operative housing, like inclusionary zoning. We can keep people housed where they are; then, we can build the stock as well. No one is against building homes where people who are hard-working and need affordable homes—that’s not a problem. We agree with that. But there are people who are in precarious housing situations right now, and if they are kicked out of their home, they can’t afford the new rent. They are not in the market to purchase. So we’re going to create another effect of people who are homeless or couch surfing.

I also talked about—we need to make sure that people who are homeless right now have a yearly shelter bed, because there’s not enough transitional housing right now. Just having people who are homeless only having a shelter bed in the winter months, the cold months—that’s not humane. We need to make sure shelter beds are year-round, so that we can actually get people off the streets and in shelters, so they can actually access health care resources, as well, that they need.

Speaker, there are things in this bill, obviously, that the government wants to push, and housing is one of them. We have different philosophies on how to create that housing and how to keep people in their homes right now. So I look forward to the questions.

The Get It Done Act doesn’t get much done. This government has a record of creating legislation and having to backtrack legislation—and that was the wage cap bill, Bill 124; they had that put in and reversed. The dissolution of Peel—that was a colossal failure; and the greenbelt. The “notwithstanding” clause, with the education workers—if you remember that, that had to be reversed. There are so many things. So I hope this government listens to this part of the Legislature and maybe rethinks that this should not be pushed through. Go back and rethink the expropriation and go back and think about schedule 3, where you’re actually expanding urban boundaries beyond the city limits.

Next question.

Before I ask my question, I want to acknowledge the member from Mississauga–Lakeshore. Thank you for your service. You’re doing an incredible job for your residents and the whole of Mississauga.

My question to the member is, we have been extremely focused on building convenient transportation and shrinking commute times for Ontarians so that they can spend more time doing what they love: spending time with the family. Can the member highlight some of the efforts that are proposed in this that will improve the situation and help Ontarians?

I want to thank the member opposite for his speech. He’s always very well researched and he knows his stuff.

He’s talked about removing tolls on the 412 and the 418—great. But there is a portion of the 407 that is still tolled by the province of Ontario. Now, since he is so much against the tolls on highways, I know he must be screaming in caucus meetings, “Why aren’t we taking the tolls off that part of the 407?” So tell us, why isn’t the government, if they’re so against tolls, removing the 407 tolls that are part of the provincially owned portion of that highway?

The following are the titles of the bills to which Her Honour did assent:

An Act to provide for an award for exceptional cadets / Loi prévoyant la remise d’un prix aux cadets exceptionnels.

An Act to proclaim Croatian Heritage Day / Loi proclamant le Jour du patrimoine croate.

An Act to amend various statutes regarding infrastructure / Loi modifiant diverses lois relatives aux infrastructures.

An Act to amend the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur l’Institut de recherche agricole de l’Ontario.

An Act to revive Allied Contractors (Kitchener) Limited.

An Act to revive Bongo Studios Inc.

An Act to revive Winchester Design Build Inc.

An Act to revive Eastern Children of Israel Congregation.

An Act to revive Doreen Scolnick Investments Limited.

An Act to revive The Six Brewing Company Inc.

An Act to revive 1082472 Ontario Limited.

An Act respecting the Luso Canadian Charitable Society.

Bob Rae was decades ago; the Conservative Harris government was also decades ago, but one of the things, I know, with the Conservative Harris government piece is, they cut ODSP and they cut OW, and we’re still seeing the effects of that. There are people living in apartments that right now are low rents, and there are landlords pushing them out of those units because of renovictions. They want to get them out so that they can charge more. But where are people going to live when they’re on that fixed income? Building housing is so important, and keeping people housed, who have limited resources and income, is so important, or you’re going to end up with more homeless people who don’t have access to affordable homes.

So the government should be building—and under Bob Rae, we did that. We built housing geared to income, under Bob Rae. We built co-operative housing. And every government should always have that built into a future housing plan—the present and the future—so we accommodate the socio-economic differences and demographics for everyone, whether you—

I’ll use an example: We lost the Via service from London to Toronto years ago. And then, this government put in the GO train, but they’ve cut it back to the point where you can’t even use it; it’s very limited.

Having transit when it comes to trains, from southwestern Ontario—it’s a hub, and people want to come to Toronto. Making sure that we build transit inside urban boundaries, as well, and having buses—we lost Greyhound during the pandemic. That was another piece. The Northlander—that was another one, under the Liberal government, that we lost.

So there are a lot of projects where we have let things go to the point where now we’re looking at building mega highways and taking our bulldozers and using good, fertile land that really doesn’t need to be used.

The other thing is the 407—we can improve transit rather than building highways by having no tolls on the 407 for transport trucks.

Thank you to the member for London–Fanshawe. I appreciate that she said that if the NDP has a majority, she will make sure that she will have a balanced budget. As soon as I hear that, it scares me—when I think of Bob Rae’s time. I can’t even imagine.

Perhaps you can help us to see—we’re doing everything we can to cut red tape, as well as doing things to make sure that we’re building more houses, more infrastructure. How can you help to do that? That is a way to help us to cut down a lot of costs, as well. How can you help in that area?

Further questions?

What I noticed about the Get It Done Act is the move to make it easier to expropriate farmland to build new transportation projects. I think about Highway 413, a $6-billion highway that will be travelling through some of the most fertile, productive farmland in North America. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. And studies show that it might save people a minute in their commute times.

If we’re looking at helping people get from A to B, what other transit or transportation solutions would you like to see in Bill 162?

I’m very happy to rise again today to speak about Bill 162, the Get It Done Act, 2024. This bill is an important part of the Ontario government’s plan to make life easier and more affordable for Ontarians. If passed, this bill would keep costs down and support important infrastructure projects.

Speaker, our plan is already saving Ontario households time and money. We have attracted hundreds of thousands of jobs, like today’s new Honda plant and the Volkswagen plant, thousands and thousands of new jobs. We cut costs for families and have gotten shovels in the ground for many critical projects. This bill would continue that progress.

Even still, after six years of successful policies, there remain some who are opposed to our government’s strategy. Some of the other parties don’t agree with our plan to build infrastructure like housing, transit, highways, hospitals and schools. Some of the other parties don’t agree with how we are putting money back in people’s pockets, like by cutting the gas tax, the licence plate renewal fees and implementing the One Fare transit program, which saves every individual using this program $1,600 a year—each Ontarian. Some of the other parties in this House are even in favour of increasing taxes like the carbon tax on hard-working Ontarians. They either voted in favour of it or supported those who did.

I agree with the Minister of Finance’s comments during the 2024 budget when he outlined the need to continue pushing forward. Madam Speaker, at a time such as this time, when uncertainty abounds and people are struggling to put food on the table, now is not the time to raise taxes or reduce investments. Now is the time to keep costs low while building more infrastructure. Now is the time to get it done.

Once again, I would like to express my support for Bill 162 and discuss a little bit about how it would positively impact Ontario families.

Speaker, to begin, I want to start with an example, because sometimes it is the small things that are most revealing. In 2022, our government eliminated the licence plate renewal fees. This saved vehicle owners a lot of money. The government has also done a great job setting up an online renewal system and digital reminders. This has saved Ontarians a lot of time and removed red tape. But the question we need to ask ourselves is, can we do more? We have already eliminated the renewal fees and the stickers. Why not simplify the renewal process entirely? That’s what this bill proposes to do.

Under the current system, vehicle owners still need to renew their licence plates every one or two years. It is tedious and annoying, and many people forget. This bill would, if passed, allow the government to automatically renew licence plates for those that are in good standing. It would save vehicle owners time and, hopefully, less people will forget to renew. It’s a small but meaningful change and demonstrates how our government is making life easier for Ontarians, even with changes that might otherwise fly under the radar.

Next, let’s talk about infrastructure. Through a number of changes, Bill 162 is proposing to streamline processes for infrastructure to be built quicker. New expropriation rules in the Environmental Assessment Act would clarify how municipalities and provincial ministries can acquire land to begin infrastructure projects. Our government is undertaking large-scale infrastructure investment, so this would be very helpful.

Just to give an example, the latest budget allocated $1.3 billion for the construction and expansion of 60 schools across the province. It is a huge, historic investment in education, creating more spaces for students by doubling the previous funding commitments. That will amount to over 27,000 new student spaces and over 1,700 child care spaces. That’s not including the investments which our government has put into the maintenance of schools, adding filters in all the classes during the COVID time. So that’s on top of that.

Likewise, the government is working on investments to support seniors. The Minister of Finance and the Minister of Long-Term Care were in my riding, Erin Mills, on Tuesday, at Winston Churchill and Dundas, where Ivan Franko Homes is building a new long-term-care facility as part of their campus of care. The ministers were there in Mississauga to announce $155.5 million of funding this year to fast-track long-term-care homes. If eligible projects are approved to construct by November 30, they will receive a construction subsidy that lasts 25 years. This is a great incentive to get shovels in the ground faster, and it shows how much our government is investing in important infrastructure for all demographics.

Madam Speaker, during second reading debate of this bill, I told the House about the government announcement for investments in the Milton GO rail corridor. For transit riders living in Mississauga–Erin Mills, the Milton GO service is our one connection into and out of the city. As the morning train departs from Milton to Union, it stops at the nearby stations of Lisgar, Meadowvale, Streetsville and Erindale, picking up Mississauga residents along the way.

Tens of thousands of commuters use this corridor on a daily basis, travelling into and out of Toronto for work. Without the Milton line, residents of Mississauga would be forced to find another means of transportation, or else not travel at all. This is why the services of the Milton line are so critical.

Madam Speaker, you can imagine my joy in February when the government announced its plans to invest in the Milton rail corridor by building new tracks that will allow for two-way, all-day train service. This opens up new possibilities for residents of Mississauga.

As a user of that line 25 years ago, I was using that Milton line every day in the morning. The only challenge is that, at the time, there were four trains in the morning in one direction and four trains in the other direction in the evening. So that’s not convenient if I would be late at work or I needed to be early in the office. Now, if this is passed and we get that done, there will be a line going 24 hours every day, all day. There would be more access to Toronto city, even at times outside of the weekly days’ rush hour.

The provincial government is committed to building infrastructure, Madam Speaker. You can see this commitment exemplified in the bill’s provisions to help get infrastructure built faster and in the investments made over the past few years for large infrastructure projects all across the province.

All this being said, we are still waiting on the federal government to pitch in. In February, the Minister of Transportation asked the federal government to invest in the Milton rail corridor. The former federal Liberal Minister of Transportation has even agreed that two-way, all-day passenger train service on the Milton line is a priority, but the 2024 Liberal/NDP federal budget has not fully committed to funding this project. We continue to call on the federal government to invest in important projects like the transit initiatives for Mississauga and Milton.

Speaker, residents of Milton and Mississauga are hopeful to soon have better access to transit when two-way, all-day GO rail service comes to the Milton line, and we are very excited, but we are not just waiting for long-term solutions. This government is investing in the present as well.

Last week, the province announced the largest GO train service expansion in more than a decade: 300 new trips per week, a 15% increase, giving transit riders more options and quicker commutes. At the beginning of this weekend, April 27, the communities of Erin Mills, Meadowvale and Streetsville will benefit from these additional services. This includes one new morning and one new evening weekday rush hour trip on the Milton line. The new trains will respectively depart Milton at 6:43 a.m. and Union at 4:10 p.m. This means there will be nine trains per day in each direction.

I’m so happy to say that the GO bus route 21 is being restored with service to Union Station. This bus will once again serve Mississauga residents during the hours when trains do not run, connecting transit riders from the suburbs to the city. I thank the government for this announcement. I know many people are very happy about these changes. This will be a meaningful difference.

Speaker, our government is investing in many transportation projects in Peel region, and this includes the Hazel McCallion Line. Named after our former mayor, the late Hurricane Hazel, this light rail transit route along Hurontario Street will connect residents of Mississauga and Brampton from their work and home to where they need to go. This includes connections to GO Transit, the Mississauga Transitway and Züm. And, recently announced, the government is investing even more in the Hazel McCallion Line, with a loop to connect the downtown of Mississauga and an extension into downtown Brampton. One of the proposed measures in this Get It Done Act package is to declare the Hazel McCallion Line extensions as priority transit projects.

Under the Building Transit Faster Act that we passed in 2020, Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario have tools to remove roadblocks and deliver priority projects faster. If this bill is passed, the Hazel McCallion Line would be one of the projects that can receive priority treatment. In my opinion, anything we can do to reduce the red tape and get more shovels in the ground is something we should all support.

I think this is a great initiative. I am glad to see the government is committed to this project. Speaker, our infrastructure plans extend to Highway 413, where important work is under way. I need not remind the House of the many benefits this project would have. Not only would this highway help residents of Halton, Peel and York, but it could also benefit anyone who travels through the GTA, reducing gridlock and saving time on people’s commutes.

This bill, the Get It Done Act, would continue to prioritize the 413 and help get it built faster. If passed, this bill would clarify some of the rules for expropriation, strengthening the already existing practices. By continuing to take steps to reduce project planning timelines, Ontario is working to connect people to places effectively and efficiently, while supporting economic growth, creating more jobs and improving the lives of Ontarians.

The 413 is a great project. It is highly popular in the 905. It is going to save a lot of people a lot of time—30 minutes. Speaker, once the 413 is open, it would be available for Ontarians to use at a low cost. How low? Zero dollars. Speaker, zero dollars, because, if passed, schedule 6 of the Get It Done Act would prohibit the imposition of new tolls on provincial highways. This government already scrapped tolls on Highways 412 and 418 in the Durham region. Now we are committing to not adding any new tolls on the 413 either. That’s how we keep costs low for families, all the while building infrastructure and fulfilling our promises to get it done.

Another way that this government is keeping transportation costs low is by freezing fees on drivers’ licence renewals. Speaker, this bill proposes limiting drivers’ licence renewal fees to no more than $15 per year, and Ontario photo card renewals would cost no more than $7 per year. So when Ontarians renew their driver’s licence online or at a ServiceOntario location, they won’t have to pay excessive amounts in fees.

As I said before, little things can be very impactful. This small but meaningful change will put a few dollars back in people’s pockets.

On the topic of maintaining affordability for Ontarians, I would address this issue of the carbon tax. I have spoken about this issue many times before, but I want to do so again because it is important. Families across Ontario are struggling right now because of the high cost of living. High inflation and interest rates have made household finances tighter, and yet the federal Liberal-NDP government continue to double down on the carbon tax.

Ontario families don’t need more taxes right now. Ontario families do not need more taxes right now. I am proud that our government has never raised a tax on Ontarians. In fact, we have cut many taxes, such as the disastrous carbon pricing program, drivers’ licence fees, the gasoline tax.

Speaker, other governments might be willing to hike taxes on Ontarians. Even municipalities are planning it. For example, when the Liberals were in power, they implemented a cap-and-trade carbon pricing program. Some of the members that voted in favour of this legislation still sit in the House today. That carbon pricing program was not just a nuisance; it hurt hard-working Ontarians. So we abolished that disastrous tax.

But then, the federal Liberals implemented another carbon tax. We warned them about the potential consequences of such a decision, but they did it anyway, and we all know how this went. The federal carbon tax hurt Ontarians and continues to hurt Ontario families. Even this month, amidst a lot of criticism from all sides of the political spectrum, they hiked the tax again. The Liberals have made their stance clear: Against all reason, they support the carbon tax. But unlike the Liberals and NDP that continue to push for greater taxes, we are not willing to hurt Ontario families with irresponsible taxation. Bonnie Crombie might be willing to do so, but we are not.

And so, Bill 162, the Get It Done Act, would, if passed, establish a system to call a referendum if any future government attempts to implement a new provincial carbon tax. In Canada, we trust democracy. We trust the people. If Ontarians want a carbon tax, then a future government with nothing to hide should have no problem calling a referendum. But the final decision should be made by Ontarians; no tax should be imposed on Ontario families without their consent.

Therefore, you can see how this bill is a fulfillment of our government’s commitment to keep life affordable while building comprehensive infrastructure in all communities: automatic licence plate renewal, Milton Line transit expansions, the Hazel McCallion Line and Highway 413, tax cuts, fee freezes and strengthening protections against future tax increases. This government is making life easier and more affordable for residents in Mississauga and across Ontario. I’m very happy to see this bill fulfilling many of our commitments. Under the leadership of the Premier and—

Further questions?

I think that it’s not a one-size-fits-all. But having that and saying, “Yes, we should be”—Bill 23 says, “Build triplexes.” Why don’t we say, “Build fourplexes,” and give people the incentive to do that?

So, yes, absolutely, if one city doesn’t want to use it, that’s their loss, but they can be very well designed and they’re good investments. There are actually a lot of multi-generational families who actually want to live close by, and that is a very popular piece right now that I have seen. If you want to build granny flats, then there are the working parents who need help with the mortgage. So if everybody can pitch in—that multi-generational piece—then it’s affordable. But fourplexes, I think, are something that are not a scary piece and they’re not going to work everywhere, but they should be built into legislation so that people have that option to be counted in the 1.5 million housing stock.

Quite frankly, if a government decides to utilize a tax, they need to explain it. The carbon tax that the Conservatives have, they haven’t explained what they’re going to use that compliance tax money for. They’re supposed to collect it, yet nobody knows how it’s going to be used. You should have had a referendum on that, and then maybe this would have some teeth in this schedule, but, right now, no, it doesn’t have any teeth. You can’t impose it on a new government.

The other piece of the 407, to actually make it stronger, is waive the tolls for transport trucks on the 407. Saying that you’re never going to charge tolls on highways that don’t have tolls is really tongue-in-cheek. Quite frankly, the member from Oshawa, who had bills to remove tolls from the 412 and the 418, deserves the credit for pushing this government to do the right thing, so thank you for doing that. But the 407 piece, that they’re never going to put tolls on highways that don’t have tolls—again, take the tolls off the transport trucks and that will actually make it worthwhile having that schedule in here.

The Get It Done Act, or, as you say, the get it done wrong act—and it has been termed many other things—we know all the problems with this bill.

To the member from London–Fanshawe. If you had your druthers, how would you clean up this bill, or what would your focus be to get it done right?

Thank you to the member from London–Fanshawe for her excellent presentation.

As you know, the Ontario NDP has never supported any type of provincial carbon tax on regular consumers. We oftentimes have supported the cap-and-trade system focused on large polluters, which is where that focus should be.

When the Ford government proposed a new carbon pricing system by scrapping the cap-and-trade program that the Wynne government had put in, it effectively launched a new carbon pricing system in Ontario—a new provincial tax. That was launched January 1, 2022. Yet there was, on the bill right now, a piece of legislation left over from the 1990s Harris government called the Taxpayer Protection Act, which specifically said that any new tax had to go forward to a referendum. So, in some ways, it replicates what’s already in schedule 5. Yet, we know, in 2022, there was no new carbon tax referendum under the Ford administration.

So can the government bind any government to a referendum if they couldn’t even follow their own rules?

I appreciate my colleague across the floor from London. I find interesting your talk about fourplexes. It’s a sincere question. I agree, they can look good in certain situations. London has as-of-right four now. I think you’d agree with that. They didn’t meet their housing targets last year. In fact, fourplexes across the province, those that have it, have not shown any meaningful success in utilizing them.

What do we do with our municipalities—and they have the right, every municipality, to go as-of-right four. What do you think we need to do with these municipalities to get them done? They’ve got it; it isn’t working in London. What do we do differently?

Thank you to the member.

Report continues in volume B.