Further debate?

Pursuant to the order of the House passed earlier today, I am now required to put the question.

Mr. Flack has moved third reading of Bill 136, an Act to amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005 and certain other Acts, to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023, to repeal an Act and to revoke various regulations. Is it the pleasure of the house that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion please say “nay.”

I declare the motion carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 30, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 / Projet de loi 154, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur la relance portée par la croissance (cité de Toronto) et la Loi de 2023 sur la reconstruction de la Place de l’Ontario.

Ms. Surma has moved second reading of Bill 154, an Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023. Is it the pleasure of the house that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

All those opposed, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote is required. Call in the members. This is a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1618 to 1623.

On November 29, 2023, Miss Surma moved second reading of Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Second reading agreed to.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 / Projet de loi 154, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur la relance portée par la croissance (cité de Toronto) et la Loi de 2023 sur la reconstruction de la Place de l’Ontario.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy has moved third reading of Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

This is a recorded vote. Call in the members. This is a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1628 to 1633.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy has moved third reading of Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Mr. Flack, on behalf of Mr. Calandra, moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 150, An Act to enact the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023 and to amend the Planning Act with respect to remedies / Projet de loi 150, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur les modifications apportées aux plans officiels et modifiant la Loi sur l’aménagement du territoire en ce qui concerne les recours.

The Minister of Children and Community Services says he will talk to my fiancée about that. I’m sure she’s going to text me after this.

But it demonstrates lots of young families coming to Ontario. Ontario is growing. It’s one of the fastest subnational regions in North America now for growth. Half a million people have moved to this province in 2022 alone. Recent projections show that as many as four million additional people will move to Ontario by 2031.

Speaker, our government’s open-for-business approach has re-energized Ontario’s economy and is drawing even more people to our province, and that is a good thing. Since 2018, the year our government came to power, Ontario has created over 700,000 new jobs. That’s why our housing goals match the economic aspirations of the province. That is why job one for us is building at least 1.5 million homes by 2031.

As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said when we first introduced the proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, if our proposed legislation is passed, we will deliver on our commitment to fully restore the 15 sites removed or redesignated from the greenbelt lands in late 2022, and we will have delivered on ensuring that any future changes to the greenbelt boundaries could be made only through an open, public and transparent legislative process in this place. We will have followed through on maintaining the lands added to the greenbelt in 2022, and we will have delivered on restoring previous protections to the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve.

The proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act addresses a process that was open to error and resets the clock on greenbelt protections in Ontario. While we work with our municipalities to get more homes built across Ontario, while the NDP and Liberals may put up roadblocks to that, we will continue to get more homes built, ensuring that we support our communities, ensuring that we continue to foster economic growth in Ontario, the good work under the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, ensuring that we build schools, roads, hospitals.

We are going to continue to do that. We’re going to continue to reinforce our government’s commitment to transparent processes and working with our municipal partners to achieve great things for this province and for this country. And with that, I’ll give two minutes of my life back to my colleagues.

It’s a pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on Bill 136, Greenbelt Statute Amendment Act, 2023. It’s a pleasure to speak here, this afternoon, for third reading of our government’s proposed bill before this House.

I want to lead off with an overview of the bill, but I know my colleague across the way mentioned—just for the record, I know this was a debate at committee on Friday; thank you to the committee members for working with us on a Friday.

And before I forget, as I mentioned at committee, my thoughts and prayers are with the member’s family, during this difficult time, on the passing of her aunt.

At committee, we debated about the amendments you mentioned earlier. This bill, actually, ensures that the greenbelt is protected in whole and that those two additional amendments, which were in the original Greenbelt Act, are not required. It would actually create duplication and red tape. We are ensuring the greenbelt is protected and whole—to be clear, for the record. Just to read that into the record here, this afternoon—they would not be necessary.

The proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, would amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, 2001, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Act. If passed, the bill would enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023—that is, our proposed legislation would effectively restore the protections that were previously provided by an earlier act dealing with the agricultural preserve.

There are many pieces to this proposed legislation, so I will highlight the major actions and what they would do.

I’ll speak on how we are proposing to put the lands back into the Greenbelt. I’ll talk about the lands that we’ve recently added to the greenbelt and look at our proposals to strengthen the protection of the greenbelt. We’re proposing to return 15 sites, totalling 7,400 acres—or, for those who prefer metric, 2,995 hectares—of land that were redesigned or taken out of the greenbelt in Oak Ridges moraine areas in late 2022. The lands in question, which we propose to return to the greenbelt, are in the cities of Hamilton, Markham, Pickering, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, the towns of Ajax, Grimsby, Whitchurch-Stouffville, the township of King and the municipality of Clarington. As I mentioned, we are also proposing to reverse the redesignation of land in Grimsby, which is the protected countryside of the greenbelt, and the land in King township, which is the Oak Ridges moraine area.

We’re also proposing to update the land use schedules of the greenbelt plan. This would help us restore the same protections to the lands that they had before the change in late 2022.

I should mention that some of the lands we are restoring or redesignating also come under the policies of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. For the lands that also fall under the policies of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan, we’re also proposing to reverse the redesignation made in 2022. A redesignation changes the uses that are allowed on a parcel of land, and in this case, we would be restoring the designation of those lands to “countryside” from “settlement area.” This would have the effect of limiting the uses of these lands and giving them the protection that they had prior to the changes in 2022.

We’re also proposing to restore protections previously provided by the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2005. This would mean reinstating the easements and covenants provided for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. These easements and covenants restrict development by limiting the land to agricultural uses, restoring them to what they were before the changes in late 2022, and would recognize the importance of the agricultural lands in this area. It would also ensure their sustainable use for present and future generations.

Speaker, as my colleagues have mentioned in this place on many occasions around this legislation, on parliamentary conventions and procedures, this legislation, if passed, would codify the greenbelt into legislation.

Interjection.

If a future government—I know we have a new Liberal leader—no offence, Speaker. I know you’re in the Chair right now. We have a new Liberal leader who has said that she’s open to opening the greenbelt. That is her prerogative, and if they ever—hopefully many, many years from now—form government, they may choose to open the greenbelt, but they will have to answer to the people of Ontario if they do that. And to do that, they would have to bring forward legislation to change the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges moraine and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve as well.

This legislation would enshrine the boundaries of the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges moraine areas in legislation. It would also remove the regulatory authority to change these boundaries in the future. Just like the very bill we’re debating today, any changes to the boundaries of the greenbelt area or the Oak Ridges moraine area would need to be debated and passed in this House. All the same due diligence needed for regulation would continue, such as including consultations on any boundary changes on the Regulatory Registry and the Environmental Registry of Ontario, also known as ERO, most commonly.

We’re also proposing the additional protection of the boundaries through the legislation because Ontarians have made it clear that they want an enhanced level of protection across these lands while still making sure lands are available for important infrastructure, as was intended when the original Greenbelt Act was passed in this place in 2005.

Speaker, I’ve talked mostly about what our proposed legislation would do to reverse actions taken since 2022. Back on that date, lands were also added to the greenbelt, as I mentioned earlier. Lands on the Paris-Galt moraine were added, and 13 urban river valleys were added as well, or expanded. The lands that are designated as urban river valleys provided a corridor of protection for natural heritage, like wooded areas and waterways, that run through urban areas as well. These corridors connect the greenbelt to the Great Lakes, inland lakes and areas beyond the greenbelt’s boundaries.

Speaker, in addition to protecting natural features and water features, urban valleys protect recreation, tourism and cultural opportunities in all natural settings. While some privately owned lands may be included in urban river valleys, the policies of urban river valleys apply only to publicly owned lands, and they rely on municipal official plan policies for their implementation. In these official plans, urban river valley lands are mostly designated as parks, open spaces, recreational areas and areas for conservation protection and/or environmental protection.

Speaker, taking together all of these reversals and additions, we’re adding 9,400 acres—or, again, for those metric individuals watching this afternoon, 3,800 hectares—to the greenbelt.

Let me tell the House a little bit about the Paris-Galt moraine. The moraine extends from Caledon to the Paris-Brantford area and is home to critical groundwater resources. It’s about 130 kilometres long and spans as wide as 11 kilometres at certain points. We’ve added land in the Paris-Galt moraine to the greenbelt area, and we’ve designated it as a protected countryside with a natural heritage system.

Speaker, the future of the greenbelt is bright. As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing stated earlier this year, our government will soon be proceeding with the planned 10-year review of the greenbelt. This review will be led by impartial, non-partisan experts in conservation, agriculture and the environment, and it will include engagement with Indigenous communities and municipalities. Once the experts have finalized their recommendations, they will be provided to the Auditor General and the Commissioner of the Environment for consultation. This is to ensure that the review process is fair and guided by recent recommendations to improve the process.

Speaker, the greater Golden Horseshoe is one of the fastest-growing regions in North America. I know as I was sitting here listening to the debate this afternoon from my colleagues, the member from Essex was so kind as to give me a Christmas card. Within that Christmas card, he wrote a lovely note congratulating me on recently—well, not recently—getting engaged this year. Then, he said, “I hope you have a marriage happy and long and that you have lots of children.” Well, that’s not up to me, Speaker; it’s up to me and my partner. I don’t know how Meghan feels about that, but it demonstrates that our—

Interjection.

Thank you. Further debate?

Come on.

Isn’t that crazy? Exactly.

So are you anticipating that you will need to protect yourselves from this? It just goes beyond anything that anybody has seen. We know the government has pushed the envelope with indemnifications like this before. We saw that they gave long-term-care operators indemnities. We saw that they give themselves indemnity when it came to some other bills. But these go so much further than any previous legislation. But what for?

Interjection.

Let me just say that this is not normal. Governments that behave like this are not generally democratic, I would say. This kind of concentration of power, exempting themselves from the rule of law, does not speak to a democratic government. Nobody you would ask would say that. I don’t know how you can think that this speaks to a democratic government. There are governments around the world that would pass laws like this that would be called autocratic. People would never expect to see something like this in the province of Ontario, but here it is.

This is not the only assault, I would say, on our democratic norms in the operating of this House with these two bills—not only the Ontario Place bill where debate was stifled on. There was no committee. All the people who were upset—Ontario Place for All—all the people who were concerned about all the things that you were going to do with Ontario Place were not allowed to come to committee to speak to the government to say, “I don’t agree with this. Why do you have to cut down 850 trees? Why is this necessary? Why are you spending, basically, three quarters of a billion dollars of my money to build a parking garage for a private spa?” They don’t get to ask those questions. I can understand why the government wouldn’t want them to ask those questions because none of the answers are a good look at all for this government.

The idea that you are time-allocating these important bills—both the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act and Bill 150, which is the bill to restore the forced urban boundary expansions of this government—is nothing short of an assault on our democracy. There is no other way of putting it. People that I talk to feel this.

As I said, what the government did when it comes to the greenbelt—I have never seen people mobilize like this on any other issue. And the fact that this government had to walk this back is because of those people, because of their work in this province.

But a normal—

Our normal process is, we have second reading debate and then we send bills to committee. If you really concerned yourself, as I know some of the MPPs opposite do, with our Westminster parliamentary tradition, you would know that committee is a vital component of our democratic functioning. People come to committee to speak directly to their government on bills that impact them and their lives. They come with expert ideas. They come with lived experience. They make suggestions to make bills better. But the government did not allow this. In fact, at committee, the government only allowed one hour to hear from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who promised that he was an entertaining guy when he gets going. The jury is out on that, I have to say.

When I asked this question in the House—don’t get angry now—about why people weren’t allowed to come and speak to this bill, the Premier stood in his place and said the people of Ontario “don’t give two hoots about” the greenbelt. Come on. People do care. They’ve shown that they care because they’ve written to all of you; I know they have. And despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to depute at the committee—which, again, is an important part of our Westminster parliamentary norms—the committee room was packed. There were people in the hallway. Even if they weren’t allowed to speak, they wanted to hear what was being done with the greenbelt.

So I just have to say that, in all the disappointing things that we have seen when it comes to the greenbelt, the fact that people were shut out from this debate is right up there with one of the biggest disappointments that I share with this government, along with some of the other actions that, again, seem to shut out people from this House and from the things that are important to them.

When it comes directly to the bill itself—I have three minutes left—there were a lot of questions that I have and that residents and stakeholders have, and I have here many, many of the submissions from stakeholders who weren’t able to speak at committee.

One of the things that they were really concerned with is that this government restore some, but not all, of the protections to the greenbelt. Let’s be clear: The greenbelt is not better off. There are still protections for the greenbelt that have not been restored with this bill, particularly when it comes to the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. That important area had four layers of protection; only two have been restored. We moved amendments that would have restored those amendments, but the government voted those amendments down. As was said by one of the stakeholders, by only returning two of the four prior Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve protections, the Ford government is not keeping its promise to Pickering residents—that’s from Stop Sprawl Durham. They have quite a few things to say, but they weren’t able to say them at committee.

The other thing that I think is important to note is that when it comes to protecting the greenbelt, people were very concerned that there still exists in this legislation a process for removals. So there still exists, in the legislation, a process for this government to continue to remove, at a future time, lands from the greenbelt. First of all, that is in direct conflict with what the Premier and, in fact, the minister has said—that we won’t be making any changes to the greenbelt in the future. Unfortunately, I feel like that’s a dog-whistle signal to developers—“Hold on. We’re doing this now, but there is provision here to allow things to be removed from the greenbelt.”

I also want to say that many questions remain. Will this government, now, that they have returned this—does this mean that the government does agree with their own housing task force, that they did not need the greenbelt to build housing? Many people are not buying what they consider a cover story about housing, because many experts, including your own task force, said that the greenbelt is not needed to build the housing that we needed.

Unfortunately, we have wasted so much time in the province. We’re so far behind in getting people the housing that we have needed. We have spent a year, a year and a half—even longer. The government has been in power for five and a half years. All the time, effort and angst over this greenbelt grab could have been spent developing strategies and developing good ideas to help people with their housing, because we know people need housing.

In our riding, in Hamilton, we have people sleeping on the street, on cardboard. They need to be housed. We have seniors struggling to keep a roof over their head.

I wish, rather than the government carving up and eyeing the greenbelt, that they had their eye on people in this province—

They’re ahead of the game.

Oh, yes, overachievers.

I think that it’s really important to note that the RCMP has identified a special prosecutor. The RCMP has launched a criminal investigation into the greenbelt changes made by the Ford government. Of course, the investigation centres around the controversial decision to open up protected greenbelt lands for housing development, which has sparked quite serious scrutiny.

The role of the special prosecutor, which is really shocking when you read it, is connected to the complexity of working with witnesses who may be bound by confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements—and that they are there to deal with issues of security. This is the special prosecutor. This is serious. The fact that this is what the government has wasted time and energy doing, that this is not over, is really something that this government should take to heart and should—instead of continuing to move bills forward that are not focusing on the people of Ontario, that are focusing on themselves in the light of this special prosecutor, the RCMP investigation, and in the light of what we expect will be revealed tomorrow in the Auditor General’s report.

I’m sorry to say, it probably will be a sad day when we see some of the workings around the MZOs in the province that are under investigation and some of the other things that the Auditor General will reveal. Let’s remind ourselves that that’s how we got to this part in the first place. An Auditor General’s investigation revealed clearly that there was preferential treatment of insiders and developers when it came to the Ford government’s use of MZOs and urban boundary amendments and the greenbelt expansion. Then, of course, we had the Integrity Commissioner’s report. Side by side, those two reports paint a very damning picture of this government. The Integrity Commissioner’s report found, in fact, that the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing broke the Integrity Commissioner’s act. The shocking thing is, he broke the Integrity Commissioner act when it came to insider dealing and when it came to conflict of interest. These are serious, serious charges.

Subsequent to that, we, as the official opposition, have attempted to strengthen the laws for us, as legislators, to follow, but also so that we can begin to build faith and trust in the people of the province of Ontario that what happens here, in their House, is acting above board and with the utmost transparency and integrity. So we did put forward a bill, the Strengthening Members’ Integrity Act, which was an act that would have strengthened the bill. In fact, it was the Integrity Commissioner himself who asked for some of these changes, to allow him to be able to do a more thorough investigation.

We put that forward as an opposition day motion. Many of us debated why this would be important—that as people who represent our ridings and represent the province, we should expect to be held to a higher standard; that given the cloud of suspicion that has befallen this House, we would expect that a government would be more than willing and eager to make changes so that they could show good faith and show that their intentions were to never conduct themselves in the disgraceful way that they had up until this point. But the government, again, said no to these changes.

Then, finally, in order to, again, look at the ways in which we govern ourselves—both sides—we put forward a private member’s bill called Cleaning Up Corruption Act, 2023. Because there are glaring and obvious loopholes in our integrity laws, we thought that it was time for the standard for elected officials in our province to be raised; that we needed a system that values the integrity Ontarians expect from the government, and also a system that allows Ontarians to hold their government accountable and prevent cultures of corruption, preferential treatment and backroom dealings from becoming the norm for those who hold public office. This was a good bill. This was a bill that would amend the Auditor General Act. It would also amend the Members’ Integrity Act. Those are the two acts, again—those are the two independent officers of the Legislature. As you will recall, it brought forward the reports that have put us where we are today. The very fact that we’re standing here today, debating a bill where the government is revoking, rescinding, restoring or repairing what they have done to the greenbelt is because of these reports.

So I think the fact that we have been focused on trying to learn from the lessons from the government’s actions, that we have genuinely been trying to protect the respect of this place and to protect democratic norms in the province—we put those forward, and the government, of course, has voted them all down.

It is stunning to me that, perhaps—we know how this place works. Perhaps the government doesn’t want to support anything that His Majesty’s loyal opposition puts forward. I guess I can go that far—that that’s fine. But where is your legislation? Where are you putting forward legislation based on what we’ve experienced in this province, based on the cynicism, the profound lack of trust in government that is the direct result of your actions?

I ask the members on the other side: Is this something that you want to be associated with? Is this what you want your legacy to be?

It is my contention that if the government moved forward with bills that strengthen some of these provisions that help guide us, people would see that as an act of good faith.

We have here the Seven Grandfather Teachings carving in the Legislature. Really, they are a set of guiding principles for how to conduct an ethical and a respectful life. What we were saying with these two bills that we moved forward to strengthen the Integrity Commissioner’s act and to pass the bill, which was the act to end corruption in this province—what we were saying was that we, too, need to be governed by a set of principles, just like we see there.

I’m genuinely disappointed—I almost want to say “sad”—that we have a government that doesn’t want to take action on this. It is really something that you would think that the government would be moving forward on—that we shouldn’t have to be saying that, and people outside this House shouldn’t have to be saying that this government is not acting in their interests or is acting for the benefit of insiders. But if you put something forward—again, Ontarians are a forgiving people, and they would see that this is a government that has learned the error of their ways and is working to earn the trust of Ontarians. That’s what we have to do every single day when we come to this House. We earn their trust to be put here and to be elected here, and it is our job every single day to earn their trust. Whether you’re in opposition, whether you’re in government, whether you’re a cabinet minister, or independent MPPs, that is your job.

Unfortunately, I have to say that turning down those two amendments, and then the debate that we’ve been seeing in the House shows there’s nothing that’s really changed here.

We’re going to discuss Bill 150, which talks about revoking changes that this government’s abuse, essentially, of issuing MZOs—but the irony of the fact that we have had time allocation on a bill that did not go to committee, which was the Ontario Place bill, which in that bill gives a new minister extraordinary powers to issue MZOs. The irony of it is insane.

So we are here to discuss a bill that is reversing bad actions when it comes to good faith on the part of the government issuing MZOs.

We just passed this morning Bill 154, the Ontario Place act that didn’t go to committee, that had limited debate—because the government again used their majority to stifle debate on this—and then, in fact, we would basically call this bill “passing a law to break the law” because, in this bill, it gives extraordinary powers to one minister. I think it needs to be said that it’s giving extraordinary powers to one minister. It’s so strange to me that this is a government that says they don’t like big government, that they work for the people, but they love to concentrate power in the Premier’s office. Now we see power concentrated in the Minister of Infrastructure’s office, and in this bill—really, this is a bill that’s about the government giving itself the power to bypass and even break multiple provincial laws in order to essentially ram through the Ontario Place redevelopment on behalf of a private luxury spa operator, with near total impunity. Again, I talked about all the things that the people of the province are struggling with—top of mind is not a luxury spa that most people won’t ever be able to afford to go to. But this is the bill that gives this government immunity or writes into the bill, basically, a law to break the law. It prohibits lawsuits against the government or remedies with respect to anything done under the act, including—and here’s a list to beat all lists—government misrepresentations, misconduct, misfeasance, bad faith, breach of trust, or breach of fiduciary obligations.

Overachievers.

Before I begin my debate this afternoon, I just wanted to say a few words about my uncle Adam Shaw. He lost the love of his life, his wife, my aunt Marie. She took sick suddenly and passed just over the weekend. We’re all very saddened by this. My uncle is a hale and hearty 90 years old, but he’s taking this very hard.

We are sending out all of our love to you, Uncle Adam. You know that we have your back. We are so sorry for your loss.

To Damien and Lise: Thank you for everything that you’ve done to keep Uncle Adam fed. We appreciate everything that you’ve done for us as our family moves through this tragedy.

Interjections.

We’re here to debate this bill, the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, which is essentially a bill that reverses all of the assaults and the unrequested changes that this government imposed on the province of Ontario when it came to the greenbelt.

What I want to say clearly: We are here today because this is a victory for the people of the province of Ontario. The people of the province of Ontario were mobilized like I have never seen before. People from all communities, all ages, all walks of life saw this as something that they needed to speak up and stand up to. We saw that people understood what this was. They were completely outraged not only because there was this greenbelt grab, essentially stealing what they saw as something that was important to them, something that should be preserved as a legacy for our future generations—these two million acres that protect some of our most endangered species; these lands that prevent our homes from flooding, that clean our drinking water. They understood what was being lost or what was being stolen from them. I would say that it’s not only just that they understood what was lost; they were outraged by the way in which this was done. They know that this greenbelt grab is nothing short of insider dealing, and they know that the Premier, when he promised once, twice, three times and looked directly into the people of Ontario’s face and said, “I won’t touch the greenbelt”—they know that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Evidence has showed that he was already planning to do this. Documents show that while he was campaigning, he still had the intention to open up the greenbelt.

People in the province of Ontario may be kind and forgiving, but they’re not stupid, and they knew what had happened to them. So this victory is for all of those people.

I’m going to take the time here to mention some of the environmental organizations, grassroots groups that formed over this, that have done the hard work to hold this government to account, to force this government to do what they should have done in the first place, which is listen to the people of Ontario and do the right thing. So many of these groups also came together and worked collaboratively across the province.

If I omit some of you, please write or call my office as you always do, and I will make sure that I get you on the record.

I’m going to start by reading this list. It’s important that they get acknowledged: Environmental Defence, Greenbelt Promise, greenbelt alliance, the Alliance for a Liveable Ontario, National Farmers Union, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Ontario Nature, Suzuki foundation, the Council of Canadians, Ontario wilderness committee, Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, Wellington Water Watchers, Stop Sprawl Peel, ACORN, Ontario nurses for the environment, and regional groups such as Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition, Stop Sprawl Durham, the biodiversity and climate action group, Prince Edward County Field Naturalists—I’m going to just skip over these. Maybe I’ll go back at the end of my speech and finish the list.

I would also like to say my particular thanks to GASP, which is Grand(m)others Act to Save the Planet. Being a grandmother of seven grandchildren, with one on the way, due December 10, I sympathize and I identify with these grandmothers who are acting for those future generations, which is what we all here, as legislators, should be doing—not thinking about the bottom line, not thinking about the first quarter, not thinking about our insiders, but thinking about the legacy that we will be passing on to future generations.

This also comes in the context of what people are experiencing in this province. As we’ve been hearing, people are struggling in this province. We hear about the increased food bank usage and people struggling to keep a roof over their head. We hear, sadly, stories of seniors who are losing their homes, who are actually resorting to meal programs for the first time in their lives.

Unfortunately, this government is focused not on the people of Ontario, if you ask me, but they’ve been focusing, really, on reversing the damage they’ve done, reversing their bad legislation. They have not really taken the time that we’ve had here, and even in the last week that we have here, to move legislation that will in fact help people in the province.

You have a majority. I’m going to talk a bit about that. I’m going to talk about the fact that we have all these time-allocated bills. There’s no reason for that. Every bill that you put forward will get passed. Instead of using that majority to bring relief to people, what has this government spent the last session doing? You spent the last session introducing legislation that then had to be reversed, and now we are—for example, we’ve spent time discussing new, sweeping powers that you’re giving for pet projects like the Ontario Place luxury spa. These are things the people of the province of Ontario don’t understand—why this is a priority for your government, that that’s what you’re doing.

Rather than a government mired in scandal and focused solely on their insiders, we need a government that acts for people. This government has been in power for five and a half years, and in that time, things have only gotten harder for Ontarians.

Interjection.

I also would like to remind the member from Brantford–Brant that he has had more code zeros in the province than any city in Ontario, despite the fact that we brought it up again in the House.

So I think, again, this is proof positive—this is an example of how this government is not paying attention to the needs of the people, that instead they’re focusing on themselves. Whether it’s housing or groceries or transit, none of this is affordable for people. The government, with their majority, has something to do about it.

We put proposal after proposal forward. We put proposals to close loopholes that let unscrupulous landlords gouge tenants. We put forward actions that would prevent seniors like the 90-year-old woman we had here who was being demovicted from her home—we put in proposals to prevent people from being renovicted or demovicted, and this government said no. We tabled a motion that would invest in non-market and affordable housing options, and the government said no. We proposed a smart solution, an innovative solution to help people reduce the cost of heating and lower emissions, and the government said no.

I also want to say that this is during a time that this government is under an RCMP investigation. I am pretty sure, and it has been said, that this is the only time in the history of Ontario that this has happened. That’s spectacular, given that we had some of the governments that we’ve had previously—the fact that this government rose to that height. You are the only government that is currently under RCMP investigation.

Further debate? Further debate?

Thank you, Speaker. It’s great to be here. Please know that I’ll be sharing my time today with the parliamentary assistant to municipal affairs and housing.

As the minister has in the past informed us and has outlined, our proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act resets decisions made by the government at the end of 2022 by proposing to restore all of the properties that were redesignated or removed from the greenbelt. It protects those lands, and in doing so, redefines how changes to the greenbelt boundaries can be made in the future—through legislation instead of regulation.

It’s clear that while our government remains committed to tackling Ontario’s housing supply crisis, we have to do it in a way that maintains and reinforces public trust and is sensitive to the concerns of communities across this province. Achieving this demands a multi-faceted approach, which is why, in addition to the proposed bill before the House today, you will hear and have heard us speak in support of Bill 150, the proposed Planning Statute Law Amendment Act.

That proposed legislation, if passed, would reverse provincial changes made to municipal official plans, except where these changes are needed to align with legislation or regulations. This includes winding back changes to urban boundaries while maintaining protections for the greenbelt.

We are seeking municipal feedback on potential changes in addition to those already included in Bill 150 and made by the province that affected municipalities would like to see maintained. That proposed legislation provides us with an opportunity to reset our relationship with our municipal partners. It recognizes that municipalities are in the best position to understand the unique needs and concerns of their communities.

While we are certainly interested in hearing from the municipalities on provincial changes they’d like to see kept, our government has proposed to maintain a handful of provincial changes under this legislation. These are changes that directly support provincial priorities. For example, changes related to the greenbelt are among those we are proposing to maintain. Similarly, we are also proposing that provincial-official-plan modifications be kept to protect the Niagara Escarpment Plan area from incompatible uses. The Niagara Escarpment, just like the Oak Ridges moraine and the protected countryside, forms an important part of the greenbelt area. So you see, Speaker, two pieces of legislation before this House are reinforcing greenbelt protections while reinforcing public trust in our land use planning processes.

Speaker, in resetting our relationship with our municipal partners, these pieces of legislation are recognizing that we all share the same fundamental goals: to confront Ontario’s housing crisis; to create sustainable, livable communities; and to do this by working together as partners in a manner that maintains and reinforces the public trust. An indication of the buy-in we have received is that almost all of our 50 largest and fastest-growing municipalities have committed in writing to their provincially assigned housing targets. In turn, the province has given the mayors of 46 Ontario municipalities strong-mayor powers as another tool to help get shovels in the ground faster.

I continue to encourage all municipalities to commit to their provincially assigned housing targets. We want Ontario to be a place where everyone—including newcomers, young families and seniors—can afford to call somewhere in Ontario home.

We’ve also heard loud and clear from communities that our main focus should be on building housing on land that is already within urban boundaries. This is land that can typically be developed faster because of proximity to existing or planned infrastructure—the roads, utilities and community services. So we are working with our municipal partners to unleash housing potential within their boundaries. At the same time, we have doubled down on infrastructure projects that support these many initiatives.

Speaker, as I said earlier, our intent with this proposed legislation and with the proposed Planning Statute Law Amendment Act is to write a new chapter on land use planning in Ontario. Our commitment to effective, transparent and community-focused land use planning complements other key goals of our government—that is, building at least 1.5 million homes by 2031. To some, these two objectives might seem at odds with one another, but our government is nimble, innovative and capable of balancing growth with sustainability and protections with prosperity.

Speaker, I’d like to talk about some of the ways we are working with our partners to build more homes faster. Since we took office, our government has introduced four housing supply action plans to ensure that economic and population growth are paired with rapid growth in housing. These plans address the full continuum of housing. This includes affordable, community, market and rental, high-rise, low-rise, long-term care—the full range to meet the needs of Ontarians. The plan put forward is a comprehensive range of actions to get shovels in the ground faster. We’re reducing red tape that slows construction and pushes home prices even higher. We are making development costs more predictable and reducing municipal fees and charges on priority types of housing. We’re permitting more gentle density as of right—in other words, without the need to apply for rezoning to allow for additional residential units. We’re promoting building up and around transit. And we’re encouraging thinking outside the box on ways to build more homes; for example, laneway houses and modular construction.

Just last week, we convened more than 75 organizations, including municipal partners, as part of Ontario’s first-ever annual housing forum. Together, we discussed how we can continue to get more shovels in the ground sooner and build more homes faster. The insights gathered at the forum will help inform our next housing supply action plan next year. The forum focused on four main themes or four pillars. The first was building housing-enabling infrastructure: the roads, the utilities and the amenities essential for new development. Next, we discussed barriers to the missing middle—thinking of this as this gap in housing options that exists between single, detached homes and high-rise buildings. A further topic was ensuring housing meets the needs of all Ontarians—what we build, how we build, and where we build. And finally, we looked at ways to leverage innovations like modular housing.

It really was a great convention, a great gathering. I called it a cross-pollination of ideas. With all stakeholders together, we got some great insights that, again, are going to provide scale and are going to provide speed to our next housing supply action plan. This type of pragmatic, realistic suggestions that people with front-line experience and expertise provided so well is important. This collaborative and solutions-based forum will be invaluable as our government works on its next housing supply action plan, delivering more homes, built faster, throughout Ontario.

As I mentioned earlier, municipalities are critical partners for our government as we help communities get shovels in the ground faster and work to build more homes.

This past August, we launched the Building Faster Fund to reward municipalities that build homes. This is a three-year, $1.2-billion program to provide funding to municipalities, and it’s based on their performance against assigned municipal housing targets. The Building Faster Fund can be used to help pay for the infrastructure that supports housing development—because you can’t have housing without the infrastructure to support it. We’re talking here about infrastructure like roads, water, waste water, and related costs to support community growth. While, in total, there are 50 municipalities with housing targets, I should also add that the program reserves some of the funding for small, rural and northern communities that have not yet been assigned a housing target. The fund has $400 million to distribute each year for the next three years, obviously totalling $1.2 billion, and the allocation to each eligible municipality’s portion of the $400 million will be determined by their share of the overall provincial housing supply goal. A municipality’s performance will be evaluated by how close they come to their assigned annual target when comparing the number of housing starts and additional residential units they manage to the beginning in a given calendar year. Municipalities can access a portion of their allocation if they achieve 80% or more of their annual target, and those exceeding their target will be eligible to receive additional funding. Municipalities falling short of achieving at least 80% of their annual target will not receive any funding. Funding from this program will begin to flow in 2024-25.

Speaker, you can’t have housing without the roads, water and waste water to support it. In short, housing and infrastructure go hand in hand. That’s why we recently announced our new Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund. This fund will invest a further $200 million over three years to help municipalities repair, rehabilitate and expand their critical drinking water, waste water and stormwater infrastructure. This responds directly to our municipal partners’ needs and wants. They told us they needed more funding options to meet the growing demand for infrastructure in their communities. Municipalities need to be able to service the new homes we need them to build, and they’re strategic partners to get shovels in the ground. This fund will help build stronger, more prosperous communities.

And there’s more, Speaker. In our fall economic statement, we announced the launch of the Ontario Infrastructure Bank. This will enable public sector pension plans, other trusted institutional investors and Indigenous communities to become even more involved in large-scale infrastructure projects right across this province. Through a new arm’s-length, board-governed agency, this plan will work.

I’d like to take this opportunity to repeat our government’s call to the federal government. We’d like them to come and join us on a new federal-provincial infrastructure fund to help us meet our infrastructure needs—so badly needed throughout the province.

Our federal government partners have heeded our call to help people in Ontario needing access to rental housing. We are working closely with them to increase the supply of purpose-built rentals. Ontario is working to remove the full 8% of the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax on qualifying new, purpose-built rental housing. Removing the HST will make it easier and cheaper to build this important type of housing in Ontario, and we’re hoping this measure will help spur more construction of badly needed rental units.

Speaker, this list of innovations and incentives I have discussed are already making a difference in helping us build more homes Ontarians need and deserve. We are proving that governments committed to collaborating with partners and the public can successfully develop and protect land, even in the face of the housing crisis that we have today.

By supporting our proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, the members of this House have the opportunity to help us write a new chapter on land use planning in Ontario—one that resets the boundaries of the greenbelt, that restores all of the properties that were redesignated or removed in 2022, that protects greenbelt lands, that reinvigorates it by keeping the 9,400 acres that were also added, that remakes how changes to its boundaries can be made in the future, that reviews it through a non-partisan lens—I repeat: that reviews it through a non-partisan lens—and that rebalances it with our commitment to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031 in a way that maintains and reinforces public trust.

I will now turn it over to the parliamentary assistant.

Would the minister care to lead off the debate?

Please refer the bill to the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure And Cultural Policy.

I appreciate very much and thank the member for his remarks on this important piece of legislation. I know the member talks a lot about his labour background, and I admire that. Earlier in my life, I was a rebar bender and a crane operator, so I have worked in a labour environment for a little while. And obviously, the member had a great success, because he talks a lot about his Maple Leafs tickets—and I don’t know whether they’re gold tickets or platinum tickets, but obviously, he did very well. I saw him going to a Leafs game once.

But my real question is, aside from the fact that—the most important thing, in my view, that this bill is doing, is any changes to the greenbelt in the future require a legislative change. That’s a very significant change and a much more open process. Isn’t that something that the member can support, this important change to the process in the future?

Thank you very much for your heartfelt and eloquent and passionate speech, to the member from Niagara.

My question is, do you think that there are other important things that the government, all of us, should be addressing and dealing with besides playing games with the greenbelt?

That’s a really good question, because I know that, for four terms, they have tried to beat me, so they haven’t been very successful. I know what they do appreciate is that you want to be honest; you want to tell them the truth. And the truth is that we don’t need—we never needed—to develop on the greenbelt. That’s really, really the truth. So I’m a firm believer that if you’re honest with your constituents, if you’re out front of your constituents and telling them what you think, they will always support you.

Will they forgive the Conservatives going forward? I’m going to leave that up to the voters. Am I going to forgive them? The answer is no, because I always want to be told the truth, and we weren’t told the truth on this particular greenbelt fiasco that we’ve gone through.

I appreciate the question. Thank you.

As far as other things, yes. I don’t know if you were here when I started my speech and I talked about the fact that it’s heartbreaking to watch, in one of the richest provinces in the country, where we have people sleeping on the streets last night in Toronto—new Canadians. That’s the first thing they’re seeing from Ontario, that they’re sleeping with their suitcase and their little kids on the streets of Toronto. So we should be making sure that people have a place to live. We should be making sure they can afford to buy their groceries. We should make sure that builds after, I think, 2018 have rent controls on those so that they can get housing.

So there are lots of issues. Affordability is probably the biggest issue in this province. I knock on the doors almost every weekend. Affordability: “I can’t afford my rent.” “I can’t afford my mortgage.” “I can’t buy food.” “I can’t buy the gas.” So what we should be discussing is affordability when we—

But I’ll be honest with you, your shot about me going to sporting events and how I might be in the golds—let me tell you, I pay for every one of my tickets that I go to a ballgame with, and I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve worked hard, that I can afford to buy a ticket. But when I go to Blue Jays game, I sit in the 500 level; I don’t sit in the box. When I go to a Leafs game, I sit up in the end blues and I buy my tickets off Jim Bradley.

I don’t think that was a very good shot. There is nothing wrong with people buying sporting tickets so they have entertainment, so they can get away. And a lot of times, I take my grandkids to the baseball game. I take my grandkids over to the Bisons games or to a Sabres game. I’ve worked very hard to be able to afford tickets up in the red, in section 5 for ball games. I’ve worked very hard to sit in the end blues in the Toronto Maple Leaf games. I don’t think I have to apologize for being able to afford to go to a sporting event in the province of Ontario because of the—

We all know why we’re here. This government is trying to make their loss look like a win because the RCMP has a criminal investigation against them. They’re trying to distract from that.

Now, they’re proposing to return lands that were just taken out by themselves. They’re going to add in a few more lands that are, frankly, already protected. And though they’re codifying the boundaries of the greenbelt, in this majority government situation, they can still shuffle lands in and out of the greenbelt before the next election, the same way they shuffle ministers in and out of cabinet.

So my question to the member from Niagara Falls is, do you think, despite all of this, that your constituents will still forgive the government?

It’s now time for questions and answers. Questions?

Mr. Calandra has moved second reading of Bill 136, An Act to amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005 and certain other Acts, to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023, to repeal an Act and to revoke various regulations. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? The motion has carried.

Second reading agreed to.

Orders of the day? I recognize the deputy government House leader.

The House recessed from 1002 to 1015.

Okay, I’m just getting directions here, sorry. I’m looking right at the Speaker, so I’m kind of looking over John’s head. When you’re only five foot nothing like I am, it’s tough to see over people’s heads.

Anyway, it’s so important to me, in Niagara—the wine industry, the tender fruit industry. What are we doing? Why would we ever want to destroy that? Why would we ever want to destroy our food source? We thought we should have learned something.

I know during this time some people don’t listen, and I understand that they’re playing on whatever they’re doing, but this is important. It’s important that we understand that we learn from our mistakes.

And what was our mistake? Our mistake was that we were relying on other countries to provide our PPE when COVID hit; when people started dying, started getting sick, started being in our hospitals, and we didn’t have any PPE, we didn’t have any masks, we didn’t have any aprons, we didn’t have any gloves. Guess where they were being made? In China, and some in the southern states. And what did they say to us? “No, we need those for ourselves. We need those to take care of our own residents. We’re not sending them to you”—including the United States of America. And then what did we have to do? We scrambled. We had to have companies start to make gloves and masks and change their whole companies over to try to provide it.

But what will happen—

Interjections.

At the end of the day, what should we have learned? We should have learned that we can’t rely on other countries to provide important things to us. And what’s more important to us than our food and our water and our environment?

If you think that we can continue today, Madam Speaker—because I know you always listen; I appreciate that. We’re losing 319 acres of prime farmland every single day in the province of Ontario. And what I’m saying to my colleagues is, why would we do that? Why would we destroy our food source? In Niagara—I’ve given you examples of our grapes, our peaches, all the things. Our local farmers’ markets are incredible, and there are lots of them. If you go down a little ways, there are some on this corner. They’re everywhere. Why would we want to destroy that? That makes no sense to me. I’m trying to say to this government, why would we ever try to do that? We need to protect our farmers. We need to protect our food source.

What they were trying to do with the greenbelt was awful. I can use different words than that, but you’d have to stand up and call me out. It was one of the worst decisions ever made by a government, and I said, just like I said to Premier Wynne when she fell in the same footsteps as the Conservative government under Mike Harris, when they privatized Hydro and when they sold off Hydro One—I went right to the Premier then, and I said, “This the biggest mistake you’ve ever made, and if you don’t back down on that mistake”—and my good friend Jim Bradley, who I still go to hockey games and Blue Jays games with. He’s still a good friend of mine. He’s a Liberal, and I know some people think you don’t talk to the opposite side, but Jim is a good friend of mine. I said to Jim, “You’re going to lose your election if you can’t convince Premier Wynne to back down on hydro.” I know that he went to their caucus meeting—we all have caucus meetings—and he went to his cabinet, and he tried to convince her not to do it.

Guess what happened to Premier Wynne? Not only did she lose, but what have they got? They’ve got a van and a quarter there—and there’s nothing wrong with a minivan, by the way. They’re made in Windsor by good auto workers, so that’s not the issue. But it’s a good thing we make those vans, so they can take themselves around. And why did that happen? It happened because she decided to sell off Hydro One. That was the number one issue as we watched our bills go from $50 to $300, and people said that was wrong and they didn’t vote for her.

I’m telling you, the greenbelt will have the same effect on this government—that if they continued to go down the path of the greenbelt, they were all going to be defeated; they would have been the new minivan party, because people care with passion about the environment and they care about our heritage.

And there’s no bigger place in my riding—and quite frankly, I’m being honest with the member from Niagara West. His riding is the same as ours. A little bit in the Welland riding, as well, with my member; not as much in St. Catharines, but they also have it—but the Niagara area. I can ask my colleagues—they probably won’t put their hands up—how many have been to Niagara? Everyone goes to Niagara-on-the-Lake, I think, at some point in time. As a matter of fact, if I’m not mistaken—it just hit me—I think the entire PC caucus was in my riding when the Premier stood right beside the casino in Niagara Falls and apologized and said they’re not going to touch the greenbelt.

Now, we’ve still got lots of problems with it, obviously, because the RCMP investigation and all that is going to go on; it’s going to go on for a while. They’re going to interview people. That’s going to continue to happen.

So that’s how I know that the entire PC Party loves my riding. They were down there, and I was a little surprised—I’ll say this: Usually, when you come into somebody’s riding, you at least say that you’re there. Nobody called me up to go for dinner or go out and show the riding, maybe drive them around. I was so shocked at that; I couldn’t believe it. I’m thinking to myself, “They’ve got to be calling,” you know? I checked my cellphone to see if it was still working. Actually, I thought maybe the House leader for the other team might have called me and said, “Hey, do you want to go and watch the Niagara IceDogs play some hockey?” Nothing. You guys didn’t call me at all.

But the important part of that is that you have backed down on the greenbelt. That’s the important part. How you got there, other people than me, that are a lot smarter than me, are going to do that investigation. You’ve already lost a couple of your ministers. You’ve already lost a couple of your chiefs of staff. My concern is who’s next. Who’s next? Who’s the next one that’s going to end up under the bus on this issue?

The bigger issue for me, I’m going to say as I finish up, the most important part of all this for me is protecting our food source, protecting our environment, protecting our water. I want to be clear—because I know they stand up every day and say, “Well, that’s the party over there that’s hook, line and sinker with the Liberals, that didn’t want to build housing.” I want to be very clear: I have stood up in this House many, many times—you can check Hansard all you want—and said how important it is to build housing in the province of Ontario, the 1.5 million. Your task force said it was doable without touching the greenbelt. I’m going to continue to say, on behalf of my colleagues—because I know every one of these colleagues that are here today and knows that we’ll be here for question period have said the same thing—we want to build homes.

I want to be very clear. I know you’re all sitting out there thinking that, you know, I’m probably 35, 37 years old. Well, I’m a little older than that. I have three daughters and I have five grandchildren. My oldest grandchild is 19. You think about it. I want a future for my three daughters. I want to make sure that they can afford a house. My youngest daughter just bought a house a year ago; she’s struggling a bit with the cost of it, with interest rates, but she has had the opportunity to buy—guess what it was—a little starter home, something like a wartime house, but at least she got into the market. I want that for my kids. I want that for my three daughters. I want that for my grandkids. So when you stand up and say that we don’t want to build homes for our kids, that’s absolutely not accurate.

We love our kids just like the Conservatives love their kids, just like the Liberals and the Greens love their kids, and we want the best for them. You know what’s best for them? That we make sure that we have an environment so they have clean air, they have clean drinking water, and make sure they can afford to buy a house, that they have a good-paying job.

As a lot of you should know, I came out of the labour movement. I was a union president; I’ve done all that. I joined a union. I was lucky; I got paid fair wages. I made a good, fair wage. I got benefits. I have a pension. And guess what? I was able to raise those three daughters. I was able to provide for them, to play some baseball; I coached baseball for close to 20 years. They figure-skated. They got an education. They went to university. One’s a teacher, one works in special needs today, and the other one is in public health. How could I do that? Because I had a good-paying job. I had a house that I bought.

I want the same thing for my kids. So please don’t stand up here and say I don’t want to build 1.5 million houses, that I don’t really care about young people having a place to live, that I don’t care about students, that I don’t care about this—