The ayes are 73; the nays are 32.

Pursuant to standing order 63, your committee has selected the 2024-25 estimates of the following ministries for consideration: Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing; Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport; Ministry of Transportation; Ministry of Infrastructure; Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism.

Pursuant to standing order 64(a), the 2024-25 estimates of the following office not selected for consideration is deemed to be passed by the committee and is reported back to the House:

Office of the Lieutenant Governor: 1701, Office of the Lieutenant Governor, $2,652,400.

Pursuant to standing order 63, your committee has selected the 2024-25 estimates of the following ministries and offices for consideration: Cabinet Office and Office of the Premier; Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade; Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development; Ministry of Finance; Treasury Board Secretariat.

Report presented.

Pursuant to standing order 63, your committee has selected the 2024-25 estimates of the following ministries for consideration: Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry; Ministry of Energy; Ministry of Mines; Ministry of Northern Development; Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Report presented.

Bill 180, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

Madam Speaker, it’s not a point of order. I just move that the question now be put.

Interjections.

I want to just ask you—because I can’t find a climate plan from this government. Is there one? I think this government has absolutely no policies, no programs that are credible or serious or meet the moment when it comes to the urgency of the climate crisis in this province. I mean, we had the insurance bureau talking about the losses that people will be facing in their property. We have forest fire seasons that start earlier and earlier. We have a government that, instead of taking action, has, like you said, this performative bill that makes it look like they’re doing anything.

Can you point to any climate plan at all that this government has?

I appreciate the member from Nickel Belt’s question. Actually, I think I first proposed this two years ago: to pay the tolls of truckers on the 407. At that time, part of the rationale was somebody had just landed an airplane on the 407, it was so underutilized.

It seems to make sense to me: Why would you build a highway that’s exactly the same area—just a little bit north of the 407—and spend 10-plus billion dollars on it, when you could pay the tolls of truckers for the next 30 years for less than a quarter of that price and actually relieve gridlock right now? That’s the most fiscally responsible, environmentally responsible way to benefit our economy and end gridlock.

You talked about costs. Let’s not even talk about future costs for a second; let’s talk about costs from just last year. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the climate crisis costs Canadians $3.1 billion in insurable losses. They estimate that uninsurable losses were three times that: almost $10 billion in one year. That cost every household $720 in this country.

The other thing the government doesn’t talk about when it comes to carbon pricing is that, actually, eight out of 10 Ontarians receive more money back in the rebate than they actually pay into the carbon price. And the Ontarians who benefit the most from that rebate are low- and middle-income Ontarians. So it is true: There are some people who do pay more because they pay more in tax than their rebate. Those are the wealthiest people in the province.

So, they don’t have a plan, and the plan they have actually takes money out of our pockets.

I was very interested: Our caucus had brought forward an opposition day motion focusing on making sure that truck traffic got to use Highway 407 so that we relieve congestion. You actually were there. You voted in favour of the NDP motion. Could you share with the House how the Conservatives looked at that motion and how, when we present them with immediate solutions to problems that need to be addressed, they look the other way?

It’s now time for questions.

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

All those in favour of the motion that the question be now put, say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion that the question be now put, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred to the next instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 6, 2024, on the motion for third reading of Bill 166, An Act to amend the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act / Projet de loi 166, Loi modifiant la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités.

It’s always an honour to rise and today debate Bill 162, the “get it done wrong act.” The reason why it’s getting it done wrong is that it’s imposing expensive, unaffordable sprawl onto communities across this province, specifically, schedule 3 imposes expensive sprawl on regions. The last thing we need when we’re in the middle of an unprecedented housing crisis in the province of Ontario is a new law that supports building the wrong types of housing in the wrong places at the wrong, expensive prices, instead of actually building homes that people can afford in the communities they know and love.

This bill flip-flops, on a flip-flop, on a flip-flop, around changing official plans. It is especially destructive for Waterloo and Halton regions.

I want to focus on Waterloo region, in particular, and give a quick shout-out to my colleague from Kitchener Centre, who put forward a number of amendments that unfortunately were voted down in committee around protecting the good, smart planning for building homes that people could afford in Waterloo region.

This bill threatens 6,400 acres of land in Waterloo region alone—threatens a plan that the region spent five years and millions of dollars working on with a variety of stakeholders, and especially local farmers. Talk to somebody like Mark Reusser, the head of Waterloo region OFA, who says that the changes to these urban boundaries in Waterloo region are simply not sustainable and actually threaten agriculture in the region. This was a world-class plan, recognized as a way for Waterloo region to meet their housing supply targets while protecting some of the best farmland—and definitely the best farmers—in the world, while protecting their water recharge areas and protecting the places that people love to spend time in, in Waterloo region. And all of this at a time when we are losing 319 acres of farmland in this province each and every day, at an unsustainable rate that threatens our $50-billion food and farming economy that employs over 800,000 people in this province.

Speaker, I want to especially focus in on the way this bill threatens the water recharge areas for Waterloo region. This bill will pave over one of the key areas for water recharge. When you do that, when you develop over water recharge areas, it threatens the amount of water filtering into the local aquifer, reducing it by 50% to 80%. For a community that primarily relies on groundwater for its drinking water—which, by the way then actually threatens housing in the region, because the last time I heard, when you build homes, you actually need drinking water for those homes. So why would the government overturn smart regional planning when the region actually already had a plan in place to protect that water recharge area, to protect their farmland and to meet their housing targets? The government has yet to explain a rationale of why they’re doing this even though the region clearly had a good plan.

This flawed process, to me, Speaker, smells a lot like the greenbelt scandal: a government more focused on, how do we help wealthy, well-connected, insider land speculators cash in—in the case of the greenbelt, $8.3 billion, which is now under RCMP investigation—instead of actually building homes that ordinary people can afford by legalizing housing?

Make it easy to build four units and four-storey as of right, province-wide. Make it easy to build six- to 11-storey buildings along major transit and transportation corridors, where we already have infrastructure in place. Because by imposing sprawl through schedule 3 of this bill, it actually costs municipalities 2.5 times more to service low-density sprawl than it does to actually build homes where the infrastructure already exists.

Waterloo region planner Kevin Eby clearly has stated that not only has Waterloo region approved enough land for development, but there’s already enough land approved for development in southern Ontario to build two million homes. I believe the government’s target is 1.5 million, though some are saying we probably need more like 1.8 million, and we already have land approved for two million. So why is this government imposing more expensive sprawl on municipalities through the get it done wrong act?

Speaking of sprawl, Speaker, I want to take a moment to talk about schedule 1 of this bill, which further weakens the environmental assessment process and actually makes it easier for the government to expropriate land from people.

And while we’re talking about Waterloo, let’s talk about the farmers in Wilmot in Waterloo region: 770 acres of some of the best farmland I’ve seen, being assembled now and possibly expropriated from farmers for a use that we don’t know—again, at a time we’re losing 319 acres of farmland each and every day.

But we know why—or we suspect why—this government is weakening the environmental assessment process, especially for highways, and making it easier to expropriate land. It’s because they want to build a highway that’s going to pave over 2,000 acres of prime farmland, 400 acres of the greenbelt, and 200 wetlands, threatening 29 species at risk, so drivers can save 30 seconds to a minute. That highway is called Highway 413, and I want to suggest to the members opposite that they actually spend some time in Peel region, go through Caledon, make your way over to Vaughan, and look at one of the fastest-growing crops there: signs saying, “Stop Highway 413. Protect Our Farmland.”

This bill talks about tolls, but the one highway that is tolled that isn’t talked about in this bill is the 407. We can reduce gridlock now—not 10, 15 years in the future; right now—by paying the tolls for truckers on Highway 407 at a fraction of the cost of building Highway 413, and without the destruction of the local farmland and environment that people love along the route of the highway.

In my final minute, Speaker, I just want to take a moment to talk about schedule 5. Schedule 5 is performative politics at its worst—it’s the schedule about the referendum on carbon pricing—because we know that a current government can’t tie the hands of a future government. Ironically enough, it was actually this government that brought in a carbon tax in Ontario when they ripped up the cap-and-trade.

What this government doesn’t talk about when it comes to climate action is that data released last week shows that the province with the fastest-growing, biggest increase in climate pollution is the province of Ontario—of the entire country, the province of Ontario. As a matter of fact, the data shows that this government has made zero progress on reducing climate pollution since they took office. Our emissions now are up as high as they were in 2017, despite the cost of the climate crisis.

So, Speaker, this is a government without a plan, and it’s actually going to take money out of people’s pockets by what they are planning to do. Thank you.

Sorry, just further to my question from before: It’s got to be difficult, again, for government members, considering that the Premier has tripled his office staff and filled it with people making much more money than the government members themselves. I’ve been thinking about it because it’s been a revolving door for lobbyists coming and reaching the leadership of this party. Do you think it’s now just a strategy whereby, why not just hire the lobbyists so you can see them every day and not to have to take the phone calls? Do you think something like that could be occurring?

I was listening very intently to my colleague, and she was just talking about action. It occurs to me, when I go back to their platform in the last election, they were calling for a ramp-up of electric vehicle sales. They had a 100% target by 2035, so it’s curious to me, when we’re taking action to bring investment to Ontario and we’re unlocking everything from mining to manufacturing, why the NDP are voting against every single thing that we’re trying to do. Or was it their platform that we should ramp-up electric vehicle sales made in other countries?

Further questions?

It’s now time for further debate.

Would I be shocked to hear that former lobbyists work in the Premier’s office? I’m just shocked—shocked.

But what I would like to say is that, again, this government can really deliver for people in meaningful ways, like reducing insurance costs, attacking that discrimination by postal code which people see in this province. That’s a huge expense for people, and it’s a huge expense not for people that drive, but for people that need to drive to make a living, particularly in the Brampton area. So get on that.

We’ve been talking about this for eight years now on this side of the House, and no action on that side of the House. It’s time for you to take action. Instead of writing letters to Trudeau, which is completely a waste of time, in my opinion, get some real action and get some real relief for drivers in Ontario.

Now, the supply side—I mean, good on you to finally get moving, like, you finally saw the light that the entire world has seen, but by the way, if all of this relies on the Ring of Fire, this is going to be a long time to get that piece of the supply chain nailed down.

And they’re spending big bucks in the Premier’s office. We see time and time again that they have absolutely no qualms and no—like, missing a chip when it comes to doing the right thing, when it comes to conflict of interest.

You know, we have judges that are Ford friends and relatives being appointed. How does this speak to a good government that will engender trust and faith in government when people just know what you’re up to? They don’t trust what you’re up to. They see what you’re up to, and it’s unfortunate not just for your government friends—

One of the things about being from Hastings–Lennox and Addington is certainly that I drive a lot. It is a very large riding, and most of the constituents I talk to are very concerned with the cost of driving. It is ridiculous just how much driving costs, specifically because of the carbon tax. That’s why this government is lowering taxes so that my residents and residents all across this province can succeed.

But can the member opposite explain to me why she believes it’s caring to tax hard-working families who are in dire financial struggles, like the federal government wants us to do?

It might come as a surprise to the member who just asked the question and to all that we’re actually in a Conservative majority government, meaning they can and pretty much do whatever they want. So if they want to do something about the carbon tax, they can do it and they don’t need a referendum.

But we also know this is a government that loves spending money, and a referendum would allow them to spend even more money, probably in that way. Do you believe that this is just part of their desire and almost addiction to spending taxpayer money? Because they have spent more than any government in the history of Ontario.

So I’ve been thinking about it, and considering that the Premier has about 100 staff working in his office making more money than MPPs, do you think one of those staff is actually an auto insurance executive themselves? I can’t understand any other reason, other than the fact that these insurance execs are writing their policies on auto insurance.

I don’t think you revealed much there. I was just wondering what you were going to come up with. It looked like it was going to be really, really titillating. but, in fact, it was a bit of a letdown, but that’s okay.

This government wants to have a referendum on the carbon tax. My question is, where was the referendum on your carbon tax? You have an emissions performance standard tax in this province. You collect tens of billions of dollars from the people currently. So I would say, if you want to stand up for your residents in Brampton North, just like I am standing up for residents in Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas, give them the money back that you are collecting from your carbon tax.

You really railed against the Liberals, and rightfully so, for having a debt-to-GDP of 40%. Yours is 39.9%—so some little bit of creative way to make sure it stayed under 40%. You’re spending big on a highway with an unlimited costs—$10 billion, $15 billion; we don’t know what the cost will be—while this government is still pulling up the rear when it comes to spending in health care and education. This government is last—you’re first when it comes to debt and deficit per capita; you are last when it comes to spending in health care and education in this country.

What I want to say to you really is—you talk about the carbon tax, and it is true that people in this province are struggling to pay all kinds of bills, all kinds of bills, but I think you need to be upfront with the people of the province. You have this huge amount of money that you’re collecting right now for your carbon tax, so why don’t you come up with a creative solution to give that back to people, with a way that you can return that money to people who are most impacted by climate change and who are most impacted by the carbon tax? Take money that you’ve collected and redistribute it in an equitable and environmentally positive way.

I was moved by my colleague’s speech and I have to reveal something, and if I face repercussions from caucus because of this, then so be it, but I want to reveal one of the groups that this bill is getting it done for. And the fact is that one of those groups this bill is getting it done for are the hard-working, good, honest, decent people of Hamilton. It’s true.

I wonder if the member could share with those same residents of Hamilton—I know she intends to vote against the carbon tax referendum. Is that because the member supports the carbon tax, why she doesn’t want to give them a voice on the carbon tax referendum?

It’s now time for questions.

Thank you very much, Speaker. Good afternoon. Being proud Hamiltonians, I think that you will appreciate that I wanted to start my speech today by congratulating the Dundas Real McCoys. They won the Allan Cup two consecutive years in a row and so I think that’s worth it. And I want to shout-out to Ralph Taggart, Darren Haydar and Don Robertson for all of the hard work and the grit they put into that talented team. It’s a historic back-to-back win, and it happened in Dundas, so congratulations.

I also just wanted to quickly congratulate Will Jones. Will Jones is a member of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club, and he’s going to be heading to the Olympics this summer—

Applause.

Now, here we are. It’s crazy, to be honest with you, that we are here debating a bill—follow me on this: This is a bill that is reversing the reversals that the government put in place to the changes that they made to urban boundaries across the province.

Before I even get into the substance of the debate, I want to say the scale and the scope of the wasted time and the wasted resources that this government has spent rolling back all of these bad policy decisions that they made is really unconscionable at the time of a housing crisis.

For a long time, I took this government at their word that the question was really about housing. But the more we see, the more evidence that’s revealed—like the 4,000 pages of documents that we just released today—shows that this was not about building housing; this was about making sure that developers and connected individuals of the Premier were given preferential treatment. This goes all the way to the Premier’s office.

This kind of meddling, which is the lightest of words that I can call it, has not only set us back on our goal to build housing for people who are desperately in need of good housing, it has left a stain on this province. Really, why are people so cynical about governments and politicians? It’s because of this kind of action. It’s exactly because of this kind of action.

It is shocking that we are now in a place in Ontario where housing starts are going down, not going up, and that we are in the middle of an RCMP investigation to get to the bottom of this insider dealing and preferential treatment. The time and the money and the energy and the good will that have been squandered by this government when it comes to housing are really, really deplorable.

What I would like to say when we look at this bill that we have before us: People have been making fun of the bill—you know, “Get nothing done.” But I would like to say, as I go through my 15 minutes here this afternoon, I think the question that should be on everyone’s mind is, get it done for who? Who is this government working for? Who are they listening to, and who are they getting it done for? The evidence will show that it is not for the people of the province of Ontario.

I would like to begin to talk about the very fact that this is a bill that reverses a previous reversal on municipal boundary changes. This is amending legislation that they just passed. And this is all, as I said before, while this government continues to be under investigation by the RCMP for the $8.3-billion greenbelt gravy train, as would have it.

Again, what we should be debating here this afternoon is, really, effective ways to get people housed. But instead, we’re spending this time looking at this government trying to paper over their mistakes to try and get us back to square one.

I’m going to concentrate mostly on schedule 3—well, let me just start. Schedule 1: Here’s what I want to say. This government went full frontal, if you will, on the assault on the greenbelt. The greenbelt grab was so clear and obvious. The meddling in municipal planning, the MZOs that are currently under investigation by the Auditor General, the greenbelt grab—this was fully in front of us: “We are going to take these lands, and we are taking them on behalf of our developer friends.” It became quite clear that that is what has happened.

Many people across the province fought this. I had never seen people so engaged because they knew that this was not in their interest, and they could see with their plain eyes that this government was working against their better interests. People all across the province, young and old, rallied and protested against this, and the noise became so loud—I really have to say, I remember when we were in communities in front of MPPs’ offices, people were outraged—outraged—by the cynicism of this.

But now what we see is a government that—do we think this government has stopped this greenbelt grab? No. Evidence is showing that you haven’t stopped it. You have just learned to do this a little bit more by stealth. What you are doing now is not a full, obvious assault on the greenbelt; it’s little pieces in all your bills, all these, I could say, skirmishes, like little guerrilla warfare to get done what you still want to get done, which is to take public lands, to take farmland, to take good planning away from the people of the province and give it to developers. This bill before us is one in a series of assaults that you can find in this government’s policy and legislation.

Let’s not forget about the role conservation authorities play across the province in making sure that development happens in appropriate places. That’s their job: to protect wetlands, to protect people’s basements from flooding. This government now is asking conservation authorities across Ontario to audit the lands under their protection to see if there’s surplus land that can be made available for sale. They’re also taking away the conservation’s authority, undermining their ability to protect these lands and forcing them to issue development permits under duress when conservation authorities identify that this is not in the best interests of the people.

We also have the government that’s going to change the provincial policy statement. Despite the fact that municipalities across Ontario have already made infrastructure plans and fiscal plans related to these policy statements, this is going to be changed.

We have Bill 185 right now that is in committee. Bill 185, again, puts the thumb on the scale of justice on behalf of developers. Bill 185 is a clear assault on planning in the province—good planning. What it does is, there’s a clause in that bill that will allow developers at any time to go to any municipality and ask for land to be rezoned. If a municipality says no, they can then take it to the Ontario Land Tribunal, which we know is being stacked as quickly as it can by Ford insiders who will side on behalf of the developers. If the municipalities say yes and agree with developers, no third party can appeal. So this is all skewed in favour of development that may or may not be in the right place.

It also provides absolutely no ability for municipalities to plan their infrastructure costs. Let’s be clear about it: These costs are borne by taxpayers. Who pays for these unplanned infrastructure requirements if a developer, all of a sudden, in the middle of a municipal planning session, now says, “Okay, we’re going to make this development, and we need roads and we need sewers and we need schools and we need fire,” and whatever—all the infrastructure? That’s on the backs of municipalities and municipal taxpayers to provide that, whether or not the municipality has the ability to fiscally plan and provide for that.

Again, this is stealth: little pieces here, little pieces there that are going to accomplish exactly what the greenbelt grab was trying to do. They haven’t gone away. They’re not over it. They’re just doing it in a sneaky way, hoping people won’t actually be able to identify it because there’s parts in all these bills that the government is putting forward. This bill is also proof positive that the government is still at it, still working on behalf of not the people of the province of Ontario, but insiders and developers.

Schedule 1, which I’ve talked about extensively before, amends the Environmental Assessment Act, which will expedite the expropriation of property without an environmental assessment. Many of the people in Wilmot who are set to lose—is it 7,000 acres in Wilmot? It’s a huge amount of farmland. They point to this schedule that means that land can be taken and rezoned without an environmental assessment. That’s in this bill.

What I want to focus on in this bill is schedule 3. In schedule 3, the government’s at it again. It’s a mystery as to why this government keeps insisting on expanding boundaries and jurisdictions that over and over and over again have said that they don’t want that. So schedule 3 outlines a number of changes to official plans across municipalities such as Barrie, Belleville, Halton, York. Waterloo, particularly, is one that’s aggrieved by this. Why are these here? These were moved before, had to be withdrawn, and now they’re back again. So why does this government continue to do this when there is clearly municipalities that said loud and clear that they do not want their boundaries expanded?

We had a—what do we call it? We had a ministerial briefing. I couldn’t remember what it’s called for a second. In the ministerial briefing, we asked for evidence as to why these 13 changes are in this bill. Who asked for them? Where did they come from? They were not able to provide any answers as to where the requests came from or whether there was any evidence that these changes met with the provincial policy statement or met with existing planning and zoning regulations in the province. There was no answer to that. So again, who is running the show here? Like, how are we doing planning in the province? Is it all being driven by the Premier’s office? There is no clear answer as to what municipality and why they had requested this.

We know that this government is really concerned with upper-tier municipalities and wants to download the responsibility to lower-tier municipalities. I’m going to talk about Caledon in a bit and show what complete planning chaos that has resulted in when lower-tier municipalities, who don’t have the complex of expertise in planning, can actually be persuaded by developers and by perhaps other actors in the scene to move forward on things that aren’t good planning and good policy.

We moved a number of amendments as we always do. And of course, every single amendment that we moved was voted down by the government.

I just want to say, one amendment that we moved was with respect to a change that was being made in Burlington. The amendment we moved would have removed the minister’s re-designation of certain environmentally sensitive lands in Burlington from north Aldershot policy area to urban area. The lands in question are part of the Eagle Heights properties owned by Penta Properties, now known as Alinea Group Holdings. These properties include greenbelt lands and are very environmentally sensitive. This is why Halton region established special policies for north Aldershot, including these lands, and reaffirmed these policies when it adopted its regional official plan.

Interestingly enough, the Integrity Commissioner report described how Penta had hired a Ford friend and lobbyist and Ford wedding guest to lobby the government to have these properties removed from the greenbelt—more evidence that we’re still at the same game here. It’s insider influence. It’s special treatment.

We tried to move an amendment to take that out. The government, of course, at committee used their majority to side with this insider preferential treatment.

We did the same thing—we moved an amendment—to remove the ministerial amendments to Waterloo’s adopted regional plan that forces the region to vastly expand various urban boundaries.

We know that the affordability task force made it clear that the housing crisis was not caused by a lack of land. Let’s be clear: This was your government’s own hand-picked affordability task force. I should also note that BC is killing it when it comes to housing starts. They said quite clearly that they were inspired by and used the recommendations from the province of Ontario’s affordability task force. So we are laggards here—laggards. I think we’re building one tenth I think, if that, of housing that’s happening in BC. Had this government listened to their own affordability task force and not spend so much time trying to tip the scales, we would have been so further ahead.

So that is another amendment that we tried to move to make sure that the region of Waterloo’s good planning would continue.

I also would like to note, because we’re talking about tolls on highways, we moved an amendment that would allow the government to exempt truckers from tolls on Highway 407. So we know that moving traffic to the underused 407 from the overused 401 would reduce traffic and would reduce burdens on commuters. And if the question is really about saving commuters time so they get home to their families sooner and safer—which is important—why is this government continuing to vote down this idea about removing tolls for truckers on the 407 so we can expediate traffic in the province?

I want to just also say it’s really important to talk about this Wild West of planning chaos that this government has unfolded. If we look at Caledon—I’m going to quickly read from an article the highlights of what has happened in the town of Caledon: So Mayor Groves “faced angry residents and made a series of misleading statements, claiming bylaws under her name that suddenly appeared out of nowhere on a council agenda … to push through huge developments along the controversial GTA West Highway”—which is the 413—“will ensure proper planning and the types of homes people need.

“Lawyers and consultants hired … to make recommendations on the massive 35,000-unit development” also wrote the mayor’s bylaws—were in a position of conflict of interest.

“Residents demanded to know if the lawyer … hired under Groves” was working for the same developer who stood “to make billions of dollars from the scheme.” They found out that they are.

So the same interest developers that are working to make sure that the 413 goes through and that the housing developments go through by changing the planning rules work for the developer. It’s a huge conflict of interest. This is happening under this government’s watch and, I would say, with this government’s encouragement.

“The regional reports ... from Caledon ... show $12.9 billion would be needed just for water infrastructure to support only a third of the … units” that were being built, and “no explanation … about how tens of billions of dollars will be covered to create all the infrastructure needed....

“Facing mounting backlash, including calls for a criminal investigation, Groves suddenly” backtracked, just like this government is backtracking.

I think it’s interesting that some of the constituents that were there had—the same sort of things that we’re saying—to say about this government, about what they’re forcing them to do. I would say one constituent said quite clearly: “‘Stop hiding behind the excuse of a housing crisis,’ one delegate replied.”

And so, I think that’s the point here. This government talks about the housing crisis, which there is, but we have to ask the question: Why is this government continuing to meddle, but not making any progress when it comes to building housing in this province? I mean, who is this government working for when they build on farmland and then they don’t protect precious soil? Who is this government working for when they don’t focus on food security but instead focus on development for their friends?

Finally, I would say, we do need housing and we need it now. So why is this government prioritizing building on land which is the costliest and slowest to develop? We need housing now and we need to see a government—instead of putting these sneaky little pieces of legislation that will ensure you continue to get what you want for the insiders and the preferential treatment behaviour that you’re under investigation for, we would like to see a government that prioritizes people that actually need homes to live in.

I’d like to thank the member from Brantford–Brant for his presentation.

In particular, when we take a look at Bill 162, one thing that I am passionate about is our architectural heritage across this province. Some of the consequences of this government’s plowing ahead with changing different laws without considering their impacts is that, with Bill 23, it’s putting 36,000 heritage properties at risk. They will actually lose their very meagre protections on January 1, 2025.

I wonder if the member could speak about the heritage properties in his riding and how he’s trying to convince the government to give an additional five years so that these properties will continue to have protection.

I appreciate the question from the minister because it’s absolutely true. We live in a world that, in so many ways, is so connected, and yet how often—I’m sure she would say the same thing—that my family could be together in our living room and we’re all on our devices. We need to spend more time together, but in order to do that, I think it behooves us as a government to be able to enable that.

We know people have to travel. We know, with the housing crisis, people have to live farther away from work. And so, what are the concrete pieces that we can do, a whole-of-government approach, to make those things a reality for the people in the province of Ontario? And that’s why, you know, just simple pocketbook issues: decreasing the costs; not having to renew your licence plate stickers every year; taking off the tolls on highways; committing to not having new tolls on highways, which I honestly can’t understand why that’s not mentioned by the opposition.

But the reality is, we care. We want people to spend more time—

But in the meantime, we are committed to making sure that workers spend more time with their families, that their day-to-day costs go down and that, quite frankly, Speaker, we just make life easier for the people of Ontario, all while building critical infrastructure, building the highways, building the subways, building the transit, building the hospitals, building the schools that the people of Ontario need every single day.

And to close off, because we’re running out of time, very, very quickly, I would just ask that member, because I know how passionate he is about the people in London, that he would support us in this legislation so that we can unanimously vote the Get It Done Act through.

The member from Brantford–Brant just gave us such a very heartwarming example of the affectionate time you’re able to share with your daughter before you go to work. I know the member is very connected with so many of their residents.

Can you just speak to that connection and the experience and the feeling that your residents have shared with you when it comes to being able to have more time to spend with family rather than being stuck on a highway in traffic in the current congestion that we’re faced with right now?