The ayes are 68; the nays are 39.

Point of order: If you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at 6.

I move the question now be put.

I appreciate the member from Kitchener Centre’s eloquent defence of her region and the financial and environmental cost of low-density sprawl development. I’m wondering if the member can tell us what are the financial and environmental benefits of intensification through gentle density and missing middle housing.

We have time for another quick question.

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

All those opposed, 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.

Mme Gélinas moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 192, An Act to amend the Health Protection and Promotion Act with respect to maximum patient-to-nurse ratios / Projet de loi 192, Loi modifiant la Loi sur la protection et la promotion de la santé en ce qui concerne les ratios patients-personnel infirmier maximaux.

I think you make good decisions when you base it on data. What I would like to say is that I don’t think it’s all developers, because we had a lot of delegations in one of the earlier bills and they support density. This was an Ottawa home builder; our member over there would get to know these home builders. It’s not all home builders that support this bill.

I think if we really want to get home building done, we need to talk to all developers and all home builders, and leaving out stakeholder groups like environmentalists is nearsighted. I worry about some of the sensitive areas and if we don’t have expertise from biologists, hydrogeologists etc. and we don’t even allow them to speak, I think we will go very far in doing harm by not including many perspectives on what good planning actually means.

We know we have a scarcity of building supplies. If you talk to anyone, cement is the number one most expensive thing that we can use right now. So these gentle density houses in the middle of town, we can use wood and sustainable resources and reduce our cement dependence.

Thank you very much to the member from Kitchener Centre. Really, this all begs the question: Who’s in charge of planning in this province? Because we know it’s not the planning departments of municipalities across the province, it’s most likely developers that are leading planning. It’s most likely the OLT that’s going to make the decision on planning. It’s not going to be the people who live in communities, who have no say now because they do not have any longer a third-party right to appeal any decisions that are made on land that could be theirs, in fact.

So my question to you is, do you think that the chaos you’re talking about is simply a function of the fact that this government has taken planning out of the hands of expert planners and put it into the hands of speculators, land speculators and developers and their OLT that they are stacking with their friends and—

I’m delighted to respond to the remarks from the member opposite. I know she comes from a great career in municipal politics. Certainly, I have beloved memories of my own time. So I know municipalities like to decide or are the ones to decide where buildings should or should not go. But as you’ll likely know, and likely experienced this, as I did, the permissions process takes a long, long time with the advent of public consultation. Our government does, through Bill 185, want to speed up the process, especially for important projects such as housing, but also for schools. So we’re looking at ways to adopt projects faster to help communities grow.

My question to the member opposite is whether you still see the value in speeding up approvals to help with housing, help with schools, help with university residences for your riding. I just wanted to get your perspective.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak about Bill 185. It has a pretty serious impact on my region, the region of Waterloo. I’m grateful to see the member for Cambridge and the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler here.

We, as a region, rely solely on groundwater. We are not attached to a lake. We rely solely on groundwater. If we run out of groundwater, it will cost $2 billion at today’s estimates to build a pipeline to a lake to get more groundwater. So, by removing regional planning, we remove hydrogeologists from looking over our approvals. We remove the view of the watershed when we think about the land used for development. For example, recently, with the expanded boundaries put forward by lower-tier municipalities, we will now pave over the water recharge area. What that means is, this type of land is full of gravel and it helps our water from the sky replenish our groundwater to ensure that we have water for the generations to come. What I worry about is that that water will be scarce as we pave over the water recharge area and we create sprawl development, and we don’t have this level of oversight by the region to ensure that we have sustainable water resources going forward.

Also, our regional official plan: The region of Waterloo put a lot of time and energy into creating a plan that protected our countryside line, that recognized the Waterloo moraine and environmentally sensitive areas. Now, with that regional planning gone, we will jeopardize the protection of our farm economy, as well as our environmentally sensitive spaces that sequester carbon, that filter water and are important for our biodiversity.

I truly believe that this focus on sprawl development will actually hinder housing. If you ask any construction worker—I talked to a friend of mine this weekend and he said, “We are already building at 110%. We can’t double what we’re doing right now. We are maxing out our capacity.” We know there is a lack of labour, that we face labour shortages, and we also know that we face supply shortages. We have a construction price index problem, so our inflation rates have gone down, but our construction inflation has not, which needs addressing.

Sprawl development, we also know, is two and a half times more expensive for municipalities to service than density, and so we look to see more double-digit property tax increases going forward because of this focus on sprawl development. And we know that tall-and-sprawl only benefits a small group of developers, rather than the missing middle development that opens up the possibility of construction of more units to many more people, which is why we believe in ending exclusionary zoning.

In the region of Waterloo alone, in greenfield developments, we have over 38,000 units that have been approved that have not been built. We know that focusing on greenfield development will not get us further to our housing targets.

Our farming sector, the OFA in my area, has asked and written and sent emails. Our experts in the farming sector in my region have asked us today to not pass Bill 185. They know that we are losing 319 acres of farmland every day and that we can’t eat money. The price, because of speculation, because of this government’s focus on sprawl development and zones going out and then in and out and then in have not only delayed housing development in the region of Waterloo by two years—our regional official plan came out in the summer two years ago—because of flip-flops, all of that housing has been put on hold.

In addition to that, we know that farmers are struggling to buy land because now we know that—I could name about five developers who are buying up farmland only to sit on it. This leads to a lack of development. They are not going to put barns. They’re not going to invest money into the soil, because they’re renting it from developers who are sitting on it, waiting for the prices to go up, waiting for the right moment to flip it or sell it or turn it into something else.

So I beg that this government focus on density, focus on all kinds of housing, not just sprawl, because this will lead to better transit access. It will lead to more affordable housing, and it’s a better, more efficient way to use the scarce resources we have to put more units on the market. Instead of building big mansions, we can build multi-plexes, and that will service a lot more people in the province of Ontario.

I hope you will not support Bill 185, because I want to see water and food for my kids going forward.

So, yes, I agree with speeding up the process, but I think we really need to be keyed into the labour issues we’re facing in our planning departments. One way we could speed up approvals is ending exclusionary zoning. To be honest, we wouldn’t have to bring these small and medium-sized builds even to council at all if we got rid of exclusionary zoning. When we’re building a subdivision, let’s just allow schools to be built. Instead of—

Thank you. We don’t have time for another back-and-forth question and answer, unfortunately.

We’re going to move to further debate.

Back to the member for Kitchener Centre for the response.

To the member: Listen, when you go home tonight, just take a moment for Justin Trudeau and just thank that he’s there so that you can talk about him and his carbon tax. Please do that. Take a moment to do that.

And I want the member, after he leaves, to go back and say to his team, “Guys, you know what? We’re doing stuff here, okay? We’re actually doing some stuff”—I’m not going to say it’s great. “We’re doing other things. Can we just ask one carbon tax question in the morning so that we could talk about something else?” Because all we hear about from this government, by and large, is just beer and carbon tax. And then, when it’s not about the carbon tax, it’s beer, and then it’s more carbon tax on top of it.

Please. There are probably millions of people watching the legislative network. We know that, right? And they’re getting tired of hearing the same things. It’s almost as if the government of Ontario is doing nothing but complaining about carbon tax—

My question is for the member from Humber River–Black Creek. I know we heard often at committee from a variety of stakeholders, and we heard from the Ontario home builders and the greater Ottawa home builders. They said the number one concern they had was increasing costs, was the high interest rates of the federal Liberal government and also the high cost of the carbon tax increasing the cost of building materials and homes.

I know the member has said he has voted against it in this place, and I appreciate he is willing to vote against the carbon tax. But will he call his federal NDP colleagues, who are supporting Justin Trudeau, and ask him to scrap this tax?

Ma question est pour ma collègue de Nickel Belt. J’ai écouté vos paroles, puis moi aussi, quand j’ai vu le projet de loi 185 de réduire le « red tape », j’étais encouragé, mais disons que ça n’a pas duré longtemps. On a commencé à regarder le projet de loi, puis on réalise que ça ne répondra pas aux besoins du nord de l’Ontario.

Moi, j’ai des communautés—j’en ai parlé souvent, que 65 %, 70 % de la communauté de Hearst, ils n’ont pas de médecin de famille. Mais même si on en trouve un, je ne sais même pas si on est pas capable de lui trouver un logement ou une maison. Ça n’existe pas. On a une pénurie. Mais aussi, on a une pénurie pour des domiciles abordables, des domiciles subventionnés et des domiciles avec de l’aide.

Montrez-moi dans ce projet de loi où ça va répondre aux besoins des communautés du Nord pour répondre aux besoins qu’on a dans nos communautés.

I was so impressed with the member from Humber River–Black Creek that—he was talking about the carbon tax. We do talk about the carbon tax a lot in this House because it’s so important to the people of not only Ontario but Canada.

I would just like to ask the member what his opinion of the carbon tax is. Maybe—

The direct answer to your question is: no. There is nothing in this bill that will protect anybody from illegal evictions. There is nothing in this bill that will make it more affordable to rent a place. There is nothing in this bill to help renters.

The situation you describe is very similar to the situation in my community, where there will be encampments this summer—everywhere.

The number of people facing homelessness is increasing. Many of them have mental health and addictions issues. The number one step to be able to help them is to be able to house them. All of this is becoming out of reach. It is a crisis. It should be recognized as a crisis, but it is not even mentioned in that bill.

Je parlais d’une mine qui vient d’ouvrir. Comment tu fais pour attirer des travailleurs? Les travailleurs viennent. Ils sont intéressés dans l’emploi. Ils savent comment faire ça. Mais ils ont un conjoint, une conjointe; ils ont des enfants. Ils ont des besoins, et il n’y a pas de logements.

Il n’y a rien dans le projet de loi qui a été présenté qui va aider les petites communautés du Nord à faire face à la pénurie de logements à laquelle on fait face en ce moment.

Thank you to the member from Nickel Belt and the member from Humber River–Black Creek for their debate this afternoon. In Hamilton, we have close to 1,900 people who are homeless. Visible homeless is in the hundreds. We can drive through our city at any time, and there are encampments of tents everywhere.

We have lost 16,000 low-income rentals that were under the $750 mark. We are currently losing. For every one house we build, we are losing four to the private rental market. This is an absolute crisis. With numbers continuing to decline in the rental market, there’s no hope in sight for so many people who cannot afford to pay the rent.

Do you see anything in this bill that will provide relief and a remedy to the absolute crisis that we’re seeing in our communities?

I appreciate it. It wasn’t a question about the carbon tax; thank you.

So the solution is: Instead of paying $500 million, you’re going to pay $1 billion to cancel the contract. Again, you know what? When I go and purchase a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer, I go to the LCBO public workers. And the money goes back into government coffers directly. It doesn’t go indirectly. It goes directly there to pay for things like health care, reconstructing roads and other things like that.

But there is an absolute religion on this side to privatize everything and at any cost. So I understand how it goes in line with their brand and their ideology, but we are spending $1 billion when we have record deficits and massive priorities that we need to be spending on countless other things But no, let’s put beers in corner stores and spend a billion bucks to do it. Come on.

I want to talk about something. Let’s pretend this is question period in the morning and I’m in the government. Do you know who likes Justin Trudeau more than the federal Liberals themselves—because I don’t think they like him very much right now; I think they’re having a little bit of buyers’ remorse. It’s this government. Can you imagine if Justin Trudeau wasn’t there—that they could just focus all the venom and hatred in that one direction and jump on any train to lead there? What would they talk about, honestly? We’re sitting here, in the most cynical moments ever of this government, constantly talking about this. I want you all to go home, if you have a faith that you follow, and say a moment of prayer to him and just thank him that he’s there in Ottawa so you can direct all your venom towards—because do you know what? In the last couple of years, you guys were working really well together, I can tell you that.

I want to thank the member opposite for his comments, but I do want to pick up on the grocery shopping and the LCBO. As you know, the Liberal government 10 years ago signed an agreement that has been costing this province over $500 million annually. We’re moving proactively to transition, and we anticipate the point of sales will increase government revenues by about $300 million. We’ll create 7,500 new jobs. So, why not move forward with it now? That’s my question.

We’re going to go to questions.

I thank my friend and colleague for her speech. Of course, there’s not a lot of time left to say—but any kind of legislation we have here to talk about housing has to include tenants, because the reality is, this government shows little to no interest at all. They talk about—they brag, in fact, saying that they’re leading in terms of rental housing starts, but I think it’s really patently obvious why that would even happen. It has nothing to do with them; it’s more of a chicken or an egg thing, because if the average cost of rent is $2,500, $3,000 a month, all of a sudden, a landlord can make tons and tons of money doing that, building more rental units that nobody can afford. The relief addressed by supply and demand might be a correction in five, 10, 15, 20 years, but it doesn’t bring relief to tenants who are being evicted right now in this affordability crisis.

On the subject of the affordability crisis, this government is not interested whatsoever in that. I’ll tell you what they’re interested in: beer. They’re interested in beer. I couldn’t get my head around it, why the common theme in the last six years—every once in a while, we would be debating beer. First, it was tailgate parties at football games. It was a buck-a-beer that never happened.

I’ll give an example of where I think it really comes from, because if you can’t fix a person’s problems—and this government really can’t; in fact, they’re making problems worse every day with legislation they continue to introduce here—what can you do? Well, I can think of something: Get them drunk. Get everyone drunk. We’ll put them to sleep with a good glass of wine on a hot Sunday afternoon. You might want to go to sleep after that.

So how do we get people drinking? Well, imagine going to the grocery stores. You’re trying to purchase things. You’re like, “Oh, my God, look at the price of this. I can’t afford this. I can’t afford that. Oh, look, there’s beer here. That’s new. Oh, my God—a bottle of wine. You know what? I’ll just take this home and have a drink.” And guess what? Forgot about the problem of groceries. But it’s not enough, because people start to wake up and they say, “Oh, my God, it’s really—it’s unaffordable.” What do we do? Well, let’s bring beer a little closer. Let’s put it in the convenience stores, and you know, we’ve got lots of convenience stores around the province. So now you’re going in there to do what you needed to do, because you couldn’t make it to the grocery store. Guess what? There’s beer there.

What’s it going to cost the taxpayers? A billion dollars, a year early? I mean, this contract is ending anyway. What’s the rush to take $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to put beer in corner stores? How is this a priority for this government?

The final thing I have in the last minute is this carbon tax. Do you know what? I finally heard a minister get up today. Do you know he said? “I’m sick of talking about the carbon tax.” Hi. I mean, half of every question period is about the carbon tax. You want to get them to talk about other federal issues, like, I don’t know, talk to auto manufacturers about making cars harder to steal. “No, we can’t talk about that.” But 30 minutes every morning about the carbon tax. Do one question, man—one question. We get it. Everyone gets it. The penguins in the Antarctic get it. Martians get it. We get it. You can’t change it. Talk about something else. You say you’re proud of doing things to change the province of Ontario, but all you want to do is talk about the same thing.

I’m commiserating with you. I know it’s hard. It was really good to hear the minister say that. I wanted to give him a hug after, because I know it’s not easy to meet your hundred-times-a-day quota. But, look, you have more to offer. I know you do. You’ve got fabulous members over there. I want to hear about something else, okay?

Thank you very much, Speaker. Have a wonderful afternoon, everybody.