Fraser Institute?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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