I appreciate the comments and the compliments from the member as well.

But, let’s be clear: It is apparent, maybe even obvious, that we’re going at this subject from two different points of view. Our absolute commitment as government—and you’ve heard the Premier rise in question period over and over and over again, as well as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and our House leader, and what they have said is, “We are going to build homes.” We’re not going to focus on something that the opposition wants to talk about and dig up and try to slow the process down. This is a crisis and what it needs, needs, needs is all hands on deck—everybody rowing in the same direction—because if we don’t fix this housing crisis, we are going to be in big trouble down the road. Let’s get together.

That’s why we’ve got to move to bring this housing supply up so that it can help to bring down all of those other costs and let those young people get a home within their budget.

I do want to say that when it comes to consultation with Indigenous communities, I have the utmost faith in our Minister of Indigenous Affairs. I don’t think that anybody has done more to forge a working, collaborative relationship with First Nations in our province ever in history than Minister Rickford. And that is something—

Thank you very much, House leader. I’ll be there—or here, or wherever.

What I don’t remember is where I was.

I remember some person telling me that they think development charges are just fine, and I asked them—I think he was a guy older than me. I won’t use his name. I said, “So when you built your nice home”—it’s a nice home—“did we have development charges?” “Oh, there was no such thing as development charges then.” I said, “Bingo. But you think maybe the folks today should be subject to those development charges? I say, not so, not fair.” And he said, “Well, the municipalities need the money.”

The municipalities should find other ways of gaining that money. The municipalities can also be aware that if there are a hundred homes not built because people can’t afford development charges—you know what they’re getting? As the minister says, squadoosh, nada. But if there are a hundred homes built because there are no development charges, well, that municipality is just—it’s a little bit of a windfall for that assessment, because each one of those homes now is going to be a revenue source for that municipality.

So let’s get together. Let’s get together. I know you’re going to support this bill. But there are so many things—stop talking about the greenbelt. We made a mistake. We’re moving on. Let’s get building homes. We can do it together, to help everybody right here in the province of Ontario.

Thank you very much.

Home ownership is so important. It is really something that—I live in the first home that my father built—well, with my wife too. That was built in 1960. I was three years old when we moved into that house. It was a different time then. My father never borrowed money. He put it away and saved and saved. There were 10 children at that time and two parents living in, I’m going to say, maybe 800 square feet on the top of our old store, on the second storey: 10 children and two parents living in there, getting by, because he wasn’t going to be borrowing money. You know that’s really not feasible anymore today.

We bought our first home in 1983. It was a bungalow, nothing too fancy, a nice lot. In the city, the lot would probably be worth a couple of million dollars. We bought that home for $47,500 in 1983. The last four vehicles I’ve bought, none of them could have been close to being bought for $47,500. In fact, one time when I bought a little better truck, and my wife mentioned, “For the price of that truck, you might be living in it.” But it was a lot more than $47,500, but, of course, I had to finance the truck.

This is the world we’re living in today. How are we going to—I read something in the newspaper the other day, that we need—how many homes was it that we needed to build? We needed a stock of 22 million homes in Canada before we would see an appreciable reduction in the cost of homes. And I know, and I heard from one of the members over there one time when they were speaking—again, I was already in my chair, so I didn’t have far to fall. They said that the theory of supply and demand is a myth. Speaker, it is the most basic rule of economics, absolutely the most basic rule of economics. That is why those experts—and I know my friends on the other side often like to quote experts, but they quote the experts they like. An old saying—and I’m going to be guilty of it myself—but there’s an old saying: Do you know what an expert is? That’s anybody with a briefcase more than 25 miles from home. So those are who they quote as experts sometimes, because it suits their narrative, right? Somebody rolls into town with a briefcase: “He must be an expert.”

A quantity of experts are saying clearly that if we don’t increase the supply of homes, we cannot bring down the price of homes, and it really is basic common sense, Speaker. So, what does our government do? As I said, 16 bills, each and every one of them since we got elected in 2018 is designed to do just that: to increase the supply of homes. Because without increasing the supply, if there are 20 people looking for a house and there’s one house—I mean, you’ve seen it; everybody has seen it here. It’s crazy in a place like Toronto, but it’s even happened up where I come from, in little old Barry’s Bay, as the House leader mentioned yesterday. Even in little old Barry’s Bay, if there are more people who want a home than there are homes available, the price of the homes go up. It’s basic math, basic economics.

And you’ve seen these—what do you call them? Bidding wars—bidding wars on houses in Toronto and elsewhere, where the price just goes crazy. So, how does that help? It doesn’t. But why does it happen? Because there aren’t enough homes for sale. There are more people wanting the homes, and we’re living in a situation, Speaker—and I know that even at the federal level, they’re beginning to talk about how they might address it. When you have hundreds of thousands of people coming to Canada and the majority of them coming to Ontario and the majority of those coming to the greater Toronto-Hamilton area, that puts more pressure on the reality that if we don’t have enough homes to serve the current population, how are we going to serve the increased population?

So I am very excited about what the minister has done here in Bill 134. I know we’re addressing the changing of the St. Thomas boundaries legislation. I think that was Bill 63, if I’m not mistaken. That was a bill that the opposition actually supported. And as I say—and I know you can’t question the motives of anybody here, but I think we all know where some of that pressure came when the time came to support that bill.

But let’s get back to Bill 134, which I’ve been, of course, speaking on all along. So, Speaker, this bill, which is going to define and put more clarity on what affordable housing is, or what qualifies or can be defined as affordable housing, is going to be tremendously helpful in areas like mine. I’m not sure how many of you people have ever been to my riding—probably not very many—but we have some significant pockets of good jobs. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories exists in my riding. That’s a very high-tech nuclear facility. There are a number of people who have very, very good incomes, but we also have a portion of the population that simply does not. This new definition that the minister has brought forward is going to be hugely helpful in allowing those municipalities to be able to approve building permits and developments that will not be subject to development charges.

I can tell you, development charges, when you’re a young person—we weren’t as young as a lot of people, but when we bought our first home, there was no such thing as development charges in the communities then.

I did say to one person who was talking about development charges—

I didn’t think I’d use the whole minute, but apparently that’s what the clock tells me, and I’ll have to go with the clock.

I want to begin, Speaker—and if I get ruled out of order, I’ll abide by the rulings, you know that. You know me, I never do anything off-centre in this place.

I do want to begin, because the other day—and I want to thank the government House leader for recognizing myself and MPP Scott for having served in this Legislature and served our constituents for 20 years. I do just want to touch on that for a moment and how grateful I am.

Last week, I had the opportunity—on the day that it would have been 60 years that my father was elected as the member for Renfrew South—to speak for a moment or two, but I didn’t have a speaking slot, so it was very short. I do want to say, Speaker—and I know you know this better than anybody having been here since 1990—what an honour it is and how grateful we are to be sent to represent our constituents in this great chamber. I want to thank them. Particularly, I want to thank my wife and my family for their support. I could tell a million stories. People have said to me, “John, you’ll have to write a book one day,” and my wife has said, “No, no. I’ll write the book.” So I’m a little worried if it ever comes to that about what stories may make the book.

I know that everybody here that serves is grateful and honoured to be here. I just want to say, for 20 years, it’s been a special honour for me so thank you very much for allowing me to address that today.

Now, here we go again—another housing bill. I almost fell off my chair this morning when I heard the opposition critic say that they would be supporting Bill 134, because, you know I did a little work—to tell you the truth, no, I actually had my staff person do a little work. We just went back to 2018 so there’s—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15—16 bills that our government has brought forward dealing with the housing crisis. How appropriate is that, Speaker? I know that there will be disagreements of what is the existential crisis of our time, but the one that faces us right now that must be dealt with now—and doesn’t have a 20-year time frame, a 40-year time frame, or anything like that—is the housing crisis. You know, when we went through our campaign in 2022, you heard it repeatedly. You heard our Premier, who was seeking re-election, repeatedly say that the priority of our government, after we emerged from the COVID crisis, was going to be building homes for the people of Ontario.

Since the election of 2022, I think it’s fair to say that it’s only gained greater importance and urgency, because we see every day what’s been happening. I thank the people for their campaign, on the other side, because it certainly helped us win a historic second majority for Premier Ford. Since that time, the world has changed: Our world here in Ontario and certainly in Canada has changed if you’re trying to solve a housing crisis—not for the better.

We have federal policies. Our House leader has touched on that repeatedly, about how the federal policy vis-à-vis, for example, the carbon tax and how inflationary that is. What does inflation do? It forces the Bank of Canada to say we’ve got to do something to pound this down somewhat. We can’t exist with 8%, 6%, 5%, or whatever the case may be, and we are working to get that down. What did that do to the economy? Well, it drives up interest rates. You fight inflation, you drive up interest rates. What is one of the biggest negative forces if you’re trying to build or do anything that costs money? It’s the cost of borrowing that money. So if you can’t borrow the money at a reasonable rate, you’re going to be faced with significant pressures against what you’re trying to do.

I have talked to people all across this province—not as many people as my House leader would talk to and certainly not the Premier, but I’m sure they hear the same stories all the time, where people who have planned to build a housing project have said, “I don’t think we’re going to proceed.” Why? Because of the interest rates, the cost of building that project. Even: Are they going to be able to get the financing? But even if they do, John Q. Public and this generation that is looking for their first home, where in the name of Sam Hill, as they say, are they going to get the money to buy that place? It ain’t happening. It’s just not happening.

We as government—this government, our government, your government—I say this to the people of Ontario: Your government has been seized upon the task of doing whatever is necessary, whatever is within the realm of possibility to encourage homebuilding in this province. What did I say, 16 bills? Tennessee Ernie Ford had a song, “Sixteen Tons.” I might bring out one: “sixteen bills.” Sixteen bills, and what do you get? Lots of yeses over here. Over there? “Nyet, nyet, nyet.” Hey, that rhymed, didn’t it? What do you get? Nyet. That’s what you get over there when you have 16 bills: You get “nyet,” because those folks over there really don’t want to see us succeed in our housing plan.

I say to my friends over there—and I consider them friends—maybe not close friends. But I seriously ask them: Would it not be better for us to succeed in bringing 1.5 million homes to the people of the province of Ontario over the next seven years to 2030? Isn’t that more important than politicking on every single initiative that we bring forward to increase the supply of homes?

I’m going to tell you, I’ve got great admiration for my friend and colleague, and I’ve known him for many, many years, Steve Clark, the former minister, and of course today Minister Calandra, who has taken over the file—because we have left no stone unturned when it comes to trying to figure out and find ways that we can get the job done when it comes to building homes. And we’re going to get it done. That is the way we work here; we get it done. In spite of what we’re hearing from the opposition, when they would like to—as I say, Speaker, it is disappointing, because we’ll all be better off, including the members on the other side, especially if they have children or grandchildren or friends or relatives that would like to have their name on the deed of their first home too. It is going to help everybody.

We have four children. We’ve got 12 grandchildren—

Thank you very much, Speaker. Your voice is so soft compared to mine, I didn’t hear you right off the bat. But I certainly appreciate the opportunity.

However, I do want to say, Speaker, because there’s so little time and I would prefer not to have my address today split in two, I’m going to move adjournment of the debate.

“It can’t be done”: Don’t bother using those words when speaking to an O’Brien. When folks told Del O’Brien some 50 years ago that establishing an airline in Pembroke wouldn’t work, he proved them wrong.

Well, his son Jason has done it again. Against conventional thinking that you couldn’t establish a vineyard in Renfrew county, he and his wife Lioutsia have done just that. On September 2, I had the honour of attending the official opening of WOW, the WhiteWater O’Brien Winery. Nestled on the shores of Lake Allumette, the vineyard stretches for a quarter of a kilometre and basks in the constant westerly breeze blowing off over eight kilometres of open water. The westerlies ward off late spring and early fall frost and act as air conditioning in the summer. This enhances the moderating effect of cool nights and hot days, which is similar to many of the great vineyard locations around the world.

The vineyard is part of the 700-acre O’Brien farm, which has been in the family since the 1830s and is one of the earliest and largest certified organic farms in the Ottawa Valley. WhiteWater O’Brien Winery is currently producing four varieties: two whites, one red and a rosé. Speaker, I can tell you they are all very, very good.

I want to congratulate the O’Briens on their grand opening and let everyone know that in addition to being available on site, an online delivery service is under development. Renfrew County’s WhiteWater O’Brien Winery is on the march and the O’Briens are leading the charge.

I listened intently to the member on his speech, and I didn’t hear very much about Bill 134 until the last couple of minutes when, out of the blue, they announced that they’re going to support the bill, as they did Bill 63.

If you remember when Bill 63 was going through the Legislature here, what tipped the scales in favour of the NDP supporting was the calls they received from union leadership that said, “You’re toast if you don’t support this bill redefining the boundaries around St. Thomas,” because it was integral and of paramount importance to be able to establish an EV battery manufacturing facility in the St. Thomas region. So again, they were taking their marching orders from their stakeholders—not necessarily the people of Ontario—who will support this bill without question.

Bill 134 is so important to people in my riding who do have lower-than-average incomes and pay more as a percentage of their income to pay for housing. Thank you for supporting it. It’s about time you got behind this government’s entire—