Yes. Well, I’ve had a lot of people in this House as mentors over the years, quite frankly. But I think what matters most is that you bring some passion to this place because you actually believe what you’re saying; you’re not doing it because it’s some invented thing, because that’s what the backrooms are telling you—you believe that these are the things that you care about. Because do you know what? When you talk to the people on the street in your own ridings, that’s what you’re hearing from them.

Do we get it right all the time? Do I get it right all the time? Just ask my wife. No, I don’t, but I don’t expect to. But if you can sit down at the end of the day and look yourself in the mirror and say, “I believe we’re doing a good job for the people of my riding”—which I believe everybody does. That is why we’re here in the first place.

We do understand that situation, and we do respect the wish of First Nations and the right of First Nations for consultation.

I don’t think the 30-day waiting period is the big issue. The big issue is the general consultation requirements under section 35 of the Constitution. You’ve heard from our Minister of Indigenous Affairs—that is of an absolute, utmost importance and one we are fully committed to.

Yes, yes.

So maybe we could build a home on that property so that one of the children of that farmer could also maintain a life on that farm, live and work it. Up until now, you can’t do it. We want to do it in Bill 97. They’re against it.

Speaker, every single piece of legislation that we have brought forward, whether it’s to provide jobs in this province—we lost over 300,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs under the last government that was supported almost always by the NDP. Every bill we brought forward to bring new housing starts to Ontario so that we can build that supply, so the price will slowly but surely come down, if the supply dictates it—they voted against it. They continue to vote against relief for taxpayers and the red tape burden relief for businesses so that we continue to keep building those and help them create those jobs.

We’re bringing more jobs to the province in a time frame than we’ve ever done in the history of the province.

We have over 15 million people in this province now, and we’re going to have more and more every year because of our immigration policies, which we need—we need more population, but we’ve got—

All I can say is, I haven’t been living rent-free in the heads of the NDP for the last 20 years—but I do believe at least it has been under rent controls, because you believe in them for no matter what kind of rent it is.

Anyway, let’s talk about environmental assessment. We see the process as being absolutely, critically important, but we don’t believe that a 30-day waiting period, once all the consultations have been completed, is in the best interests of anyone, because if anyone believed there was an issue there, they’ve had umpteen weeks, days, months, whatever the case may be—they’ve had ample time to exercise their right to comment. And the reality is, even once things are done, people continue to comment. People are commenting about environmental things that were done 20 years ago. We live in a free country. They can comment any time they want.

But we’re going to make sure we build Ontario.

You’ve heard question period here for the last several months, and you actually just have to shake your head. Are they really talking to real people out there or are they just talking to their inside advisers? Are they stuck in their own echo chamber and have never actually gotten out there and talked to the real people? That suits us fine, because they’re actually hurting themselves.

I say to the member: We’ve talked to the people—but we haven’t just talked; we’ve heard, and we’ve listened. We’ve listened to what they want—and also to try to protect our foreign workers when they come to work here, so that we can prevent what happened, for example, during the pandemic, so that they have adequate housing. We have very good agricultural people and leaders who want to see those people protected, but under the current rules, they can’t do it. We’re going to make sure they can do it. All we need is for the NDP to pull their heads out of the sands and actually support us.

I’m not sure where the member comes from. They dig these things up, and they think that this is the smoking gun of smoking guns.

The reality is that we take a holistic approach to governance, and we’re making sure that all the issues that need to be dealt with are dealt with. We’re making sure that we bring in the private sector. We respect the public’s need to know. Accountability and transparency are paramount to this government.

So when I hear the NDP going on and on about something, that they think they’ve found the holy grail here—the reality is, on June 2, the people said, “Mr. Doug Ford, we like the job you’re doing. Keep doing it.”

It’s a pleasure to join the debate on Bill 69 this morning.

We heard from our two respective ministers yesterday. And I heard from members of the opposition. We heard them in the second reading debate as well, and they’re really challenged, quite frankly, to come up with something legitimate when it comes to the criticism. They’re just throwing 77 tentacles out there hoping they can say something negative about the government, because—surprise, surprise, to the people of Ontario—the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives do not agree. The NDP does not agree with us.

Well, we’re very, very happy that the NDP does not agree with us. Do you know why? Because the people of Ontario do agree, and they want to see progress in this province—and that has been the catchword for everything we have done since 2018, when we were first elected.

They’re throwing everything about every possible bill—they look at Bill 69, and they don’t talk about what’s in the bill; they throw out all of these ghosts and goblins hidden under the bed that may or may not exist. “We’re the NDP, and we’re here to protect you, so we’re going to warn you about every possible UFO that might be out there that the Tories are going to put on you.” The member from Hamilton—several words in that Hamilton riding there—went on about how there are really these fearful things out there. It’s just an exercise in fiction that’s coming from the opposition, because they don’t have any real, legitimate criticism on the bill—because, you see, it dovetails with their whole modus operandi when it comes to being critical of our government.

They speak to our housing bill—or “bills,” I should say, and so one has to ask themselves the question. Thank God the Conservatives are here to actually get housing built here in the province of Ontario, because if it were left to the NDP, there would be nothing built, or the alternative would be that the government would build and own everything, and this would be—well, that’s kind of communism, isn’t it? That’s what they want. They want a completely socialist system when it comes to housing.

They hate developers, but yesterday, the member from Niagara Centre, who’s here with us, was asking us to do something positive for developers, because, you see, they’re so conflicted. It must be tough sleeping when you’re like a pretzel. The bed has got to be uncomfortable because you’ve got yourself twisted in so many knots tat you don’t know what you’re actually saying.

So the people of Ontario are not buying any of it.

Every morning, I see the Leader of the Opposition ask her questions, and even she’s probably putting her hand on her forehead and saying, “Why did I sign up for this?” And you see the members behind her with these downtrodden looks, saying, “This is all we’ve got? The same old story every day? No new narrative, no positive initiatives for the people of the province of Ontario?”

Just to be—

As she knows, that’s not a point of order. If we were going on points of order on those kinds of narratives, you people wouldn’t have a thing to say in this House. That’s just the reality. You can’t stick to the subject—not once, not ever—because you have nothing to say about the subject.

So here they’re going on about this 30-day waiting period for a class environmental assessment, which my minister spoke to yesterday.

When there is a class environmental assessment, the consultation process goes on for, not days, not weeks, but months. When the proposal is first initiated, that consultation process goes on continuously until that class EA is granted. Under the current legislation, you then have to wait 30 days, where you just do nothing and wait. Anybody who has anything material to say about that proposal has already made their views known. This is a period of limbo so that nothing actually happens.

To the point that was being made by my good colleague from Thornhill: Projects that could get started in the fall get delayed and then can’t start until the following spring because, as you know, here in Canada and Ontario, we have winter. So we’ve now delayed that project not 30 days, but several months, because of that key window that we haven’t been able to act in.

I’m going to draw a little analogy. This is what the NDP really wants. A young couple are dating and they’re going through the engagement process. They’re getting to know one another—that’s like a consultation process—and this goes on for perhaps a year. They’ve met the families. They’ve met the relatives. They’ve dated and have gone places. They’ve talked about their future together. They’ve really thought this out. Then, they decide they’re getting married. Then, just like I did many, many years ago—my wife and I got married. But according to the NDP, then there should be a 30-day waiting period before they can go on the honeymoon. That’s what they want to do in this province. They want you now to go into a 30-day limbo. “We’ve done all the talking, but no, we can’t really move ahead because we’ve got a 30-day waiting period, for no particular reason.”

The NDP go on and on and say, “Well, somehow, some lightning bolt is going to come down and is going to change something that has been talked about for a year, and all of a sudden we’re going to get”—it’s good governance to wait 30 days simply for the purpose of waiting 30 days?

Let’s be clear: This does not mean that the 30-day waiting period is gone. What it means is that the minister can decree that the 30-day waiting period in this particular case is not necessary; that we can proceed with the projects—vital projects such as waste water and sewage projects—in our communities.

I’ve got a couple of projects listed here that were subject to this 30-day waiting period. Maybe the NDP could tell us that that was a good thing to do—to hold these up for 30 days.

In the city of Brampton, Clark Boulevard and Eastern Avenue—that’s Rutherford Road to Kennedy Road—a project under the municipal class environmental assessment held up for 30 days. Did anybody object during those 30 days? Perhaps the people in the opposition, who seem to know everything, could tell me if there was an objection to that project in that 30-day period. No, there was not. You see, that’s just one.

“But this is the most important issue facing the people of Ontario right now. We’ve got to make sure we have that 30-day waiting period because there might be that lightning bolt.”

Another one is the region of Peel’s Front Street waste water pumping station and waste water diversion addendum project under the municipal class environmental assessment.

These are municipal projects that have already been proven, taken to all the necessary thought process and checks and balances—and the municipality has approved them, and they want them. And do you know what? The residents of Clark Boulevard and Eastern Avenue want them too. But let’s just wait another 30 days because the NDP believes there could be something really, really critical to come forward and tell us we shouldn’t do it, we should wait longer. This is the party of “wait and get nothing done.” This is the party that wouldn’t build anything in this province except if it was government-operated and government-owned.

Where is the incentive to anyone to actually build anything?

We’re committed to 1.5 million homes in this province by 2031, and we have standing in front of us an obstreperous opposition that doesn’t want anything done. They get up there on their high horse and try to pretend that somehow they’re doing it because it’s in the best interests of the public. Well, I’m going to tell you, they’re doing it because they believe it satisfies their stakeholders.

Speaker, I want to give them a little advice, not that they’ve ever taken any advice from me and not that they’re going to take this advice from me—but maybe if it came from someone else and there’s someone else other than me out there who would be more than happy to give them the same advice.

You’ve got it all wrong. You got it wrong in the last election in 2022.

They’re sitting here with 31 members, and they think they’re doing just fine because the Liberals have less than they had before with all the retirements and moving on to other things. But the reality is, the Liberal vote went up in 2022. The NDP vote went down. Our vote went up. So only one of the three main foundational parties here—their vote went down. Why did it go down? They like to use the term “out of touch.” Well, man, they ain’t even close to feeling distance, let alone touch. They can’t even get a static shock, they’re so far away from the real people of Ontario—and they voiced that in 2022, and they’re going to voice it in a big way in 2026.

You are narrowing your scope every day because you’re being taken over by the wings in your party who just want to look at the socialist, leftist view of everything out there. You’re doing yourselves a disservice, and you’re doing the people of Ontario a disservice. Your members—many of your people sitting there today won’t be here in 2026, because your party doesn’t understand what is happening in the real people’s homes across Ontario. Do you know what? When they get up in the morning, they’re thankful that they’ve got a job. Do you know what else they’re thankful for? They’re thankful that there’s a government here in Ontario that is going to make sure that not only do they have a job, but when their children are old enough to go out and work, they’re going to have a good job too, in the industries in Ontario that we have cultivated by good government policy.

Do we create the jobs? Of course we don’t. But it is incumbent upon us, as it is on every single member, regardless of your myopic philosophy, to create a future in this province so that the people, the next generation, will have the jobs to raise the families, and to make sure that Ontario continues to be the best place to live, work, raise a family and play—anywhere in Ontario or perhaps the world.

So when they stand here, and simply for the purpose of criticizing—oh, my goodness. I listened to the hour lead on Bill 69, on the second reading.

By the way, Speaker, did you know that they didn’t even stand up and vote against the second reading of Bill 69? They talked for hours about all of the terrible things that Bill 69 is going to do, but they didn’t even vote against it. They voted on division, because they’re so confused ]about what is right for the people of the province of Ontario.

I know the member from Hamilton didn’t like me talking about what’s going on in the backrooms. I don’t have to be in the backrooms; I can see through the wall. They’re having discussions every day, wondering why—some people in that party are asking themselves, “Why do we keep going down this same road every day?”

Yes, this province is facing a housing crisis, and we need every single level of government working together to get it fixed.

They seem to think that when we remove charges, remove taxes, remove impediments so that we can build more houses, that’s a bad thing. They want to stick things in the way—more red tape, more impediments, that drive up the cost of housing.

We’re doing things that will bring down the cost of housing, but it will only work when the supply is satisfactory to meet the demand. We can’t get there if we don’t start with the legislation, the regulations—the removal of regulations and creating the environment that allows it to happen.

As much as they would like to have the government build every single home in this province and put it on locked-in rent for life—nobody is going to build them. Somebody has to be in the business of actually doing something to earn a profit.

They talk about non-profit health care, for example—public health. Health care is public in this province. Everybody who has an OHIP card, or even those without one, has the right to province-paid health care in this province. But the health care system is one of the most profitable in the world. Do you think the people who put beds in hospitals and medical supplies and everything else that goes into hospitals are doing it on a not-for-profit basis? The health care system is full of profit. We provide health care for anyone at no cost in this province of Ontario, but the system is massively profitable—the development, the research, everything, everybody who is in the system.

So when they talk about public, being non-profit, everything—it’s not the case.

What we have to do is make sure we have the most efficient and effective way of delivering those services. That’s what we’re doing with Bill 97, the new housing bill. Bill 97, which they’re railing against—they want everybody to live in a condo in Toronto, for example. It’s the only place you should live. It’s the only place we should build them. It just shows their bias and prejudice against rural Ontario, when we’re trying to do something—so if you’ve got a farm with nice acreage and you’re making a living on that farm, and your son and/or daughter or their families would like to stay on that farm, we would like to see that farm continue, because the people who begin the process of putting food on our table are some of the most important people to this province. We need our farmers.

Interjections.