I will say to the member, he’s right; I did speak on the opposition side, but they were not the same speeches, let me tell you that. They were very good, but they were not the same speeches. But I will say this: We have two different views. They want to do what they want to do to prevent building from taking place. If it isn’t the greenbelt, it will be something else.

But what it comes right down to, Speaker, is that they are standing in the way of actual progress and building for the future. If they aren’t going to build on the greenbelt, then they will find someplace else we’re not going to build.

But the reality is this: We’re actually expanding the greenbelt. Speaker, the greenbelt will be bigger after we’re done than it was when we got here, and there won’t be 17 separate reductions on the greenbelt—

I didn’t even know how much time I had left. I knew it wasn’t much, and that could be said in a lot of ways when it comes to me, but for the purpose of today, it’s about this bill.

To build or not to build? If Shakespeare was here, would he ask that question: To build or not to build? Well, this is one party that wants to build and will build. We’ll stand straight and into the wind for all of those that want to attack them for their decision to do what is right, and that is to build here in Ontario and, by extension, just do that: build Ontario.

When we were elected in 2018, that was the catchword: “We’re going to rebuild Ontario.” What have we done? While the Liberals, aided and abetted by the NDP, saw 300,000 and some good-paying manufacturing jobs leave the province, we brought ’em back. We brought ’em back by establishing an environment with which business could look at this province and say, “This is a great place to invest.” We’re now leading the world in investments in the auto sector because they see Ontario is a great place to invest.

But do you know what happens when you bring back people to work? Do you know what they ask you? “I love Ontario; I love what you’re doing, but I need a place to stay. I need a place to stay; my family needs a place to stay; my relatives are going to need a place to stay, and we want to continue to expand. So what are you going to do to help us?” Well, we’re not going to do what the NDP would do, which is to stand against every single bill we put forward and try to prevent housing from being built. Yet, on one hand they’ll say this: “Oh, we want to see 1.5 million homes built by 2031. Oh, yes we do. But no, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t put them here; can’t put them there.” By the time you get done with the can’ts, it’s a won’t. So many can’ts turn into a won’t. That’s the mantra of the NDP.

Yet, they’ll try to stand there and defend—“Oh, we want to do this for these people and this stakeholder and that stakeholder,” and then they wait to see if any of the cheques are coming in at their riding associations because they had something nice to say about this or that group while they were debating this in the House, all the while knowing full well that nothing was going to get built if it was under their watch.

Yesterday, the member for Thunder Bay–Superior North stood in her place and said, “supply and demand is a myth.” And I briefly touched on that yesterday; “supply and demand is a myth”. It’s about the most basic rule in economics. There have been lots of rules in economics that have been debunked over the years or proven to be weak in their theory, but supply and demand is as basic as it comes.

I was listening to the news last night and there was a real estate person on there with the reporter. The reporter was talking about real estate here in the GTA, and he said, “Well, prices have actually inched back up.” After the pandemic, prices dropped again. They had gone up through the pandemic, and then they had levelled, and then they dropped. But prices are back up, and he asked the realtor, “Why is that?” He said, “Well, it’s simple. There are fewer houses on the market, so the prices have gone up.” Now, isn’t that amazing? Fewer houses on the market, so the prices have gone up—boy, that’s hard to understand over there, isn’t it? Try to get your heads around that: fewer houses on the market, so the prices have gone up.

Well, then it stands to reason, Speaker, that if there were more houses on the market, the prices would come down. We all have to understand the considerations of inflation and everything else, but on a level playing field, the prices will come down. But every single thing we have done from the time we got here—and I’ve got to take my hat off to Premier Ford and his Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Honourable Steve Clark. He has shouldered this and kept his shoulder to the wheel right through this whole issue. Every time we come up, we’re doing more for tenants than has ever been done in this province before—ever been done. Bill 97 is another bill that protects tenants; another bill that brings in more protections for tenants than there were before.

And I heard the critic—I think it’s the member for University–Rosedale—

But anyway, she’s talking then about—so we’re bringing in a rule now so that if you’re a tenant and your building does not have air conditioning, the landlord must allow you to put an air conditioner into that building, into your room—a window air conditioner of some form into that apartment or whatever the case may be. So the landlord is going to be doing that. But the member, you know what she said? “Well, you can’t make them pay for the electricity that it takes to run the air conditioner.”

Boy, this is a great world, Speaker, I’ll tell you. I want that job. I want that place where everything I get, I never have to pay for. But you know what? In this world, it’s called fairness. You have a choice: you want something, you have to accept some of the responsibility for what it takes to get there. But no, because they have to stand there in their places.

I’ve got to believe that every night, they must have an un-pretzelling meeting—the de-pretzelization. You know how you have a debrief? Well, they have a de-pretzellizing, because they’ve twisted themselves in so many knots during the debate because they’re contradicting themselves. They’re for this but they can’t do this.

I sit here when I’m listening to this debate and I’m saying, “God, I hope they play that back before they go to bed tonight and listen to what they actually said—listen to what they actually said and then say to themselves, ‘Which part of me was saying that and which part of me was saying that? Because we’re not the same. We’re just not the same.’” Sesame Street would probably have a good cartoon to work with that: Who’s the same and who’s not? They’re not even the same when they’re the same one. The same isn’t the same because they talk two different stories when they’re up in the same debate.

It’s because they will not support whatever this government does. But I’m going to tell the folks over there—I know they don’t listen to me anyway, or they’ve never done anything I’ve asked them to do—but I do want them to actually understand this, because unfortunately you will never get to experience it: Governing is tough, but governing is real and it takes tough people to govern. It takes those people who will stand up against whatever kind of criticism is being levelled at them, because they are committed to what? They are committed to doing the right thing, even if it means that they’re going to be criticized and cajoled on social media by all of those people who spend half of their lives punching into a computer or an iPhone or something in their messaging, as opposed to actually getting out and talking to the real people in the real world on the streets who are wondering if they’ll ever have a chance to own a home or if their children will ever have a chance to own a home or if their grandchildren will ever have a chance to own a home.

You know who they’re standing with? They are standing with the Doug Ford government, which is going to make sure that the future for them is a bright one, in spite of the darkness that descends every time the NDP speaks on this issue.

I want to thank the member from Algoma–Manitoulin for his address today.

This morning, Minister Clark, in his very, very good opening remarks, talked about housing starts being at a 30-year high and rental starts being at an all-time high. Last year, more rental starts—and this year, we’re on target to even exceed that. This year we’re doubling—double, already ahead, from the trend of last year. So our plan is working.

I ask the member from Algoma–Manitoulin, when a plan is working and the most important thing right now that people talk about all the time is building more homes, as the population of our province is up to 15 million people—400,000-and-some came here last year. It’s absolutely paramount that we build more homes.

Are you telling me today that you can’t support our housing supply action plans, when you speak today in this Legislature, or can you support them because it is of paramount importance that we build those 1.5 million homes?

I want to ask the members opposite, because they keep going on and on and on about what we shouldn’t be doing, yet I never hear anything but—well, we’ll hear a story from some so-called social engineering expert who has all the answers about how we’re going to fix our housing problems. But every time this government has tried to do something—and the one thing that all the experts agree on is that we are not building enough homes to satisfy the needs of the current population, including the projected growth.

When are we actually going to hear a plan from the leaderless, or leaderless contest, NDP? When are we going to hear a plan about how we’re actually going to meet the goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years?

Thank you very much, Speaker. I want to thank the new member for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell for his address today. I recognize the tack that the opposition is on, but the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has repeatedly said how this is one of the tools in our tool box, along with More Homes, More Choice and More Homes for Everyone, previous bills—that we are putting together a plan and a package that will lead to the building of those 1.5 million homes in the province of Ontario to support the growth in population, which is expected to be about six million more over the next 10 years.

So if the member could elaborate and maybe help the opposition understand what our plan is—that it is not simply one silver bullet, as the minister said; it is a combination of a number of steps that we have taken and continue to take. If the member could elaborate on that, I’d appreciate it.

I want to thank the member from Newmarket–Aurora. I appreciate her input on this. She has basically said what we’ve heard from so many corners of the province. You heard it in your riding, as well.

As I said—and what the minister has said repeatedly, because we have to reinforce this so people understand—it’s the combination of the steps that we have taken and are taking. The More Homes for Everyone Act, the More Homes, More Choice Act, and the combination of changes with regard to zoning—all of these kinds of things that we are doing as a government, when you put them all together, are creating the environment that is necessary so that we can meet those goals of building those homes over the next 10 years, so that people like your children will be able to afford a home. If there is more supply, the prices will be more commensurate with people’s incomes of the day.

The people of Ontario absolutely supported our view on June 2. We talked about building more homes, and we are going to build more homes, with or without you.

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

Well, I thank the member for Ottawa Centre. We’ll have to see about that meeting with my mother-in-law. I’ll say to that meeting, not so fast. Anyway, I always appreciate his questions. I understand his passion, and I respect him for that. But at the same time, he doesn’t understand how we’re actually going to get it done. We’re going to get more housing built—more affordable housing, more housing for everyone—by eliminating the unnecessary red tape, eliminating the obstacles, the barriers that keep us from doing things in a timely fashion.

We don’t have 30 years to build 1.5 million homes. It doesn’t matter whether they’re affordable or not. If we don’t get them built, they don’t exist. We have to get them built, and we’ve got to move some things out of the way to ensure that we don’t lose sight of that goal. We can’t get caught up on NIMBYism or BANANAism or whatever. We need to make sure we get the homes built, and we’re going to get it done.

Getting things built is the key. I didn’t reference it in my speech, but I know sometimes that my friends from the NDP—when you mention the word “developers,” I see smoke coming out of their ears because they get so upset with the word. They attach the word “developers” with some kind of evil. But it’s developers who are going to build those homes.

We have to work with developers. We have to work with builders. We have to work with planners. We have to work with municipalities. We have to work with the people. Everybody has a role to play in ensuring that when we hit the 10-year mark, we actually have 1.5 million—maybe even more. If we’re going to accommodate the growth in this province, if we’re going to be able to accommodate the needed people to keep this economy rolling along like it is, keeping us the engine of Canada, we’re going to need those houses built for those folks.

This bill, like every bill that this government brings forward—its genesis is based on where we know Ontario needs to be, where Ontario needs to go, and building more homes to accommodate the people, as I began to say in the last response, to be able to support the people who are going to provide the economic activity of the future, to fill the vacant jobs. We have about 400,000 jobs today already that aren’t being filled. We have to be able to fill them, and we have to be able to build those homes so the people will have them.

I am quite comfortable that our government did what it always—we know we did. Most of the homes that are going to be built are going to be in Ottawa and Toronto. We know that—the biggest number. We reached out to the people and said, “What can we do to help remove the gridlock in these two cities?” For a start—a strong mayor. A strong mayor will help us get those homes built. That’s what we need to do.

I want to thank the member for Carleton for her speech today. I listened to hers and I listened to speeches earlier today as well, and I just find that the NDP over there are tripping over one another to try to condemn and demonize all developers—“The developers are all going to hell.” But the homes that we need in this province will not be built by the three little pigs. They’re going to have to be built by people who actually build homes. So we need to work together with our municipal councils, with our municipal partners, with developers and home builders all across the province. If an opposition continues to demonize the very people—they’re talking about how we need more rental properties. They have to be built, too. And they stand in the way every time we do something to try to increase the housing supply.

I ask the member for Carleton, how can we build 1.5 million homes in this province in the next 10 years if we don’t have the co-operation of the obstreperous opposition?