Today we have with us a delegation from the county of Renfrew. As you know, the county of Renfrew has been innovative in its programs, including the birthplace of community paramedicine and the virtual triage and assessment centre. Today they’re here to talk about the Mesa program, which is about housing.

Joining us today is Warden Peter Emon and council members Anne Giardini, James Brose and Glenn Doncaster, as well as the CAO of the county, Craig Kelley; Jason Davis, the director of development and property; Michael Nolan, chief of paramedic services; Andrea Patrick, director of community services; and Taylor Hanrath, manager of capital infrastructure. Welcome to Queen’s Park, and great luck with your meetings today.

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?

Thank you for the hour leadoff from the official opposition.I first want to welcome—although they have already had to leave for more exciting things, I think—the grade 8 students from McNab Public School in my riding who are here on a school trip. Welcome to the Legislature of Ontario.

I have to point out to the member, it is really hard to sit here and listen to the fantasy that goes on for an hour—dreaming that somehow homes are going to just magically fall from the sky here in the province of Ontario, or the tooth fairy is going to build them as she whistles by, or Peter Pan is coming to Ontario.

I’m not sure what they are thinking over there. We’re doing all of the things that are required and everybody understands are necessary.

She says it’s not about supply; it is absolutely about supply, because supply is what will bring down the price. But, no, they want to artificially invent a housing system in the province of Ontario that simply won’t get it done.

I will ask the member one more time—four different bills that will bring that supply up by 1.5 million homes by 2031. Why won’t you support it?

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.”

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?

I want to thank the members for their comments.

I’m so glad that the member for Davenport raised the question of development charges. The NDP over there talk about affordable housing, but they want to support everything that continues to make housing less affordable.

My colleagues talked about $800-plus a month in the mortgage payments at current rates. My friend talked about somewhere around $119,000 being added to the cost of a home.

We have a housing crisis in Ontario.

I want to ask my colleagues, when there’s almost $9 billion in development charge reserves, isn’t it important that we do every possible thing we can to help lower the cost of building those 1.5 million homes across the province of Ontario?

I want to thank the member for Guelph for his comments today. He talked about having proposed Bill 44 and Bill 45, and he talked about intensification into four-plexes and things like this.

You would have to agree that there are things in Bill 23, in our bill, and between all our housing bills that would provide for expansion—granny suites, driveway suites. There are intensifications in current housing models that would help build those homes.

Have you done any actual analysis of how any of the things that you’re talking about would actually get us to the number of 1.5 million homes here in the province of Ontario—or is everybody else going to have to live in a condo in Toronto or other metropolitan areas, on the 42nd floor? How do we actually get 1.5 million homes built—the homes that the people want and deserve?

I want to thank the member for Thunder Bay–Superior North for her address to the Legislature this morning.

When I listen to the honourable member and the members of her party, what I see is a narrative that is very supportive of those groups that raise money being opposed to the government—so they’re lining the pockets of their supporters as well.

What I don’t understand is why any party that wishes to govern in this province someday would do everything they could to stop the province’s and municipalities’ ability to build housing for their residents and the residents who are coming here—half a million newcomers coming every year for the next number of years, with the federal government’s immigration plan.

We have a housing crisis. We need to build 1.5 million homes.

Why is it that we’re the party that wants to see Ontario grow, and you continue to be the party of Ontari-no?

You actually have to have a legitimate alternative to what the government is proposing to finally get the barriers out of the way that stand in the way of building more housing in the province of Ontario. We have no choice. The crisis is upon us. And all you people do is say no, no, no—you criticize, but you do not have any kind of viable alternative to reaching that goal of 1.5 million homes in the province of Ontario. Come up with something real or get on board with a plan that will help grow Ontario and give those young people you’re talking about a real chance in the future.

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.

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.

It is a pleasure to join the debate here on Bill 3.

It’s always interesting listening to my friend from Ottawa Centre. I always find him interesting to listen to, but I don’t think we would make good roommates. There could be some discussions that would never end. However, I appreciate the fact that he holds a different viewpoint than myself from time to time. I do believe at some point there’s going to actually be an issue that we absolutely agree on; we just haven’t found it yet—well, maybe there is one, about how beautiful the Ottawa valley is. I think we’ll all agree on that one.

Speaker, I want to tell you—not tell you; you know—that from day one our government has been seized on the importance and our absolute commitment to build more housing here in the province of Ontario. I don’t think there’s anybody here who wouldn’t have heard in their campaign about the reality of the lack of housing here in Ontario and the lack of housing with the population that we have and the population that we expect to have—1.5 million homes over 10 years to service basically six million increased population. Put those numbers into perspective, and you have to ask yourself how we are going to get this done if we don’t have a number of tools in the tool box.

The opposition goes on and on and on because they haven’t got a lot to criticize the bill on, so they talk about what is not in the bill. I’ve been here long enough to know that when you bring in a piece of legislation that is not specific, they’ll go apoplectic and talk about the omnibus bill, and why you’re trying to sneak something in on this bill that some people might like, but you want the poison pill that exists on this side of the bill—so they preach incessantly against bills that cover too many topics and cover too many issues. But now, on this one, they want to talk about all the things that are not in the bill. They’re right; the bill doesn’t talk about the bold climate change action we’re doing with regard to EV vehicles in the province of Ontario, critical minerals, electric arc furnaces in our steel mills, which are going to take the equivalent of 600,000 cars off the road. Of course, that’s not in the bill. This bill is one of the tools that we’ve instituted and brought forward, as government, to follow through on that commitment to build, build, build here in Ontario.

The Premier, right upfront—“We’re going to build Ontario.” You heard that every single day during the campaign. So when they say that we didn’t campaign on this—it is 28 days, and 24 hours in a day, and presumably there has to be some time for sleeping and driving and moving. You can’t try—

You can’t cover every single thought that comes into your head, but what you do is put on the table the big picture of where you see Ontario.

Ontario’s housing situation—let’s face it—is problematic, and it’s because of NIMBYism and people like the folks in the NDP, who have stood against every single initiative that we’ve put forward, such as the More Homes, More Choice Act and the More Homes for Everyone Act. They say we need to build housing, but when some group or some special interest they want to represent says, “We don’t want that housing there,” well, then they’re coming to the Legislature telling us what a terrible idea it is to approve that. “It’s a terrible idea to build that. You can’t do that there, and you can’t do it now.”

The NDP is like a braid in the hair—they’re twisting themselves and twisting themselves—or a pretzel, but only a half-baked pretzel, because they’re not really sure where they are on the issue of housing.

They say, “Build, build, build. We need affordable housing.”

Do you know what drives up the price of anything?

They talk about how nobody can afford a home, and they’re not entirely wrong. It’s pretty scary.

We have four children. One of our daughters just bought a home—they live up in the Northwest Territories. They paid—I have to be careful here—way more than 10 times what my wife and I paid for our first home. In fact, the last truck I bought cost me twice as much as our first home—maybe not quite, but close. So we know that those prices are terribly high, and that’s in the Northwest Territories. Just think about what they are here in Ontario.

So the average person is struggling to be able to afford to buy a home or build a home.

But if there’s more supply of built homes, then there’s more supply of homes.

The NDP keeps talking about what’s not in the bill. We put together the entire suite of bills, the entire package of bills aimed at increasing housing supply, and that’s what you’ve got to look at. And we’re not done, because we are absolutely committed to taking the necessary steps to increase the housing supply. If we increase the housing supply, it’s going to mean more homes for you, and more homes for you, and more homes for you, and more homes for everyone. Well, look at that. My goodness gracious, it’s right in one of our bills—More Homes for Everyone Act. So, yes, there are homes that gazillionaires are going to be buying. We understand that. It won’t be me. But we’re going to make sure that there are homes for everyone, and that’s why we want to remove the barriers to building homes.

I know my friends in the opposition feel trapped, for example, about their opposition to the Bradford Bypass and the 413. They know the people need it. They know the people want it. But they feel their constituencies don’t want it, so they’re going to argue against it. They have to argue against some of things that we propose, because otherwise they’d be admitting they were wrong all along, which is not a bad thing; sometimes you just have to do it. And they’ve been wrong on housing, because they have tried to stand in the way of what we’ve been doing.

In Bill 3, essentially what we’re trying to do, as the minister said—and I have to shout out to my friend Minister Clark. Talk about somebody who is laser-focused on getting the job done—he has taken a great deal of criticism over four years because of that laser focus, but he has withstood the salvos of the opposition and those opponents out there because he understands what the problem is. The first thing you’ve got to do if you’re going to fix something is, you’ve got to know what the problem is. Well, Mr. Clark knows what the problem is, and he’s staying focused on it, because Ontario needs him to be focused. So when the opposition criticizes him, one of the tools—how many times, even characterizing him in ways that are not even kind, on the issue of MZOs, ministerial zoning orders. But he has made it clear that we have a goal: 1.5 million homes within 10 years.

We need our municipalities to be partners with us, and that’s where the strong-mayors act really comes in. Oh, yes, there are mayors and former mayors—let’s talk about the reality of politics, folks. Someone who is not going to be mayor after October but was never a mayor under the strong-mayors legislation—what do you think they’re going to say? “No, it’s a bad idea. I wasn’t a strong mayor. I don’t want him to be a strong mayor. No strong mayor for me.”

And then you get mayors in the past who actually wanted to be a strong mayor, like Mayor David Miller from Toronto.

Dalton McGuinty, I say to my friends in the Liberal Party, actually proposed bringing in strong-mayor legislation, because he believed that a city like Toronto—at that time it was the City of Toronto Act he wanted to make changes to—absolutely needed a strong mayor.

And to his credit, even though he is running for re-election, John Tory has been lukewarm, but he has at least said that this is not a bad idea; there is merit to the strong mayor.

My friend from Niagara Falls is talking about the regional mayors over there. Of course, they’re running for re-election. They don’t want this to be an issue in the election, so they want to neutralize it. “Let’s just go back to what it was before, and we’ll run on whether or not the garbage is being picked up on time or something like that.” Great.

But let’s understand the reality of politics and how it gets played, not just in here, but everywhere. Particularly now, with the municipal election cycle in full swing, everybody is making sure that they do what they think is going to benefit them the most in the upcoming campaign.

Speaker, I really want to talk about what is in the bill. Of course, these folks on the other side are—quite frankly, I don’t know if I can say it, but they’re inventing voodoo circumstances or bogeymen or something that are in the bill or that the bill is going to lead to, which don’t exist. They’re creating this idea that the mayor is going to be some kind of a dictator, that council is going to be rendered irrelevant, but it’s not so. The mayor will be a strong mayor, and he or she will have limited new powers to get through the gridlock at city hall.

We’re building 413 and the Bradford Bypass, and I know, deep down, a lot of you support it; I really believe you do. We’re going to do that to tackle gridlock, which is taking days, weeks, months of people’s lives, if you travel long enough in those areas. We’re going to save you two hours—56 minutes twice a day. It’s almost two hours a day. I’d like to find somebody to tell me in this world we live in today—being polite, you say it moves too fast; being maybe less polite, you say it’s crazy. But who wouldn’t like to get two hours back to spend with their family or their loved ones, or just relaxing?

Does anybody here find it relaxing to be stuck in gridlock? Let me know.

I know that my friend from Ottawa Centre likes to read books. Maybe we could write one together on gridlock and my lost two hours today, and my lost two hours yesterday, and my lost two hours tomorrow. Some would just say I’m lost, but that’s another story entirely as well.

Who would not want to get that time back? I’d love to have it back.

We have gridlock at city hall. A strong mayor, supporting the housing priorities of this government, will be able to get through some of that gridlock that we’re experiencing at city hall which is preventing us from getting things done in a timely fashion.

The clock is ticking, folks. We don’t have the luxury of time. We don’t have the luxury of spinning our wheels and saying, “Well, we didn’t get anywhere today on that one, but maybe we’ll try again.”

As Premier Ford said in the campaign, we need to get it done, and we’re going to get it done. One of the tools in the tool box is the strong-mayors act.

What’s so problematic about the mayor being able to veto a bylaw by council? If it was only that, I might have concerns myself, but there’s a safeguard in there; there’s protection: If the other members of council don’t agree, they require only two thirds—not unanimous, two thirds. Two thirds of the members of council can reverse or nullify the veto of the mayor. I would put it to you that if something the mayor wants to do is so egregious, is so wrong—if I am a member of council, I would like to believe that I am convincing enough that I can get two thirds of my colleagues to say, as my mother-in-law would say, “Not so fast.” Then the mayor has the opportunity to revise his or her position, the bylaw itself might go through some iterations where some changes get made, but council would still function as the body it was designed to be. That is what gets you through gridlock.

What we’ve seen at city hall is a polarization, where the two sides are opposing one another. Essentially, there’s some equality there in the numbers, and then neither wants to give an inch, because if you start to go, then all of a sudden you think you’re going to lose the battle to those other folks.

This would actually encourage people to come up with a workable solution. This would actually encourage people, because they have a strong mayor, a person who was elected a leader, to give some direction and to focus on the goal of getting housing built in the respective cities, Ottawa or Toronto.

I think the clock is malfunctioning, Speaker.

I want to refer to a column that was written by Martin Regg Cohn. Martin Regg Cohn would be widely known as the loudest supporter of Premier Ford in the history of journalism—not. But what did Martin Regg Cohn write about the strong mayor? He wrote things like, “We need a strong mayor.”

Using the reference in the city of Toronto, Mayor Tory received over 500,000 votes directly from the people of Toronto. Councillors received somewhere between a high of maybe around 25,000 and, in some cases, only about 5,000 votes. So the people got to vote directly for their choice for mayor. It’s important to have that reflected in some of the powers—and I don’t have time. Maybe I can get another 20 minutes to go through some of the other things that are in the bill that are so important.

I really believe that the folks in the opposition might take a look at this and actually change their mind and realize that if they want more housing, if the NDP are actually being straight about their desire to get more housing built in the province of Ontario, they will support the suite of bills that we have before them. The strong-mayors act is one of them.

I want to thank the member for Eglinton–Lawrence for her address today.

The opposition always talks about how we need to make it more affordable—that it’s too expensive, that people can’t afford it—yet they always support the things that lead to a $168,000 increase in the cost of building a home. It only stands to reason that some portion of that will fall to any rental property that is built in a building that is purposely built for rental—and particularly those at lower incomes. So they continue to do the things that actually add to the cost of building housing, whether it’s rental, whether it’s high-rise rental units or individual homes, and then they complain that people can’t afford to rent them.

I ask the member, when will the NDP and the Liberal opposition understand that all they continue to do is to add to the cost of a home? Be it free-standing, be it rental—it doesn’t matter what it is—them always standing in the way of trying to get the homes built only does one thing: It makes them more expensive—which is completely, again, what they claim to believe in.

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?