Thank you to the member from Oshawa. I don’t think the member actually understands what we’re actually doing here, the way she’s spoken about this 30-day waiver. This only gives the minister the ability and the authority to waive the 30-day waiting period after the assessment has been fully completed and consulted on—after. These are about standard projects like waste water and water in a municipality, things that municipalities need badly, and they want this.

I’m going to ask the member, categorically: Is what you’re telling us here today that you would rather see those projects wait another 30 days rather than allowing a municipality to get quicker access to clean drinking water?

Minister, Associate Minister and PA, I want to thank you for your address this morning.

Since we were elected in 2018—the Ford government—we and you as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing have incrementally and in a progressive way brought in legislation to try to address what we all see in this province as a housing crisis, where we need to build the homes to provide accommodation for the people we know are coming to the province of Ontario.

This latest bill, Bill 3—the opposition would have us believe that it is creating the emperor of mayors. And if they would read the bill, there’s all kinds of checks and balances put into this bill to ensure that council carries on as it should, but that the mayor has the ability to get past that red tape and ensure that it supports—