Thank you to the member from London–Fanshawe for an excellent presentation on Bill 185 about the government’s building new homes.

I’m still stuck on that piece around a person looking on Kijiji to rent a bed in a room—multiple folks, strangers, living together because they cannot afford a one-bedroom or even a bedroom, theoretically.

To the member for London–Fanshawe: Can you express to me how important it is, how important housing is, to someone’s ability to find work, attend school, have a fulsome life? Can you express in this Legislature if you think any one of us as elected MPPs would be able to do this job if we were bunking in a 200-square-foot room or less with a stranger, possibly not even with access to our own toilet seat?

I understand that in Bill 185, the government’s bill around building more homes, developers are no longer required to build parking in a development near transit. I can understand theoretically where that would be a decent thing. In fact, we didn’t necessarily mind that feature of Bill 185.

But listening to some constituents yesterday—or was it yesterday or the day before? When the housing critic, the MPP for University–Rosedale, hosted a bit of a conversation to get feedback from constituents and community members on this bill, we heard folks who said that there may be an ableist lens in that part of the bill. A lot of tenants, a lot of folks who live in apartments, even if they’re near transit, need a PSW to come to their home, and there is no parking, or they need a vehicle in order to get groceries, or they need a vehicle so that family can visit when they come over.

I’m wondering, will there be any minimum at all of parking for these new developments to ensure that folks who need those with cars to support them can have that?

To the Premier: Wanda is a senior living at 55 Brownlow with her daughter and granddaughter. As we speak, her and their neighbours are facing demovictions. They’re being told that the city must rush through approving their demovictions because if they fight it, the Ontario Land Tribunal will leave them with nothing. Planners are telling tenants they need to take away their homes today so that this government’s tribunal—one stacked with their buddies, I might add—doesn’t take away their housing tomorrow, all while giving Wanda and her family nowhere else to go.

My question is to the Premier. Will you repeal Bill 23? Will you stop demovictions? Will you bring back rent control? Where is Wanda, where is her family, where are neighbours and tenants across Ontario supposed to go? Will he speak to them? Will the Premier of Ontario speak to the tenants in our gallery today and let them know that their right to housing is a human right that they will respect?

Interjections.

Thank you to the member, the Conservative member, for talking about the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. The member spent all of their time talking about building homes, yet the bill does not include anything on housing. In a riding like mine, Toronto–St. Paul’s, where we have 60% or so renters, the government can talk about owning a $750,000 home, but many in St. Paul’s can’t afford that. Many can’t even afford their rent. So I’m wondering, if this bill is really about housing, why is there no mention of ending exclusionary zoning, why is there no mention of real rent control, why is there no mention of banning above-guideline rent increases? Furthermore, why don’t you talk about what the bill is really about, and that is creating strong mayors that this province and this Premier can control?