I’m very concerned about Bill 39, and we did vote against it returning to committee. The reason why we are so concerned about Bill 39 is because it consolidates political power in the hands of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Premier at the expense of everyone else—you, I, the citizens of Toronto, Ottawa, Peel and more. It is a fundamentally concerning bill.

Bill 39 has nothing to do with solving the housing affordability crisis and helping people find a home that meets their needs.

If this government was serious about addressing the housing affordability crisis, we would have seen rent go down over the last four and a half years—but it hasn’t; it has gone up.

If this government was serious about addressing the housing affordability crisis, we would see housing prices go down and be more affordable for first-time homebuyers—but they haven’t; they’ve gone up.

If this government was serious about addressing the housing affordability crisis, we’d see a plan to address homelessness—but we haven’t.

The Auditor General said you had no plan in 2021. Now 2022 has come by, and you still don’t have a plan. The homelessness crisis has gotten worse and worse and worse.

No, this bill is about helping the Premier’s wealthy developer friends. That’s what this bill is about. This bill is about bulldozing local decision-making power so the Premier can wield more raw power. It is an affront to democracy.

I’m going to explain the bill to you. It’s a very short bill—three short sections. They’re all bad.

The first schedule, schedule 1, City of Toronto Act: Apparently, the mayor of Toronto asked for this in secret after Bill 3 was introduced, probably before the election on October 24—and this government gave them the power, which is really abhorrent. The power you gave them is extremely disturbing because it flies in the face of representative democracy and everything that we hold dear about democracy. It allows Mayor Tory to introduce and pass legislation with just one third of city council support—eight votes. That takes away power from everyday citizens. It takes away power from city councillors. It means that we will create and pass legislation which is not as good as it should be, because it will not go through the deliberative process, the discussion that needs to happen in order to create good legislation. It is a shame.

Schedule 2 is also terrible. It’s the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act.

Interjection: Shame.

This schedule eliminates laws and gives the green light for the Ontario government to pave over a large section of class 1 farmland.

Report after report after report that is coming out in the media is telling a very disturbing story, and the story is this: A large chunk of this land is owned by some of the PC Party’s wealthiest, highest donors.

When you look at the alignment between what is being carved out of the greenbelt and given the green light for development, and you align that with the amount of land that the De Gasperis family owns, it is—maybe it could be a coincidence, but it really does look like collusion. That’s what it really looks like. And it’s being handed over. What this looks like—or what it could look like—is that this family bought this land, very cheap, that was protected with easements to remain as farmland permanently, and then, maybe, they were the only ones who were given the heads-up that this land was going to be green-lighted for development, giving them the opportunity to make untold profit, because they’re then given permission to sell off and develop this land. That’s what it looks like.

What is so disturbing is that this government loves to wrap themselves in the flag and say, “We’re doing this to solve the housing affordability crisis,” but the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force was very, very clear; the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force says access to land is not the reason why we have a housing supply shortage and why we have a housing affordability crisis. That is not the issue here. The real issue is, what can we do with the land that is already zoned for development? That is the real conversation we should be having here—instead of paving over precious greenbelt land and farmland. It is extremely concerning.

The final part of the bill, schedule 3, is also short but terrible. There are two parts to it. One, the government has decided that democratically decided regional chairs are not so important, and in fact, it’s going to be the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing who gets to hand-pick the regional chairs for Niagara, Peel and York. That’s an absolute consolidation of power. The second thing I find so concerning is that, in the second part of schedule 3, this government gives themselves the authority to extend strong-mayor powers to any municipality they want through regulation. That is extremely concerning. It says it right here: Any mayor that they want, just through regulation, can have the power to pass budgets with just one third support of city councillors.

Interjection.