Thank you to the member from Essex. A concern with the government’s changes to the lands tribunal, again, about third-party appeals is that citizens and environmental groups just don’t have the right to appeal at all, yet the government has carved out the right for major industry, developers and airports to appeal. So you’ve got this small group of people that must have lobbied you real hard in the last few weeks, and they can appeal, but everybody else can’t appeal.

I do want to emphasize, the lands tribunal, the adjudicators already have the authority to throw out appeals that are frivolous or that have limited chance of success. So they already have the option to say, “Look, we’re only going to be hearing concerns that are valid.” Those are my concerns about this bill.

I hope that in the next bill the government introduces, there is a commitment to improve the situation facing renters in Ontario today. Strong rent control is needed, vacancy control is needed and strong enforcement of rental protection laws, including clamping down on illegal eviction activity.

Even, at the last minute, with their poll numbers tanking, they’re saying, “Whoa, we need some good ideas.” People have seen through the—

My point is this: There are a lot of good ideas around there, and building non-market housing is one of them. I urge this government to get serious about that.

I also think it is essential that we move forward with increasing density in towns and cities. We have presented very practical solutions that are supported by—honestly, I cannot think of a single stakeholder that didn’t support allowing fourplexes as of right in towns or cities, not a single stakeholder. It’s such a winner. It’s such a winner. You can pat yourself on the back for that. I’d really like to see this government move forward on that and work with municipalities to ensure that they can meet their housing targets, not just in terms of numbers, but also in terms of affordability, size and needs, so we’re not just building a whole lot of 600-square-foot condos and 3,000-square-foot homes on farmland, but we’re building homes for the seniors and students, young families and people who have accessibility challenges.

Then, finally, what I would really like to see this government do in their multipronged approach—certainly something we would do—is to clamp down on the rise of investor-led speculation in Ontario. The reason why that is so important is because when we make it easier for Bay Street and Wall Street or Core Development to come in and snap up homes, we’re making it a whole lot harder for people who just want one home. They just want one home. We’re making it a lot more expensive and a lot harder for them to buy that home.

The whole purpose of the housing market is to provide homes for people first, not investors. That’s what housing is all about: It’s about providing homes to people. When I’m looking at these government bills, I look at it with that lens in mind, and I urge this government to do that as well.

But there are some things in this bill that make this bill really, really problematic. Making it easier for municipalities to say yes to low-density housing when we know we have alternatives is very concerning. Eliminating the planning responsibility from entire regional levels of government without any serious consultation is very concerning. Limiting third-party appeals to the lands tribunal, including valid third-party appeals, we have got a lot of concerns about as well.

The single most effective thing the government could do right now to make housing affordable is to bring in stronger rent control, immediately stabilize housing prices for over 1.7 million renter households and provide relief. With that, we can then move forward with building more housing, including non-market housing and affordable housing. I urge this government to look at this issue very seriously.

Yes. I have some concerns about that.

It’s true that we do need lands tribunal reform. But if we are talking about lands tribunal reform, the big thing that we’re hearing from stakeholders is, “Let’s make it the tribunal of last resort and not the default tribunal”—so appeals can be made or issues can be raised at the lands tribunal if there’s a clear violation of municipal and provincial law. That seems like one of the most effective ways that we can deal with the backlog.

We introduced an amendment to allow fourplexes as-of-right, and to also allow six- and 11-storey apartment buildings along transit corridors where sufficient sewage and water capacity exists in towns and cities across Ontario. We introduced that as an amendment. The reason why we introduced that as an amendment is because the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force was very clear—they made it clear that Ontario can meet its housing targets of 1.5 million homes by 2031 by building in areas that are already zoned for development. They were very clear about that.

We don’t need to needlessly open up farmland or green space or the greenbelt in order to build the homes that we know we need to build for the people who are living in their parents’ basement; for the people who are looking at moving here, who want to call Ontario home; for young people; for seniors who want to downsize; for families who live in a too-small apartment and want to move into a starter home or a bigger apartment. We know we can already meet those needs by building in areas already zoned for development, and we’re already seeing cities move forward down this path. Hamilton has developed a very strong, pro-density official plan to meet its housing targets. The city of Toronto has very much surpassed its housing targets. They’re moving forward with fourplexes and increased density. It’s a debate at city council every month.

The reason why we introduced this policy is because I believe that the provincial government shouldn’t just stand by and hope for the best, but that they should take a leadership role. Taking a leadership role means allowing fourplexes and higher density along transit corridors as-of-right. It also means reducing some of the barriers that municipalities put up to say no to fourplexes—and we know they do it, and you know they do it.

One of the positive things that I like about this bill is that you reduced the opportunity municipalities can have to put up barriers for triplexes, because you recognize that issue as well. We are calling on this government to go a step further and allow fourplexes and higher density along transit corridors.

Nearly every stakeholder who came into committee expressed their support for increased density and for the provincial government to show a leadership role on this issue. We’re talking about BILD, ResCon, the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association, OREA, environmental groups, tenants’ groups, CELA, Environmental Defence, the National Farmers Union, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture—all of them. Time and time and time again, they said, “Yes, it is necessary. Let’s do it.”

This government would get a lot of support if they took that extra step and allowed for increased density. Unfortunately, what we are seeing with this government is a move to not mandate density, but to relax density requirements in towns and cities. I was very concerned to see, in the provincial policy statement, a decision to get rid of density minimums and to establish density “maybes”—cities and towns can have a density, but it’s recommended; it’s not required as it was in the previous PPS. I think we can do better than that, and I know that there are some members on your side, from all parties, who see that this approach to responsible planning is the best way forward. The government voted that down.

We introduced an amendment to give municipalities the right to bring in inclusionary zoning not just near transit stations, but wherever they see fit. Inclusionary zoning, I think, is very important. It’s one of many measures that we need to take to address the housing affordability crisis that we have and to make sure that we have everybody, including developers, taking responsibility and doing their part to address the housing shortage and the housing affordability issues that we’re seeing right now.

I’d like to explain what inclusionary zoning is. Inclusionary zoning is a policy that municipalities can pass that mandates that developers build a certain percentage of affordable homes in big, new developments. In Toronto, it was extensively studied. You wouldn’t believe how much study went into this. They brought in experts, they brought in economists, and the reason why is that they wanted to come up with an affordable housing number that would ensure that developers would continue to build, that developers would continue to meet their profit margin that they needed, but that they also contributed to building some affordable housing units. So they studied it extensively and they came up with a figure, which is that in new condos of buildings that are a hundred units or more, 10% of those units should be affordable—very modest, but practical. This is a measure that everyone got behind at the city of Toronto.

Unfortunately, we’ve been waiting two years for the Ontario government to allow the city of Toronto to move ahead with inclusionary zoning. Because we’ve waited two years, we have lost the opportunity to build 6,000 affordable homes, because developers have moved in really fast. They knew this was coming, and they put in their application to build near transit stations—big buildings near transit stations, things we support. But they are not required to build any affordable housing, because the city of Toronto is not allowed to move forward with its inclusionary zoning bill. That is a massive, 6,000-home lost opportunity, and I think that’s a shame.

We introduced an amendment to allow inclusionary zoning to proceed and to be expanded, and the government voted that down.

There are some things in this bill that we had some concerns with, and that was around the government’s decision with the PPS and also this bill to make it easier for low-density housing to be built on farmland and green space. It’s a little complicated, but I’m going to do my best to explain it. There are a few ways they’ve done this. Number one, they now allow, if this bill passes, municipalities to redraw their settlement boundaries wherever they want. Within a settlement boundary, that’s where development can happen. Outside a settlement boundary, there are limitations on what you can build. It’s primarily farmland, green space, wetlands etc.

Previously, this process of redrawing a settlement boundary was something that was done every five years, and municipalities needed to justify why a settlement boundary needed to be changed. They’d have to explain why prime agricultural farmland might need to be built on and to justify that. They also needed to justify why they needed to expand—mainly because they couldn’t meet their housing needs within their existing settlement boundary. It was a carefully decided process that was done every five years. The official plan was presented to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and then it was approved. Now that has all gone out the window. There’s this new planning regime which is in place which makes it much easier to have low-density housing approved. This is how it works now—if this bill is approved: Municipalities can redraw their boundaries whenever they want. They don’t have to do it once every five years. They can do it whenever they want. That is a concern. They also don’t need to provide a good justification for why it’s necessary. Before, they’d have to say, “We need employment lands. We’re not able to meet it. We need more housing. We’ve balanced the pros and cons, and this is our argument for why it should be allowed.” Now they don’t need to provide that argument anymore. That’s a concern.

Then, the lands tribunal has been meddled with so that developers can also influence this process. This is how it works: If a municipality redraws their settlement boundary to allow low-density housing, then no one can appeal it; it just proceeds. But if a municipality—like Hamilton, for instance—says, “No, we want to have a firm settlement boundary because we know we can meet our housing targets,” then developers are allowed to appeal that to the lands tribunal. The only way you’re allowed to go to the lands tribunal is if you want to say yes to sprawl. I think that’s very problematic, and I think there’s a better way of doing it. There’s a better way of meeting our housing supply needs than low-density sprawl.

We have heard many organizations in committee talk to us about the concerns they have with low-density housing. The big one we hear about is that it is incredibly expensive to service. If you have a new development, it costs more per person to provide the sewage and the roads and the electrical and the daycare and the schools and the transit than it does compared to putting that same amount of housing in an area that’s already zoned for development. It’s expensive. At a time when individuals are looking at their property tax bills and they’re seeing them go up by 6% to 12%, they expect the Ontario government to be cost-effective and efficient with how they’re spending our money. Sprawl—low-density housing—is very, very expensive.

The other thing that’s very concerning about low-density housing is that it sets Ontario up to have transportation patterns which are really unsustainable. It’s very hard to provide bus service, train service, streetcar service in an area where there’s low-density housing because the numbers don’t justify the bus routes. It means that people are much more likely to choose their car to get to work, to get to school, to go to their doctor, to go to faith—because that’s the only way that you can get around. There’s very little alternative. We know we have a responsibility to meet our climate change reduction targets, to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets, and locking us in to a very unsustainable, car-dependent transportation pattern is going to take us in exactly the opposite direction.

So we voted against the changes to Bill 185 that would lock us in to low-density housing, and unfortunately, the government proceeded with them. We’re going to be dealing with the long-term consequences of these changes for a very long time.

I want to draw attention to some of the issues that came up in committee around sprawl—not just in terms of its cost to municipalities—as well as its impact on transportation patterns, but also its impact on farmland. This is an issue this government has had to deal with extensively over the last few years because of the greenbelt scandal, and it’s an issue that continues to this day.

I want to read some statements that came in from the National Farmers Union of Ontario. They’re very concerned about the changes to settlement boundaries, and I want to draw attention to that. They talked about how “without strong regulatory mechanisms that are complementary to agriculture and development, the future of Ontario’s precious farmland and food security are at risk.” They’re sending a very clear warning to you that farmland in Ontario is at risk if we continue to build low-density housing when we don’t need to on farmland and green space.

Farming in Ontario is one of our biggest exporters. It is one of our most lucrative sectors. It employs thousands and thousands and thousands of people. It is essential that we preserve it and help it grow. In order to do that, we need to preserve our prime agricultural land. We have to preserve it, especially since we know we have alternatives. We know we can build in towns and cities where the land has already been zoned for development. I urge this government to carefully look at the National Farmers Union of Ontario’s submission—as well as the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, OFA.

In the latest section of committee, we also dealt with the issue of the lands tribunal again, and, in this case, we attempted to reinstate the power of all third parties to appeal decisions. I’ve already talked about this a little bit, so I’m not going to go into too much detail about it, but we introduced in committee a move to reinstate that power so third parties can appeal decisions. Unfortunately, the government voted that down.

I would like to draw your attention to some of the examples that organizations gave that highlight the value of having a third-party appeal process. These are some examples that were raised by the Canadian Environmental Law Association. They talked about how appeals were done with the Stop Richmond Dump Expansion, where the citizens’ committee in the county of Hastings appealed an official plan amendment on waste disposal assessment policies. If people are going to have a dump near their home, you would think it’s reasonable that they should have the right to have a sober-second-thought look at that decision. That seems reasonable to me.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association also represented Friends Addressing Concerns Together, a group of community members living near a quarry. The tribunal heard that appeal because the community members were very concerned about the noise and odour impacts of a portable asphalt plant that had been operating close to their homes—and their opposition to the installation of a permanent asphalt plant at that location. It seems reasonable that if an asphalt plant is going to be located in an area that’s near residential homes, the citizens should have options available to them to speak and debate that at a municipal level, and then to also go to the lands tribunal. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

I’m pleased that CELA gave these examples, because it highlights how third-party appeals are necessary and valuable. We had some concerns about that, as well.

These were the amendments that we introduced. Unfortunately, the government voted them down, which we have a lot of concerns about.

I’m going to go through the bill itself and identify some of the things that we like about the bill and also identify some of the things that we had some concerns about that we didn’t introduce amendments on. I’m going to give you credit where it’s due, so I hope you’ll listen to the compliments carefully.

The first thing that we were pleased to see in this bill was the decision to allow municipalities to bring in use-it-or-lose-it policies. I’d like to explain what they are. It’s when a developer is given all the approvals to move forward with building a project, but then instead of building that project, they sit on that land and they don’t do anything. The reason why that’s a concern is because we’ve got a housing crisis, and it’s essential, if we’re using municipalities’ time to approve developments, that those developments proceed in a timely manner and that we discourage developers from sitting on land that is vacant or left unused because they want to find or identify a better time, a profitable time to build.

I’d like to thank the member for Niagara Centre for advocating for use-it-or-lose-it policies. He has been advocating on this policy for a long time. I’d also like to thank the municipalities that have been raising this issue, from AMO to the Big City Mayors’ Caucus—there were many people who had been coming into committee and asking for this.

It’s good to see, after consulting with municipalities, that these changes are in this bill. It’s not the only thing that is needed, but it is a practical step that municipalities had been asking for. So that was a good thing.

I mentioned this already, but I think it’s important to raise it again: In Bill 23, the government moved forward with allowing three homes, as-of-right, on residential lots in towns and cities all across Ontario. It’s a move that we supported in committee, and it was good to see in this bill that they’ve introduced additional amendments to limit the roadblocks that municipalities can sometimes put up, maybe by requiring parking minimums for this—residential lot, triplex—by removing some of those roadblocks so that we can increase the number of triplexes that are built on residential lots. So that was a good thing as well.

We were pleased to see some of the changes to schedule 6, which is the Development Charges Act. We were very concerned with Bill 109 and Bill 23, where there was a decision to seriously hamper the ability for municipalities to charge developers for the partial cost—just the partial cost—of providing infrastructure for new developments. We’ve seen a significant reversal on some of these changes. Municipalities can now charge developers for studies that need to be taken. We have seen that the five-year phase-in for development charge fees has been repealed and that there is a move to repeal the mandatory refund requirement, where municipalities had to automatically refund the developer fee application if they were not able to get a developer’s application through in the necessary time frame. The government shouldn’t have introduced these changes anyway; they did. We wasted nearly two years, where municipalities have been screaming from the rooftops that they don’t have enough money to pay for infrastructure. But it’s good to see that some of the worst of these development fee cuts have been reinstated. We see that as a positive step forward.

In the Planning Act, schedule 12, there was a decision by this government to eliminate parking minimums for developments near transit stations. This is something that environmental groups as well as the building industry have been calling for for some time. We supported this amendment in committee.

I do want to raise some of the concerns that came up in committee.

Some organizations, including No Demovictions, raised the concern around, “What about accessibility?” In some buildings, people need a car to get to their health care appointments, to have their personal support worker come to them. There was some concern that parking minimums would need to be looked at from the lens of if it violates AODA legislation, and I think that’s something the government should look into. How can we build new buildings, if they do have parking minimums, and also ensure that people who live in these buildings who have accessibility challenges, who have mobility challenges, can still get access to the services that they need and can also continue to get to where we need to go? How are we going to address that transportation issue and that service issue? I think that’s a valid concern.

The second thing that came up—and this came up with No Demovictions—was that in situations where a purpose-built rental is being demolished and then replaced with a condo, the tenants who live in that purpose-built rental want to make sure that when they move back into that home once construction is complete, they get to move back into their new home paying the same rent and also receiving the same services. That might apply to parking minimums, because in some buildings they had parking before, and they want to make sure that they have parking afterwards. That is a concern I would like to raise in the committee as well. Renters are the victims of our housing supply and our housing affordability crisis, and if someone is forced to move out because their building is being demolished, they should not have to financially pay the price. So I’d like to raise those issues in committee today.

So there are the main things that I wanted to raise in Bill 185 that identify some of the more positive things that I see in this bill. It’s not the worst bill this government has ever introduced.

Now I would like to focus on some of the submissions that we received that identify some of the issues that I haven’t raised yet.

One of the issues that I would like to talk about is the concern by this government to eliminate the ability for regional levels of government to take a leadership role on planning. It’s significant. We heard a lot of concerns about that, and I want to address some of those concerns. Numerous groups that came to committee—and I want to identify a few: AMO; the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Waterloo; the National Farmers Union of Ontario, the federation of urban naturalists—expressed concern about this issue, and I want to read some of the statements that they made. To summarize, their concern was, “Do not eliminate planning responsibilities from upper-tier municipalities, which would break the logical link between planning and servicing. The lack of coordination for planning approvals in infrastructure creates a significant risk of either underservicing or overbuilding, and an overburdening of the property tax base.”

There was a lot of focus in committee on Waterloo in particular. The reason why groups really focused on Waterloo is because Waterloo is seen as this example of exemplary planning, where they’ve done a very good job of increasing density, of bringing in new light rail, but also of protecting their groundwater and protecting their countryside line. There are many organizations, citizens, environmental groups, farming groups, who want to ensure that Waterloo’s model of planning is maintained. They came into committee to express their concern. I want to summarize some of their concerns.

This government is aware of how worried many members of the Waterloo community are around the Ontario government’s move to come in and meddle with a planning system that is working very well. Why meddle with something that should be shown up as a leader? I don’t get it. These groups are calling for the restoration of regional planning authority and to retain regional governments. “Because of regional planning, Waterloo region was able to keep its agricultural land, contain sprawl by intensification, and establishing a regional water quality program that the region is heavily reliant on.”

There are a lot of concerns. I’d like to thank one of the organizers of these groups, Kevin Thomason, for the continued advocacy that you are doing, as well as the Alliance for a Liveable Ontario for the submissions that you have given me around the issue. It’s very concerning. I don’t understand.

There are a lot of good things happening in Ontario right now; planning in Waterloo region is one of them. Why meddle? Who is asking you to meddle? Who is benefiting? These are some of the questions that many people have.

The other thing that came up that I want to read came from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. The reason I want to emphasize what the Ontario Federation of Agriculture is saying is because this is your base, and they’re very concerned about some of the activities and measures and laws that you’re passing. My hope is that if you don’t always want to listen to some of my constituents, you’ll listen to some of your constituents, because they are members of the OFA.

The OFA was very clear that there are some things they like about this bill. They like some of the changes to the Development Charges Act, to reinstate municipalities’ ability to partially pay—just partially pay—for infrastructure.

They have a lot of concerns about changes to the Planning Act. They are very concerned about the government’s decision to eliminate third-party appeals to the lands tribunal. They recommend enabling any affected party the right to appeal a decision to the OLT. These are some strong words. They’ve got some concerns about that.

They want to emphasize that OFA believes that farming is the best use for farmland, and the reason why they want to emphasize that is because they don’t want to see situations where settlement boundaries are altered unnecessarily to build homes that really could and should be built somewhere else.

I think these are some important points to highlight, and I urge the government to read this submission, to look at it carefully, because they’ve got some very useful things to say.

I also want to highlight some of the measures that No Demovictions raised. No Demovictions, as I’ve mentioned, are a fairly new group in Toronto. They’re made up of everyday people who live in a big purpose-built rental that’s slated to be demolished. When your home that you’ve been living in for 15 years—and you get a notice saying it’s going to be demolished so that a condo can be put up in its place, that can motivate you to take action. Many of these people have never been involved in advocacy or activism before; they’ve just lived their lives. They’re getting involved for the very first time because they are directly impacted by our housing affordability crisis.

I think of Pat. Pat is in her eighties. She lives at 145 St. George, and she is so upset that her home is slated to be demolished, and she has no idea where she is going to go.

How do you find a home in Toronto if you are on a fixed income, you are in your eighties, and the vacancy rate in your city is at 1.3% or 1.4%?

There’s nowhere to go, and it is motivating these people to get involved to write submissions, to organize rallies, to protest. They know there’s nowhere else to go. When their back is against a wall, they’re choosing to say, “We’re going to fight, and we’re not going anywhere. We don’t want to leave. And if we do have to leave, then we’re going to be fairly compensated, and we want the right to return to our home once construction is complete.”

In their very-well-thought-out submission, they also called for the reinstatement of third-party appeals to the lands tribunal. They called for a moratorium on demovictions across the province. They called for the Ontario government to immediately implement rent control on all rental units and to bring in vacancy control, so that rent—which is most people’s single biggest expense. If we’re talking about the affordability crisis, we’re talking about mortgages and rent. That’s what we’re talking about. That’s why they’re in support of vacancy control, so there’s a cap on how much rent can be raised between tenancies. They’re calling for a moratorium on above-guideline rent increases and an investment in non-market housing. I support a lot of these measures. I think they’re very good. It’s a pity that those measures are not in this bill.

Once again, the city of Toronto is opposed to the limiting of third-party appeals. It’s very concerning.

I want to conclude by talking a little bit about what’s not in this bill.

There are many reasons why we have a housing affordability and a housing supply crisis. It has been decades in the making. It wasn’t the Conservative government alone that created this problem; the Liberal government and previous governments before that had a role to play, as well. But what we do know is that over the last six years, it has never been more expensive to rent a home in Ontario, and it has never been more expensive to own a home in Ontario. Even though housing prices have dropped a little bit, interest rates are so high, the carrying costs are so considerable, that many people are just completely priced out of the housing market. We can see that this is having ramifications politically. People feel that governments don’t have their best interests at heart, that the dream of home ownership and stability is something that their generation of people is no longer entitled to. People feel anger. They feel resentment. They feel frustration. They feel apathetic. They don’t understand why we’re creating this two-tier system between people who have a home and people who don’t. It’s having significant ramifications.

What I would hope is that when this government introduces bills, it introduces bills with the goals of addressing the housing affordability crisis and the housing supply crisis. We see some measures here that address the housing supply crisis—but what we never see from this government is issues around housing affordability.

This is what I would like to see from this government: I would like to see this government present a real, meaningful, properly funded plan to end homelessness in Ontario as soon as possible. That’s what I would like to see, because what we are seeing in towns and cities across Ontario is encampments being set up, because people are being evicted into homelessness. Even if they’ve got a job, they can’t find a place they can afford to rent. In a time when we live in one of the most prosperous provinces in the world, we have thousands and thousands of people who have nowhere to live. I think that is a real shame.

The Auditor General was very clear. They asked this government to come up with a plan to end homelessness. They gave you some recommendations on what you can do; the first one was just tracking it.

What I have seen over the last few years is no serious effort to end homelessness. While you’ve brought in additional money to the homelessness prevention fund, you’ve taken away more money from municipalities, by cutting their ability to raise development fees. It’s very concerning.

We continue to get calls from the city of Toronto, from the city of Peel, from housing shelters, who say, “We don’t know what to do. We have people living in these shelters for months, and we don’t have any additional funding to assist them to move into the private rental market.” They’re very worried, and the problem is just getting worse and worse and worse.

I would like this government to come up with a real, fully funded and effective plan to end homelessness.

I would like to see, in the next bill this government introduces, a real plan to help renters. We have over 1.7 million rental households in Ontario now—it has gone up to 300,000 people in the last few years, because people have been completely priced out of the housing market. They’re renting for longer and longer and longer.

I would like this government to have a real plan to help renters. In this plan, we would like to see measures that stabilize the price of rent so that people know how much they’re going to pay. We would like to see those measures—and that includes real rent control on all homes, including those built after 2018. It should also include vacancy control, so there is a cap on how much the rent is raised between tenancies.

I would like to see this government get serious about fixing the Landlord and Tenant Board and the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit. If you are a renter and you call the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit today, you basically get a busy signal. I don’t know how many staff they’ve got—seven for the entirety of Ontario? When we call them, they say, “I’m sorry; we just don’t have the resources to deal with this issue.” We call them in situations of blatant violations of the law, where someone is physically attacked by a landlord and forced to move out of their home and they move into a shelter; or a family who goes out for a morning walk with his kids and comes back and finds out that the locks of his rental home have been changed—situations like that. We call the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit, and there is no serious response. That’s a shame.

Oh, my goodness, there was one recently in our riding, where in winter, there was no heating. I called the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit—meh. I don’t think that should happen.

The Rental Housing Enforcement Unit should be staffed and have the jurisdictional power it needs so if a renter calls and has a valid concern, the rental housing enforcement steps in and intervenes and makes sure that renter lives in a safe and well-maintained home. That’s the minimum we should expect. I urge this government to address that.

What I would like to see in the next budget bill is a commitment from this government to build affordable and non-market housing. That’s what I would like to see from this government. The reason I would like to see this is because when other cities have moved forward with building non-market and affordable housing, they have seen considerable success. We recently had a town hall with the Minister of Housing in BC, Minister Kahlon, and he talked about the work that they’re doing to invest in non-market housing. They are building rental housing for middle-income families on public land to house people who are BC’s workforce. We’re talking about entry-level teachers, construction workers, supermarket workers, nurses. They’re taking advantage of the resources that they have. They’re providing grants and financing and low-cost loans and access to public land in order to build non-market housing. It makes a lot of sense. It has worked across Europe. It’s working here. Even the federal government is starting to see the light—

I’m very pleased to be standing here today to debate Bill 185 at third reading.

I’d like to just give a little bit of a summary of how I’m going to use my hour today. I’m going to talk a little bit about what came up in committee. I’m going to go through the amendments that were introduced and discuss why we introduced them. I’m going to go through sections of the bill to identify some of the positive things in this bill, because there are some things in this bill that are positive. I’m going to read out some of the very strong submissions that we received from so many stakeholders across Ontario. And then I’m going to conclude with some of the solutions that we have been calling for that are not in this bill.

Whenever I look at a government bill, I look at it from a certain lens. I ask myself, is this bill and are these measures going to make housing more affordable for people to rent and own in Ontario? That’s the first way I look at this bill. The second way I look at it is, I ask myself, is this bill going to ensure that we have the good-quality public services we need in towns and cities across Ontario, so we can have a good quality of life? The third way I look at this bill is, I ask myself, is this bill going to build the wide mix and range of housing we need to address our housing supply and our housing affordability shortages, and is it being done in a sustainable and responsible way? Are we needlessly building on farmland and green space, or are we building in parts of Ontario where we can increase density, so that we can balance the many needs that we have and the many issues that we have in Ontario?

This is a popular bill. We got a lot of submissions. We had a lot of people who wanted to speak in committee. Unfortunately, we had to turn some people away. I think it is always unfortunate when not everyone who wants to speak to a bill is given the opportunity to do that—because especially when it comes to housing, these bills affect everyone in Ontario. If it takes us an extra day or two or a week to hear what people and organizations have to say, I think we should give them the time to do it.

Thank you to the many stakeholders who spoke and gave written submissions. I want to name a few: AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario; BILD; Bonnefield; the Canadian Environmental Law Association; Canadians for Properly Built Homes; the city of Mississauga; the city of Toronto; CUPE Ontario; the Escarpment Corridor Alliance; the Federation of Citizens’ Associations of Ottawa; the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario; the Georgian Bay Association; Gravel Watch Ontario; the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association; the Greenbelt Foundation; the Green Space Alliance; No Demovictions, which is a new group that is being started up in Ontario; the Ontario Association of Architects; the Ontario Federation of Agriculture; the Ontario Long Term Care Home Association; the Reform Gravel Mining Coalition; and many more.

People care about what is in this bill—many people did. I was very impressed by the intelligence and the thought and the care that were given to us in committee, as well as the written submissions that were given to us. I read many of them, and they were very thoughtful. So thank you for that. Much of the feedback that stakeholders gave us informed the amendments that we introduced in committee in order to fix this bill.

Like I said, there are some things in this bill that we like. It is clear that the government heard from municipalities that were pretty angry that their ability to raise revenue to pay for infrastructure was curtailed with Bill 23 and Bill 109—and that there were some improvements in this bill.

But then there are a whole lot of things that we would have liked to have seen in this bill that weren’t there, and then there are a whole bunch of things in this bill that I wish weren’t there at all.

I’m going to start off by going through some of the amendments. Our goal was to improve this bill. We had a few. We can’t help ourselves. We start off by saying we’ll just do a few, and then as time goes on we realize we have 20 or 30. So be patient with me.

The first amendment that we introduced was to the City of Toronto Act. It was a bill that would enshrine the right for municipalities to protect and compensate tenants and preserve the stock of available residential units in cases where a purpose-built rental is demolished and replaced with—almost always—a condo. You would think that this is a one-off issue, but unfortunately, it is concerningly becoming very common. We expect that the number of purpose-built rentals that are demolished will increase as we move to increased density in towns and cities. The reason why this is a problem is because when you’re looking at purpose-built rentals in our city, it’s the kind of housing stock that we need to preserve. We need to preserve it, and the reason is that we know we have a shortage of purpose-built rentals and almost overwhelmingly the number of affordable purpose-built rentals that exist in our city are in these big purpose-built rental buildings. These are rent-controlled buildings where the rent—if it’s a long-term tenant, they might be paying anything from $1,100 to $1,600, which is much more affordable than what you get in a new purpose-built rental that isn’t protected by rent control.

Unfortunately, with Bill 23, the Ontario government gave themselves the power—they must have listened to some people and not others—to step in and eliminate or reduce the power that municipalities have to protect tenants. People were terrified that that was going to happen.

The reason why we introduced this amendment is to say, “Municipalities need to have the power to protect the affordable rental housing stock we’ve got so that we can build and not gentrify at the same time, so that we can build and also help the tenants who already live in towns and cities in Ontario, including Toronto”—because we can do both.

It is a shame that the government chose to not move forward with this amendment, and I urge this government to seriously consider this issue. It is a big issue. Thousands of tenants are affected by this.

The second amendment that we introduced was to make changes to the Development Charges Act. The government has rolled back some of the worst elements of Bill 23 and Bill 109. They’ve turned around and said, “Municipalities do need the power to require developers to pay their fair share for new infrastructure that is needed when people move into an area.”

We asked the government to listen to what AMO was saying and many advocates were saying and to require developers, when they’re building new units, to also pay for the necessary affordable housing and shelter that is needed in towns and cities, as well. It’s called housing services. The reason this is so important is that, with Bill 23, municipalities were banned from collecting development fees to be used for affordable housing and homelessness at a time when we have, I would say, the worst homelessness crisis that we’ve had in Ontario for decades.

The city of Toronto outlined this in their submission, and AMO also recommended that this right be reinstated. They did some calculations for us, and they calculated that municipalities are on track to be out of pocket $2 billion—$2 billion of money that should be going to maintain affordable housing and for shelters, both temporary and permanent. That affects 47,000 units. So why on earth would the government want to make it even harder for municipalities to address the homelessness problem and the affordable housing problem we have in municipalities? I don’t know. We introduced this amendment to restore the right that municipalities have to collect that fee, and the government voted that down, which I think is a problem.

We also introduced these amendments to a section of the act that dealt with the decision to reverse one of the most politically motivated and most unusual bills I’ve seen in a while, which is to, without any notice or consultation at all, get rid of the Peel regional government, which is really quite draconian. In this bill, they’ve made a decision to reverse that, so they’re going with the Peel dissolution act—dissolutioning the Hazel McCallion Act, 2023, schedule 7. Overall, the decision to repeal the Hazel McCallion Act makes a lot of sense. No one asked for the region of Peel to be eliminated, and it was projected to have a significant impact on the quality of services that the residents of Caledon and Peel and Mississauga would be provided with. We had a lot of concerns about that, and we are pleased to see a reversal—a partial reversal. We did introduce some amendments to shine some light and bring some transparency to that process, and the reason why is because the transition committee that is responsible for looking at how the services were going to be divvied up in these three regions gave Peel region a bill of $4 million. This is work that the Ontario government directed them to do, and then this transition committee turned around and said, “Actually, it’s not the Ontario government that is going to pay this bill. It’s going to be Peel region and Peel taxpayers who are going to pay this bill.” Obviously, that’s just downright crazy. So, in our amendment, we said that what we want to see is some transparency. We want to see this government provide an assessment of the financial impact of its recommendations and to make the financial impact public so people knew how much this transition and this reversal of this transition and then this partial movement forward is actually going to cost. The government rejected that, which I think is unfortunate.

The second amendment we introduced is to say that the province is asking for this work to be done—this transition. They’re appointing the board. They’re controlling the process. That means the provincial government should actually pay for the costs of this transition board, and not the taxpayers of Peel. We introduced that amendment, as well, and the government voted that down.

This was an interesting one. The government, in a last-minute flurry, made some additional changes to the lands tribunal. The lands tribunal, the Ontario Municipal Board, the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal—it’s a beast that has known many different names, but now it’s called the lands tribunal. The lands tribunal is one of the most powerful tribunals Ontario has ever seen, and it has been changed and altered and manipulated more times than I can remember. Every time there is a bill, there are some changes to the lands tribunal.

I thought the changes that were in Bill 185 that affect the lands tribunal were particularly concerning. In the bill, the government said, “From now on, we’re no longer going to allow third-party appeals to the lands tribunal,” which means that if a citizens’ group has some concerns about a quarry or a dump and the decision has been made by the municipality, that individual is no longer able to go to the lands tribunal to say, “We need a sober second thought. We need an adjudicator to look at this decision carefully.” It is an issue that I think has become very politicized.

Many organizations wrote to us about the need to continue to allow third-party appeals at the lands tribunal, including the Canadian Environmental Law Association. The reason why they recommended that third-party appeals be allowed is because they’ve represented many citizens who have been concerned about the environmental impact of developments, quarries, dumps in the area. They’ve taken it to the land tribunal to say, “We also need to factor in how this is going to affect water quality, soil health, planning.” So they were very clear. They wanted to make sure that third-party appeals were retained. They also brought an interesting point forward in their submission. They said this is also important because it’s about access to justice: “Land use planning decisions often disproportionately impact low-income, underserved and under-resourced communities, and have direct adverse impacts on the environment and the health and safety of the public.” So in order to ensure that we are making equitable planning decisions, there is a benefit in allowing third-party appeals.

We hear a lot from this government that the lands tribunal is becoming politicized, and people are saying no to developments and they’re taking it to the lands tribunal. That does happen, but the lands tribunal, as it’s currently structured right now—adjudicators already have the authority to throw out frivolous appeals. They already have the authority to throw out appeals that have limited chance of success. So when we’re talking about slowing necessary development down, the lands tribunal already has the powers it needs to have to make sure that process is not abused.

What I found concerning about the government’s amendment in committee is—they must have been lobbied real hard by some folks, because the government said, “We’re going to keep the third-party appeal ban, but we’re going to allow some groups to appeal”—not everyone else, but some groups. Airports—that’s legit. Big industry are allowed to appeal. Big manufacturing facilities are allowed to appeal. And developers are allowed to appeal. I have some concerns with this because it seems like the lands tribunal is being manipulated to suit the government’s own agenda. There are over 14 million people in Ontario today. The vast majority of them are no longer allowed to appeal to the lands tribunal. But some select entities that must have lobbied you really hard in the last few weeks—at the last minute, you introduced an amendment to allow them to appeal. I think that’s very concerning, and I don’t think that’s how the lands tribunal should operate. I don’t think the appeals process should be open to some but not open to everybody else. I’ve got a lot of concerns about that.

Just to point out and respond to the comments that the associate minister said: Unfortunately, in the provincial planning statement, now municipalities don’t need to demonstrate that prime agricultural farmland is at risk before they approve a development, so we’re very concerned about the potential loss of prime agricultural land and the government’s decisions to do that.

I want to speak about third-party appeals. This government did some last-minute dealing where they’ve banned third-party appeals to the lands tribunal except for a few key players, including developers, major industry and companies near a site. Why bias the lands tribunal in that fashion?

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. In committee, we heard time and time again from stakeholders—from the Ontario Home Builders’ Association to environmental groups to farming associations—saying that we need a whole mix of homes in Ontario, and those homes should include the opportunity to build fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario.

Can this government move forward with permitting fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario?

My question is about what I heard in committee when it came to the issue of building low-density housing on farmland and green space. We had organizations from the National Farmers Union to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture say very, very clearly that they’re very concerned about this bill and how it will make it easier for municipalities to say yes to sprawl, with no real justification, and also make it easier for developers to contest a municipal decision to say no to sprawl, even though we know that there is more than enough land available to meet our housing targets.

Why continue down the path of unsustainable sprawl when we know we have better options?

I recently spoke to 200 seniors who are being evicted from Chartwell Heritage Glen. This retirement home is in your riding. I’m very concerned that these seniors are being renovicted.

Two days ago, we spoke to them, and they said that the member opposite has not met with them yet—two days ago.

So these are my two questions: Have you met with them and can you meet with them? And what is your plan to ensure that they are not renovicted?

Thank you for your presentation.

I have a question that has come in from staff at the city of Peel and the city of Toronto. They’re very worried about the COHB payments that go out to people who live in private market housing who get a rent top-up so that they can afford the rent. It’s a very effective way to keep low-income and moderate-income people housed. They’re worried that the spat between Minister Calandra and Minister Fraser, and the refusal of this government to make a deal with the federal government to ensure money flows from the federal government, will put all these families at risk.

Can you tell us if municipalities are going to get their COHB funding when it expires in May?

My question is to the member for Durham. We just did a briefing where we had representatives from Canadians for Properly Built Homes speak, and their biggest concern was that not enough is done to ensure that builders abide by the building code when they’re building a new home or a condo. It’s resulting in people buying a home that’s just not up to snuff, where there are major defects and their dream has turned into this horror show.

What is this government’s plan to ensure that builders follow the building code when they’re building new homes?

Thank you to the member for Kitchener–Conestoga. I’m pleased that I can clarify remarks.

We are calling for the reinstatement of developer fees for affordable housing and shelters. When it came to Bill 23, we voted to remove developer fees that non-profits pay. So, they’re two different things. They’re two different things. We want developer fees to go towards affordable housing.

[Inaudible] question. Thank you to the member for Durham. I would like to think about moving forward right now. When I think about moving forward right now, I think about this bill and what we can do to improve this bill, because that’s what we’re debating.

I would like to see in this bill an amendment to allow fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario. I would like to see in this bill a commitment to allow increased density along transit corridors. I would also like to see a commitment in this bill to allow municipalities to collect development charges for affordable housing and shelters so we can deal proactively with the homelessness crisis and the housing crisis we have in our towns and cities.

When I talk to municipalities, I hear again and again that their planning departments are completely overwhelmed because they have to transition to these new rules and then the rules change and then they have to transition to other rules. It’s a problem; they only have so many staff. It’s a problem. A stable planning environment is key to building the homes that we need to build.

So, I have some concerns that this gravy train greenbelt derailment issue is still here.

It’s also not wise from a sustainability point of view. It impacts our farming economy because they have less land available to them and it creates more unsustainable transportation patterns because people have to drive further to get to their destination, be it work or school. There’s a lot of concerns that we have with it.

Wrong person. I shouldn’t have asked you.

Interjection.

I want to talk a little bit about what some stakeholders said, with the remaining time that I have.

I talked a little bit about what AMO said. They’re cautiously happy about the development fee charge changes, but they are concerned that they don’t go far enough. They’re concerned about the MZO framework; so are we—although it is better than what it was before.

The Ontario Real Estate Association also sent in a statement. They’re happy about eliminating parking minimums; they’re pleased that it will be easier to build more garden, laneway and basement suites; they’re good with permitting mass-timber structures up to 18 storeys; they support standardized designs to reduce delays and costs for modular homes—so are we. Some of this stuff is good. But what they’re concerned about is this government’s real reluctance to say yes to upzoning along major transit corridors and this government’s outright refusal to allow four units as-of-right province-wide.

I honestly think you folks are the last ones left who can’t bring yourselves to say yes to fourplexes. It’s so interesting. I wonder when you’re going to cave. I’m guessing six months. That’s my prediction. Six months, and then you’re going to cave, but we’ll see—I’m hoping it’s less.

Environmental Defence have a lot of concerns around the provincial planning statement. They wrote: “Together, the new law and the proposed provincial planning statement would effectively wipe out the protective” municipal boundaries that protect farmland and the greenbelt, wetlands and wildlife. They’ve got a lot of concerns about that. They’re also concerned that Bill 185 would remove any expert Ontario Land Tribunal oversight over multi-billion dollar decisions by municipal council around approving sprawl. They wrote: “It’s hard to think of a more enticing target for corruption than unchecked municipal decisions to approve sprawl.” Strong words. “By rubber-stamping an application to needlessly extend a settlement boundary and bulldoze farmland or wildlife habitat, a small-town councillor could confer hundreds of millions in windfall wealth upon a real estate speculator who bought up farmland at a low price.” It’s concerning, because once we pave over farmland, we’re not getting it back. If we’re talking about making sure that Ontario’s economy thrives, we should be doing everything we can to preserve, protect and expand our farming sector. It is a huge growth generator, and it needs land.

This came from Bill 23, but it’s still relevant today—this is from Carolyn Whitzman, an expert adviser with the Housing Assessment Resource Tools project. The reason I like Carolyn’s work is because when she’s talking about the housing supply crisis and the housing affordability crisis, she talks not just about how many homes we’re building, but who we’re building for. She breaks it down, and she concludes that for upper-middle-income people—they usually can find a home. That’s not where the shortage is. But when you’re looking at people who are in the 50% to 80% of household income, they’re short—we need to build about 160,000 homes for them; they’re more affordable homes. If you’re looking at people who earn 20% to 50% of the average household income, we need to build about 483,000 homes that are affordable for this demographic. And then, for people who earn up to 20% of the average household income—these are people on Ontario disability, Ontario Works—we need to build 85,000 homes to meet their needs. And I really don’t see in this bill a serious effort to look at who we’re building homes for and who is missing out, because people who are middle-income, working class, on social assistance, they are not finding homes that can work for them, that they can afford, and they’re also having difficulty keeping the home they’ve got, because they’re being renovicted or demovicted, pushed out, moving to Alberta.

I want to conclude by talking about what we see as solutions to our housing affordability and our housing supply crisis. I want to be clear: I want a home. I want everybody in Ontario to have a home that they can afford to rent or buy. That’s what I want, and in a province as rich as ours, we can do it. It’s not an issue of money; it’s a lack of political will.

I don’t want encampments, because I want people who live in encampments to be offered a permanent home, offered a supportive home so that they can rebuild their lives, live good lives. I think we can do that too.

I want people who move to a big city, go to school, start a career—I want them to find a home that they can afford to rent, have enough money at the end of the month to go out for dinner and save. I think that makes a lot of sense.

When many of you were younger, that opportunity was available to you, but it’s not available to young people today. I want an Ontario where, if people save, they can afford to buy a home; maybe it’s a condo, maybe it’s a starter home. Right now, that dream is just completely destroyed for so many people.

And I really don’t buy this argument that people love to rent. When you poll people and you ask them, “If you could afford to buy a home,” most people say, “Hell yes, I would love to buy a home,” and I think that’s important. Home ownership matters.

Our party, what we support is building 1.5 million homes. We agree with the government on this target. We do need to build 1.5 million homes, and we need to make sure that the homes that we build will actually address the housing affordability crisis and the housing supply shortage. That means building homes on public land. That means buying up purpose-built rentals and converting them to non-market housing. It means making it easier to build homes in areas that are already zoned for development. It means saying yes to four-plexes.

We shouldn’t dismiss—we need as many measures as we can approve. There’s no one measure that’s going to solve the housing crisis, so we do need to approve fourplexes, we do need to allow increased density along transit corridors, we do need to make it quicker and easier to build multi-family homes. We know this, it’s important, and it will require not just changing zoning rules; it’s also going to require investment. It shocks me that this government is choosing not to invest in affordable housing. We need it; it’s important.

It is essential, if we want to make housing affordable in Ontario, that we focus on renters too. The 1.7 million people who rent—I’m sure some of them are contacting your office. They have it so hard. Unless you’re earning two six figures in your household and you’re renting, you have it hard. It’s hard to find a place, it’s hard to keep a place, most people living in constant fear of eviction. Many people in my riding have these constant above-guideline rent increases. I think we can do better for renters. It is time for vacancy control in Ontario. It existed before, it stabilized rent; it’s time for that again.

It’s also time to bring in strong renter protections so that if people do have an issue with their landlord, they have a number to call, they have a bylaw officer that can investigate, they have a Landlord and Tenant Board that can hear their case promptly, and by that, I mean 30 days, not two years—30 days. It makes sense. Tribunals are so efficient compared to the court system. I think we can do the right thing on that.

Then, it is also essential to address the supportive housing crisis and the homelessness crisis we have in Ontario. We can do it. I know we can. I urge this government to move forward on expanding the homeless protection funding that you have. I urge this government to reinstate municipalities’ power to use development charges for affordable housing and shelters. I urge this government to come and present an affordable housing plan to the federal government that includes more than just building 1,187 homes so that we can get that federal government money. People’s lives depend upon it.

We have encampments in our riding. It is so hard for those people who live in those encampments. It is so hard. They don’t want to be there. People don’t want to live in an encampment, but when they’re offered the option of moving to a hotel for three weeks in Scarborough, having to get rid of all their belongings and then knowing that they’re going to lose that hotel in a short period of time, that’s not an option. We need to provide real options to people so that we can end homelessness. Other countries have done it; so can we.

I look forward to committee. I look forward to the amendments that I hope will be introduced. I look forward to hearing from stakeholders that will come in and give their opinions. I will be introducing amendments; I always do. I thoroughly enjoy it. I hope they’re taken seriously and listened to. And, yes, I want to see this bill improved.

We’ll support you, yes. We’ve got your back. Thank you.

What I would also like to see, if we’re talking about increasing density, is to move forward with allowing increased density along transit corridors, those apartment buildings along transit corridors that would provide more affordable options for people, especially if we mandate that a percentage of those units are more family-friendly in size, because we’re not going to solve the housing crisis by building 500-square-foot units or 4,000-square-foot mansions on sprawl. We need a mix, and what’s missing are those family-friendly-sized apartments, those 1,200-to-1,600-square-foot apartments, those starter homes. I would like to see that.

And then the other change that is in the bill is the decision by this government to consult on changing the building code to allow three-to-six-storey homes to have only one stairwell instead of two. I think consultation on this is a good idea. The reason why I think this is a good idea is because, if we are going to move ahead with moving to just one stairwell, we need to make sure these homes are safe, and that means doing proper consultation with fire marshals and fire departments, looking at the evidence to ensure that if there is a fire in these buildings, people can get out quickly.

The reason why I say that is because we have had residents in our riding who have died in fires. We had one on Shaw Street, and an individual on the top floor did not get out in time. It was awful. And then we had William Cachia, who lived in a rooming house in the Danforth area. There was a fire in the early morning in a rooming house. He didn’t get out on time and he died.

It is often lower-income people living in poorly maintained homes who are the people who died in fires—it is. And, tragically, these buildings, both of them, did not have working fire alarms—they didn’t. But I also think that we need to build in redundancy when we’re ensuring that people are safe, because there are always going to be some places that don’t have working fire alarms because the building isn’t properly maintained. So I like the idea of this government doing consultation on this to make sure we get it right.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about the provincial policy statement. The provincial policy statement is not directly included in this bill, but it’s complementary. There’s a reason why you introduced it on the same day. Unfortunately, unlike some of the grab bag of some good things in this bill, I’m very worried about what’s in the provincial policy statement.

For those that are listening: The provincial policy statement is a short document that provides guidance to how planning happens in Ontario. It provides direction to municipalities. It provides a summary of where we build and how we build. It’s a short document and it’s a very important document. When I read this document, the take-home message I get is that the provincial policy statement is green-lighting more single-family homes on farmland—very expensive sprawl. I have some concerns with that because that kind of development is very expensive and we know that this government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force told this government that we can build the homes that we need, we can meet our 1.5-million home target, by building in areas that are already zoned for development. We know that.

So when I read the provincial policy statement, what I see is that it wipes out settlement area boundaries and municipal comprehensive review processes that prevent unnecessary low-density sprawl on farmland. So now what can happen is the developer—let’s say they bought land just outside the municipal boundary, and they bought it cheap because it was farmland and it was just zoned for farmland, okay? They got it for a steal. Well, now, what they can do is they can go to the municipality and say, “I want you to rezone this land to allow for development.”

Now, typically, the process of expanding settlement boundaries could only happen after careful review. Municipalities needed to explain that it was necessary, and it could only happen every five years or so. It was a very careful, well-thought-out process. Now it can happen at any time. If a developer wants their land rezoned, they just have to go to the council and get it approved. That is quite a problem.

I was just on a briefing call and Environmental Defence’s Phil Pothen was on this call, and he said, “This is a breeding ground for corruption. I’m very worried about this—I’m very worried about it.” So that’s one thing I have concerns about.

The other thing is about the appeal process. How this government wants to change it is—let’s say a developer says, “All right, I want you to rezone my land,” and if the municipality says yes, then no one can appeal it. But if the municipality says no, then the developer can appeal. If the municipality approves sprawl, you can’t appeal, and if the municipality denies the sprawl, then the developer can appeal. You’re basically saying, “We want sprawl and we’re going to change the rules around the land tribunal so that it can only say yes to sprawl, it can’t say no.” I have some concerns about that.

I also have some concerns around the provincial policy statement’s decision to get rid of minimum density requirements. It’s crazy. I can’t believe it. It’s 2024, and we’re getting rid of minimum density requirements. So now there is no requirement to meet density in any area; it’s advisory—we recommend it—but it’s not required. I think it’s bananas. I can’t believe that’s there. My hope is that those members in the Conservative Party who know that this is a really crazy idea will speak to their colleagues and we’ll get that changed in a future bill. I’m hopeful.

Member for Waterloo, are you hopeful?

I’m pleased to be rising here today to speak about Bill 185, the government’s latest housing bill, called Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, 2024; I always love your titles.

This bill was also introduced at the same time as the government introduced an updated provincial policy statement for comment. These are pretty significant developments when it comes to the housing file, and I’m going to spend a bunch of my time today talking about what’s in the bill, as well as a little bit about what’s in the provincial policy statement, and then read some of the comments that have come in from stakeholders and also express some of what I like, what I have some concerns about and what I think is really not so great.

To summarize, this government has given us a bill that I would call a grab bag of half measures that reverse some of the really terrible housing mistakes that you’ve made in previous bills; notable is Bill 23. Some of the measures that you’ve introduced will also spur construction of new homes. I can see that. We do have a red flag that some of the homes that will be built will be single-family homes on farmland—sprawl. Sprawl is very expensive, and we have some concerns that this bill will really double down on that very expensive housing type.

Every time this government introduces a new bill, I really like to go through it and see what’s in it, and every time there is a new bill, I always see some flip-flopping. The government has attempted to cut back on development fees, and now we see that a lot of the development fee charges are back again. This bill also has flip-flopping as well.

What does this bill actually mean for people in Ontario who are struggling to find and keep their home? In the near term, it’s not going to help people find a home they can afford. It’s not going lower the rent. It’s not going to address the homelessness crisis. It’s not going to make it cheaper for people to buy their first home. That, I think, is a shame, because that is what housing affordability and the housing crisis is about: It’s about making homes affordable. When I look at this bill, there really isn’t a lot in the bill that’s going to address that critical issue of affordability. This government is cheap, and it’s people that suffer as a result of it.

I want to talk a little bit about the state of the housing crisis today. You just have to open up the newspaper, go to CBC, and every week, there are new, scary statistics and evidence and stories showing how bad it is out there—especially if you are lower-income or middle-income, you are really struggling to find a home to keep.

I’ll give you some examples. When it comes to the homelessness crisis—these are people who just can’t afford to find a home—we know that encampments in the city of Toronto have doubled; they’re at pandemic levels. We know that there are encampments in towns and cities all across Ontario, and that is new. It didn’t exist in the same way six years ago.

We know that the Auditor General, over five years ago now, said to this government, “You need to have a plan to address homelessness, because currently you don’t have one.” And six years later, this government still doesn’t have an effective plan to address homelessness. You would think, in a housing bill, that there would be a chunk of that bill that’s geared to addressing homelessness, but there isn’t. There’s nothing in this bill on that.

Then, I think about renters. There are 1.7 million renters in Ontario today; it used to be 1.4 million, but it’s going up because people can’t afford to buy a home. And when I look at the renter crisis and whether this bill addresses people who rent, I don’t see anything in there.

Your offices and our offices regularly get calls from people who are being illegally evicted, who cannot find a home, who are struggling with an above-guideline rent increase, who are being demovicted because their building is being converted into a condo. These people are worried. They’re scared. They don’t know if they’re going to be able to afford to live in Ontario anymore. What they want to see and what we want to see are strong measures to protect renters. We want to see strong rent control, including vacancy control, so there’s a cap on how much the rent can be raised between tenancies.

We want to see an effective Rental Housing Enforcement Unit. If a renter has an issue, like their washroom is not working, or they have mould that’s exacerbating their allergies or their asthma, and their landlord isn’t doing anything about it, they should have a number to call; they should be able to speak to a bylaw officer. There should be enough staff in that unit to respond, and the bylaw officer should have the enforcement tools and the capacity to take action, which means they should call up the landlord or the property manager and say, “This is the standard. Your renter is concerned. There’s evidence to show that you’re not doing your part as a landlord. If you don’t fix it, there will be consequences to that.” That’s what renters want. They want a level playing field. They want their home to be properly maintained. There’s nothing in this bill that’s going to help those renters—and this isn’t a one-off thing. When I canvass, I’ll go into building after building after building and I’ll speak to renter after renter who will say to me, “This place isn’t properly maintained.” It’s standard operating procedure, and that needs to change. We need to lift the floor to ensure renters can live in good homes.

And then the final piece, where I really see the housing crisis getting out of control—homelessness, renters—is for the first-time homebuyers who want to get their first home. If you are a first-time homebuyer in Ontario today, you are in a very tough situation because it has never been more expensive to buy a home and to pay off the mortgage of that home, with rising interest rates or high interest rates and the high cost of a home.

The National Bank of Canada’s recent statistics tell us that we are in the worst housing crisis for first-time homebuyers that we have seen in 41 years. That’s this government’s legacy. You’ve priced people out of the dream of home ownership. You’ve had six years to fix it. And under the six years this government has been in power, it has gone from bad to worse. That’s why people are saying, “I’m taking my skills and my talents with me, and I’m moving to Alberta.” Not good.

So the state of housing in Ontario today is really not great on all levels.

There’s so much that’s not in this bill that should be in there. There is no commitment to affordability. There is no fourplexes as of right. There is no commitment to increase density near transit stations or along transit corridors. There is no commitment to inclusionary zoning to require developments to do their fair share and build some affordable homes in big new developments. It makes sense. A lot of cities have done it. New York has done it—lots of cities. But we can’t. Why not? I don’t know.

There’s no rent control or vacancy control to stabilize rents and keep renters housed. There’s no improvement to the Landlord and Tenant Board, even though there are over 53,000 people waiting for a hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board to get their disputes resolved in a fast, fair and efficient way—not happening here in Ontario.

There are no measures in this bill to stop illegal eviction, to curb AGI abuse and to stop bad-actor landlords who fail to properly maintain their homes. You would expect to see that in a housing bill, but it’s not there.

There is no plan in the bill to curb speculation to help first-time homebuyers buy their first home, even though we see CMHC data telling us very clearly that investors are buying three, four, eight, twelve homes and they’re pricing out first-time homebuyers.

There is no plan to increase investment to end or seriously address homelessness. There is no serious plan to build affordable homes or supportive housing. There’s none of it.

This government has chosen to put all their eggs into the basket of building more homes, especially homes on farmland, and I’ve got a lot of concerns about that. Nor does this government take any serious effort to address the question of who are we building homes for and how much are they going to cost—a lot missing.

When I look at what this government is doing, I often look at what the BC NDP government is doing and I like to do a compare and contrast. This government likes to say, “Well, we’re going to just build our way out of the housing crisis. We’re going to build so many homes, you won’t believe it. We’re going to build 1.5 million homes and it’s going to make everything affordable.” But, even going by your own benchmark of building more homes and ignoring everything else, you’re falling short. In Ontario, housing starts are going down month over month. You can see the CMHC data. It is very clear: Housing starts are going down.

The Conservatives like to say, “Well, it’s all the federal government’s fault. It’s all the Bank of Canada’s fault. It’s everybody’s fault but ours.” The reality is that other provinces have found a way to build in this tougher housing environment, and it is the BC NDP government where housing starts are going up. They went up 11%. What are they doing right and what is the Conservative government doing wrong, and why aren’t some of the things the BC NDP government are doing right in this bill? I don’t get it.

I’m going to give a little bit of a summary of what the BC NDP government is doing, and hopefully, for the MPPs opposite, you’ll introduce these as amendments in committee.

The government in BC is legalizing more affordable housing options, including semis, townhomes, multiplex apartments in all neighbourhoods, and they’re increasing density along transit corridors. That makes a lot of sense to me. I would like to see an amendment in committee that would allow that.

The BC NDP government is allowing taller apartments and condos near transit stations. That also makes a lot of sense. It’s smart, sustainable urban planning. This government has had two years—two years—to approve increased density near transit stations in Toronto. You’ve had over 104 requests from the city of Toronto to do that and you can’t bring yourself to do it. I don’t get it. It makes a lot if sense.

The BC NDP government is also bringing in what I really like to see, which is that they’re investing money into building and buying housing. What that looks like is, they’ve established a fund, $500 million, and they’re giving it to non-profits, land trusts and developers to buy and build non-market housing. It makes a whole lot of sense. It’s much quicker, it’s cheaper, and it makes a whole lot of sense. It keeps people housed. I would like to see this government move ahead on an initiative like that.

They’ve set up a renter protection fund and they’re also looking at taking very practical measures to address speculation. I’m not exactly surprised that this government doesn’t like to touch investor-led speculation, given who your donors are, but I think it’s pretty important that you do so because it is a very effective way to stabilize housing prices, help first-time home buyers and renters.

The BC NDP government, for instance, has brought in measures to restrict Airbnbs in investment properties. We can convert Airbnbs to long-term rentals and increase long-term rental stock so our health care workers and our construction workers, our supermarket workers can afford to find a home and keep a home that’s a rental. They can save up and buy their own home. It makes a lot of sense.

They’ve brought in a vacant home tax. If you are an investor who doesn’t pay your fair share of taxes in BC, or you leave your home vacant for more than six months of the year, then you’re required to put a chunk of money—give it to the government so they can build affordable housing. You can either rent out that property, sell it or contribute your fair share to affordable housing. It’s a vacant home and speculation tax. It’s incredibly popular. It has raised over $80 million for affordable housing and it has motivated people who have a vacant home to rent it out or sell it. It’s win-win-win.

This government—I hear them every year say they’re going to look into bringing forward a vacant home tax. Fall economic statement, latest budget—they always say it, but the details never arrive. The legislation never arrives. The regulation is never posted. You talk about it, but you don’t act on it. I think it’s really important that we act on it.

The BC NDP government is also bringing in real estate transparency, beneficial ownership. No longer can an individual set up a numbered corporation or a real estate investment trust and buy properties anonymously, often for the purposes of tax evasion or fraud. It’s a huge issue in BC. We know it’s a huge issue in Ontario. We know it’s driving up housing prices. OREA supports it; stakeholders support it; we support it. The federal government is looking into it. It’s very practical.

I would like this government to move forward on a practical measure like that. It’s the kind of measure that I would like to see in a housing bill. It’s not there yet. Maybe it will be in the next one. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, and it will be introduced in committee.

So that’s what the BC NDP government is doing right.

There are some things in this bill that aren’t bad. Then, there are some things in this bill that really are terrible. Then, there are a whole lot of things that should be in this bill that aren’t. I’m going to spend a bit of time going into the bill itself. I’m going to go step-by-step, for those who are listening.

The first measure that I’m going to look at is a schedule where the province can compel the city of Toronto to provide assistance directly or indirectly to a specified manufacturing business or other industrial or commercial enterprise. Currently, municipalities are banned from offering special discounts and incentives to one industry over another. It’s to stop a Hunger Games mentality where municipalities compete with each other. So this would give the city of Toronto the power to do that, and it will enable the province to compel the city of Toronto to do that, too. I’m curious to know if the city of Toronto asked for this power, or if they’re wanting it. I’m curious to know what specific industry will be getting that special incentive, tax break etc. I have those questions.

The second piece of the schedule that is a little concerning is this government is going to ban third-party appeals to the land tribunal, which will mean that residents will not be able to go to the land tribunal to contest a development, be it a condo or a quarry. The government brought this change in with Bill 23, where they banned third-party appeals. But then, there was all this backlash and concern, so they backtracked a bit. Now, it seems that you want to reintroduce it again.

When we are thinking about the land tribunal, it’s very clear the land tribunal does need to be reformed. There are some frivolous applications to the land tribunal that are stopping very worthy projects, such as a hospital expansion or an affordable housing development. What comes to mind is the affordable housing development in the member for Willowdale’s riding. It’s 59 modular homes that will be built near a transit station to house people who need supportive housing. That project—city of Toronto was fair, and they put supportive or affordable housing projects in every riding in the city of Toronto. But Willowdale just couldn’t bring themselves to say yes, the member for Willowdale couldn’t bring themselves to say yes, and two years later, that affordable housing project is stalled. Those modular homes are sitting in a warehouse somewhere—we think it’s Parry Sound—wrapped in shrink wrap. The city is spending upwards of $50,000 a month in rent for these modular homes to sit empty when they should be in Willowdale, housing people.

When I think about people who hold up useful, needed developments, I always think of the member for Willowdale and his decision to hold up affordable housing in his own riding.

It makes a lot of sense to bring in land tribunal reform so that projects that are of the public good and have affordable housing requirements are not needlessly held up in the land tribunal. But to say that nobody can bring an application to the land tribunal I think is bit much. Municipalities and residents deserve to have a say over what happens in their community. It makes sense for the provincial government to work with municipalities to ensure that they can meet their housing targets and to develop official plans that enable them to do so and that the land tribunal becomes a tribunal not of first resort but of last resort because projects are being approved and built, following an official plan that says yes to density. I believe that would be a better way.

This bill is looking at making changes to the building code to allow 18-storey mass-timber buildings. We are hearing from stakeholders that this is a good thing. We agree. It makes sense to build using timber. We know that it is structurally sound, and it is good to see that this change is in this bill.

What we would also like to see in this bill, given that we’re talking about the building code, is a commitment to mandate electric-vehicle charging stations in new developments so that we can do the sustainable thing and transition, be a leader in moving to an electric-vehicle-led province, where we not just build electric vehicles in Ontario but we make it easy for people to buy a vehicle and use a vehicle and get from A to B in an electric vehicle. But that’s only going to happen if it’s easy for people to charge the electric vehicle, because if you can’t charge it, you can’t drive it and you’re not going to buy it. I’ve had residents approach me and say, “I would love to buy an electric vehicle, but I have nowhere to charge it, because I don’t have my own driveway.” It’s stopping them from making that choice, which we know more people should be encouraged to make. So it would be good to see that change in the building code.

We’ve also heard from stakeholders, given that we’re opening up the building code, that the building code needs to be enforced, which means that when new construction is happening there are competent and qualified building inspectors that go to that site to ensure that the builder is doing everything they need to do to meet code—because what we don’t want is an individual moving into a home, spending a million dollars buying that home and then finding out that that home is defective, that there’s mould after 18 months, that they have flooding, that the heating and cooling system doesn’t work very well even though the building is new. We are getting these calls from residents who have moved into new condos, spent upwards of a million dollars on that new condo, and they’re finding that the building is defective. It makes a lot of sense that we make sure that the building code is enforced.

We’re also hearing from stakeholders about the building code and the need to lift the building code floor so we are building energy-efficient, resilient and well-made homes. We know the building code is being reviewed right now. There are conversations that are happening to align the building code provincially with the building code federally, and what we hear again and again and again is that the provincial government wants to keep the building code at the bare minimum when we know we need to lift the floor so when people buy a home they’re getting a well-maintained home, and that means improving the building code. We would like to see these changes in the bill.

The next change I’d like to discuss is the move by this government to no longer require parking in a development near transit. That is a move that we think makes sense. Stakeholders, environmental groups, planning authorities have said that it is time to do that.

There are a few caveats that I want to point out, however. The first caveat is that, if we are looking at building big buildings with less parking, then it’s essential that we make sure that the public transit that services that building is very good.

The second thing is that—we just did a briefing on this, this morning, and we had some residents say, “Well, what about accessibility? What do we do if I need a caregiver who is going to come in, they drive and then they care for me and then they leave?” Maybe it’s a personal support worker or it’s someone who has accessibility challenges who needs their car to get around. That’s a good point, and it gave me pause, and I think it’s upon us as a Legislature to think of useful ways to ensure that we can reduce parking minimums and eliminate parking minimums but also take steps to ensure that accessibility requirements are kept. So I would be curious and interested to know what measures and ideas you have, and I’m going to think of my own as well, because I’m sure it’s a challenge that other municipalities and provinces have addressed and solved.

The government is bringing in a use-it-or-lose-it law that gives municipalities more power to motivate a developer to build a development, once they’ve been given the approvals to do so. I would like to personally thank the member for Niagara Centre, who is sitting right here next to me. Let’s give him a round of applause. The reason why is because the member for Niagara Centre has been advocating for quite some time now for municipalities to have the power to bring in a use-it-or-lose-it policy. We are pleased to see a use-it-or-lose-it policy in this bill.

Essentially what this is: If a developer applies to build but then they don’t build, then they could lose the right to build. The reason why this is so important is because we have a housing crisis. We need to build more homes and we are not in a situation where we can allocate planning staff to approve permits, going through all that process, and then having developers sit on that land—maybe because they want to make more profit later on; maybe because they want to sell it, because once it’s rezoned, it’s worth more money, and for them, it’s really about a flipping opportunity and not a building opportunity. That’s not what we want. We want construction to take place. So this is a good move.

The government is giving municipalities the power to move forward on a use-it-or-lose-it policy by giving them a few new powers. One, they can reallocate sewage or water capacity from one development to another if this developer is not building in at timely manner, and they’re also giving municipalities the power to set expiry dates for site plan and subdivision approval. So if a site plan is approved and, in two years’ time, the developer hasn’t built it, then the site plan approval could be withdrawn. This all makes sense to us. If we hear something different from municipalities, we’ll let you know, but that actually makes sense to us.

This government is looking at putting more guardrails on the ministerial zoning orders—controversial ministerial zoning orders. These have been controversial for some time because the province essentially gave themselves the power to exempt a development from local planning and provincial rules, and also to impose their own rules on a development. We know that it created a two-tier planning approval process, where, if you were maybe giving money to the PC Party, were friends with a minister, then you can use the MZO process and get your development approved very quickly. That meant that everyone else, all the other developers, had to go to the back of the line and use the more traditional, mainstream planning process.

So it was really a two-tier system, and a lot of developers were very upset by that process, as well as residents who said, “What about us? We want to have a say,” and municipalities who said, “We want to have a say in how things get planned in our neighbourhoods and our cities.” So it was very controversial.

Once again, you’re looking at rewriting it. This rewrite means that an applicant—so the developer—has to explain why it’s necessary, maybe get local municipal appeal for the project, and the government has said that we will post it on the Environmental Registry if it’s non-urgent. So if it’s an urgent MZO, you don’t have to post it on the Environmental Registry, but if it’s a non-urgent MZO, you do. That’s our assessment of it right now. We’re a little concerned about what this means, but we do appreciate that there are some additional guardrails compared to what it was before.

The government is looking at changing development fees again. You remember Bill 23. Bill 23 was an absolute disaster when it came to development charges. The government made the decision to radically change how development fees were collected. Municipalities were no longer able to be collect development fees for affordable housing, and that remains true, as well as for parkland charges, and that the development fees had to be phased in. It was a lot of changes.

A lot of municipalities came to us, including AMO, and said, “Because of this, we are going to be losing $1 billion a year in infrastructure revenue, because you’re hampering our ability to collect developer fees from developers to just partially pay for infrastructure”—it just partially covers the cost of infrastructure. And this government, at the time, chose to ignore those calls.

Time went on, and what we found is that a lot of municipalities had to dramatically raise property taxes to cover the cost of the infrastructure: 5%, 8%, 10%—that’s on you. I want to call that a Ford tax. What we also found is that municipalities no longer had the money that they needed to pay for the infrastructure to allow development to happen. And in some regions, municipalities were saying, “We actually can’t even approve that development because we don’t have the money to pay for the infrastructure to connect those new homes to the sewage and the roads and the water that they need.” It actually hampered housing construction. It also threw planning departments into chaos.

I am pleasantly pleased to see that with Bill 185, there is some rollback on that. There is an acknowledgement from this government that municipalities matter, that their development fees matter and that funding for infrastructure matters. So that’s a partial step in the right direction. I don’t know why we had to waste two years or more for the government to realize what everybody else knows, but we did. Meanwhile, the housing crisis continues.

This is what concerns me. I’ve read through what some of our stakeholders are saying, and I’m going to spend a little time reading what AMO has said, because they did take a deep dive into the development charges piece. AMO said, “AMO will continue to highlight the need to reinstate both housing services and the cost of land as eligible DC costs.” So you’ve partially returned some powers, but municipalities are still out some money. And they give an estimate. They say, “Together, these changes are costing municipalities around $4 billion over a 10-year period and will have a material impact on municipalities’ ability to invest in community housing.”

So what AMO is telling you there is that even though there have been some modest rollbacks of the development charges framework, municipalities are still not able to collect developer fees for affordable housing. They’re still not able to do it. In the middle of a housing crisis, they still cannot collect development fees for affordable housing and shelter. I think that is a shame and I think that does need to be changed because every municipality I talk to is telling me they have a homelessness crisis. They have a wait-list for people who want to get into community housing or supportive housing. They can’t meet the need. So that is a problem.

There have also been some changes around how development fees are collected and whatnot. Municipalities are no longer required to refund application fees if they don’t get a development approved within a strict time frame—good. The government brought this change in with Bill 109. We kept hearing from planning departments that it actually slowed the process down, because municipalities will say, “We don’t have the capacity to get this approved within the 90-day time frame that you want it approved by, that we’re required to get it approved by, so we’re going to make you do all this pre-work in advance, before you can even submit an application.” They couldn’t get it done within the time frame.

We also see here in this bill that the government is looking at banning municipalities from telling developers to do work before they’ve officially submitted a development application. That’s one way of trying to solve the problem. The challenge with that is, we’re already hearing from cities that are telling us, “That’s a concern because we are not able to get an application approved where there is even just some kind of public consultation”—we’re talking about one meeting—“with the time frames that we have.”

This bill is also looking at taking away the right for some regional municipalities to be the leaders in planning responsibility. It looks like Halton, York and Peel regions will be losing their ability to plan, and that Waterloo, Durham, Niagara and Simcoe—their ability to plan will also be restricted in some way in the future, on proclamation. What we worry about here is that downloading the right to plan to local municipalities could create very chaotic and haphazard planning, because it affects a region’s ability to plan well and to plan efficiently. It could create a very piecemeal planning process. So we’ve got some concerns about that. We are talking to municipalities to see how it affects each municipality in particular, because it seems like some municipalities have different perspectives on it.

A Waterloo resident is pretty concerned about how this decision to eliminate planning responsibility from the region and download it to local municipalities could affect the Waterloo area. He says it could affect our water supply, which is a huge concern. He’s worried that if the Conservatives continue down this watch, we could have another Walkerton, which is also very concerning. He’s also very concerned about how this decision to remove planning authority from the region could affect environmental protections and farmland in the area, including greenbelt land. So there are some concerns there that I urge this government to look into.

This bill is also going to be exempting student housing from the Planning Act, which would give universities and colleges more latitude to build more student housing, and it would enable them to build student housing more quickly.

Let’s be very clear: Building student housing is absolutely essential. Some of the worst housing shortages and housing affordability crises we have in Ontario are in towns that have a big student population—we’re talking Ottawa, Kingston, Waterloo, Kitchener, Toronto, London, Hamilton. It is a problem.

In my riding, I have the University of Toronto. We regularly work with students who cannot afford to pay the rent or who are living three, four people to a bedroom—or having people sleep in a lounge room because they can’t afford to have a home to their own or to share a home with one person.

When you look at the price of student housing—honestly, I was flabbergasted. To rent a dorm—so you’re sharing a room—at the University of Toronto can cost you a minimum of $2,300 a month, and it could go up to $3,000 a month. That’s a lot. That’s more than any student I know would want to spend, and it’s more than most parents I know would want to spend.

When we’re thinking about building more student housing, it’s a good thing. But what I would urge this government to do is to also address the issue of affordability. Are we building student housing so that universities can drain even more revenue from people, because they’re not being funded properly by the provincial government? Or are we building student housing that’s affordable for students? I fear that this government is going to be moving down a path where we’re building student housing that’s not affordable for students.

It is also concerning to me that student housing is exempt from the Residential Tenancies Act. If you are a student, you don’t have protection from illegal eviction. You’re not protected by rent control. You’re not protected by price gouging if your university wants to charge you an excessive amount of money for a food plan. There’s not much you can do if you have an issue with maintenance. You can’t go to the Landlord and Tenant Board. It’s difficult for you.

I think it makes a lot of sense to have a conversation, do some consultation to think about we can integrate student into the Residential Tenancies Act so that student housing is tied to enrolment at the university but students also have protections that they deserve to have, especially rent control. I think we can do both, and I urge this government—I’ve raised this issue with the Minister of Colleges and Universities, and I think it’s something that this government should be doing as we’re looking at building more student housing.

This bill is also looking at moving ahead with providing standardized pre-approved home designs. I like the proposal. This makes a lot of sense, and we like this proposal because it will enable us to build more homes more quickly. It will enable us to do modular housing so we build housing off-site in a unionized factory and then move those homes to where they will actually be located. It’s a sensible idea, and I hope that this government would be interested in working with us and stakeholders and unions to ensure we can get good unionized jobs out of this process so we can build the economy here and solve our housing crisis at the same time. Let’s turn this good idea into a great one. I’d like to see that.

This bill is looking at bringing in enhanced regulatory authority to allow a second or third home on a property by removing barriers that can be thrown up by municipalities such as restricting the number of bedrooms that can be in a home or mandating that there need to be three parking spots for each unit. There are a lot of things municipalities can do to really throw up roadblocks. I think this is a good idea too. We like it.

In Bill 23, this government made the decision to allow three homes as of right on a residential lot, and now, in this bill, the government is removing some of the barriers that some municipalities throw up to stop that from happening. We think that’s a good idea. What I wish was in this bill was fourplexes. I know a lot of the Conservative MPPs like fourplexes, and I bet there is this internal conversation that’s happening within your party, when you’re looking at each other and going, “Oh, my God. We’re being called NIMBYs. I can’t believe it. How can they be calling us NIMBYs? They’re the NIMBYs. I don’t get it.” I would really like it, in this bill, if in committee all the Conservative MPPs that I know support this idea had their conversations with the Premier and you introduced an amendment to allow fourplexes as of right.