What I noticed about the Get It Done Act is the move to make it easier to expropriate farmland to build new transportation projects. I think about Highway 413, a $6-billion highway that will be travelling through some of the most fertile, productive farmland in North America. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. And studies show that it might save people a minute in their commute times.

If we’re looking at helping people get from A to B, what other transit or transportation solutions would you like to see in Bill 162?

Thank you to the member opposite for your presentation, from Mississauga–Lakeshore. My question is about this government’s decision to once again redraw urban boundaries in areas that are abutting prime farmland. I’m talking about Halton, Waterloo, Peel, York and Wellington county.

The government’s own housing affordability task force said very clearly that we do not need access to new land to meet our housing targets. Given that, why is this government moving forward with redrawing municipal boundaries to open up farmland to unnecessary development?

Thank you so much for that question. Removing tolls on roads that don’t have tolls is not going to result in people having more money to pay the bills, to buy food at the supermarket and to pay their rent at the start of the month. It’s just not going to.

We’ve got a provincial budget coming up shortly. My hope is that in this provincial budget we see some real investments in public services, we see some real measures to address the affordability crisis, because what I’m seeing in the Get It Done bill is not going to cut it, is not going to make things more affordable.

There are better things that we can do. There are better things we can invest in to help people get from A to B at an affordable price and spend time with their families or doing what they want to do in their spare time, in their free time—investing in transit, doing smart urban planning so people live near where they work and play so that they don’t have to spend an hour and a half in a car in the first place, really thinking about where we’re going to put our employment hubs so that we’re thinking it through and people don’t just have to come to downtown Toronto for that job. There’s a lot we can do. I don’t think Highway 413 is the answer.

Thank you, Speaker.

When we’re talking about building more affordable housing, the project that comes to mind is the 59-modular-home project in the MPP for Willowdale’s riding. That project has been stuck in the lands tribunal for two years now.

Interjection.

That’s what I’d like to see.

And then when we’re talking about Highway 413—there are a lot of people who have extremely long commutes in the GTHA, because where their school is is very far from where they live and work and play. It just takes them a long time to get anywhere. It is true that, when we look at all the cities and the congestion rates around North America, Toronto is one of the worst. There is a lot that we can do to fix the transportation and the transit issues that we have. I don’t think building Highway 413 is going to solve our transportation issues. When you look at the amount of money that is going to be spent on that highway and the amount of time that people will save while driving on it—it’s not 30 minutes; it’s a minute. It’s not going to save people time.

When we’re talking about investing in new infrastructure projects to ensure that our economy works and that people can get from A to B at an affordable price and have choice, it’s essential that we do smart urban planning and we build more homes near where people work and play and go to school. It’s essential that we invest in public transportation, like the GO—we’re still waiting for all-day, two-way GO—and we need investment in local municipal transit systems. I don’t see that, and that’s what we need.

I’m pleased that I was given the opportunity to speak on this bill, and I welcome your questions.

Let’s go back to Bill 23. There are some measures in Bill 23 that I thought made sense; there are a lot that didn’t. One measure that I liked was the decision by the Conservative government to allow three residential homes on one residential lot. That was a good decision. We are asking for our government to go further and allow fourplexes, because our housing crisis is so acute, and it is also extremely important in areas like the city of Toronto to really encourage the kind of density that we need near transit stations so that people can get to where they want to go, live near public transit. Unfortunately, the city of Toronto’s official plan—we’ve been waiting for a very long period of time for the Conservative government to approve it, and the city of Toronto’s official plan does allow for increased density. So I’m looking forward to seeing you say yes to that.

There’s this idea with making legislation where you measure twice and cut once. What we see with this government is that they measure and cut at the same time. Maybe they don’t even measure at all; they just cut, cut, cut and see what happens. We’ve seen this with Bill 124, the unconstitutional wage caps. We have seen this with the heavy use of the “notwithstanding” clause to interfere in the right for people to collectively bargain. We have seen this with the greenbelt act. We have seen this with them dissolving and now reforming the Peel region. It happens again and again and again. That’s what concerns me. You have a lot of power. You have a lot of responsibility. Use it wisely.

If we are going to ensure that people stay here in Ontario and raise a family here, live their lives here, then we really need to address the housing affordability crisis and make it possible again for people to rent and buy a home that they can afford.

I’m very pleased to be standing up here this afternoon on a Thursday to speak to the Conservatives’ new bill called the Get It Done Act. When I read the bill, when I think about what this bill is going to get done, I think this bill is going to spur the construction of expensive and very large single-family homes that very few people can afford and it is going to make it easier and quicker to build a multi-million dollar highway, Highway 413, that no one is recommending be built. I’m also concerned about what this bill reveals about this Conservative government’s terrible approach to addressing climate action because, instead of moving forward with a price on pollution, this government wants to politicize action on climate.

I want to first talk about sprawl. I feel like I’m watching the same movie again and again and again. When I open up this bill, Bill 162, and I look at it again, what I see is the same movie playing out once again. The movie that we are talking about is the move by the Conservatives to meddle with planning processes again and redraw municipal boundaries of Halton and Waterloo and Peel and York and Wellington county, areas that abut some of the most productive farmland in North America. They have rezoned this land in order to green-light development. That is what is happening in this bill.

This is a government that is being investigated by the RCMP for allegedly making secret, sweetheart deals with a very small handful of developers to rezone their land so they can make a whole lot of cash extremely quickly at the expense of the environment, at the expense of farmers and at the expense of the greenbelt. It looks to me like this bill is going to be doing the same thing, but you’re hoping that having the municipality officially request it makes it all look okay and it makes all the dodgy stuff go away.

We are already seeing reporters go through the rezoning that is now going to be happening because the municipal plans have been rewritten and then rewritten again and then rewritten again and now, they’re rewritten again. Reporters are already going through this new rezoning that’s happening and they’re seeing some—I don’t know—interesting stuff.

For instance—I’m going to read at this point—there is a residential development in Caledon that will now proceed on a patch of green space in an “island” of housing in a sea of warehouses. This land—surprise, surprise—is owned by big donors to the Conservative Party. Okay. Coincidence?

Interjection: I think not.

Interjection.

Okay. Protections will now be removed from agricultural land to build 120,000-square-foot industrial building with an approximately 400-to-500 truck-and-trailer parking near the future Highway 413. So, when we’re talking about land speculation, maybe this could be it. Once again, the land is owned by a Conservative Party donor. Is it a coincidence? Let’s let the RCMP decide.

Then there’s a golf course that is now going to be rezoned to allow for residential development, and this golf course is owned by—

Interjection.

The golf course is owned by a PC Party donor with links to the De Gasperis family. Once again: Is this a coincidence? Let’s let the RCMP investigate and find out, because chances are, they will. It looks kind of fishy.

My question, and this is a question that a lot of Ontarians are asking, is that is this government making decisions to help the people of Ontario or is this government making decisions to help their developer-donor friends? Which is it? Because that’s the question that a lot of people are asking. Is this the Get It Done bill or is this the “go to prison” bill? I don’t know.

What I would like to hope for is I would like this government to move forward on the kind of laws and policies that are going to address our housing affordability and our housing supply crisis. That’s what I would like to see. That’s what I would like to see in this bill. That’s what I would have liked to see in Bill 23 and a whole lot of the other bills that you’re introducing.

When we’re talking about fixing the housing supply and housing affordability crisis, I think about the recent bill that the leader of the Green Party introduced—a plan that is also in our own election platform, that we advocate for ourselves, which is to allow fourplexes on residential lots in towns and cities across Ontario. Three parties support it. Where are you? When we’re talking about building more housing for Ontarians—families, newcomers, students, people who want to downsize, people who want to buy their first home—building more homes and apartments in areas that are already zoned for development will give people more affordable housing options to rent and buy. And this government, when we ask them this question, it’s absolute crickets.

How about increasing density on transit routes, building more apartment buildings near transit routes? This government has given a whole lot of good talk about that, but the city of Toronto has been waiting two long years for this government to approve Toronto’s official plan so that Toronto can build more density as well as affordable housing near transit stations. We’re still waiting for that. I would have really liked to have seen that in this bill.

And it would be amazing if this government fast-tracked affordable housing projects—

My question is to the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills. Bill 23, just to be clear, has removed the fee that developers have to pay to affordable housing projects. Every development no longer has to pay the fee for affordable housing projects, and that part of Bill 23 is in force. What that has meant is that municipalities have lost funding for affordable housing and shelter at a time when we have a homelessness crisis. The city of Toronto has lost $200 million in funding just for affordable housing and shelters.

My question to the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills is, what is this government going to do to make municipalities whole so there’s funding available for affordable housing?

I’d like to say hi to two members of our excellent staff team, Kirsten Snider and Madeleine Vogelaar. Welcome. Hello. They do excellent work.

My question is to the member for Spadina–Fort York. You mentioned that the BC government is taking a really bold and sensible approach to the housing crisis, and we see that starts in BC are up by 11%. At the same time, housing starts in Ontario are actually going down. What is the BC government doing right? What lessons could the Conservatives learn from what the BC government is doing?