The government’s Housing Affordability Task Force was unequivocal that access to land is not the reason why we are having difficulty meeting our housing supply targets. Southern Ontario has more than enough land available to build the housing that we need for current and future Ontarians in land already zoned for development.

Environmental Defence has done a study looking at people’s enthusiasm for increasing density, so building more townhomes, duplexes and triplexes in existing neighbourhoods, and mid-rise buildings across transit corridors, and their polling clearly shows that people are pretty in support of that. I also find that in my riding: People want their children to move out of their basement and live in the neighbourhood that they grew up in, and they understand that we have a housing affordability crisis.

When we’re talking about building permits, in the city of Toronto, they approve about 30,000 building permits a year, and about 15,000 are done, so there is a discrepancy there that I think needs to be addressed, at least in the riding that I represent.

Thank you to the member for Oshawa—

Interjection.

Yes, okay—but what you’ve done is, you’ve made it so that the adjudicator can award costs. What that means is, the losing party is likely to pay costs to the winning party. What that means, for all intents and purposes, is that well-off groups can use the land tribunal but citizens’ groups cannot; they’ll think twice, and that’s very concerning. That passed, too, which is very unfortunate.

I have a request of this government. This is the government’s vision for how we should address the housing crisis. This is not going to address our housing affordability crisis. It’s going to harm democracy, public services, our farmland, municipal budgets and rental affordability. We do not need to sacrifice everything we hold dear to help developers and your wealthy developer donor friends.

There are other ways to address our housing affordability crisis. We can say yes to government investment in affordable homes. We certainly say yes to building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. We say yes to zoning reform so that we can build more townhomes, duplexes and triplexes in existing neighbourhoods. We say yes to increasing density near transit so we can build those walkable, transit-oriented neighbourhoods, those neighbourhoods people want to live in. We can build them too. We also say yes to building on public land so we can build affordable housing on public land, which is something this government is not doing. We should say yes and we are saying yes to real rent controls to make housing affordable, and we’re saying yes to addressing the homelessness crisis and the affordable housing crisis and the supportive housing crisis that exists in all our municipalities by saying yes to rent control and yes to building affordable housing and supportive housing.

Housing is a human right. We should be housing based on need. We should be building housing for Ontarians.

When it comes to reducing and eliminating development fees for co-ops and non-market housing, that is a measure that we support and we are pleased to see that in the bill.

I rise again to speak to Bill 23. I want to summarize my take on the bill, and then we’re going to go into what I heard in committee, and then, in the final section, we are going to go into the amendments that we introduced, that the independents introduced, that the Liberals introduced and that the government introduced, and then I’m going to conclude.

So, in short, the government’s bill, Bill 23, claims that it’s all about fixing the housing affordability crisis. That is categorically false. There is no evidence that Bill 23 will lower home prices. There is no evidence that Bill 23 will lower rent prices. What we do know for sure is that Bill 23 will harm democracy. It will pave over the farmland. It will impact the greenbelt. It will impact public services and the quality of services that we have in our municipalities, and it will make life more expensive for renters in cities. I’m very concerned about it.

This government likes to say that they’re solving the housing affordability crisis. When I look at this government’s track record over the last four and a half years, the government’s record at helping people find a home that meets their needs, that they can afford, is abysmal. I give it an F. During the government’s reign, the cost of buying or renting a home has reached record heights. The Conservatives have betrayed the Canadian dream that a good home can be found if you work hard. In fact, the Conservatives have betrayed the basic human right that if you work very hard, you will find a home that you can afford to rent, and if you did, the government has now made it easier for a developer to kick you out and convert your rental into a luxury condo. That’s what Bill 23 will allow to happen.

In committee, we heard from such a broad spectrum of society, such a broad spectrum of Ontario. We heard from municipalities. We heard from regional municipalities. We heard from renters and housing advocates. We heard from environmentalists and conservation authorities. We heard from citizens who were very concerned about their democratic rights being threatened. And the overall message we heard was, “Stop. Let’s look at the unintended consequences of this bill. Let’s analyze the consequences of this bill, and let’s stop.” There are better ways to address our housing shortage than what this bill has planned.

I’m going to move into what I heard in committee, and I do want to start off by saying thank you to all the people that sent in written submissions; there were hundreds of you. Thank you to the people that signed up to speak. There were over a hundred people that signed up to speak. Not all of them got the chance to do so. We did call for additional days of hearings, so we could make sure this sweeping land use planning bill had the proper consultation that it deserves, and this government turned those motions to extend hearings down.

I do want to summarize some of the submissions that I heard in committee. The first one that I would like to share is from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. They were very concerned by Bill 23. They used the word “radical.” I’ve never heard the Association of Municipalities of Ontario use the word “radical,” but they did in their submission, because they’re so concerned about this bill. They said, “The province has offered no evidence that the radical elements of the bill will improve housing affordability. It is more likely that the bill will enhance the profitability of the development industry at the expense of taxpayers and the natural environment.”

They went on and itemized the financial impact of Bill 23 on municipalities across Ontario, and the analysis is scary. Their preliminary analysis indicates that Bill 23, if enacted, would reduce the municipal resources available to service new development by more than $5.1 billion over the next nine years. That is a huge amount of money, and that’s a huge amount of money at a time when we need to improve and expand upon our infrastructure so that we can have the services we need for current Ontarians and new Ontarians. We’re heading in the wrong direction.

They also talked about this bill’s impact on parks, and the reason why I bring up parkland dedication is that what Bill 23 is doing is it reduces the amount of space that a development needs to allocate to parks, or the funding that will be allocated to parks, by approximately half. As an individual who lives in a riding that is very dense—we have one of the densest ridings across Canada, along with Toronto Centre, Etobicoke–Lakeshore and Spadina–Fort York—the idea of having MPPs that do not represent Toronto decide how much park space is going to be allocated in Toronto is really quite shocking, especially at a time when more and more people are living in apartments, the size of apartments is shrinking and park space is that lifeline to get that break, to walk your dog, to play with your kids, to just relax. That’s being cut by this bill. It’s a shame, and they were very angry that they were not given the chance to speak to committee.

Another submission: This is one of the first submissions and one of the most interesting submissions that we received. This is from Carolyn Whitzman. She has worked with the CMHC before. She’s an expert adviser to the Housing Assessment Resource Tools project. Like me, there were some things in Bill 23 that she likes. She was fairly balanced in her approach. She, like us, agrees that we need to build 1.5 million new homes to meet the needs of current and future Ontarians, but she recommends that we not just focus on homes as a target but have sub-targets so we can meet the actual needs of Ontarians who intend to live in the homes they buy or rent, raise children in these homes, have pets and retire, as opposed to seeing them as a place for profit. She is very focused on ensuring we build homes for Ontarians to live in.

She breaks it down about how this government needs to have sub-targets that focus on homes based on income and homes based on square footage, so we’re not just building those 600-square-foot condos, we’re not just building those 3,000-square-foot multi-million-dollar McMansions on farmland, but we’re really thinking about the kind of homes that students need, that low-income people need, that people who want to downsize need, that families need. In her analysis she estimates that, based on need, we are short about 748,000 homes right now, and overwhelmingly, the people who need homes are people who are poor, people who are working poor, people who are homeless, people who are moderate income and people who are middle income.

When I look at Bill 23, I see a lot of talk about addressing the housing supply crisis. I see nothing about actually drilling into the details to build homes that meet the need based on income and size and who is actually going to live in them. I encourage you to look at Caroline Whitzman’s analysis because it is excellent.

This is another submission we received. This from the Toronto Atmospheric Fund. The minute that Bill 23 came out they immediately sounded the alarm and said, “Oh, my goodness. Bill 23, by eliminating site plan control on buildings 10 units or less, guts green building standards because it means municipalities have very little control over green building standards.”

Green building standards are really important. That is the future for us. That is where our building stock should go. It enables us to build well-made, energy-efficient homes where our energy bills are cheaper, where we can control stormwater runoff, where we can encourage the growth of our tree canopy. It’s our future. But in order for these sustainable design standards, these green building standards, to be encouraged—this is the building industry asking for this. We shouldn’t gut the green building standards.

These are the municipalities that already have sustainable design standards. There’s Toronto, Ottawa, Brampton, Ajax, Whitby, Pickering and Markham. They are very concerned. They are very concerned.

Then there was a submission from the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness. I found this to be a very good submission because it talks about something that this government never talks about—I never hear them talk about homelessness—when we are talking about Bill 23. A lot of this submission is very rational and factual, but what really struck me was their closing paragraph, where, taking away the statistics, I could see the desperation and the urgency of the person who wrote this.

I’m going to read it to you: “I’ll close by sharing that our member agencies include homeless shelters and outreach organizations that support people living in encampments.” The housing sector does not cater to these people. “It is dire out there. Shelters are appealing to the public for donations of tents to give out when their beds are full. They are seeing people who never dreamed they would one day lose their housing; people who have worked their whole life, recently evicted, terrified, being handed a tent and given advice on where to pitch it to avoid police and bylaw officers. The number of newly homeless people is alarming, and our shelter system is already completely overwhelmed as the inflow into homelessness greatly outnumbers our ability to move people from shelter into affordable housing. We must collectively work diligently to create affordable housing options for all, including people living in our lowest-income households. Thank you.”

I was really struck by that paragraph because that is the reality of not just what’s happening in Ottawa but is happening in many cities all across Ontario. I don’t see that being addressed in Bill 23.

This was a statement from the Ontario Public Health Association. They also didn’t get the chance to speak, and their submission was quite comprehensive. They also talked about the impact of Bill 23 on green building standards and sustainable design for our building stock, which is up there with transportation and building that’s contributing to our greenhouse gas emissions.

They also talked about the impact of this government’s decision to gut the ability of conservation authorities to protect us in extreme weather events. They said:

“As noted in the Independent Review of the 2019 Flood Events in Ontario report commissioned by the government of Ontario, the first core component of emergency management is prevention, which includes ‘... actions taken to prevent flood-related emergencies or disasters from occurring, and includes land use planning and regulatory restrictions to keep development out of the floodplains and other hazardous areas.’”

That is exactly what conservation authorities and upper-tier municipalities do, and this government, in Bill 23, has decided to severely curtail their ability to do our job to protect us. It’s very concerning.

Next up, I have the FONTRA, the Federation of North Toronto Residents’ Associations. They also didn’t have the chance to speak—one of many that were not able to—and they were very concerned about it. They talked about the impact of climate change. They mentioned, and it’s good to mention this, that at the very same time Bill 23 is being debated, the UN Climate Change Conference is happening right now where the UN is sending out dire warnings, saying if we don’t turn the U-boat, we are in for a very difficult future. Green building standards are our future; protecting our natural environment in our greenbelt and our farmland, that is our future. And this bill threatens all of that.

Next, I have ABC Residents Association, which is an association that represents the Yorkville area, an area of huge development. For them, parks really matter because many of the buildings in their area are 20 to 40 storeys high. Most people live in condos. For them, parks are critically important, and the parks there are small, but they’re important. They’re very concerned about the elimination of park space and green space in our natural environment. They’re very concerned about it. They’re also concerned about the restrictions in development fees, which I’ll get to with other submissions.

Next, I have Friends of the Golden Horseshoe. This was another loose organization that was also not given the chance to speak in committee. They are very concerned, and what they said is—I’ll read it out:

“In fact, none of the following elements proposed in Bill 23 would do anything to increase housing supply in Ontario:

“—elimination of upper-tier planning

“—elimination of conservation authority participation in watershed planning

“—forced reductions in development charges

“—cutting developer parkland requirements in half

“—taking lands out of the greenbelt....”

The reason why I bring these up as examples of measures in this bill that have nothing to do with addressing housing supply is that your government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force essentially said the same thing. Conservation authorities are not the issue. The greenbelt is not the issue. Access to land is not the issue when it comes to addressing our housing affordability crisis and our housing supply crisis, and the Friends of the Golden Horseshoe area agree with that.

Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario: Douglas Kwan, one of the leaders at ACTO, came and spoke in committee. I was also struck by what he had to say. He raised an issue which is very important in my riding, which is the government’s decision in schedule 1 and schedule 4 to eliminate the rental replacement bylaw. Now, I heard a lot of talk from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that they’re just consulting. I don’t believe that for one second, because you just gutted Ottawa’s rental replacement bylaw. And it looks like you’re going to be gutting the city of Toronto’s rental replacement bylaw, Mississauga’s rental replacement bylaw, and you’re going to stop Hamilton and Ottawa and all municipalities across Ontario to protect renters as well.

Douglas Kwan talked about what is happening in the rental market right now. He talked about how we are currently losing affordable rental units at a much higher rate than we are creating them. He goes on to explain that between 2016 and 2021, units renting for under $1,000 have decreased by 36%. These are those affordable units—they’re usually not very well maintained, but these are more affordable units, almost always in buildings and purpose-built rentals. Yet, at the same time, in this five-year period, there has been an increase in luxury rentals renting for over $3,000, and that segment of the market has increased by 87%.

What we are seeing in our rental market today is a transfer of wealth from those who don’t have a lot to investors who already have a hell of a lot. It’s contributing significantly to income and wealth inequality, and it’s happening right here in our housing sector and the rental market. What I fear when we are talking about this rental replacement bylaw and eviscerating it is that that’s just going to speed up that process of making rent more unaffordable for more Ontarians, because it makes it very easy for a developer to look at a building, a purpose-built rental, in an area that’s already being zoned for height, and say, “I’m going to demolish that building and I’m going to convert it to luxury rentals or I’m going to convert it to a luxury condo.” Because that’s exactly what’s happening in my riding already. The only difference is that renters are given protection and they get their right of return guaranteed, so they can move into that larger building once construction is complete. Some units are affordable, and then there are additional units which are sold off to ensure that the developer can make their profit. That’s all going to change now. Developers just get to make their profit, renters get to lose their homes, and affordable rental units and rental affordability in general is going to decline. It’s very concerning.

Conservation Ontario: This organization represents conservation authorities all across Ontario. In their submission—they’re one of the people that came and spoke, I believe in either Markham or Brampton. They spoke about how the proposed changes in Bill 23 really will make it very difficult for conservation authorities to do their job. They are concerned that this bill places new responsibilities on municipalities for natural hazards and natural resources that may lead to inefficiencies, uncertainties and delays in the development review process—they’re being polite. It weakens the ability of conservation authorities to protect people and property from natural hazards, and it reduces critical natural infrastructure, like wetlands and green spaces, that reduce flooding and protect waters in our lakes and rivers. Next time your basement floods, blame a Conservative. If Bill 23 passes, next time your basement floods because of an extreme weather event, blame a Conservative.

This was an interesting one: the city of Toronto. The city of Toronto is understandably very concerned about Bill 23, and they had some very alarming statistics in their report. This was one of the first reports that I saw, but I have found over the last few weeks that other municipalities have come out with similar reports where they’ve documented the impact of Bill 23 on their finances and their ability to provide infrastructure and their ability to provide services. I’m going to read out a few things that the city of Toronto identified:

It will reduce municipal revenues needed to fund growth-related infrastructure. Development fees partially pay, just partially pay, for the costs of providing infrastructure—the capital costs. They do not provide the operating costs; they provide the capital costs. When that is gone, that infrastructure is going to have to be paid for by someone else, which means there will either be tax hikes or service cuts.

They quote, “Without an offsetting funding source, the proposal would impact the city’s ability to provide servicing such as new roads, transit, water services, community centres, libraries and parkland to support new population and create complete communities.”

Once again, if your library is no longer open on a Friday, blame a Conservative. If there’s a pothole on a main road that is not getting fixed week after week, blame a Conservative. If transit service in your area has been cut because they need to deal with this development fee shortfall, blame a Conservative, because all these roads will lead back to Bill 23. It is that radical and that drastic. And I’m sure you’re hearing it from your municipalities as well. It can’t just be the city of Toronto that’s concerned and is complaining.

What the city of Toronto also was concerned about is the impact of Bill 23 on the city of Toronto’s innovative new inclusionary zoning laws. Now, the city of Toronto passed an inclusionary zoning law recently after years of consultation and talking to experts, doing studies, communicating with developers, working out if it’s worthwhile, if it will impact development, what it could look like, how many affordable homes are required. It was a long, negotiated, careful process with extensive public consultation.

They came up with a proposal that was meant to go into force just a few months ago. And our inclusionary zoning law required developers that were building buildings of 100 units or more to have a percentage of homes in that building that were affordable for 99 years, so affordable for a long period of time. It’s considered—it’s a definition of permanent. They also created a definition of affordability that is based on income, which means a home is affordable based on the income of the individual who moves in, essentially. It’s for the area.

What that means, for all practical purposes, is that a one-bedroom unit—an affordable-to-own one-bedroom unit—would be about $190,000, which would mean a household earning $58,000 per year could afford it. That’s the “own” piece; there’s also a “rental” piece. And it would be permanently. Well, this government has decided to upend the definition of affordability and say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, we’re no longer going to base affordability on what the individual who is going to live there can pay; we’re going to base affordability on the market,” which is utterly unaffordable right now. It’s one of the most unaffordable markets in the world.

So the city of Toronto crunched the numbers and said, “Okay, what is the government’s new definition of affordability?” They explain it here: It’s only for 25 years, not 99, so we’re just kicking the can down to the next generation, and the definition of affordability for that one-bedroom unit—it’s different levels depending on the size of the unit and if it’s own or rent—is $444,000 now for that one-bedroom condo, requiring a household annual income of at least $130,000.

Now, the reason why I go into those details is to point out that Bill 23 is going to be giving a development fee exemption for homes to be built that are not affordable for even middle-income Ontarians. They are not affordable for middle-income Ontarians. And at the same time, you’re drastically weakening Toronto’s inclusionary zoning law that already required a much better definition of affordability and a much higher quota for how many homes in a big building needed to be affordable. You’re just saying, “No, no, no. We are going to give development fee cuts to developers and we are going to build unaffordable homes.” That’s the essence of it and it’s a shame. It’s a shame.

The city of Toronto also expressed concern that the province can override decisions on official plan matters now, based on Bill 23, cutting the amount of parkland space available, threatening the city’s ability to protect natural heritage—very concerning; all very concerning.

CELA, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, expressed similar concerns to what conservation authorities raised. They’re very concerned about the impact of this bill on farmland, on our natural environment. Their overall concern is that this is doubling down on very expensive and unsustainable suburban sprawl, and it’s ignoring the kind of solutions that we really need, that we absolutely need, to address our housing crisis. It was very concerning.

Next, I have the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, an excellent group that does a lot of work helping tenants across Canada now; it’s extremely important. They submitted and they also spoke in committee. They expressed great concern about the province’s decision to gut the rental replacement bylaw, and they also pointed out the level of income and wealth that renters have compared to homeowners, which is also important to point out. Renters, as a whole, earn about half as much as homeowners do, so we are talking about people who are acutely affected by the inflationary crisis we have right now and the affordability crisis we have right now. Bill 23 is going to make their housing costs even worse. It’s very concerning.

We had Hemson Consulting come in and do a deep dive into the impact of the development fee cuts. Thank you very much for that.

We had the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority come in and talk about the impact of the bill. They had similar things to say about the bill—similar to what Conservation Ontario had to say—and they proposed amendments, which I will go into shortly, to take out the worst parts of schedule 2. Stay tuned: The government rejected those amendments, but I’ll get to them in a minute.

Then we had some recent articles and submissions that reminded the MPPs in committee about the reason why we established conservation authorities in the first place. I would like to read this to you: The conservation authorities, which you’re gutting, “were actually created under a Progressive Conservative government, led by Premier George Drew, in 1946. At the time, habitat degradation by settlers was starting to take a toll. Much of it was due to deforestation....

“Then came Hurricane Hazel in 1954, which washed away homes that had been built on flood plains and killed 81 Ontarians.” As a result, “the province expanded conservation authorities’ power, tasking them with monitoring waterways for potential floods....

“Today, the province has 36 conservation authorities, and all but five are in heavily-developed” areas in “southern Ontario.” Their job is to protect us from extreme weather events like Hurricane Hazel, and you’re limiting their ability to do that—a Progressive Conservative government.

Now I’m going to talk about committee. There were a lot of amendments introduced in committee during clause-by-clause. We went through this on Monday night. There were amendments that were introduced by our side and by the independent MPP for Beaches–East York, as well as the government side, because I think they’re very quickly realizing that there are a lot of flaws with Bill 23 and a lot of unintended consequences. I’m going to go through those amendments now.

We introduced an amendment to improve the rental replacement bylaw so we can protect renters—lower-income, moderate-income people in our city, who run our city—not just from demolition and conversion, but also in situations where they’re renovicted. We are in a situation today where there’s been a sharp rise in illegal evictions. It’s very concerning. People living in a home get a notice saying they have to move out—because of a renoviction. Maybe they contest it at the Landlord and Tenant Board, if they want to wait two years, or they give up and they move out because they assume they’re going to lose.

The problem is that maybe they walk by, down that street, a year later, and they realize that the landlord had no intention of renovating that property; they just wanted to move that rent-controlled tenant out and move another tenant in. That’s happening with increasing frequency, not just in Toronto. The housing crisis has spread, as we all know. It’s happening in cities all over Ontario.

So we proposed a bylaw, a motion change, saying that tenants whose building is being demolished or converted or undergoing renovation deserve to have compensation, and they deserve to have their right to return to that unit at about the same rent enforced by municipalities. It would give them protection and make our city affordable. The government turned down that motion, but we will continue to fight for that change, because it’s essential to keep our city affordable.

We also introduced amendments to maintain the green building standards in Toronto and other municipalities. The reason why we felt it was important to introduce amendments to protect the green building standards is because green building standards ensure that we get well-maintained and energy-efficient homes. It means our energy bills are lower. It means that we can protect our birds and our species. We can reduce waste. We can reduce stormwater run-off. We can reduce the heat island effect. It’s very important. It is our future. Government rejected the independents’ motions and our motions.

And then, interestingly, they proposed their own. This took me a minute, because I’m like, “Oh my gosh. Is the government actually going to care about green building standards?” We read this. We sent it out to stakeholders. They had lawyers look at it, and they came back and they concluded that, no, the government’s motions to allow municipalities to regulate green building standards do not go far enough to allow municipalities to do it. We have raised this issue with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

What these motions do is they will allow municipalities to manage green roofs—oversee green roofs—and it will allow municipalities to oversee landscaping. We are not sure yet whether it will allow municipalities to oversee bird-friendly design; we’re hearing mixed reports on that. But what we know for certain is that green building standards in municipalities cannot proceed in their current form if Bill 23 passes as it is.

I am hopeful that the government will delay proclaiming some of these motions so that municipalities can continue to oversee green building standards, and I’m looking forward to the government, hopefully, introducing a provincial green building standard in the future. I’m very much looking forward to that. Hopeful, I’m going to be hopeful.

We also introduced an amendment to bring in use-it-or-lose-it building policies. This came from municipalities who approached us and said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, we’re getting a little sick and tired of being seen as sole culprit for why we’re not moving housing supply quickly, so we would like to have the province introduce a build-it-or-lose-it policy,” which means that if a developer is given a permit to build and they’re given the green light to build, yet they sit on it instead of moving forward on it, through no fault but their own, then over a period of time, if they don’t build, they should lose it. The reason why is because we want building permits, once they’re given out, for homes to be built, and that’s the purpose of the use-it-or-lose-it policy. The government rejected that. You should rethink that.

Then we also introduced amendments just to delay the proclamation of the rental replacement bylaw, because it is so bad. It is so bad. They didn’t like that one either, which is a real pity.

Then we got to schedule 2, which is the conservation authorities piece. Oh my God, schedule 2 is so bad. So we introduced some measures to try to move from horrible to just bad. We introduced two key measures. One, we wanted conservation authorities to retain the right to work with municipalities to engage in land use planning and protect the natural environment, because right now, with Bill 23, conservation authorities are banned from taking a contract with a municipality to do this planning work for them. They’re banned; they’re explicitly banned from doing it, even though municipalities, we’re hearing time and time again, don’t have the expertise to do this work and conservation authorities do, and municipalities for many decades now have relied on conservation authorities to do this work. So we said, “Okay. Let’s at least give municipalities the option to contract with conservation authorities if they want.” You rejected that—very concerning.

Then we introduced some motions saying that, look, conservation authorities should not just have the right to look at a few pieces of land use planning—flooding, erosion, dynamic beaches—but they should also look at pollution and conservation of land, because if you get that holistic approach, then you can actually do your planning job well.

It gets a little complicated, but this is what conservation authorities were asking for. We wrote it up in a motion. You folks looked at it and said, “No, thank you. Suburban sprawl, that’s what we want to do. Flooded basements, that’s the Conservative way. No, we’re not doing that.”

So now we introduced some more motions to bring in a real, strong definition of affordable housing. If we are looking at giving development fee reductions, then we need to make sure that those development fee reductions are for houses that are truly affordable. And this is what many municipalities already do. The Open Door program at the city of Toronto already offers significant development fee reductions for homes that are affordable.

We introduced some amendments calling for affordable housing to be based on income, not just the market; an income-based definition, where the rent does not exceed 30% of gross annual household income, or where the mortgage, if you’re doing a rent-to-own program, doesn’t exceed 30% of gross household income. That’s what we called for. We also called for the affordable housing definition to move from just being for 25 years to being permanent. The government rejected these, even though the provincial policy statement already has these affordable housing definitions. So all we’re really asking you to do is just use the definitions that are already on the Ontario government’s books—nope; didn’t like that, not at all, which is a real pity.

Then we moved into development fees—huge issues with development fees. We introduced this motion calling on the Ontario government and saying, “Look, if you’re going to cut development fees and put municipalities into a financial hole, then come up with a provincial program to fund the loss so that the municipalities can repair roads and make sure that we have transit service; make sure our schools aren’t overcrowded; make sure we have parks nearby; make sure that we can deal with stormwater runoff, because our infrastructure system and our sewage system can handle it.” Nope, nope, nope; they didn’t like that one either. It’s very interesting. No wonder you’re getting tons and tons of emails and calls from councillors right now saying, “What are you doing?” It’s very concerning. That was another one.

Then we introduced a motion saying, “Please, please, please delay proclamation. Give us some time to think about this bill; it’s very concerning.” They didn’t like that, either.

Okay, I’m going to be a little positive for a minute. I’m going to talk about schedule 5. I kind of like schedule 5. Schedule 5 amends the HCRA, which is the Home Construction Regulatory Authority, and this is a regulatory authority that oversees builders and developers who are building new homes. If you’re a first-time homebuyer or a homebuyer and you’re buying that home, maybe in preconstruction—it’s a new home—and you move in and everything is great, you’re not even going to ever want to call the HCRA because you’re going to be nice and happy living in your nice, good home. But if you’ve got some defects—maybe you’ve got mould or flooding or you’ve found out that you’ve actually got a second-hand furnace when you thought you were buying a new one—then it’s the HCRA that you call to seek recourse and to make sure these shoddy builders are held to account.

It is good that the government has decided to increase fines for developers and builders that don’t do the right thing. Good; I’m happy about that. But I also think that we can go further, and the reason why I think we can go further is because consumer advocates are telling us to go further. So we introduced some amendments calling on the government to go further.

We asked for the HCRA, the regulatory authority, to have some citizens on the board so the regulatory authority is not just a developer/builder-run board overseeing builders—you can see the conflict of interest there—but also it has some citizens’ groups there who can look out for consumers. The government didn’t like that. I’m hoping you’re going to put that in another bill, because this is really good stuff.

We called for a ban on people who have a clear conflict of interest sitting on the HCRA board so this regulatory authority can do its job. They didn’t like that one, either. That’s a pity. I think that’s really good.

Then we called for the HCRA to be overseen by the Ombudsman—standard practice for a good regulatory authority. We’ve got this place that people can complain to, the Ombudsman, if the regulatory authority is not doing its job. Nope, you didn’t like that. I actually think this one is really good. It doesn’t cost you money. It means first-time homebuyers—it’s more likely they’re going to get a well-built home; good.

And then we introduced an amendment, and I really like this one too, which is to have, essentially, a builder directory on the HCRA’s website. So if an individual is going out there, looking for a home, they can go to the HRCA website and look to see that builder’s record. If they’re a builder that has a checkered history, they can maybe think twice about buying a home in pre-construction from that builder, and instead, they can buy a home from a builder that has a very good track record. That’s a carrot-oriented approach which would ensure that we’re more likely to get a well-built home. You didn’t like this one either, but I actually think it’s really good, and I do hope that you bring that in future government bills—because apparently you’re going to bring out one a year.

I’m going to keep going on. Then we introduced some amendments calling on upper-tier municipalities to regain their right to plan. The reason why this is so important is because upper-tier municipalities see a much larger area. They’ve got all of these smaller municipalities in their area, and they make sure that there is regional coordination when there’s planning. That means we’re more likely to get sensible, well-planned infrastructure, because they can see the big picture, and we’re more likely to get less sprawl. But instead, this government was like, “No, no, no. We’re going to download responsibility for planning to all these little municipalities.” When we do that, the problem is we’re more likely to get expensive, poorly planned and environmentally destructive sprawl. I’m very concerned about that. You rejected that motion.

Then we introduced a motion taking some of the insight that Carolyn Whitzman had around housing targets. We said, “Okay, so we’ve got this 1.5-million-housing-starts goal. Let’s make sure those homes are for Ontarians who want to raise children in them, retire in them—people who intend to live in them. Let’s also add some sub-targets that really focus on building the kinds of homes that are affordable for different levels of income and building homes of different square footage size, so we’re not just building big and we’re not just building too tiny, but we’re building the missing middle, the 1,400-square-foots, the kinds of homes that were the starter homes in the 1950s and the 1960s that we don’t build anymore.” They’re actually cheaper to build, and they’re what we actually need for students, for people who want to downsize, for families, for affordable homes. Those are the real gaps in our housing sector right now. So we thought, “Let’s put some evidence-based decision-making into those housing targets.” You didn’t like that one either.

We introduced the motion to expand inclusionary zoning, meaning developers do their part and play their fair share in addressing the housing affordability crisis. Right now, inclusionary zoning is only allowed in protected major transit station areas. The city of Toronto wanted it across the municipality. This government came in and said, “No, no, no. We’re just going to shrink it right next to transit stations, because we’re getting a lot of calls.” The city would much prefer to have the authority to expand it so we’d get more affordable homes in big developments. So we introduced an amendment to do exactly that. The government rejected it. That’s a pity.

We introduced amendments to increase parkland dedication to what they currently are. The government rejected that. It’s a real pity.

And then we also identified and expressed great concern that this government is exempting major infrastructure projects from the environmental assessment process. That’s a bit scary. The government is exempting the York region sewage waste plan that you have in this bill from the environmental assessment process—very worrying—and this government is also exempting the Lake Simcoe phosphorus project from the environmental assessment process as well. Why not do one? Don’t you want to know so you can plan? It makes sense; it’s there for a reason.

I’m running out of time, sadly. I want to talk a little bit about the amendments the government introduced. They could also see that there were some flaws with Bill 23. I know you’re getting a lot of calls and emails right now—and you’ve just extended the consultation process so you must be feeling some heat. These are the amendments that this government introduced. This one is really crappy. This one makes it so that the development fee cuts that you are imposing are retroactive. So developments that are already in the works can now go back and say, “We actually want that development fee exemption and the development fee cut as well”—very concerning.

When I think about the development fee cuts, one thing that bothers me the most about the development fee cuts is that the biggest cut, $1,000 a unit, is the funding that goes to help municipalities provide affordable housing and supportive housing. That’s where the bulk of the development fee cut is coming from—the city’s Open Door program; the city’s Housing Now program to build affordable housing on public land; funding that goes to shelters. That’s the funding being cut from Bill 23. There’s nothing about this that will make housing affordable for people who are low-income or moderate-income. I’m very concerned about that. The government got the motion passed to make the development fee cuts retroactive for developers that have already been given the green light to build.

This government loves to talk about how they want to clear red tape. Well, this is like the red-tapiest government motion I have ever seen. What this motion does is, it eliminates the two-year timeout that exists when an official plan is approved. Let’s say Ottawa, for example, creates an official plan on how they’re going to build. Then, there’s a two-year timeout, so that bylaw, that official plan can’t be appealed for two years. It gives staff time to study the rules, enact the rules, know what they do and implement them. Now, you’ve made it so that once an official plan, a secondary plan or a bylaw goes through, immediately someone can appeal them—immediately. So that’s going to create a massive backlog of appeals—crazy, crazy, crazy.

Then, the other thing you did is you changed the land tribunal process a little bit. In the original definition or understanding of Bill 23, you eliminated the ability for individuals, citizens to appeal to the land tribunal. It was only municipalities and developers that could appeal to the land tribunal and have a say over planning that everyday citizens, people who had some concerns about a gravel pit, people who were concerned about water pollution—they were banned from appealing to the land tribunal. Now you’ve changed it a bit. You’re allowing a third-party appeal—MPP for Willowdale, I wonder if you had something to do with that—

I’m proud to be here speaking to Bill 23. Bill 23—I have it right here—is An Act to amend various statutes, to revoke various regulations and to enact the Supporting Growth and Housing in York and Durham Regions Act, 2022. It is a massive bill. You must have spent months writing it. It is a sweeping bill. It affects the City of Toronto Act, the Conservation Authorities Act, the Development Charges Act, the Municipal Act, the New Home Construction Licensing Act, the Ontario Heritage Act, the Ontario Land Tribunal Act and the Planning Act, and then it has a new act, the Supporting Growth and Housing in York and Durham Regions Act. It is huge.

My overall assessment of this bill is that it is a pro-sprawl bill that threatens affordability, public services, democracy and farmland.

When I read this bill—and I’ve gone through committee now; I’ve read the written submissions that people submitted. The overall impression I get from the experts who spoke is that this bill will not solve our housing affordability crisis. There is nothing in Bill 23 that will lower the price of buying a home. There is nothing in Bill 23 that will lower the cost of finding a place to rent. In fact, it will make renting more expensive. There is no evidence in this bill that it will be easier for people to find a home and pay off their own mortgage instead of paying off an investor’s mortgage. None of that is in there.

It is also clear that this government does not need to harm democracy, pave over farmland, cut public services, put municipalities in a very difficult financial situation and make life worse for renters in order to meet our housing supply targets. There are other avenues and other ways to go.

I want to talk a little bit about what I learned in committee. I’m going to provide some overall comments, and then I’m going to get into some of the specifics, some written statements, and some presentations that experts gave.

The overall impression I got from the huge amount of information that we received is that—I was struck by the enormity of this bill and its consequences, as well as the consequences that we don’t know yet. We had municipalities, including AMO, the big city mayors, the city of Toronto and the Town of the Blue Mountains, who came and spoke—those who were allowed; AMO wasn’t—who were absolutely alarmed at the impact of cutting developer fees. Ambulance services, roads, transit and daycare subsidies are all impacted.

Regional municipalities, upper-tier municipalities were alarmed that they are losing their power to decide where new homes and new workplaces go, and the densities at which they are built. Regional municipalities are alarmed that this government is cutting down all the planning responsibility that is needed to make sure that we don’t build absolutely unsustainable and expensive suburban sprawl, and we build right, which is to build in the huge amount of land in the GTHA and beyond that is already zoned for development. It’s already ready to go. They were very alarmed about that.

We had renters and housing advocates, including ACORN; the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights; Leilani Farha, a former UN special rapporteur; ACTO, who were alarmed at Bill 23’s threat to housing affordability. They spoke about this bill’s impact on inclusionary zoning laws in the city of Toronto, which would require developers to build their fair share of affordable housing units. And they were alarmed at this bill’s impact on renters who live in purpose-built rentals, very concerned that the likelihood of them being evicted because their building is going to be turned into a luxury condo—they will be evicted, and they will have to pay higher rent. It’s devastating.

We had environmentalists and conservation authorities—from Conservation Ontario, which represents all the conservation authorities across Ontario, to Environmental Defence, to CELA—and they were also alarmed at how Bill 23 bans conservation authorities from doing their job and working with municipalities to protect our natural environment, and to ensure our natural environment protects us from extreme weather events, from flooding. They were astonished.

Then we had the Toronto Atmospheric Fund come in and wave the red flag and say, “Hey, government, do you know that you’re gutting our ability to implement green building standards in the city of Toronto, which is a growing and thriving building sector? Hold on a minute here.” They actually couldn’t believe that you are sabotaging a municipal industry, an environmental movement, to green our building stock—the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario. Bill 23 eviscerates it.

Citizens were also alarmed. Many citizen groups reached out, and they were absolutely alarmed that Bill 23 is curbing our democratic rights. This is a trend this government has had since 2018. I remember the shock I felt when I saw this government decide, in the middle of the city of Toronto’s election—and London’s and Kingston’s, because they affected them too. They made the decision to slash the number of city councillors who represent us at the city of Toronto in half, in the middle of an election—unbelievable. And then we see, this year, there are more efforts to curtail the right of citizens to have a say over their planning processes. There are many people in Toronto and across Ontario who subscribe to the “yes in my backyard” mentality; poll after poll after poll shows that. They want more housing in their backyard. This is really not about that. They were dismayed about that as well.

What I was also struck by, in the committee process, was the genuine reluctance from the government to hear people express concerns that were different from their own—which is the whole point of being in government. The government is meant to be a leader, to listen, to consult and to make decisions that benefit Ontarians—not just to talk to your donors and do their bidding.

We had an overwhelming number of people subscribe, in the very short window you gave people to subscribe—because the government always does that. You get about three days to sign up. We had so many people apply to speak.

I introduced motions and the Liberals introduced motions saying, “Hold on, government. Why are we ramming this through so quickly? Let’s travel this bill. Let’s take it around Ontario to fix the entirety of Ontario. Let’s make sure we come up with a bill that addresses our housing crisis and our housing affordability crisis. Let’s make it work, because there are some good things in this bill.” No, you weren’t interested in that. “No thanks. Not interested in hearing.” It’s a shame.

On one of the days of hearings, John Sewell, a former mayor of Toronto—I believe he was a mayor of the city of Toronto for 12 years, at a time when the number of homes being built were at record heights, very high. So this argument that Toronto is anti-development is—

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

I was in committee, and we had hundreds of written submissions, and many people speaking at the hearings in Markham and Brampton and the two in Toronto, and many people who weren’t able to. The overwhelming theme—there were many, but an overwhelming theme that I heard was the concern that this government is opening up the greenbelt and doubling down on sprawl when there are alternatives.

What is especially concerning is that the government is choosing to open up the greenbelt in areas where there are nine developers who own land there, who gave over $520,000 to the PC Party since 2014. It really smells fishy; an investigation is needed. What is so frustrating is that the Housing Affordability Task Force that this government began made it clear that access to land is not stopping us from achieving our 1.5-million-homes target goal, which is something that we support, that all parties support.

Why are you giving this greenbelt land away to developers who are big PC Party donors, Minister Clark?

I’m so pleased you raised that question. I’ve spoken to your former planner in the Waterloo region about what Waterloo is doing right to plan, and they’ve moved forward with really sensible regulation to encourage the construction of homes for students, because that is a real need, and also for baby boomers that want to downsize into smaller units but don’t really want to move into a retirement home and are certainly not ready for a long-term-care home. There’s been a lot of thought there—as well as increasing density along transit zones. There’s a lot of sensible development happening in the Waterloo region.

We certainly need new student housing. Enabling three units within a property will help that. It’s something that we support, and we also need to augment that with better protections for students. What we see with the Residential Tenancies Act is that a lot of student housing is exempt from rent control and Residential Tenancies Act protections. There’s a real need to expand it to ensure that students have the same kind of protections as older people, people who—

Thank you very much. I’m pleased that you raised the issue of development charges. The reason why I’ve discussed development charges is because development charges go to paying for the necessary services that current and new residents use. It’s not an abstract fee. It goes to pay for sewage, water, electricity, transit, child care, roads, parks, and it doesn’t cover the whole. It covers some of the capital costs, and then municipalities need to step up and provide that additional fee, and then the operating costs are almost exclusively covered by municipalities.

My issue is, if we are looking at reducing development fees for non-market housing, for deeply affordable housing, okay, but how are municipalities going to cover that gap? Is the province going to step in and cover that gap? Because that’s a very real issue when municipalities are budget-strapped all across Ontario. It’s a question for you.

We are also in support of increasing density near transit stations. It makes a lot of sense. It’s a sustainable thing to do. It provides more options for people. So thank you for raising that, as well.

We are already seeing an increase in applications from developers that are choosing to look at purpose-built rentals that already have good heights—12, 14 or even more storeys—and saying, “Do you know what? It is cost-effective for us to demolish that building and then build even taller.” The challenge is, what happens to those renters that are evicted? What happens to them and their affordable units? We need to make sure that we keep those affordable units.

No, that’s fine. I welcome heckling from this side.

There are also changes in schedule 7 to the Ontario Land Tribunal Act. This government has moved forward with legislation to change the appeal body. It used to be called the OMB, then it got called the LPAT, and now it’s called the land tribunal. Time and time and time again, the changes have always gone in one direction, and that is to make it harder for municipalities and residents to have a say in land tribunal decisions and much easier for developers to override official plans, rules, in order to get a development built.

There are two schedules here that we are looking into to get more information on and that we also have some concerns about. One gives the adjudicator of the land tribunal the right to dismiss a hearing if there’s undue delay, so we interpret that to mean that even if a third party has a valid claim, it could still be dismissed. The second thing is schedule 20, which gives the adjudicator the power to make an unsuccessful party pay costs. That has some concerns as well, and the reason why is that there are cases that go to the land tribunal that benefit affordable housing and that help with housing supply in a way—for affordability purposes.

The example that comes to mind, for me, is the city’s short-term rental rules in Toronto. The city, after years of consultation, developed short-term rental rules that would ban short-term rentals and investment properties. You can only do short-term rentals on your own property. But you couldn’t just buy up a house, kick out all the long-term tenants, and make it a short-term rental property—which continues to happen in the city of Toronto, because there’s no enforcement—so short-term rental providers took that to the land tribunal, or the OMB, to contest it. It got held up at the land tribunal for years, until eventually it got overridden or it got rejected and the city of Toronto was able to move forward with its short-term rental rules.

I wouldn’t want a situation where Fairbnb and the federation of metro tenants is fined because they’re making a genuine claim to the land tribunal about a short-term rental law that is turning long-term rental units into short-term investment properties. So that’s a concern.

The same thing is happening in Ottawa right now. Ottawa’s short-term rental rules to clamp down on investor-led short-term hotels and increase long-term rental units are being held up at the land tribunal.

We are calling for land tribunal reform, but we need to make sure that municipalities and residents have a say and that the land tribunal is a force for good, meaning that it benefits the public interest and it really addresses the issues of affordability—because sometimes it doesn’t.

So that’s where we’re at on that.

I have three minutes to go, so I’m just going to conclude with what we are calling for.

We want to see this government move forward with a comprehensive housing affordability plan that looks at building new homes as well as building more affordable homes and more supportive housing. That is key. This bill moves forward with building more homes, but I’m not seeing a lot of evidence here that we are going to see a net increase in the number of affordable homes that exist in Ontario. And I’m very concerned about the decision to get rid of protections that would allow for purpose-built rentals to be turned into condos and tenants to not be able to move back into their affordable rent-controlled units. That is very concerning.

What we also want to see from this government is a commitment to move forward with better protections for renters, so that the million-plus renters in Ontario can have an affordable and safe home that they can live in and can commit to a community in.

We absolutely need to clamp down on investor-led speculation. It’s absolutely critical. Increasing the non-resident speculation tax from 20% to 25% is a step in the right direction. I’m never going to criticize that; it’s a good thing. But we need to augment that with measures that really focus on domestic speculation as well. A vacant home tax and an annual speculation tax are measures that have worked effectively in other provinces, and I ask this government to really look into implementing those kinds of changes in this province as well.

I believe that’s all I have time for for now. If there are stakeholders, residents, community groups, experts who want to give us feedback, I encourage you to do that. This bill will be going to committee I hope, and I encourage you to sign up to speak to committee as well so that we can ensure this sweeping housing bill is as good as it can be.

I know, right? I started reading this at 5 a.m.

So the definition of “affordability”—this is the definition that they’re looking at proposing: A unit is affordable—which means it would get a reduction in development charges—if it is 80% of market rent or 80% of the purchase price of the average area, and those definitions of affordability will be set by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

There are a few concerns that we’re already hearing about. One is that having developers get a development charge exemption—which is what you’re proposing—by only having an affordable unit for 25 years seems very generous to developers. And to give you an example, in the city of Toronto we just passed an inclusionary zoning law—which the Ontario government is sabotaging—which would require developers to get a development charge discount if the affordable housing units were for 99 years.

There is a move here that I’m seeing with this change to affordable housing where they’re affordable for less period of time and the definition of affordability is linked to market rents, as opposed to what a renter can afford—so based on income—and the discount of fees that developers get has gone from a little bit to completely.

There is a benefit in having lower development fees for affordable housing units, but we have a lot of concerns around this decision to change the definition of affordability. We’re exploring that a little bit more and we’ve got a lot of concerns.

The other piece that we have concerns with when we’re talking about development charges is, how does this impact municipalities? The reason why I say this is because municipalities across Ontario rely on development fees to fund the services that current and future residents use. We’re talking garbage pickup, parks, child care, schools, constructing affordable housing, transit and sewage. When there is a reduction on development fees—some of them are good if it’s for non-market housing, non-profit housing, deeply affordable housing—it means that municipalities are in the hole. And it’s a significant hole.

In the case of Toronto, Toronto has an $800-million funding shortfall. That’s the shortfall that they’re facing right now. We just got a report here. This is the budget that the new city council is going to be debating. They have a deficit of $857 million. What is challenging is that they’re already having to make cuts. The city of Toronto is going to make cuts of $300 million to planned maintenance and repair projects because they don’t have enough money. The provincial and the federal governments have said that they don’t want to pay.

Then we also have the case where interest rates are going up. That means that the ability to access money and pay back money is going to become tougher and tougher and tougher. Matt Elliott, this reporter here, explains it. He says, “As inflation hammers the global economy, interest rates on new city debt have been going up fast. City hall was getting 30-year interest rates as low as 2.4% in 2020. Toronto’s latest 30-year debt issue carried an interest rate of 4.4%.”

So we’ve got this challenge now with this bill where the government has said, “We need affordable housing, we need to reduce development charges to incentivize more affordable housing, but we’re not going to cover the shortfall. We’re going to make municipalities just deal with it”—at a time when we have an inflationary crisis, we have budget shortfalls and we have interest rate hikes, which make these fees, or the ability to borrow, higher and higher and higher.

That is very concerning, that there is not a commitment from the provincial government to help out with this development fee shortfall so that we get the affordable housing but we also have the transit and the services and the child care and the parks and the sewage infrastructure and the electricity infrastructure that is necessary to house current and future residents. That is a big concern.

It’s a concern that AMO shares. They issued a press release—wow, they were quick. They introduced it at 5:51 last night, so maybe they got a heads-up this bill was coming. Who knows? They say, “Municipalities will welcome some of the proposed changes”—like I said, it’s a mixed bag—but are “very concerned about others, such as changes to the Development Charges Act. We will work with the government on the ideas that have the potential to make housing more affordable, and we will oppose changes that undermine good economic and environmental policy.” So they’ve got some concerns about how they’re going to balance their budgets and provide services to residents given that this bill guts their ability to access development fee charges. That’s the concern, and I’m not seeing this government come up with economically wise solutions to that. That’s a concern.

The next piece—like I said, this is a big bill—is schedule 5. Schedule 5 is called the New Home Construction Licensing Act. We heard a lot about this issue in the media because, across Ontario, people are buying homes that, in some cases, are shoddily built. The developer does not build the home to the standard that the homeowner expects: There’s mold, there are leaks, and then the homeowner has to pay the bill because the regulatory authorities are not strong enough at holding developers to account.

We’re also seeing this disturbing trend where homeowners will buy a home pre-construction. They’ll put down the deposit in the hope of getting access to this home, of buying their home and moving into it within two or three years once the home is built. Their dreams, their hopes are all tied up in this; as well their money is all tied up in this future prospect of living in a home. What we have seen as housing prices have risen, changed, and risen again and changed is that developers have turned around, often for no good reason, and said, “Actually, I know we said that we would let you buy this home for $600,000, but we took another look and we think that you’re going to have to pay $800,000 for that home, and if you don’t like it, too bad, so sad. We’ll give you your deposit back and we’ll just cancel the contract.” Then they turn around and sell it to someone else at a higher bid. That is really unethical. If developers sign a contract with a potential home buyer, that contract should be upheld by the Ontario government in a court of law, and the developer has a responsibility to honour that contract.

We have seen the Premier talk a good talk about how he’s going to slap developers on the wrist and fine them and ensure they have consequences if they do the wrong thing, but we have seen very little action—close to none—to ensure that developers build the homes that they say they’re going to build at the price that they committed to in the contract. It’s a huge concern.

In this schedule, the New Home Construction Licensing Act, there has been a decision to increase the maximum fines for developers that break contracts with first-time home buyers, with home buyers who are looking at moving into these homes. That is a good thing. There is also a broader range of actions the developer can be fined on, which is good. They’ve expanded the powers and the number of things that can be fined—good. It gives the minister the power to decide how much of a fine goes to the home owner. This is a bit confusing to me, because Minister Clark says one thing—that he’ll give it to the home owner—but when I actually read the schedule it says something else. I’m trying to get some more information there. It could be good, could be—I don’t know.

The big thing that we’re not seeing and what we’re hearing from stakeholders, such as Canadians for Properly Built Homes, is that there’s no commitment to actually enforce the laws on the books and ensure that developers are actually held to account. Doubling the fines, good, but it’s not worth anything unless you’re actually going to fine developers that aren’t doing the right thing. That’s what people are calling for and that’s what this government needs to do.

As Karen from Canadians For Properly Built Homes tweeted, “Please show us evidence, any evidence, that you’re ‘cracking down on unethical developers.’ There’s no disciplinary action on the website of your regulator, @hcraontario.” That’s what they’re looking for: They’re looking for enforcement. Let’s see if the government moves through on that.

There are other measures in this bill that we are talking to stakeholders about that could have a significant impact. One is changes to the Ontario Heritage Act, schedule 6. Schedule 25.2 gives the minister the power to override any heritage designation on any provincial property or any public property. That’s a lot of power. I welcome feedback from residents and municipalities on these proposed changes because they seem pretty significant.

Interjection.

Yes. It is something that I’m sure the corporate real estate lobby and the big development sector has been advocating for, for a long time, and it seems like they got it in this bill.

I am already hearing from housing advocates and tenant advocates that this is a very concerning measure. Carolyn Whitzman, who is a housing expert, who is a long-time researcher at the CMHC, said that this could have a disastrous impact on net affordable housing. Canadians lost 15 homes renting at $750 or less for every one new affordable home created at that price point between 2011 and 2016, and most of this net loss was due to demolition and renovation of residential rental properties. So these affordable private-market apartments are in these purpose-built rentals. I see no value in increasing housing supply at the expense of the affordable homes that we already have, and this bylaw will do exactly that. I’m very concerned about it. I strongly urge you to remove that schedule from the bill. There’s no other way to describe it; it’s extremely concerning.

The next thing that I want to raise is changes to conservation authorities. We are getting some feedback on this. I just want to summarize: The role of conservation authorities is to work with municipalities and the province to try and make sure that we protect the wetlands, the precious green space that we have, and also to make sure that homes aren’t going to be swept away in a flood or fall over the Scarborough Bluffs. It’s a way to ensure that homes aren’t built on a flood plain.

This has become even more crucial because we are facing a climate crisis with an increasing number of extreme weather events that are increasing in frequency and strength. We just saw this with the hurricane that swept from Florida to Atlantic Canada. It has gotten so bad. I mean, every day there’s new disturbing news about the impact of the climate crisis. It’s our new horrible reality for today. But even just this week, the Insurance Bureau of Canada put out a press release stating the urgent need for the housing industry and governments to more openly consider and disclose natural hazard and climate risk “because of the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters.” The reason why I’m bringing up that quote is that the insurance industry is essentially telling you that conservation authorities have a really important job. Their job is to make sure that homes and developments are not built on flood plains. Their job is to ensure that we build in a sustainable way and that we protect our natural green space and our natural environment. It’s extremely important.

When I read this bill and I read statements about what this bill means, it seems that the government is giving itself more power to review and change any conditions that a conservation authority might place on a new building permit. That’s a lot of power. That’s concerning.

It is also concerning to hear that the ministry is looking at asking conservation authorities to evaluate their lands to identify areas of development, possibly with the goal of building more development on green space, natural habitat and areas that we should be protecting because they’re on a flood plain or they’re critical to natural wildlife. That is very concerning, and we are looking more into this and getting feedback from stakeholders.

I want to move on. The other measure that we are getting some feedback on is around the zoning reform pieces in this bill. This is mainly referring to the changes to schedule 9, which is the Planning Act. I want to be clear: During the election, we called very clearly for an ending to exclusionary zoning to allow more missing-middle housing—the duplexes, the triplexes, the townhomes in existing neighbourhoods—as well as higher density and transit. And there’s a good reason why: If we build in areas that are already zoned for development, then we get to protect farmland, which we’re losing at a very rapid rate, and our natural green spaces. It is a sustainable way to build more homes and more affordable homes for current and future Ontarians.

There are changes to the zoning laws to allow three homes on one lot: three in a primary building, or two in the primary building and one in a laneway suite, provided the square footage of the property essentially remains the same. And the changes would apply across the board to any urban residential area that has sewage and water services, so we’re not saying yes to new developments on areas that rely on septic tanks that don’t have the infrastructure necessary to enable a huge increase or a big increase in population.

Changing zoning laws to allow more homes in existing neighbourhoods is a good move. This is a step towards ending exclusionary zoning, and there are a lot of benefits to it. That’s one of the measures in this bill that we look at and we say, “Okay, this is interesting. There are some benefits to this.”

We are actually hearing from some stakeholders to move further, to look at expanding missing middle to allow for increased height, as well as stakeholders that are very interested in measures this government is interested in doing to enshrine affordability requirements in any missing-middle changes. I’ll explain that in a little more detail.

I want to quote an individual called Cherise Burda, who wrote a very interesting op-ed today about the need to increase density, allow for missing-middle housing—the need to ensure that there are affordability principles enshrined in that so that we’re not just building more homes; we’re also ensuring some of these homes that we’re building are also affordable. It’s a really interesting area of research that I’m following very closely.

Here is her op-ed—I want to clarify: It’s Karen Chapple from U of T School of Cities and Cherise Burda from TMU. They write:

“Most Ontarians know that we are in a housing affordability crisis, but the province is reframing this as a housing supply crisis to justify construction wherever developers want to build.”

She digs into the need to make sure that the housing that we do build also meets affordability requirements as well.

They write: “To that end, we laud one of the province’s proposed tools: Eliminating exclusionary zoning across municipalities to build missing-middle housing in existing neighbourhoods. Early evidence, however, suggests that ‘missing middle’ homes are being delivered at market rate costs, even pushing up land values and making these neighbourhoods more exclusive. Policy, programs and funding from all levels of government should focus on creating affordable and equitable missing-middle homes.”

That is a really interesting analysis. They’re looking at what is happening across California and the west coast, as well as Oregon, about the impact of the missing middle on affordability and how many more affordable missing-middle homes we can get around increasing density. I encourage this government to look into this, to meet with these stakeholders to make sure we don’t miss out on this opportunity where we build more non-market homes but we also build more affordable homes at the same time.

The second piece that I would very much like to see in this bill, when we are talking about moving forward with ending exclusionary zoning, is the need to ensure that renters are protected when homes are renovated. That gets back to this very issue of renters and how we can do everything possible to not force a renter to be evicted and to move into a more expensive apartment and to keep as many affordable units as we can. I encourage this government to look into some of the measures that other municipalities are moving forward on as well as what stakeholders such as ACORN are advocating for, which is to provide stronger protections for renters who need to be moved out of a home because it is undergoing a renovation of some kind.

Right now, let’s say a single-family home is going to be turned into a duplex. The Residential Tenancies Act, in theory, ensures that a renter has a right to return. So once the renovation is done, the renter can then move back into that home with the same square footage and at the same rent. That is their right to return.

The challenge is that the enforcement components of the Residential Tenancies Act are not strong. We have renters in University–Rosedale who have been evicted from their purpose-built rentals because the property manager wants to renovate, and two, three years later they’re still waiting to move back into their units, even though, when they walk by the purpose-built rental, they see moving trucks with people’s belongings parked outside and students and young people moving in. So they know these units are being filled, but the property manager is not giving them the right to move into the units even though they’re supposed to under the Residential Tenancies Act. That is a concern. There needs to be better enforcement.

When we’re looking at zoning reform—and this bill does move forward on that—I encourage this government to also look at how we can enshrine the creation of affordable housing units into the missing middle and how we can ensure that renters don’t suffer as a result of these changes to density. Their homes need to be protected as well. And there are examples of where that is being done, and I look forward to communicating with you in committee about how this could be a valuable change.

The next thing I want to address—and I’m not going to get to all of the bill; it’s too comprehensive, so I’m pulling out some of the biggest highlights that I’m hearing from stakeholders and that we saw ourselves. The next change that we noticed, and it’s significant, is around the Development Charges Act. That’s schedule 3. There are a lot of changes here. I’m going to summarize them. One is that there will be development charge exemptions for secondary units that are built into a home as well as the third unit that is built into a home. There are some benefits to doing that. There’s also a development charge discount for rental housing, and how this is spelled out is: There will be a development charge discount of a 15% reduction for one-bedroom units for purpose-built rentals, a 20% reduction for units where there’s a two-bedroom unit and a 25% reduction if there’s a three-bedroom unit.

I should go back for a minute. Development charges pay for all the services that the new residents will need when they move into that building: the sewage, the water, the transit, the daycares, the parks—all these necessary services. The development fees don’t cover all the costs of that. They only cover a portion of the capital costs. But they cover a lot of it, and then the city also contributes, and then there are operating costs as well that overwhelmingly the city contributes.

The challenge with the rental housing piece and the discounts to the development charges to the rental housing piece—I can see the logic; you want to make sure the development sector is building these bigger, more family-friendly units. But one of the issues that I’m concerned about here is that the rental housing that will be created is not affordable. So you can have a situation where you’ve got a three-bedroom unit—in my riding, they rent for about $3,000 or more a month. Maybe it will be a 1,000 to 1,100 square feet, because they’re really good at creating good design to get those three bedrooms in a small square footage, but it will cost $3,000. Why would we want to give a developer, who is not building rent-controlled units, that are priced at $3,000 a month, a discount on development charges? That seems like a concern to me. So we’ve got some red flags there.

Another piece where we have red flags is around the provincial government’s decision to change the definition of “affordability”—

Yes, it’s a huge issue. The Landlord and Tenant Board is the busiest tribunal in Ontario. It hears over 90,000 cases a year, and it resolves disputes between tenants, who see a house as a home, and landlords, who see that house as an investment. That means that they need to resolve very challenging disputes in a quick, fair and fast manner, so that everyone can get a fair outcome.

The challenge, however, is that people—landlords and tenants alike—are waiting months, and in some cases years, for their day in tribunal to get their issue resolved. We have a situation right now with an individual called Pin, whose landlord moved into their home without getting prior permission, has damaged the kitchen, has on occasion made their washroom not available for use—it doesn’t function properly. They have been waiting two years for a hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board. That is extremely concerning. That means they are living in misery. It means they are living in very difficult housing conditions, and they have to go back to that every single night at the end of their working day.

The Landlord and Tenant Board needs to be improved. It needs to be fast and fair. There need to be fair and competent adjudicators hearing cases, and people need to have a right to an in-person hearing if either the landlord or the tenant requests it. This government knows that this is an issue, and they’ve done very little about it.

And then the final piece when it comes to addressing the housing affordability crisis—you’ve got the renter protections; you’ve got building new supply—is this critical measure that we need to address, which is to clamp down on investor-led speculation, so that people who intend to live in a home that they buy or rent are prioritized by our housing sector.

This government, in the last week, has started to make some moves to address the sharp rise in investor-led speculation that we have seen in Ontario over the last decade. This government has made a decision to increase the non-resident speculation tax from 20% to 25%, and this government has also made a decision to expand it from the GTHA to include the entirety of Ontario. That is a move that we support. Increasing speculation taxes to allow people who intend to live in the home that they buy or rent is a good move. It needs to be more affordable. The challenge is that there needs to be a whole lot more done in order to make housing affordable again.

We have called for the government to bring in an annual speculation tax and an annual vacant homes tax to make housing more affordable for first-time homebuyers and to increase rental supply. The annual speculation tax has precedent—it was introduced and implemented in BC—and the annual vacant homes tax was also introduced into BC, and it has been remarkably successful. In the case of BC, they did a report on the effectiveness of the speculation and vacant homes taxes this year, in June 2022. They found that the 2% tax raised over $231 million in revenue, which was then moved to build affordable housing, and it added over 20,000 long-term rental units into the Vancouver area—20,000 long-term rental units were added, all with the stroke of a pen.

The reason why it is so effective, especially the vacant homes tax, is because it gives investors a choice: They can choose to keep the property empty and pay a tax and contribute to affordable housing; they can choose to open it up to a long-term rental market and provide someone with their own home; or they could choose to sell it and give a first-time homebuyer who intends to live in the property an opportunity to live in it. It’s win-win-win. It’s an extremely effective policy measure.

This government has talked about setting up a vacant homes round table to discuss the possibility of bringing in a vacant homes tax. I was hoping to see a vacant homes tax in this sweeping housing bill, but I did not see it.

Our request is that the speculation taxes that you have started to introduce need to be expanded to include an annual speculation tax and a vacant home tax, so we can raise the revenue we need and increase supply to ensure that Ontarians can get access to that safe and affordable home.

Now I want to move to the bill itself. It is a complicated bill. As I mentioned, we received the bill at 3 p.m. yesterday. It’s over 130 pages long. We’re doing outreach to municipalities and planners and housing advocates and tenant associations and experts and conservation authorities to better understand what this bill means and how it’s going to affect our housing sector.

Already we are getting written statements and feedback expressing some concerns with the bill—some things people like, some things people have some concerns with. I’m going to spend my time going through some of the feedback I have received and also highlighting some of the concerns and things that I think are interesting in this bill.

Number one is the government’s plan to reduce protections for renters. This is in schedule 1, changes to the City of Toronto Act, as well as schedule 4, the Municipal Act. Essentially, the changes are to impose limits and conditions on a municipality to prohibit and regulate the demolition and conversion of rental properties under section 111. So what does that mean? I want to explain using an example.

We have a building in our riding, 145 St. George. It is a 12-storey building. It is a building with many seniors in it. I’ve canvassed and talked to residents many times in that building. It’s an older building. I think it was built in the 1960s, maybe the 1970s. Many people in that building have lived there for 20-plus years. The entire building is rent-controlled because it was built before 2018. That means there are tenants in there paying between $1,100 to $1,600 in rent, which is more affordable. A big developer came in and said, “We want to demolish this building and replace it with a condo. That’s our plan.” The city of Toronto has this bylaw, section 111, which says, “Hold on, developer. Renters deserve protections too. We’re going to assess whether you’re going to be allowed to build a condo or not, but at a minimum requirement, all the renters who live in that 12-storey building need to be able to move back into the condo once it is built and live in those units that are built, at the same rent as they were paying before.” Essentially, what that means is, the condo is larger, so there’s a percentage of units that are sold off because they’re condos and then there’s a percentage of units that the former tenants can live in. That’s how it works.

Interjection.

The developer gets the density bonus, and they get to make their profit. They bought the property knowing full well that that was a requirement and that renters permanently displaced from a neighbourhood that they’ve lived in for 20 years will continue to pay the affordable rents that they are accustomed to and that they can afford.

If you’re a senior on a fixed income, it is very difficult being evicted in this housing market and being forced to pay upwards of $2,300 to $3,200 for a new market apartment. You just can’t do it.

So that’s how the measure works. And the power of this measure is that it ensures that the thousands and thousands of tenants across Toronto and Ontario who live in purpose-built rentals are protected from developers and investors that want to turn that purpose-built rental into condos. That is the purpose of that bylaw. It is extremely important. And I was very concerned to see this government’s decision to give themselves control and override and change municipalities that have introduced this bylaw to protect tenants in private-market affordable apartments.

Interjection.

Yes. It is necessary—non-market and market homes. Thank you.

What is also important is that we need to make sure that the homes that we are building are the kinds of homes that people can afford and the kinds of homes that Ontarians want to live in. So we’re not just building homes for investors; we’re also building homes—we are prioritizing building homes for people who live in Ontario and for people who are planning on moving to Ontario.

The federal government has made the decision to increase immigration rates. That is a good thing. And we need homes for people who are moving to Toronto and moving to Ontario so they can rebuild and build their lives here. It’s extremely important.

We called for in our election platform a commitment to engage in ending exclusionary zoning and moving forward on zoning reform to encourage the construction of missing-middle homes—those duplexes, those triplexes and those townhomes—in existing neighbourhoods.

We call, and we continue to call for, more family-friendly rent-controlled purpose-built rental. When you go to Toronto today and you look at what homes are available, you increasingly see homes that are 600 square feet in size. That’s the average size for a condo in Toronto today. You cannot raise a family and stay sane raising a family in a 600-square-foot condo. It’s not a sustainable or healthy way to live. We need to be building bigger purpose-built rentals and bigger condos—family-friendly apartments—in order to have homes for people that work for families as well. And we have excellent examples of that in University–Rosedale. The Manulife building on Charles Street is an excellent example of a well-made building with purpose-built rentals that families live in because they are larger in size—two-, three-, sometimes even four-bedroom apartments. These are the kinds of measures that will require government regulation to ensure that those kinds of homes are built.

We are also in support of opening up public land to build non-market affordable homes. Ontario has over 6,000 properties that have been identified as being available and worthwhile—like, you could actually build non-market housing on them, and the land is serviceable.

We’re also calling for a public builder to build homes for Ontarians at cost. It makes a lot of sense. It’s been done in other countries. It should be done here.

But it cannot just be about supply. It also needs to be about bringing in better protections for renters and clamping down on speculation.

This government’s track record on improving protections for the 1.4 million households in Ontario that rent has not been strong. This government has made a decision with Bill 184 to make it easier to evict tenants that have fallen behind on their rent, often through no fault of their own. They’ve made it so that they lose their right to return to the Landlord and Tenant Board if they’ve already had a hearing.

This government has also made the awful decision to end rent control on new buildings. The reason why that is very concerning is that it means that when a new renter—maybe they’re new to Ontario or they’ve just moved out of their home—they found a place, they move in and then very quickly they discover that they’re not protected by rent control, which means that they’re not going to have steady, small increases year in and year out of 1.2%—or in this case, for 2023, 2.5%. Their landlord could turn around and raise the rent to however much they want. The challenge with that is that renters cannot prepare for a $500- or $1,000-a-month rent increase, and that is extremely concerning. What it does also mean is that renters can be economically evicted, because they cannot afford the rent increase that could come at any time. That is deeply concerning. It certainly benefits investor landlords, but who it doesn’t benefit—who it hurts—are renters, many of them working Ontarians who are running our cities: our paramedics, our students, our paralegals, the people who work in our supermarkets, our child care workers, our teachers. They’re the people that struggle as a result of that.

It’s been very concerning over the last four years to see this government’s moves to make it even harder to rent in Ontario.

So what we have been calling for, and what we are urging this government to do—and the MPP for Parkdale–High Park introduced a measure today which is related to that—is, instead of allowing rent to exponentially increase, to move forward with rent stabilization, move forward with a plan to bring in vacancy control, so there is a cap on how much rent can be increased when a tenant leaves and a new tenant comes in, and also to bring in better protections for renters so that their home is properly maintained. This government has shown no interest in moving forward with measures that would allow renters to live in safe and affordable homes.

The other measure that we have called for, which this government has been very reluctant to do, is to improve the functioning of the Landlord and Tenant Board.

Interjection.

Today, I rise to speak to Bill 23. It is a bill to increase housing supply, among many other things, across Ontario. It is a really big bill. I have it right here. It’s large. It’s over 130 pages. We received it yesterday at about 3 p.m., and we’ve been working hard and doing outreach with stakeholders to better understand what this bill means, what the legislative changes mean, what the proposed regulatory changes mean for a whole host of things in Ontario, from our housing sector, how it is going to affect renters, its effect on the building code, its effect on conservation authorities, on development charges, on municipalities, on consumer protections for new homeowners and new condo owners.

It is a significant bill. It is also a mixed bag. There are some things that I look at and I think, “That could make sense,” and there are other things that I look at and I think, “That’s going to have some pretty serious consequences on municipalities, on environmental protections, on renters.” It does look like Bill 23 will build more homes in existing neighbourhoods, but our assessment is that it will likely make renting more expensive, it will likely encourage urban sprawl, and it will certainly harm municipalities’ ability to provide services like transit and daycare to residents.

What we were wanting to see from this government after the election was a bill that didn’t just focus on building new homes, which is absolutely essential to tackling our housing affordability crisis, but also a comprehensive approach that deals with the housing affordability crisis overall. That means building new homes. It also means building more affordable homes and supportive housing homes. It means clamping down on investor-led speculation. It means bringing in—and this is extremely important—better protections for renters as well.

The reason why it’s very important to have a comprehensive approach as opposed to just focusing on one piece of the problem is that we have a massive housing affordability crisis in Ontario. It is the number one issue in my riding, and it affects all Ontarians in different ways. On a basic level, in our riding in particular, we have a very high homeless population. University–Rosedale, Toronto Centre and Spadina–Fort York have some of the highest densities of people who are experiencing homelessness across Ontario. Many of the services for people who are experiencing homelessness are in our ridings. Many of the shelters are in our ridings. As well, many of the encampments are in our ridings. What I’m hearing from my colleagues is that the number of people who are homeless, living on the streets, living in encampments, has spread from Toronto to areas all across Ontario. It’s extremely concerning.

We have an encampment at College Street right now. It’s a new encampment, and the people who are living in this encampment literally have nowhere else to go. We have communicated with local service agencies, including The Neighbourhood Group, the church, and we have communicated with the city to try and find more permanent supportive housing for people who are living in tents, and there is nowhere for them to go. There are no permanently supportive homes available. And there are very few shelter beds available, and the shelter beds that are occasionally available—shelters are about 98% full—many of these shelters are hard for people to live in. They’re often dangerous. People are concerned that their belongings are going to be stolen. They’re worried about COVID, especially since we’re going into another wave. They have to leave every morning at a certain time. It’s very unstable.

What we also know is that many of the hotels that were established to house people during the COVID period, their contracts are up for renewal, and many of these contracts are not going to be renewed. So we have this perfect storm of rising inflation, a homelessness crisis and these hotel contracts that could be ending, which could lead to even more homelessness challenges. So it’s very concerning.

Then when we move up to the rental market, we see that our rental market is extremely expensive. We saw a dip in rental prices during the COVID crisis, but now what we’re seeing is rental prices going up. In the case of Toronto, we’re seeing rent prices reach record levels—levels that we have never seen before in Toronto, ever. I just went and had a look at the cost of a one-bedroom rental. For an available one-bedroom rental in the city, it will now cost you an average of $2,329 a month, which is a 17.1% year-over-year increase from August 2021. So rents have gone up 17% in the last year. The average amount for a two-bedroom apartment is now $3,266 for an available market apartment. That is staggering. There are estimates that you need to earn over $100,000 a year to afford just to rent in Toronto at this point.

Then when we move to the dream of owning a home, and that is a desire of many newcomers, many younger people—anybody who doesn’t have a home yet would love to own their own home, and that has become increasingly out of reach. There has been a softening in housing prices since the housing peak in February and March 2022, but with the rise in interest rates, we have actually entered, according to RBC, the worst housing affordability crisis when it comes to home prices that Canada has seen in decades because interest rates have made it even harder for people to save up the deposit and then also cover the carrying costs of having a mortgage.

This has happened under this government’s watch. The cost of buying a home, the cost of renting a home and the homelessness crisis, which is escalating, has happened on this government’s watch. It also happened under the Liberal government’s watch, but it has happened under this government’s watch. That is a legacy.

There is a need to certainly address the housing affordability crisis, and there were measures that we wanted to see in this bill to really tackle the housing affordability crisis in a comprehensive way. I want to flesh them out a little bit more before I get to the bill itself.

One, we agree with the Conservative government that building more homes, market homes and non-market homes, is necessary to address the housing affordability crisis.

Interjection.

I’m proud to rise to speak to Bill 23, the government’s new housing bill. This government’s bill is big, very big. It’s sweeping. And it was introduced yesterday at 3 p.m., which means that we are still digesting the changes, going through the schedules, consulting with planners, municipalities, housing experts, renters and the building sector to determine what this bill means, how it will affect our province and how it will affect the housing sector.

A few things come to mind just off the top. One is that this bill gives the province far greater control over development and planning. The minister has much greater authority to change heritage, to give fines to consumers, to change municipal laws that hurt developer profits. That’s our initial take.

The other measure that advocates have raised very quickly with us is the decision to get rid of cities’ right—the rental housing replacement program. The reason why I just want to dwell on this for my first few minutes is because this measure ensures that a renter, if they need to move because a building is being demolished, has the right to return once the new building is complete at approximately the same rent that they were paying before.

The reason why this is important is because, in Ontario today, we have thousands and thousands of purpose-built rentals that were built in the 1960s and 1970s. These are typically buildings that have far more affordable rents than the kind of unit you’re going to get if you move into a new condo downtown; you might be paying closer to $1,100 to $1,600 for a one- to two-bedroom apartment.

In my riding, many of the people who live in these buildings are older. They are rent-controlled. They have lived there for many years, and the beauty of a purpose-built rental is that it provides a tenant with more certainty that they’re going to be able to stay there year in and year out. That’s very different if you move into a rental property that’s part of a single-family home. Maybe it’s being bought by an investor who wants to flip the property within a year to five years. It does mean that if you live in a semi-detached or a single-family home, it’s far more likely that you could be evicted because the landlord wants to move in or sell it or the property has a new homeowner.

Those people who live in purpose-built rentals deserve protections, and they deserve to keep the protections they’ve got. Getting rid of the requirement—that any renter that is evicted is then potentially not allowed to move back into the new development means that every renter who lives in a purpose-built rental, every renter who is living under rent control, every renter who has more affordable rent could be in a situation where they could face eviction because their corporate landlord or a potential investor could see these properties as an opportunity to convert into luxury condos and force these tenants out. That’s where our affordable units are in the city, so I’m very concerned to see that measure in there.

We are already hearing from housing stakeholders who have raised this issue, and the reason why I’m focusing on this to such a great extent is because if we are going to build new homes, which we absolutely need to do, we also need to keep the affordable homes that we have.

I’ll give you an example of an individual, Carolyn Whitzman. She is an expert on housing supply, including meeting new housing supply. One of her biggest concerns is the decision to get rid of section 11, and this is what they say: “This would have a disastrous impact on net affordable housing. Canadians lost 15 homes renting at $750 or less for every one new affordable home created at that price point between 2011 and 2016. Most of this net loss was due to demolition and renovation of residential rental properties.”

What that means is that this rental housing protection bylaw that exists in some municipalities, including the city of Toronto, is the main reason why many of these—

Thank you very much, and congratulations. It’s good to see you in the chair.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, about Bill 23, this new bill. One measure that I’m particularly concerned about is the proposal to do away with protection for tenants who live in purpose-built buildings, who might find that their purpose-built rental will be converted to a condo and they will have no right to return to their unit at the same rent that they’re currently living at. Can you commit to ensuring that renters can return to their original unit once construction is complete?