Exactly. They have the authority to politicize bureaucrats by having the authority to hand-pick the heads of departments instead of having a more collaborative, non-partisan process to decide who these public servants are going to be. And any municipality—any mayor now also gets the authority not just to veto a piece of legislation but also to introduce legislation and get it passed with just one third.

This government, in short, in schedule 3, is giving themselves the permission to introduce minority rule in any municipality they want, whenever they want, just through regulation; it doesn’t have to come back through the Legislature. That is an assault to democracy. It is a shame.

I’m not the only one who’s concerned about this bill. We went to committee. We got 20 minutes of the minister’s time, with some questions on the first day. And then on the second day, we had just 18 people speak. You sped it through so fast. There are over 14 million people in Ontario. You’re rewriting how democracy works in this province, and you gave just 18 people the opportunity to speak—it’s really shocking—but speak they did, and the written submissions that we received and the comments that we received in committee, overwhelmingly, expressed horror at what this government was doing. We had CCLA. We had former mayors. We had thousands of citizens. We had the Anglican Diocese of Toronto. We had the Canadian Environmental Law Association. We had Ecology Ottawa. We had David Miller, Friends of Kensington Market, the Federation of North Toronto Residents’ Associations, the Federation of South Toronto Residents’ Associations, Friends of the Golden Horse-shoe, David Crombie, John Sewell, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, AMO.

And I know you have all had hundreds, thousands of emails into your inbox about Bill 23 and its sister bill, Bill 39, over the last few weeks. I get those emails too.

You’ve had thousands of people, cumulatively, protest at your offices. It’s December. It’s cold. And yes, they’re still coming out because they’re so concerned about this bill. It is very concerning.

I want to read some of the comments that people expressed.

AMO represents 444 municipalities. They did a survey of Bill 3, which is an extension of strong mayors—Bill 3 and Bill 39 are very related. It’s almost like you forgot, like John Tory called you up and said, “Hold on, what about this,” and you said, “Oh, yes, you’re right. We’ll do Bill 39 too. Thank you. Oh, and that? Okay. We’ll make another bill.” AMO—77% of mayors are opposed to strong-mayor powers. Who asked for this bill, aside from John Tory? And 90%-plus of councillors are opposed to strong-mayor powers. Then, when it comes to Bill 39—they haven’t done a survey yet, because this bill got rushed through so quickly, they haven’t had time—the AMO board is unanimously opposed to this bill. They reached consensus. Yet, still you proceed. No amendments, ram it through committee—“good, good, good.” It’s not good. And your arguments keep changing all the time, so I know you’re hearing it from your constituents, too—they don’t think it’s good either. When you guys start changing your message, it means that something is not going so well—

This is a disastrous bill. It is a terrible, terrible, terrible bill, and it’s got nothing to do with solving the housing affordability crisis.

If this government was serious about solving the housing affordability crisis, you would bring in better rent controls so Ontarians out there living in new homes aren’t faced with a 15% rent increase come this Christmas, come January 1; this government would actually address the homelessness crisis and the mental health crisis, and build affordable housing and supportive housing to meet the need—not some scattershot approach that maybe you’re doing, plan-less.

Have a plan. Implement it. People need homes. Homes are for people.

This bill has nothing to do with providing homes to people; it’s got everything to do with consolidating power to help yourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interjection: Shame.

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

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

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

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

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

Interjection.