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

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

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

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

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

Interjection: I think not.

Interjection.

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

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

Interjection.

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

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

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

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

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

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