Yes. I have some concerns about that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you to the member for Ottawa Centre for your presentation. I want to raise some concerns that the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies raised. They talked about how, while this bill does something to improve people while they are in care, there’s nothing in the bill that addresses why children end up in care in the first place.

Can you speak to what you’ve heard from stakeholders or from your own experience in your riding about what we can do keep kids safe and loved in their families, in their homes?

Thank you to the member for her presentation. My question concerns First Nations consultation and accommodation. What is appropriate First Nations consultation and accommodation with mining projects such as these?