My question is to the member for Durham. We just did a briefing where we had representatives from Canadians for Properly Built Homes speak, and their biggest concern was that not enough is done to ensure that builders abide by the building code when they’re building a new home or a condo. It’s resulting in people buying a home that’s just not up to snuff, where there are major defects and their dream has turned into this horror show.

What is this government’s plan to ensure that builders follow the building code when they’re building new homes?

The House leader was asked a very simple question there and failed to provide an answer.

My question is to the Premier.

Last weekend, I joined hundreds of people from 25 St. Mary Street and 145 St. George Street who were rallying to save their homes and their buildings from being demolished and turned into condos. These people are stressed and worried because they fear this government is going to gut Toronto’s rental protection laws and make it practically impossible for them to return to their homes once the construction of the new building is complete. Over 3,441 affordable, purpose-built rental homes are at risk of being demolished and turned into condos. We cannot afford to lose these homes, Premier.

Will this government commit to preserving Toronto’s rental protection laws so these people can keep their homes?

I want to talk about the Landlord and Tenant Board. New evidence shows that tenants are being pushed to the back of the queue and are waiting twice as long as landlords to get a decision at the Landlord and Tenant Board. I would call that discrimination.

What is this ministry going to do to reform the Landlord and Tenant Board so everyone can get access to a fast and fair hearing equally?

Thank you to the member from Niagara West for your presentation.

I noticed in this bill, Bill 91, that the government has opened up the condo act, which I find quite interesting, because there are a lot of improvements that we can make to strengthen protections for the 1.3 million people who live in a condo in Ontario.

To the member from Niagara West: What measures would you like to see to strengthen board governance and consumer protections for condo residents in Ontario? Since you’re opening up the act, this is a real opportunity to move forward with that kind of stuff.

My question is to the Premier. Shudeshna and her neighbours have problems with their condo. They called because their units have not had heat for weeks this winter, and they’re unsafe, because the building is being broken into and their property manager refuses to improve security. They’re also concerned because there is no effective regulator, agency or tribunal that can step in and help them. I believe this has got to change.

Premier, this is my question: Can you strengthen and improve the condo tribunal, so Ontario condo residents have a place to go when they face issues like these?

My question is to the Premier. Kerrie and Daniel, who are here today, are owners of a newly built condo at 1 Yorkville Avenue. Since moving in, they’ve faced a whole host of problems—faulty equipment causing false fire alarms, amenities that were promised that have still not been built. Their home is still a construction zone.

Now, Kerrie has complained to her property manager, her condo board and government regulatory agencies, but no one is helping her and the problem remains.

A report written by the public accounts committee gives us a road map for what we need to do to give condo residents the protections they need, and this government signed off on that report as well. To ensure condo residents live in safe and well-maintained homes, when will this government turn this report’s recommendations into law?

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—

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.

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?