It’s always interesting hearing the minister opposite talk about protections for renters, when I hope he knows full well that if a tenant goes to the Landlord and Tenant Board to contest an illegal eviction, they never return to their home, and the number of landlords that are effectively fined at the Landlord and Tenant Board for illegally evicting a tenant is next to nothing—maybe 20, out of 1.4 million or 1.7 million households in Ontario. It doesn’t happen. That’s the reality of what it is today.

I’m proud to rise today to speak to the single most effective measure Ontario can take to make housing affordable and more affordable in Ontario today.

Let’s also be clear: The Conservatives’ track record on solving the housing crisis is not working. It has never been more expensive to rent or own a home in Ontario, ever. This government has been in power for nearly five years.

The legacy is yours, and the legacy is huge unaffordability.

The Conservatives’ move to eliminate rent control on new buildings and permit sprawl on the greenbelt has not solved our housing supply crisis. It has failed to make homes more affordable for Ontarians. In fact, the Conservatives have made life very hard for renters.

It was alarming to learn that Toronto’s average rental price has passed the $3,000-a-month barrier for purpose-built rentals, up approximately 13.8% from the previous year. That is shocking. You need to earn well over $130,000 a year to afford a small apartment in Toronto today.

As the leader has mentioned, this is not just a Toronto issue; this has become a province-wide issue. All our members have many stories of constituents approaching them and saying, “I can’t make it work anymore. I’m having difficulty feeding my family. I can’t afford the bills. I’m being threatened with an illegal eviction. I’m having to move into a smaller unit, a basement apartment, because I can’t make it work anymore. Now I am sleeping in the lounge room so that my children can have the only bedroom available.”

We hear stories of constituents who have multiple families living in a two-bedroom apartment because they can’t make it work in Toronto or Ontario anymore. How on earth can you afford an apartment, when the average rent is $3,000 a month for a new apartment, if you’re earning just above minimum wage? If you’re working at the airport, or if you’re working in a supermarket or if you’re working in front-line retail, how on earth can you possibly make it work in this city, in this province today? The reality is, you can’t. That’s why our food bank lines are so big. That’s why people are wondering if it’s worth living in this province anymore.

Just like we look at Statistics Canada’s data that comes out, we see that people are voting with their feet, and they’re leaving this province. Net migration to other provinces is up because people come here and they realize they can’t make it work, and they’re taking their skills and their talents with them. They’re moving to Alberta. They’re moving to Manitoba. They’re moving elsewhere because this province, under this government’s leadership, is becoming too expensive.

I am proud today to support real rent control—including all homes, including homes built after 2018—and rent control that includes vacancy control, so that there is a cap on how much the rent can be raised after a tenant leaves. The reason why this is so important is because strong rent control will stabilize rent prices for Ontario’s renters, and it will protect tenants from illegal eviction, because strong rent control reduces the financial incentive for landlords to evict. It provides renters with stability so that their home that they live in can continue to be their own at a stable price. That is extremely important.

I want to conclude by talking a little bit about the myth that this Conservative government likes to present: that rent control will limit the construction of new, affordable homes. What we have seen in Ontario today is that when there is rent control, such as in the 1970s and 1980s—