SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Jessica Bell

  • MPP
  • Member of Provincial Parliament
  • University—Rosedale
  • New Democratic Party of Ontario
  • Ontario
  • Unit 103 719 Bloor St. W Toronto, ON M6G 1L5 JBell-CO@ndp.on.ca
  • tel: 416-535-7206
  • fax: t 103 719 Bl
  • JBell-QP@ndp.on.ca

  • Government Page
  • May/15/24 11:30:00 a.m.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Erwin Long lived at 73 Cartwright Street in London for five years until a company bought his home. After the sale, he was given two weeks to move out. When he couldn’t find a new home, the landlord changed the locks, boarded up the windows and forced Erwin into homelessness. He slept in a parking lot. Despite the Landlord and Tenant Board ordering the landlord to pay $6,700 for the illegal eviction, Erwin has never been compensated and he’s never been able to return to his home.

Ontario’s eviction laws are weak enough; without enforcement, they are useless. Renters want to know: When will this government begin to enforce its own eviction laws?

Today, Erwin’s home at 73 Cartwright Street has been renovated and listed on Airbnb for $110 per night, plus taxes and fees. I don’t believe—we don’t believe—investors like Erwin’s landlord should be kicking out tenants and converting properties into pricey, short-term rentals. It is contributing to Ontario’s housing shortage and driving up the rate of illegal evictions.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing: Will this minister crack down on short-term rentals and investment properties, so that these homes can be returned to the long-term rental market?

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  • May/14/24 10:20:00 a.m.

We recently had a tenant contact our office to raise a very concerning issue. The tenant had read about the recent court decision that forced a tenant to pay his landlord’s delinquent tax bill to the CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency, and he was concerned that this rule could affect him.

Since his landlord was refusing to tell them if they were paying their taxes, the tenant contacted the CRA and asked them what he should do. The CRA told him to withhold 25% of his rent and pay it directly to the CRA.

Now, if a tenant doesn’t pay on time, the CRA’s website says they will pay interest and they may be fined. The tenant went back to the landlord with the bad news and the landlord said, “If you withhold your rent to pay this tax bill, I’m going to evict you for arrears.”

Okay, so this tenant is now caught between a rock and a hard place, between having the CRA go after him for someone else’s tax bill or risking eviction. And this renter isn’t alone. Every renter who is living in a property owned by a non-resident landlord could be in the same horrible predicament.

No tenant should have to risk eviction for paying their non-resident landlord’s delinquent tax bill. This is fundamentally unfair. In this incredibly expensive housing market, renters have it hard enough.

We are requesting the following measures to resolve this situation: The province should direct the Landlord and Tenant Board to deny any landlord’s application to evict a tenant if the tenant is withholding rent to pay the landlord’s own tax bill, and second, the CRA should work with the federal government to reverse this rule immediately and not force tenants to pay their landlord’s delinquent taxes ever.

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  • Apr/9/24 11:30:00 a.m.

Back to the minister: This is a very serious matter. It is the difference between buying groceries or not for a renter, the difference between keeping up with your bills or not. Tenants should not be paying illegal rents to big landlords, but in Ontario today, they are.

My question is to the minister: Will you take action to curb AGI abuse, and protect tenants and get them the money that they are owed?

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  • Mar/6/24 11:40:00 a.m.

My question is to the Premier. Ontario can now fine landlords that illegally evict up to $250,000, but it never does. A Toronto Star analysis found that the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit and the Landlord and Tenant Board issue very small fines to guilty landlords, fines the landlord can quickly recoup by hiking the rent on the next tenant.

My question is to the Premier: Will this government start enforcing its own illegal-eviction laws?

Rental protection laws are useless if they’re not enforced. We have presented practical solutions to this government to help renters stay housed. We have introduced amendments in committee. We have introduced bills in this Legislature. When will this government start taking effective action and do its job and start enforcing its illegal eviction laws?

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  • Apr/17/23 2:50:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 97 

Thank you.

The second thing I want to talk about, which is really key, is this government’s changes to eviction laws in the Residential Tenancies Act. There are some good changes in this bill when we’re talking about eviction protection. I want to summarize them before I get to the loophole that I see.

One, it is encouraging to see that Bill 97 doubles the maximum fine for violations under the Residential Tenancies Act—so it’s for the entire Residential Tenancies Act; it’s not just for evictions—to $100,000 for an individual and $500,000 for a corporation. But let’s also be clear: That money doesn’t go to the wronged tenant; it goes to the board or to the government. It’s not like a tenant walks away with a $500,000 windfall. Let’s be clear about that.

The second thing that I see as a positive move is that this government is looking, with Bill 97, to require landlords to get a report justifying a home must be vacated for renovations before a tenant has to leave. There needs to be some criteria there to ensure it’s not just some Joe Blow writing this report so a landlord can just say, “Look, here’s a one-page summary: Renovations need to be done, bye-bye tenant.” This government is acknowledging that a landlord needs to have some kind of evidence and needs to do some due diligence before they move to the LTB to evict a tenant. I see that as a step forward as well.

I also see as a step forward in the right direction this government’s decision to be more flexible around the time frame that a tenant has to apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board for a remedy, if they are renovicted, to go to the Landlord and Tenant Board to say, “Hey, look, I think I’ve been illegally evicted and I want to seek redress.” Currently it’s two years, and this government is looking at adding up to six months after renovations are complete. The reason why that’s important is because in many cases, renovations—especially big renovations when you’re looking at demolitions—take longer than two years. We also have situations in our ridings where developers are just running the clock. They know that after two years the tenant can’t apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board for redress, so they just wait them out.

We actually have a situation like that in our riding, at 11 Walmer Road. Shortly after I was elected, we canvassed the building, and we very quickly learned that the new property manager, Cromwell property management, was looking at doing some renovations to the building and was actively encouraging—and I’m being polite there—to have tenants leave. So tenants agreed to leave, and there were a few tenants—we are currently working with an individual called Caitlin and an individual called Delroy who is 83, who made it clear in writing that they want to move back in after renovations are complete. It has been over two and a half years. We have sent numerous emails, made numerous calls to Cromwell property management. Caitlin lives nearby; so does Delroy. They see U-Haul units come in as new tenants come into the building to move into these units, but Cromwell has never approached them and said, “Now it’s time for you to move in to your unit.” So they’re waiting, and there’s nothing they can do. There’s nowhere they can go. The two-year time frame has passed. So they’re worried. It is good to see that they now have six months after renovations are complete to apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board for a remedy. My hope is that they will be eligible to apply.

So that’s the good.

Now I want to talk about the very bad which undercuts many of the modest improvements that you’ve made. The massive loophole that this government is not addressing with Bill 97 is the fact that there’s no enforcement. I want to explain to you what happens if a tenant is illegally evicted, so that you can understand this enforcement issue as well, in the hope that you’ll take illegal eviction seriously and work to address it. This is the loophole: For a landlord to be fined, a wronged tenant must become a volunteer private investigator and a good Samaritan for at least a year to make a case to the Landlord and Tenant Board, because it’s an average of a year for a tenant to get a hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board, compared to six months for a landlord. Landlords are getting fast-tracked right now. It takes a year. Successful tenants—

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Successful tenants almost never get their home back.

One of the most high-profile examples of tenants trying to get back into their units is something that happened in my riding, actually, a few years ago, at 795 College Street. These people decided to take their illegal eviction seriously. They took it to the Landlord and Tenant Board. It took them two years, and the landlord got a $75,000 fine. None of it went to the tenants. Then they took it to court, and the landlord got a $48,000 fine. The tenants never got their rent-controlled apartments back, and they got $12,000 in compensation for two years of work.

That’s why this enforcement issue—it destroys all the work you want to do to address illegal evictions. That is a massive loophole. I’m very concerned about it.

I asked FMTA how many fines were issued last year for the one million rental units in Ontario. Their response was flippant. They said it was maybe more than 20. Was it more than 20? I doubt it. Fines don’t happen. I have asked the Attorney General now. I’ve just done an order paper question to ask them how many fines have been issued for landlords who illegally evict, and the average amount of fine, and how many times a tenant is returned to their unit, so we can get these statistics. But I know these numbers are going to be extremely low. So we’ll see about that. That’s a big hole.

Excuse me for spending so much time on that, but we just get so many calls from renters who are terrified that they’re going to lose their home, and it really matters. You need to get this right. So please get it right.

The next piece that I want to talk about is this government’s decision to listen to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the advocacy we have done and thousands of tenants have done—including this Speaker and the work that she has done—to ensure that tenants have a right to reasonably enjoy their unit and have a maximum temperature set for Ontario of 26 degrees. Other municipalities have this, and it’s time for the province to have this as well. This government has taken a step in the right direction to enshrine the right for a tenant to install their own air conditioning unit, provided that it’s done safely, they inform the landlord they intend to do so, and they pay for any excess electricity costs. The right to have an air conditioning unit in these extreme heat wave summers that we now have because of all governments’ lack of action on climate change—and yours is up there—is the right thing to do. But I want to repeat a statement that I said earlier, which is that only the Conservatives could turn a human rights tribunal ruling into a rent hike for low- and moderate-income renters, and it seems like you’ve successfully done that here.

This government is starting to have a bit of a track record of doing a bit of a rush job when they write their legislation, and I’m finding that they make amendments and changes in future legislation because they realize they’ve made a mistake or an error or they were a bit too quick to listen to one side but not the other. I also see this here. You might notice that the Residential Tenancies Act actually explicitly bans the use of seasonal fees, and there’s nothing in this bill to address that pretty core feature of the Residential Tenancies Act. So that’s a problem. The Residential Tenancies Act also enshrines the right to reasonably enjoy your unit, which—at this point, it is becoming essential to have an air conditioning unit, if you don’t have air conditioning. So there are some contradictions with this legislation here, which really just shows that sometimes you’re rushing a little bit when it comes to legislation. You’re not doing the kind of due diligence and taking the care that you need to get it right. That means listening to stakeholders and doing those consultations before you write the legislation—as well as during. So I hope to see some amendments in the committee to really look into this issue of keeping tenants reasonably cool, protecting them from heatstroke, ensuring that they’re not miserably hot in summer, especially given how much rent they’re paying right now.

The next thing I want to address is some of the planning changes to Bill 97 that talk about supply and housing supply. This is really twinned with what the members opposite have been talking about when it comes to this government’s decision to merge the provincial policy statement with the growth plan to create a new, I would say, radical vision for how we plan in this province—a very expensive and unsustainable radical vision for how we build. So I’m going to address them in turn.

One—and this is a real mystery for me; I don’t even know what this fully means yet, but I’m sure we’ll learn in time—is that with Bill 97, it requires landowners and municipalities to enter into agreements where a provincial land development facilitator has been appointed. I’ve heard this government talk a bit about what these facilitators could mean. I don’t know what municipalities or areas these facilitators are going to be assigned to. We don’t know how much power these facilitators are going to have. But what we are concerned about is that these facilitators, in partnership with the ministry, will likely have the power to change official plans as they go, to change municipal laws around planning as they go. These are very powerful changes to include in a bill, especially since we don’t exactly know what they mean, what they are, or what kind of powers they’re going to have. That seems like a real black box to me—that you’re going to have this unelected, unaccountable individual, who reports directly to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, being able to meddle in official plans that, as the member for Waterloo was explaining, sometimes take years to develop, involve the work of elected officials, and require hundreds of hours of public consultation. So I’m concerned about that power grab. It kind of falls into your track record when it comes to planning and how you like to control all of it. It is a concern, and I look forward to seeing more details of that piece.

The other piece that I see here with Bill 97 is that the municipal zoning orders are made even stronger. It gives the minister the ability to exempt MZO-designated lands from other provincial policies and official plans, such as farmland and wetland preservation. As we all know, MZOs can’t be appealed, and they do not require public consultation before approval. In short, the government loves these MZO tools. You want to keep making them stronger and stronger, so in case there’s an obstacle coming up, you can override it. That’s one piece.

And then the second thing is, I really think it’s important to also look at what these MZOs are being used for.

When I look in my riding, there have been examples of MZOs which I am quite comfortable with. The city of Toronto has requested them. One was used to lower parking requirements for a supportive housing facility at 877 Yonge Street—good. The other one will likely be used, if it hasn’t been used already, to expand the emergency room at Toronto Western Hospital—good. You’re not going to be seeing any objections from me on those kinds of important, publicly beneficial zoning changes to expand hospital capacity and ensure that affordable housing gets built quickly, and the city of Toronto supported them—good.

What concerns me, and what I’ve seen this government doing, is using MZOs to help your developer donor friends build housing that is incredibly expensive in areas that are precious, that are on flood plains, that are in wetlands, that are on farmland, that are on greenbelt land. That’s where I start to see the red flags, and I’m not the only one who has been raising those flags. Some reporters have done some deep dives into this, and they’ve seen that these MZOs have benefited developers who have donated over—this is a while back, so I’m sure the number is higher—$262,915 to Progressive Conservatives and Ontario Proud. These are the very developers who are now tangibly and immediately benefiting from these donations, because they get to maybe call up the minister, get an MZO, and get their development fast-tracked. It seems like it’s a bit of a pay-to-play, and I don’t think that’s how 14 million Ontarians want to see their government operate. I think they want a government that’s more accountable and transparent and that puts people first. And there are a lot of people who are questioning who this government prioritizes and who this government doesn’t. We see that with the use of MZOs.

These changes to the MZOs and these changes to the facilitators—it’s all part of this grand plan that the government keeps going back to time and time again, to really upend and change our planning process so that we are building sprawl on land that many of your developer donors either bought on cheap or already owned. It’s not the kind of planning that is sustainable, that is affordable, that is modern, and that’s really going to build the kind of houses that people want to see and need. That’s where I see this government going.

I want to spend a few minutes looking at the provincial planning statement changes so that the public understands what exactly this government is doing.

This government is ending firm density requirements for new developments. So there can be a single-family home on a half-acre lot and a single-family home on a half-acre lot, and that’s precious farmland. You would think, if we’re looking at building, that we’d want to take advantage of every acre of land we’ve got, which means building up, increasing density; not building out. That’s very concerning. It’s a fundamental change.

We’re also seeing that now municipalities are no longer required to meet minimum density targets of 50 residents per hectare, but they are just encouraged to set their own density targets, which is a fundamental change to the trajectory of planning and development in this province. You’re fundamentally changing it so that it’s now advisory only—that’s pretty concerning. It used to be 80, this government reduced the per-hectare standard to 50, and now you’re just saying, “It will be encouraged.” That’s not good.

This government is also making it easier for municipalities to expand their urban boundaries and permit development on nearby green space and farmland whenever they want. Previously, municipalities could only expand their boundaries as part of a review process and only if certain conditions were met—such as housing needs that couldn’t be met by increasing density on areas zoned for development.

This government is just declaring open season on farmland even though the farming sector in Ontario is one of the most productive farming sectors in the world. We are one of the few provinces and regions in the world that is a net exporter of food, and it is one of the biggest economic drivers of our province—all these jobs. They need to grow food somewhere, so we should be doing everything we can to keep the farmland we’ve got. Instead, this government is saying, “Nope.” We could be building homes that are more affordable and building them more cheaply in areas already zoned for development, but instead we are just going to declare open season on one of the most productive economic drivers in the province, and that is our farming sector. It’s bananas; it really is.

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  • May/31/23 4:30:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 97 

Thank you to the member for Newmarket–Aurora.

In committee, we did vote in support of measures to require a landlord to get a report in order to justify an eviction of a tenant in the case of a renoviction. We also voted in support of the increase in fines for people or corporations that violate the Residential Tenancies Act; in fact, we proposed higher fines.

The challenge is that the moves that this government is making to address the renoviction crisis and the illegal eviction crisis—evidence is clearly showing us that they are too weak to work.

I urge this government to look at the evidence, do evidence-based decision-making, and move forward with measures that are actually going to stop the illegal eviction crisis that we have, because what we have right now is not working.

We did introduce amendments into Bill 97 in order to strengthen renter protections. Every affordable private-market home that we have, we should be keeping. There is nothing more important and there’s nothing more wise that we can do right now to make housing affordable than bring in vacancy control and real rent control. When we’re talking about being proactive, those kinds of rent control measures, those kinds of rent protection measures are really going to make Ontario a desirable place to live. It means we’re going to stop the net migration out of this province to other more affordable provinces, which is a real concern. Those people take all their talents with them. It means we become a more affordable and desirable place. It’s a pity the government chose not to accept those amendments.

We very much support and agree with the target of building 1.5 million homes to meet the needs of Ontarians today and to meet our immigration targets in the future. Many more people want to call Ontario home. It’s why we introduced an amendment—

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  • May/31/23 10:00:00 a.m.
  • Re: Bill 97 

My question is to the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville. We have been contacted by many prospective homeowners—people in Durham region, in the Ottawa West–Nepean area, in the area of Stayner—who bought homes at pre-construction, put up hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases in deposit money, and years later, they’re waiting for their home to be built. The developer isn’t building it unless they turn around and pay a whole lot more. They have contacted the Home Construction Regulatory Authority again and again and again, and they’re not getting the answers that they want. They’re stressed. They’re worried they’re going to lose their life savings. They want this government to take action. What is this government going to do to ensure these people get the homes they purchased at the price they agreed to?

In committee, ACTO, the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, summarized how broken our illegal-eviction protection laws are. They did a review of how many tenants get back into their home after a bad-faith eviction: essentially none. And then they did a review of what the average fine is that a bad landlord gets if they illegally evict a tenant: It’s between $500 and $3,000. How do you expect Bill 97 to be effective if the Landlord and Tenant Board is not issuing significant fines to landlords that illegally evict?

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  • May/17/23 11:00:00 a.m.

My question is to the Premier. Over 100 residents in the town of Rossmore are being threatened with a blatant renoviction by their new corporate landlord, Bedford Properties. Resident Keith Maybe said this: “It’s not humane what they have done. You’ve got people who have been in these apartments right from the time they were built 37 years ago. Some people are in their eighties and their nineties. It’s not right.”

Premier, what are you going to do to help these residents keep these homes?

For the sake of these residents, can you say yes to our amendments in Bill 97 to strengthen Ontario’s eviction protection laws?

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  • May/16/23 11:10:00 a.m.

My question is to the Premier.

Kara Petrunick lives in St. Catharines, Ontario. Her landlord just hiked her rent by $350 a month; it’s a 17% rent hike. If Kara had known she was going to receive a rent hike like this, she would never have moved in.

But even the government’s own brochure for tenants and landlords fails to explain that rentals first occupied after November 2018 are exempt from rent control.

Premier, do you think it is acceptable for renters living in new rental homes to receive 17% rent hikes?

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  • Apr/24/23 10:40:00 a.m.

My question is to the Premier. Nikki has lived in a rental home for two years. She pays $1,995 for a 600-square-foot basement apartment. Earlier this month, her landlord slapped her with a $200 rent increase, and now Nikki can no longer afford to pay the rent. This unaffordable rent increase is allowed because this government scrapped rent control on new units.

As more and more people in Ontario are struggling to pay the rent, what is this government’s plan to make rent affordable now?

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  • Apr/17/23 3:40:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 97 

Thank you very much for that question, member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. On paper, the Residential Tenancies Act requires a landlord to properly maintain a home, but in practice, many tenants are living in abysmal, unsafe, unsanitary living conditions where there are rodents or bed bugs. And unfortunately, the Landlord and Tenant Board has not been a place where tenants can seek redress. It takes upwards of two years for a tenant to have their case heard at the Landlord and Tenant Board. Who’s going to wait two years to get a bed bug issue addressed? And often, the Landlord and Tenant Board is not able to provide the necessary enforcement. They’ll do a rent abatement, but they often don’t properly enforce and require a landlord to fix a unit to a standard that’s acceptable. It’s a big problem.

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  • Apr/17/23 3:30:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 97 

Thank you to the member for Perth–Wellington for your comments. Yes, we have been very clear that the Residential Tenancies Act needs to be strengthened to ensure that renters are not illegally evicted, either by a landlord claiming own use or by a landlord claiming that they’re going to renovate the apartment, but then once the tenant has moved out, they don’t do renovations or they do modest renovations, and then the tenant can never get back in.

What I am asking this government to do is to listen to stakeholders and what we are telling you, and to fix the massive loophole of enforcement. The government can raise the fines however much they want, but the reality is that landlords are not being fined in Ontario today, because it’s the responsibility of a tenant to become a good Samaritan and a private investigator and to volunteer their time in order for that eviction protection law to be enforced. So please fix that loophole.

Manitoba has similar rent stabilization laws, Quebec has similar rent stabilization laws, and their economies are very healthy. So it is very important that this government look seriously at vacancy-control legislation, so people can afford to live in this province.

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  • Apr/6/23 10:50:00 a.m.

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?

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  • Oct/26/22 3:40:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 23 

Yes, it’s a huge issue. The Landlord and Tenant Board is the busiest tribunal in Ontario. It hears over 90,000 cases a year, and it resolves disputes between tenants, who see a house as a home, and landlords, who see that house as an investment. That means that they need to resolve very challenging disputes in a quick, fair and fast manner, so that everyone can get a fair outcome.

The challenge, however, is that people—landlords and tenants alike—are waiting months, and in some cases years, for their day in tribunal to get their issue resolved. We have a situation right now with an individual called Pin, whose landlord moved into their home without getting prior permission, has damaged the kitchen, has on occasion made their washroom not available for use—it doesn’t function properly. They have been waiting two years for a hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board. That is extremely concerning. That means they are living in misery. It means they are living in very difficult housing conditions, and they have to go back to that every single night at the end of their working day.

The Landlord and Tenant Board needs to be improved. It needs to be fast and fair. There need to be fair and competent adjudicators hearing cases, and people need to have a right to an in-person hearing if either the landlord or the tenant requests it. This government knows that this is an issue, and they’ve done very little about it.

And then the final piece when it comes to addressing the housing affordability crisis—you’ve got the renter protections; you’ve got building new supply—is this critical measure that we need to address, which is to clamp down on investor-led speculation, so that people who intend to live in a home that they buy or rent are prioritized by our housing sector.

This government, in the last week, has started to make some moves to address the sharp rise in investor-led speculation that we have seen in Ontario over the last decade. This government has made a decision to increase the non-resident speculation tax from 20% to 25%, and this government has also made a decision to expand it from the GTHA to include the entirety of Ontario. That is a move that we support. Increasing speculation taxes to allow people who intend to live in the home that they buy or rent is a good move. It needs to be more affordable. The challenge is that there needs to be a whole lot more done in order to make housing affordable again.

We have called for the government to bring in an annual speculation tax and an annual vacant homes tax to make housing more affordable for first-time homebuyers and to increase rental supply. The annual speculation tax has precedent—it was introduced and implemented in BC—and the annual vacant homes tax was also introduced into BC, and it has been remarkably successful. In the case of BC, they did a report on the effectiveness of the speculation and vacant homes taxes this year, in June 2022. They found that the 2% tax raised over $231 million in revenue, which was then moved to build affordable housing, and it added over 20,000 long-term rental units into the Vancouver area—20,000 long-term rental units were added, all with the stroke of a pen.

The reason why it is so effective, especially the vacant homes tax, is because it gives investors a choice: They can choose to keep the property empty and pay a tax and contribute to affordable housing; they can choose to open it up to a long-term rental market and provide someone with their own home; or they could choose to sell it and give a first-time homebuyer who intends to live in the property an opportunity to live in it. It’s win-win-win. It’s an extremely effective policy measure.

This government has talked about setting up a vacant homes round table to discuss the possibility of bringing in a vacant homes tax. I was hoping to see a vacant homes tax in this sweeping housing bill, but I did not see it.

Our request is that the speculation taxes that you have started to introduce need to be expanded to include an annual speculation tax and a vacant home tax, so we can raise the revenue we need and increase supply to ensure that Ontarians can get access to that safe and affordable home.

Now I want to move to the bill itself. It is a complicated bill. As I mentioned, we received the bill at 3 p.m. yesterday. It’s over 130 pages long. We’re doing outreach to municipalities and planners and housing advocates and tenant associations and experts and conservation authorities to better understand what this bill means and how it’s going to affect our housing sector.

Already we are getting written statements and feedback expressing some concerns with the bill—some things people like, some things people have some concerns with. I’m going to spend my time going through some of the feedback I have received and also highlighting some of the concerns and things that I think are interesting in this bill.

Number one is the government’s plan to reduce protections for renters. This is in schedule 1, changes to the City of Toronto Act, as well as schedule 4, the Municipal Act. Essentially, the changes are to impose limits and conditions on a municipality to prohibit and regulate the demolition and conversion of rental properties under section 111. So what does that mean? I want to explain using an example.

We have a building in our riding, 145 St. George. It is a 12-storey building. It is a building with many seniors in it. I’ve canvassed and talked to residents many times in that building. It’s an older building. I think it was built in the 1960s, maybe the 1970s. Many people in that building have lived there for 20-plus years. The entire building is rent-controlled because it was built before 2018. That means there are tenants in there paying between $1,100 to $1,600 in rent, which is more affordable. A big developer came in and said, “We want to demolish this building and replace it with a condo. That’s our plan.” The city of Toronto has this bylaw, section 111, which says, “Hold on, developer. Renters deserve protections too. We’re going to assess whether you’re going to be allowed to build a condo or not, but at a minimum requirement, all the renters who live in that 12-storey building need to be able to move back into the condo once it is built and live in those units that are built, at the same rent as they were paying before.” Essentially, what that means is, the condo is larger, so there’s a percentage of units that are sold off because they’re condos and then there’s a percentage of units that the former tenants can live in. That’s how it works.

Interjection.

The developer gets the density bonus, and they get to make their profit. They bought the property knowing full well that that was a requirement and that renters permanently displaced from a neighbourhood that they’ve lived in for 20 years will continue to pay the affordable rents that they are accustomed to and that they can afford.

If you’re a senior on a fixed income, it is very difficult being evicted in this housing market and being forced to pay upwards of $2,300 to $3,200 for a new market apartment. You just can’t do it.

So that’s how the measure works. And the power of this measure is that it ensures that the thousands and thousands of tenants across Toronto and Ontario who live in purpose-built rentals are protected from developers and investors that want to turn that purpose-built rental into condos. That is the purpose of that bylaw. It is extremely important. And I was very concerned to see this government’s decision to give themselves control and override and change municipalities that have introduced this bylaw to protect tenants in private-market affordable apartments.

Interjection.

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  • Aug/31/22 11:40:00 a.m.

This petition is called “Housing Crisis: Safe and Affordable Housing Now.”

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Toronto’s residential rental vacancy rate is 1.1%; and

“Whereas the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Toronto is over $2,000/month...; and

“Whereas the wait-list for social housing in Ontario is nearing 200,000 households; and

“Whereas the Ford government eliminated rent control protections on new rental housing; ...

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“—Reverse the recent elimination of rent control protections for new rental units;

“—End vacancy decontrol” which allows landlords to increase the rent to whatever they want once a tenant leaves;

“—End above-the-guideline increases...;

“—Strengthen the Residential Tenancies Act to protect tenants from renovictions and illegal evictions.”

I support this petition. I’ll be affixing my signature to it and giving it to page Evan.

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