Thank you to the member from Essex. A concern with the government’s changes to the lands tribunal, again, about third-party appeals is that citizens and environmental groups just don’t have the right to appeal at all, yet the government has carved out the right for major industry, developers and airports to appeal. So you’ve got this small group of people that must have lobbied you real hard in the last few weeks, and they can appeal, but everybody else can’t appeal.

I do want to emphasize, the lands tribunal, the adjudicators already have the authority to throw out appeals that are frivolous or that have limited chance of success. So they already have the option to say, “Look, we’re only going to be hearing concerns that are valid.” Those are my concerns about this bill.

I hope that in the next bill the government introduces, there is a commitment to improve the situation facing renters in Ontario today. Strong rent control is needed, vacancy control is needed and strong enforcement of rental protection laws, including clamping down on illegal eviction activity.

Even, at the last minute, with their poll numbers tanking, they’re saying, “Whoa, we need some good ideas.” People have seen through the—

My point is this: There are a lot of good ideas around there, and building non-market housing is one of them. I urge this government to get serious about that.

I also think it is essential that we move forward with increasing density in towns and cities. We have presented very practical solutions that are supported by—honestly, I cannot think of a single stakeholder that didn’t support allowing fourplexes as of right in towns or cities, not a single stakeholder. It’s such a winner. It’s such a winner. You can pat yourself on the back for that. I’d really like to see this government move forward on that and work with municipalities to ensure that they can meet their housing targets, not just in terms of numbers, but also in terms of affordability, size and needs, so we’re not just building a whole lot of 600-square-foot condos and 3,000-square-foot homes on farmland, but we’re building homes for the seniors and students, young families and people who have accessibility challenges.

Then, finally, what I would really like to see this government do in their multipronged approach—certainly something we would do—is to clamp down on the rise of investor-led speculation in Ontario. The reason why that is so important is because when we make it easier for Bay Street and Wall Street or Core Development to come in and snap up homes, we’re making it a whole lot harder for people who just want one home. They just want one home. We’re making it a lot more expensive and a lot harder for them to buy that home.

The whole purpose of the housing market is to provide homes for people first, not investors. That’s what housing is all about: It’s about providing homes to people. When I’m looking at these government bills, I look at it with that lens in mind, and I urge this government to do that as well.

But there are some things in this bill that make this bill really, really problematic. Making it easier for municipalities to say yes to low-density housing when we know we have alternatives is very concerning. Eliminating the planning responsibility from entire regional levels of government without any serious consultation is very concerning. Limiting third-party appeals to the lands tribunal, including valid third-party appeals, we have got a lot of concerns about as well.

The single most effective thing the government could do right now to make housing affordable is to bring in stronger rent control, immediately stabilize housing prices for over 1.7 million renter households and provide relief. With that, we can then move forward with building more housing, including non-market housing and affordable housing. I urge this government to look at this issue very seriously.

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—

I’m very pleased to be standing here today to debate Bill 185 at third reading.

I’d like to just give a little bit of a summary of how I’m going to use my hour today. I’m going to talk a little bit about what came up in committee. I’m going to go through the amendments that were introduced and discuss why we introduced them. I’m going to go through sections of the bill to identify some of the positive things in this bill, because there are some things in this bill that are positive. I’m going to read out some of the very strong submissions that we received from so many stakeholders across Ontario. And then I’m going to conclude with some of the solutions that we have been calling for that are not in this bill.

Whenever I look at a government bill, I look at it from a certain lens. I ask myself, is this bill and are these measures going to make housing more affordable for people to rent and own in Ontario? That’s the first way I look at this bill. The second way I look at it is, I ask myself, is this bill going to ensure that we have the good-quality public services we need in towns and cities across Ontario, so we can have a good quality of life? The third way I look at this bill is, I ask myself, is this bill going to build the wide mix and range of housing we need to address our housing supply and our housing affordability shortages, and is it being done in a sustainable and responsible way? Are we needlessly building on farmland and green space, or are we building in parts of Ontario where we can increase density, so that we can balance the many needs that we have and the many issues that we have in Ontario?

This is a popular bill. We got a lot of submissions. We had a lot of people who wanted to speak in committee. Unfortunately, we had to turn some people away. I think it is always unfortunate when not everyone who wants to speak to a bill is given the opportunity to do that—because especially when it comes to housing, these bills affect everyone in Ontario. If it takes us an extra day or two or a week to hear what people and organizations have to say, I think we should give them the time to do it.

Thank you to the many stakeholders who spoke and gave written submissions. I want to name a few: AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario; BILD; Bonnefield; the Canadian Environmental Law Association; Canadians for Properly Built Homes; the city of Mississauga; the city of Toronto; CUPE Ontario; the Escarpment Corridor Alliance; the Federation of Citizens’ Associations of Ottawa; the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario; the Georgian Bay Association; Gravel Watch Ontario; the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association; the Greenbelt Foundation; the Green Space Alliance; No Demovictions, which is a new group that is being started up in Ontario; the Ontario Association of Architects; the Ontario Federation of Agriculture; the Ontario Long Term Care Home Association; the Reform Gravel Mining Coalition; and many more.

People care about what is in this bill—many people did. I was very impressed by the intelligence and the thought and the care that were given to us in committee, as well as the written submissions that were given to us. I read many of them, and they were very thoughtful. So thank you for that. Much of the feedback that stakeholders gave us informed the amendments that we introduced in committee in order to fix this bill.

Like I said, there are some things in this bill that we like. It is clear that the government heard from municipalities that were pretty angry that their ability to raise revenue to pay for infrastructure was curtailed with Bill 23 and Bill 109—and that there were some improvements in this bill.

But then there are a whole lot of things that we would have liked to have seen in this bill that weren’t there, and then there are a whole bunch of things in this bill that I wish weren’t there at all.

I’m going to start off by going through some of the amendments. Our goal was to improve this bill. We had a few. We can’t help ourselves. We start off by saying we’ll just do a few, and then as time goes on we realize we have 20 or 30. So be patient with me.

The first amendment that we introduced was to the City of Toronto Act. It was a bill that would enshrine the right for municipalities to protect and compensate tenants and preserve the stock of available residential units in cases where a purpose-built rental is demolished and replaced with—almost always—a condo. You would think that this is a one-off issue, but unfortunately, it is concerningly becoming very common. We expect that the number of purpose-built rentals that are demolished will increase as we move to increased density in towns and cities. The reason why this is a problem is because when you’re looking at purpose-built rentals in our city, it’s the kind of housing stock that we need to preserve. We need to preserve it, and the reason is that we know we have a shortage of purpose-built rentals and almost overwhelmingly the number of affordable purpose-built rentals that exist in our city are in these big purpose-built rental buildings. These are rent-controlled buildings where the rent—if it’s a long-term tenant, they might be paying anything from $1,100 to $1,600, which is much more affordable than what you get in a new purpose-built rental that isn’t protected by rent control.

Unfortunately, with Bill 23, the Ontario government gave themselves the power—they must have listened to some people and not others—to step in and eliminate or reduce the power that municipalities have to protect tenants. People were terrified that that was going to happen.

The reason why we introduced this amendment is to say, “Municipalities need to have the power to protect the affordable rental housing stock we’ve got so that we can build and not gentrify at the same time, so that we can build and also help the tenants who already live in towns and cities in Ontario, including Toronto”—because we can do both.

It is a shame that the government chose to not move forward with this amendment, and I urge this government to seriously consider this issue. It is a big issue. Thousands of tenants are affected by this.

The second amendment that we introduced was to make changes to the Development Charges Act. The government has rolled back some of the worst elements of Bill 23 and Bill 109. They’ve turned around and said, “Municipalities do need the power to require developers to pay their fair share for new infrastructure that is needed when people move into an area.”

We asked the government to listen to what AMO was saying and many advocates were saying and to require developers, when they’re building new units, to also pay for the necessary affordable housing and shelter that is needed in towns and cities, as well. It’s called housing services. The reason this is so important is that, with Bill 23, municipalities were banned from collecting development fees to be used for affordable housing and homelessness at a time when we have, I would say, the worst homelessness crisis that we’ve had in Ontario for decades.

The city of Toronto outlined this in their submission, and AMO also recommended that this right be reinstated. They did some calculations for us, and they calculated that municipalities are on track to be out of pocket $2 billion—$2 billion of money that should be going to maintain affordable housing and for shelters, both temporary and permanent. That affects 47,000 units. So why on earth would the government want to make it even harder for municipalities to address the homelessness problem and the affordable housing problem we have in municipalities? I don’t know. We introduced this amendment to restore the right that municipalities have to collect that fee, and the government voted that down, which I think is a problem.

We also introduced these amendments to a section of the act that dealt with the decision to reverse one of the most politically motivated and most unusual bills I’ve seen in a while, which is to, without any notice or consultation at all, get rid of the Peel regional government, which is really quite draconian. In this bill, they’ve made a decision to reverse that, so they’re going with the Peel dissolution act—dissolutioning the Hazel McCallion Act, 2023, schedule 7. Overall, the decision to repeal the Hazel McCallion Act makes a lot of sense. No one asked for the region of Peel to be eliminated, and it was projected to have a significant impact on the quality of services that the residents of Caledon and Peel and Mississauga would be provided with. We had a lot of concerns about that, and we are pleased to see a reversal—a partial reversal. We did introduce some amendments to shine some light and bring some transparency to that process, and the reason why is because the transition committee that is responsible for looking at how the services were going to be divvied up in these three regions gave Peel region a bill of $4 million. This is work that the Ontario government directed them to do, and then this transition committee turned around and said, “Actually, it’s not the Ontario government that is going to pay this bill. It’s going to be Peel region and Peel taxpayers who are going to pay this bill.” Obviously, that’s just downright crazy. So, in our amendment, we said that what we want to see is some transparency. We want to see this government provide an assessment of the financial impact of its recommendations and to make the financial impact public so people knew how much this transition and this reversal of this transition and then this partial movement forward is actually going to cost. The government rejected that, which I think is unfortunate.

The second amendment we introduced is to say that the province is asking for this work to be done—this transition. They’re appointing the board. They’re controlling the process. That means the provincial government should actually pay for the costs of this transition board, and not the taxpayers of Peel. We introduced that amendment, as well, and the government voted that down.

This was an interesting one. The government, in a last-minute flurry, made some additional changes to the lands tribunal. The lands tribunal, the Ontario Municipal Board, the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal—it’s a beast that has known many different names, but now it’s called the lands tribunal. The lands tribunal is one of the most powerful tribunals Ontario has ever seen, and it has been changed and altered and manipulated more times than I can remember. Every time there is a bill, there are some changes to the lands tribunal.

I thought the changes that were in Bill 185 that affect the lands tribunal were particularly concerning. In the bill, the government said, “From now on, we’re no longer going to allow third-party appeals to the lands tribunal,” which means that if a citizens’ group has some concerns about a quarry or a dump and the decision has been made by the municipality, that individual is no longer able to go to the lands tribunal to say, “We need a sober second thought. We need an adjudicator to look at this decision carefully.” It is an issue that I think has become very politicized.

Many organizations wrote to us about the need to continue to allow third-party appeals at the lands tribunal, including the Canadian Environmental Law Association. The reason why they recommended that third-party appeals be allowed is because they’ve represented many citizens who have been concerned about the environmental impact of developments, quarries, dumps in the area. They’ve taken it to the land tribunal to say, “We also need to factor in how this is going to affect water quality, soil health, planning.” So they were very clear. They wanted to make sure that third-party appeals were retained. They also brought an interesting point forward in their submission. They said this is also important because it’s about access to justice: “Land use planning decisions often disproportionately impact low-income, underserved and under-resourced communities, and have direct adverse impacts on the environment and the health and safety of the public.” So in order to ensure that we are making equitable planning decisions, there is a benefit in allowing third-party appeals.

We hear a lot from this government that the lands tribunal is becoming politicized, and people are saying no to developments and they’re taking it to the lands tribunal. That does happen, but the lands tribunal, as it’s currently structured right now—adjudicators already have the authority to throw out frivolous appeals. They already have the authority to throw out appeals that have limited chance of success. So when we’re talking about slowing necessary development down, the lands tribunal already has the powers it needs to have to make sure that process is not abused.

What I found concerning about the government’s amendment in committee is—they must have been lobbied real hard by some folks, because the government said, “We’re going to keep the third-party appeal ban, but we’re going to allow some groups to appeal”—not everyone else, but some groups. Airports—that’s legit. Big industry are allowed to appeal. Big manufacturing facilities are allowed to appeal. And developers are allowed to appeal. I have some concerns with this because it seems like the lands tribunal is being manipulated to suit the government’s own agenda. There are over 14 million people in Ontario today. The vast majority of them are no longer allowed to appeal to the lands tribunal. But some select entities that must have lobbied you really hard in the last few weeks—at the last minute, you introduced an amendment to allow them to appeal. I think that’s very concerning, and I don’t think that’s how the lands tribunal should operate. I don’t think the appeals process should be open to some but not open to everybody else. I’ve got a lot of concerns about that.

This is a petition entitled “A Future for Child Care in Ontario.” This petition calls on the government to establish a committee to address the staffing shortages that child care centres are experiencing across Ontario and to establish a salary scale, increase compensation and improve working conditions.

I support this petition, and I’ll be giving it to page Jasnoor.

Just to point out and respond to the comments that the associate minister said: Unfortunately, in the provincial planning statement, now municipalities don’t need to demonstrate that prime agricultural farmland is at risk before they approve a development, so we’re very concerned about the potential loss of prime agricultural land and the government’s decisions to do that.

I want to speak about third-party appeals. This government did some last-minute dealing where they’ve banned third-party appeals to the lands tribunal except for a few key players, including developers, major industry and companies near a site. Why bias the lands tribunal in that fashion?

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. In committee, we heard time and time again from stakeholders—from the Ontario Home Builders’ Association to environmental groups to farming associations—saying that we need a whole mix of homes in Ontario, and those homes should include the opportunity to build fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario.

Can this government move forward with permitting fourplexes as of right in towns and cities across Ontario?

My question is about what I heard in committee when it came to the issue of building low-density housing on farmland and green space. We had organizations from the National Farmers Union to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture say very, very clearly that they’re very concerned about this bill and how it will make it easier for municipalities to say yes to sprawl, with no real justification, and also make it easier for developers to contest a municipal decision to say no to sprawl, even though we know that there is more than enough land available to meet our housing targets.

Why continue down the path of unsustainable sprawl when we know we have better options?

This bill calls on the government to establish a committee to come up with a plan to make the Union Pearson Express affordable, to integrate it into the TTC so it costs a TTC fare to ride; to increase capacity; and to electrify the line. This would be the cheapest mass-transit line Toronto could ever get. It’s very sensible, and that’s what this bill proposes to do.

Mr. Shamji moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 203, An Act to amend the Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act, 2004 with respect to payments to nurse practitioners / Projet de loi 203, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2004 sur l’engagement d’assurer l’avenir de l’assurance-santé à l’égard des honoraires à verser aux infirmières praticiennes et aux infirmiers praticiens.

This petition asks that the rates for Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program be doubled in order to address poverty in Ontario.

I support this petition, and I will be affixing my signature to it and giving it to page Sophia.

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?

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.

I have a petition here called “Rent Stabilization Now.” This petition is calling on the Ontario government to establish strong rent control on all tenancies—including those first occupied after 2018—as well as vacancy control so there’s a cap on how much the rent can be raised between tenancies.

The purpose of vacancy control and strong rent control is to stabilize rent and reduce the incidence of eviction, which is unfortunately on the increase in Ontario.

I support this petition. I’ll be giving it to page Aaldrian.

I’d like to thank ACORN for collecting these signatures. This petition is called “Rent Stabilization Now.” This petition is calling for rent control to be applied on all homes, including homes that are built after 2018, and for a system of vacancy control to be established so there is a cap on how much the rent can be raised if a tenant leaves.

The reason why this is so important—and they say this in the petition—is because rent is too high. It’s too high. People in Ontario can’t afford it, and it is important, in order for us to achieve affordability, that we stabilize rent prices so our province can be affordable for renters as well.

I support this petition. I’ll be giving it to page Raisa.

Kensington is losing 2.5 teachers, and the school is bringing in a 4-5-6 split, which means learning in that class will be severely impacted. This petition calls on the government to properly invest in public education so we can lower class sizes, address the mental health crisis and address the worker shortages that we’re seeing in our public schools.

I support this petition, and I’ll be giving it to page Harry.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 9, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 190, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to employment and labour and other matters / Projet de loi 190, Loi modifiant diverses lois relatives à l’emploi et au travail et à d’autres questions.

I have a petition here entitled “Stop Bill 166.” Thank you to the residents who reached out to our office to explain your concerns with the bill and give us this petition.

There is concern with Bill 166 because it brings in political interference to university research and education. There is also a concern with this bill because the best way to ensure that every university has an excellent mental health and anti-racist policy program is to properly fund it, and this government has unfortunately not been properly funding universities. This petition calls on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to oppose Bill 166 for these reasons and to restore funding to post-secondary institutions.

I want to talk about how the housing crisis is affecting people, Minister.

Maria is a senior in my riding. She looks after her disabled son. She pays $3,640 a month for two rooms in a home, because it’s all she can find in Toronto. She’s due to be evicted in three days because she cannot afford the rent. She’s looking to move into a shelter, but that means she will be separated from her disabled adult son. Maria is one of 65,000 people who are on a wait-list for an affordable home. She has been waiting 12 years.

Minister, do you think it’s acceptable that a senior is being forced to move into a shelter because there is no available affordable housing?

Minister, I want to talk about Helen. Helen is a new parent. A developer bought her home and the eight homes next to her, and now the developer is systematically kicking out the tenants one by one. The developer is no longer doing basic repairs like stopping sewage from leaking through the ceiling, making the homes unlivable, and the developer is also filing eviction notices saying family members are about to move in. These are clearly illegal actions.

Minister, do you think it’s acceptable that big landlords are allowed to engage in illegal activity to drive out tenants from their homes?

Back to the minister: The 15,000 Pearson airport workers, the thousands of commuters who use the UP Express and the thousands of people who use the UP Express to get to Pearson to take a flight are not part of the One Fare program, and they desperately want to be. We are calling on the government to include the UP Express in the One Fare program and increase service on the UP Express to meet demand.

Can you do this? Yes or no?

My question is to the Premier.

Under its agreement with the federal government, this government promised to build nearly 20,000 new affordable homes over 10 years, but six years later, they’ve barely managed to build 1,000.

You’ve fallen so far behind that the federal government is punishing you and refusing to hand over affordable housing funding to this government. Whatever you’re doing is not working.

My question to the Premier: What is this government going to do differently to ensure we build the tens of thousands of affordable homes that Ontario needs and get the funding that we are owed?

Interjections.

AMO estimates municipalities are on track to lose $2 billion over 10 years because this province has banned them from collecting fees to help pay for homelessness programs, at a time when shelters are full, and cities and towns have permanent encampments in parks and sidewalks.

What is this government’s plan to ensure every person in Ontario who is homeless is provided with shelter and permanent housing?

My question to the minister: Can this government fix the bill, allow fourplexes as-of-right and ensure we get the infrastructure funding we’re eligible for?

What I noticed about the Get It Done Act is the move to make it easier to expropriate farmland to build new transportation projects. I think about Highway 413, a $6-billion highway that will be travelling through some of the most fertile, productive farmland in North America. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. And studies show that it might save people a minute in their commute times.

If we’re looking at helping people get from A to B, what other transit or transportation solutions would you like to see in Bill 162?

Thank you to the member opposite for your presentation, from Mississauga–Lakeshore. My question is about this government’s decision to once again redraw urban boundaries in areas that are abutting prime farmland. I’m talking about Halton, Waterloo, Peel, York and Wellington county.

The government’s own housing affordability task force said very clearly that we do not need access to new land to meet our housing targets. Given that, why is this government moving forward with redrawing municipal boundaries to open up farmland to unnecessary development?

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. New government documents obtained by Global News reveal that this government continues to underfund affordable housing. The Conservatives have cut funding to community housing programs even though the wait-list for an affordable home has ballooned to well over 65,000 people.

My question to the minister: Why is this government cutting funding to affordable housing at a time when the homelessness and housing crisis has never been worse?

Back to the minister: These are the facts. Schools in our riding are facing cuts, because the Conservatives are refusing to properly fund our public school system. We have 15 parents from Kensington school today. Kensington is losing two teachers. They just learned their kids will be in a grade 4/5/6 class. That means a teacher will have to explain and teach three lesson plans each and every day. That is not a recipe for student success, that is a recipe for kids being left behind.

My question is to the minister: Will you commit to more school funding so students in this province, including the kids of these parents who are here today, can succeed in school?