Every day in this province, people are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table. In my riding of Don Valley West, residents in Thorncliffe Park are resorting to rent strikes because they’re facing repeated years of above-guideline rent increases.

Take John, a veteran on disability facing a 12% increase, who said, “My pension does not increase by 12% each year.” Joe has called the Premier and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to ask them to do something to limit rent increases for those on disability and pensions. Like John, I anxiously await their response.

Speaker, building new housing that’s affordable is part of the solution, but what is the government doing now for people like John and tenants in Thorncliffe Park who are struggling with $300-a-month rent increases because the government removed rent control in 2018? We know the government thought that allowing a few developers to make $8.3 billion in windfall profits was a good idea, but now we need good ideas that help those struggling to pay rent and buy food.

As Steve Pomeroy, a prof at McMaster’s housing evidence collaborative, said recently to CBC, “An ideal approach would limit the volatility of rent increases for non-rent-controlled units while ensuring new projects still make financial sense for developers.”

Speaker, it’s time for the government to take the affordability crisis seriously and take serious action to help people who are choosing between paying rent and buying food.

Thank you to my colleague from Orléans for his excellent suggestions.

The housing crisis in Ontario has reached the point where it’s affecting many more in our society. Workers are being forced out of Toronto because they can’t afford to live in the city anymore.

I spoke to the owner of a small business, a garage, who felt forced to sell his business because he couldn’t hire mechanics, because mechanics are moving to the suburbs and to small towns because of high rents here in Toronto, and choosing to work nearer to wear they live.

People will keep fleeing this city and province to cheaper locales out west or in the Maritimes, and that will affect the ability—it is affecting the ability—of our province to thrive. This trend is a threat to our economic health, and it must be addressed. This government has been in power for five years, and this problem is not getting better; in fact, it’s getting worse. We risk a society that lacks sufficient young and middle-aged people to do the work that keeps our province working.

There was an article yesterday in the Toronto Star about Toronto Island and how it’s disproportionately occupied by elderly people, because young people can’t get there, can’t make their home there.

That’s the future we risk for the province at large, which is why it’s particularly disheartening that this government has failed to take meaningful action on the housing crisis. The refusal to adopt the recommendation of its own expert housing task force would be farcical if it didn’t have such a damaging impact, but the consequences of this inaction are grave and cannot be waved away by boasting about how many cranes we have in the province.

This government’s focus on sprawl and tall, and no other creative solutions, at the expense of farmland and our environment, hurts our province’s overall well-being. This legislation’s provisions for expanding urban boundaries go against the recommendations of this government’s expert housing task force.

That being said, there is a part of this legislation I could support. The tenant protections strengthened in this bill are a positive step in the government’s track record on rights for tenants. Half of the residents of my riding of Don Valley West are renters, and the increasingly precarious housing situation in Ontario disproportionately affects them. With the average price of a one-bedroom apartment reaching $2,500 a month, it has never been more difficult to be a renter in this city, and this government has thus far failed to help them. I receive countless phone calls and emails from constituents, many of them new immigrants and elderly women living on a limited pension, who are scared that their landlord will force them out through a renoviction or that they will be forced out because of above-guideline rent increases. Displacement has a serious impact on people’s lives, particularly those who have lower incomes or are already in a difficult financial situation. So we’ll need to see the details of how this bill will be implemented to see if the new protections do indeed deter renovictions, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.

But one must also wonder why the government is introducing these protections now, when they removed the city of Toronto’s ability to regulate demolition last year in Bill 23. Toronto had possibly the best rental replacement policy in the province, and this government removed it. Rental replacement makes sense from a supply perspective, because it does not make sense that it’s easier to redevelop an existing apartment building than to build the missing middle in residential neighbourhoods. The government has real power to address this crisis, if only they would wake up to that.

A way this government could further prevent displacement and help the affordability issue that so many Ontarians are facing is by looking at creative solutions for rent control that do not deter the building of new rental units, like rolling rent controls over a 10-year period. Because of this government’s current policy, all new builds are exempt from rent control, which means that anyone living in a new apartment is at further risk of displacement. I have heard of tenants in non-rent-controlled apartments receiving notices of rent increases of 10%, and they just cannot afford that on a big-ticket item like rent.

I will continue to advocate to this government to be creative, instead of offering Ontarians more of the same—that is, tall, sprawl, and removal of rent control. There are ways to implement rent stabilization that do not impact the ability to secure financing for the building of apartments, and I strongly encourage the government to consider those options. New challenges call for new solutions.

When affordable rental units are not being built—and they certainly won’t get built in the greenbelt—why not consider an idea like my colleague mentioned, the Ontario homebuilding corporation, to finance and build the affordable housing we need?

The new regulation permitting tenants to install air conditioning units is welcome, especially as climate change is causing warmer and hotter summers. I think my colleague from the NDP mentioned that earlier. Our reliance on AC will only continue to grow. And while this legislative change is positive, it’s a further reminder of how this government refuses to acknowledge the gravity of the climate crisis. We need to reduce our carbon emissions, not increase them. But under this government, we will be increasing our reliance on fossil fuels.

That’s not the government’s only failure on energy policy. This government came into power pledging to reduce the cost of electricity, that Ontarians would see lower electricity bills, but, in fact, the opposite has happened; their bills have increased. They discarded the long-term energy plan of the previous Liberal government, refused to implement a new one, and now energy costs keep soaring. With that kind of policy, low-income tenants may not be able to afford to keep their AC running.

I’m happy to see that this government is waking up to some of the struggles of Ontario tenants, but they need a new plan on housing if they want to get serious about helping tenants with affordability now.

Comme c’est la première fois que je me lève en Chambre, je tiens à vous féliciter et à remercier les gens de Don Valley-Ouest de m’avoir élue députée. Je m’engage fermement à les représenter fidèlement et à servir les Ontariens au mieux de mes capacités.

I am speaking today to express the concerns of Don Valley West parents, local businesses and not-for-profits with regard to the implementation of the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care program, also known as CWELCC or $10-a-day child care.

The Conservative government set a deadline of September 1—only 21 days from now—by when child care operators must sign on to this program to reduce child care fees for parents. As of mid-July, over half of Toronto operators have not yet signed on because they do not yet have the information they need to make an informed decision, like if and when they will be reimbursed for rebates they pay to parents.

The Conservative government’s signing of the federal child care agreement was a good first step, but the lateness of doing so has left municipalities, parents and child care operators scrambling. I respectfully ask the Minister of Education to help them get answers.

It would be a shame if families were not able to tap into this great support, especially as the throne speech talked about easing the financial burden for families in Ontario.