It’s my honour to rise today in support of our opposition day motion. You know, for the government, they often are talking about the current housing crisis in which we are living, which we are experiencing. The first and most obvious answer would be what, Speaker? If there aren’t enough homes, what do we do? We build them. Instead of leaving this up to other people and all these different roundabout ways, the most simple answer is to get shovels in the ground and to build.

I was honoured to table this legislation late last year, and I’m proud that, despite the Conservatives not wanting to get their hands dirty and not wanting to get shovels in the ground and voted it down, we are undaunted. The official opposition will raise the voices of people across this province. The affordability crisis must be addressed in a meaningful way. What is foundational, what is fundamental, what is most often the largest expense in our lives? It’s housing.

While this government blunders ahead and tiptoes clumsily backwards, the Ontario NDP is focused on solutions, and part of that is a commitment to affordable housing. We need a wartime effort to address this housing crisis. We need all hands on deck. We need to capitalize on the strengths and abilities of our community partners such as experts in the field like co-ops, municipal partners and social housing providers.

I recently had the opportunity to congratulate Homes Unlimited London in my riding on 50 years of incorporation. Carmen Sprovieri and Cathy Park were there. It was an amazing event. It was a beautiful and poignant evening. But here is a not-for-profit organization that is phenomenal. They have industry partners. They’re doers. They have industry leaders. They know how to navigate systems. They can easily leverage their own expertise as well as that of others just to get the job done. I sat with Bob and Margo Hahn and Gord and Maria Hardcastle and we had a phenomenal conversation. But it was amazing to see that those are the kinds of organizations that this government could depend upon that could help create that affordable housing.

Recently, in my riding, Richard Sifton of Sifton Properties, with the Anglican Diocese of Huron, are now taking Homes Unlimited into downtown London. There’s going to be at 195 Dufferin Ave., which is going to be 94 residential units—80 one-bedroom and 14 two-bedroom units. It’s going to cost $20 million, and Sifton is donating the building and is going to oversee the reconstruction. It’s a beautiful plan.

But this is exactly what the government could do. Not-for-profits can split a nickel five ways from centre. Co-ops have been in the business of creating and maintaining that housing stock that is vitally necessary to address the affordability crisis that is happening across our province. Yet, this government would talk about recommendations from Scotiabank as being communist. They would talk about how the government creating housing would ruin the free market.

Here on this side, the official opposition speaks to folks who are in the creation of private, for-profit housing. They do not want the responsibility of creating all the affordable housing that Ontario needs. That is not their mandate, Speaker. They are in the business of providing shareholder return. They want to make sure there is a return on investment for all of their people and, quite frankly, there isn’t a great return on investment in the creation of truly affordable housing and long-term affordable housing.

So this government in their reliance—their ideological, their fixed mindset, where they can’t seem to get it through their ears that we need to have the government incent and assist co-ops, municipal partners and non-profits to create that housing. Instead, they have this myopic vision that for-profit is the only way to go. They’re really letting Ontarians down.

We see other disastrous initiatives from this government including the removal of rent control on buildings first occupied after November 2018. During an affordability crisis, what does this government do for affordability? They poured gasoline on the fire. They’ve created a system of exploitation which has destroyed many lives.

I talk to seniors all the time who have been in buildings for decades. They have paid for the apartment building in which they live, and they are afraid, to this day, each and every single day, that that building is going to be sold to a new owner who will want to get them out so they can jack the rent up to whatever the market can withstand. It’s a legacy of the Liberal government, who shot holes in the boat of affordability in terms of renters, bringing in vacancy decontrol.

This government could follow and could implement NDP legislation to protect renters. They could pass this opposition day motion today to create more affordable housing, to stabilize the system, making sure people have a safe place to call home. Yet, I wonder if they will choose to, or if they will continue to act as partisan puppets for their for-profit friends. Time will tell, and we will see today.

Housing is foundational, housing is fundamental, housing is a human right and housing is health care. I hope this government will understand the importance of housing. They say a lot of words. Let’s see some action today.