My question is to the Premier. Some $15 billion in public funds have been committed to build the NextStar battery plant in Windsor, with a third of that committed by the province. On this side of the House, we welcomed that investment and the good jobs that are supposed to come with it. Stellantis-LG is potentially looking to have international workers build and staff the plant—a pretty big loophole if the province missed it.

Speaker, the government’s going to point fingers and state borders are federal, but what is this government doing right now to protect long-term Ontarian jobs at NextStar?

I’d like to thank the member from Windsor–Tecumseh for his presentation on Bill 63.

You mentioned the importance of Windsor–Tecumseh in terms of the auto sector. With the Ambassador Bridge, that’s a vital trade corridor. I wondered about the length of time it took for the Premier to act upon the Windsor Ambassador Bridge blockade. Flavio Volpe said it was “‘the single most disruptive event’ of the last 20 years for the automotive sector.” Transport Canada said that $2.3 billion in trade was put on hold while this government failed to act. Most damning, though, was the reputational damage to Canada and Ontario as a reliable trading partner.

My question for the member is, should the Premier not have acted faster to declare a state of emergency and protect Ontario’s reputation?

I’d like to thank the member for Windsor–Tecumseh for his questions. You quite rightly cited the deep concerns that many people have right now, which are about inflation and cost of living. There are two key areas which could be addressed with greater protections for folks, such as reinstating rent control and making sure that people have a safe place to call home. In the absence of it, we’ve seen terrible circumstances for a lot of people who are frightened about losing their homes.

With Bill 23, we’ve seen also that rental buildings can be purchased by some of these international key players, redeveloped into luxury condos—and what happens to those people who are in those units, Speaker? What happens to buildings full of seniors who have lived there their whole lives and lived there in a good way, in a comfortable way, in an affordable way, who are now at risk of losing their home? Those are key ways.

There are investments like these, but they also have to be backed up with union protections, good wages, benefits and a pension.

I think about so many different industries that closed. We look at what happened to the folks at Sears, who worked there for many years, and when it came time for them to close, the business looked after shareholders before it looked after workers. The loss of pensions was something that was deeply concerning.

We need legislation in this province that makes sure to protect workers—workers first. Business will look after itself, but a business is nothing without the people who comprise it.

It gives me great pleasure to stand and add the voices of the wonderful people of London North Centre to the debate on Bill 63, as the official opposition critic for economic development, job creation and trade. As I begin my remarks, Speaker, this bill is quite a surprise to the official opposition. I understand that there have been talks that have been ongoing for many months, according to city officials and municipal officials in St. Thomas, as well as central Elgin, and I must make sure that it is on the record that the official opposition has requested a briefing from the government but none has been provided to us yet. It is important. This legislation really is something that could lead to great jobs in the area, and certainly that is something that we on the official opposition side support.

If I think back, my grandfather actually was an employee at Ford Talbotville, and it is as a direct result of his being a union member that my mother was able to go pursue university at the University of Western Ontario, now known as Western University. It was because of that union job she received a scholarship, you see. It changed the trajectory of her life, of course, and, as a result, needless to say, of my life and my sister’s and my brother’s.

I think it’s wonderful to see that we have an 800-acre or 320-hectare site of land. Flavio Volpe has gone on the record to say many good thing about this. He said it puts St. Thomas “at the head of the pack right now,” and, “One of the most important things in chasing one of these investments is land assembly, being close to multi-modal access (highways, rail and airports) and labour. St. Thomas has all of that.” He also goes on to say that he’s glad that St. Thomas “has bought a ticket to the dance.”

London was a great manufacturing city, as well as St. Thomas, back many years ago. Unfortunately, due to a lack of continued provincial investment and provincial attention, many of those manufacturing jobs left. London had Kellogg’s, McCormick, major industries that unfortunately chose to leave. There was also General Dynamics Land Systems—pardon me, I’ll need to correct my record. I’m misremembering.

In terms of Bill 63, it would be creating a mega-site. A land of adequate size, it’s going to be a suitable location capable of accommodating this major new investment. What is unclear about this, though, is we don’t know who the industry players are. This has not been revealed to us by the government. There is no indication of who will be occupying this site, what this is going to look like, how many people will be employed by this. It’s all very unclear.

In theory, this looks like something that we can absolutely support, because it will be the creation of good jobs—hopefully well-paying jobs, hopefully union jobs. What is surprising is that, on first glance—because, as I said, this was just dropped upon us with no briefing whatsoever—I’m pleased to say that there doesn’t seem to be any poison pills in here, which is often happening with omnibus pieces of legislation, as I’m sure you well know.

But because this legislation seems short on details, we’re being asked to go on trust. We’re being asked to simply push this through. In this bill itself, I don’t see any mention or use of any MZOs or changes to land use planning, but I would like to also make sure that it is on the record that this government recognizes that there does need to be additional investments for child care, additional investments for housing. These are important things that this site is also going to require.

If we delve back into the history, a decade ago auto manufacturing facilities closed down. It cost the area thousands of jobs, and this is also part of this Job Site Challenge that the government has announced in 2019. Hopefully, if the rumours are true, this will be the site of an electric vehicle battery plant—but again, still pretty short on details.

Flavio Volpe has also said, “I like St. Thomas’s story. Everyone loves a comeback, and 2008 to 2010 was not kind to this community that has an incredible manufacturing history. It would be great to see another major auto investment in a town with a past.” I couldn’t agree more, Speaker. This will be a great economic benefit for the city of St. Thomas as well as for the city of London, because there will be also people who are travelling to these great jobs.

Also, as we look towards this, I look forward to the briefing from this government. I am surprised that this has been dropped upon us—there have been no details—because this goes back all the way to June. In June, St. Thomas announced that it had assembled this site, and it announced that it was doing so to woo manufacturing. So we know that there have been discussions that the government has had with the city of St. Thomas and with industry players, and yet the official opposition has not been made aware of those discussions.

I also wanted to add to the record the voice of the London Economic Development Corporation’s Kapil Lakhotia. He confirmed that the St. Thomas area—now, again, this is news from back in January. Kapil Lakhotia confirmed that the London-St. Thomas area is getting attention from manufacturers. And also recently in our news, there is an EV battery plant in Windsor that will employ almost 2,500 people when it opens in 2024. Lakhotia said, “As we work with EV suppliers, we’re confident more investment will come to this region. If a facility is being purpose-built for Cami, that’s wonderful. Winning a major investment bodes well for our region. It shows confidence to other (automakers) that we have the labour and capacity and business climate for EVs.”

EV investment, of course, is going to require a number of things. It’s going to require land. It’s going to require a workforce. It has to make sure that there’s a stable electrical supply and the access to raw materials. Southwestern Ontario really is the automotive manufacturing hub of Canada. There are so many different automakers as well as auto-parts suppliers; it is a wonderful industry. There are good-paying jobs—union jobs—which are cap-able of supporting a family, one where there are pensions, one where people can go to work, make a good day’s wage, come home and know that they have benefits, that they will also be able to retire.

It is concerning. I would like to see more protections for workers from this government. This is wonderful; we see many announcements about jobs. But I want to make sure, with all these announcements about jobs, that they’re also going to be well-paying union jobs. On the side of the official opposition, we’ve always been in favour of things like card-check certification, making sure it’s easier for people to be able to join unions, to make sure that they have those workplace protections, because without them, it is just a job. We want to make sure that these are jobs that, again, can sustain a family, can support young people when they eventually go to school and support people when they’re in retirement.

As we look through this bill, it is interesting that this bill is being pushed, because clearly there is a lot of interest in this. With this, these tools that are being achieved within this bill are also possible within other means. Annexation is provided for in the Municipal Act, but this seems to be rushing it through. Perhaps that’s because there is going to be a substantial investment from industry which, again, is a great thing, because our manufacturing sector had a major collapse almost 20 years ago. There were so many workers in southwestern Ontario who were the ones who were hit especially hard.

There have been fears for a number of years about the long-term viability of Ontario’s auto sector. Many have even wondered if North American manufacturing would move to California with Tesla. But here in Ontario, things do seem to be turning around. There have been announcements with Stellantis in Windsor, the Project Arrow. Demo EV is another powerful demonstration of the strength of Ontario’s auto sector in the EV era. I would like to say, from the side of the official opposition, we welcome this increase in manufacturing. We welcome these great new jobs.

As I said, Bill 63 bypasses that normal annexation process in the Municipal Act; I believe it’s part 5. The government is jamming this through as fast as possible. We just would like to know why. That’s all we would like is just some clarity. We would like to know who the industry players are and what we can do to support it, because on this side of the House, we’re happy to support the creation of good, new jobs and long-term union jobs.

As well, I wanted to take a look toward—Sean Dyke, the chief executive of the St. Thomas Economic Development Corp. said, “If you look across Ontario, there is a general shortage of quality industrial land and we have to say, ‘We are open to business. We are ready.’” He has said that he is “definitely looking to pursue an investment in the EV sector. It is grown at such a rapid pace....’”

If we look back, earlier this year, Stellantis and South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution announced it is building Canada’s first large-scale vehicle electric battery plant in Windsor. It’s a $5-billion investment. As I said earlier, it’s going to employ about 2,500, and it’s going to be on more than 80 hectares of land.

These are really interesting, important investments for the province. These are important investments for the St. Thomas region. It’s wonderful to see that a place that was so hard hit by the collapse of manufacturing will again have a manufacturing renaissance.

However, to this government, have they looked towards the necessary investments for housing? We’ve had many discussions in this chamber about investments in housing that have been absent from the province. We’ve seen much of it being left up to the private, for-profit industry. We’ve seen the removal of rent controls. Young families or people hoping to save money to eventually buy that first home are being subject to—within the absence of rent control, their rent is going up, after they complete their lease, at a terrible rate.

You know, you plan. When you decide to move into a new location, a new home, you do those financial calculations. You decide, “Okay, I have this much money I can spend on housing, this much on food, this much on entertainment,” and that’s all part of that equation.

But many people weren’t following what this government did back in 2018. With the removal of rent control—I believe it was Bill 147 where rent control was removed on all new builds that were first occupied after November 2018. What that meant was that these people, after completing a lease, then received the information that their rent would be increasing at a terrible rate, not subject to the year-over-year guideline. That is something that people can’t factor in. They can’t plan for that kind of dramatic increase. There are stories of people’s rents going up by 10%, 20%. It could go up by any number.

Frequently within this chamber, we also hear about the dramatic increase in the number of rental starts since this government has taken power. And while that may be true, that is probably largely due to the fact that the industry now sees that there’s an opportunity. In the absence of rent control, the creation of this new rental housing will allow people to exploit folks, quite frankly, because rent control protects people. The absence of it is exploitive. That’s something that is deeply frightening.

As I said, you used to be able to save up money when renting. It didn’t cost as much as a mortgage. Some people actually just choose it so they have that freedom. They might like to take vacations. They might like to spend money on other things. They might want to make investments in other parts of their lives, so they want to keep their housing budget rather low. That would be possible if rent prices were reasonable.

At this time, we’ve seen rents increasing at such a terrible rate that they’re often larger than the cost of a mortgage, and that’s unsustainable. In the London area, as I mentioned in a question earlier this morning during question period, the rent stability bank, a program that is to help folks who are in rental arrears or at risk of losing their housing, has seen a dramatic increase in its use. That’s something that should be a concern to this government.

Further, we also remain concerned that the creation of new and affordable housing is not something that is being done by this government. On the official opposition side, we believe that there should be a public builder, one that is tasked with the creation of truly affordable housing that is also protected by legislation.

There have been measures such as Bill 23, which has been touted by this government as something that will create new affordable housing, but there’s no provision for what that affordable housing will look like, what the rates will be and how that will be protected with legislation. Unfortunately, it’s affordable housing in scare quotes. It’s affordable housing that might not be affordable at all. It’s shocking to think that the greenbelt land swap that has been talked about with this government, that is supposedly going to be one that’s going to create affordable housing, is in fact—it makes no sense.

I had the opportunity to travel with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs—I believe I saw you there, Speaker—and we heard from many municipalities who are concerned about the removal of development charges paid by those private developers, that were paid to municipalities, those development charges that help with the creation of infrastructure, the creation of sewers, the creation of so many other things that are necessary for a housing development. The removal of those, which has been put forward by this government, is a measure that is supposedly something where private developers are going to pass down savings to the consumer. But there’s no guarantee. That’s the thing. Developers might not have to pay these development charges, but there’s no protection in the legislation to ensure that that money that they are not having to spend to municipalities is going to then be passed through as a cost savings to consumers. That remains concerning.

In bills like these, with Bill 63, I think about all of those young families who will be thrilled and excited to get a good job, hopefully with an excellent employer who is paying them well, has union representation, has benefits, has a pension, has all the things that we know are vitally necessary for any young family. But what happens, Speaker, if they’re not able to find that place that is truly affordable? Or even if they do, what if they find a place that’s affordable, and then in one year their rent goes through the roof and they run the risk of losing their housing? What if they find a place that’s affordable and then, with the market creeping up such as it is, they end up not being able to start a family? A young couple might find themselves in a one-bedroom place, never able to expand, never able to start that family, to have or adopt a child. That remains deeply concerning.

With this bill, I do hope that we in the official opposition hear very shortly from the government about when they intend to provide us with a briefing, when they intend to explain the need for this, the need for expedience. It’s not to say that we don’t want to say yes, because we are very much in support of good jobs. We are very much in support of investments—especially myself, being from the London North Centre area—in southwestern Ontario.

But another key attribute to this that I think is vital to discuss is when we think about young people who are entering this workforce, ostensibly created by this hopefully new EV plant: What about transit? Are we going to have regional transit available for these young folks? Just because somebody might first get a good job doesn’t mean that they have a vehicle. There are some people who might be exiting post-secondary education. They might be re-entering the workforce from time off, for goodness knows what reason. But I know that right now is an economically difficult time, so with this plan, has the government considered transit links between the city of London and St. Thomas? Have they considered what infrastructure improvements are going to be necessary on the area highways? Have they made sure that they have consulted with folks in the region about what’s necessary, what’s going to help and what needs to happen in this plan?

Speaker, I think that this is a great idea on paper. I don’t see anything that is a major concern. As I said, we have only just started to delve deep into it, because it was only dropped upon us at the very last minute, but it’s something that I think the official opposition is very interested in. We are very much in favour of large-scale investments in Ontario, in the region, when we think about the economic prosperity that that will bring to many families and a rejuvenation within the area, because not only with this investment, which is one part of a much larger, complex machine—there will be other off-site jobs which will help support.

We think about auto manufacturing—and yes, there are the places and the factories that assemble the auto vehicles, but then there are also the parts manufacturers. There are many smaller different locations that might make all the components that are necessary to go in the cars. And so I think this is very intriguing, because this could be part of a much broader and much larger investment within the region. It shows that clearly there is confidence in the area.

However, I must also state that in order for multinational corporations and other large players to have confidence in Ontario, we also need to buttress and to support our publicly funded and publicly delivered health care system, because when international eyes look at our area, they want the see a workforce that is healthy. And part of that health, firstly, is housing, as we’ve discussed, but the second is public health care—publicly funded and publicly delivered health care. They want to make sure that their workforce is not only able to come to a job, but is able to stay on that job, is able to work hard and contribute to the economic prosperity that each business in our province needs.

If we have emergency rooms that have been closing, if we have people who are unable to have a primary care physician, if we have people who are endlessly waiting for surgeries because of the lack of funding that has been provided to our publicly delivered health care system, then I remain concerned. This investment may be good, but what about our long-term prospects? With the bill that we discussed earlier, Bill 60, the privatization and the profitization of our health care system is one that I think international players might be concerned about. They may look towards other jurisdictions that have better long-term economic prospects.

When we look at education—employers not only look at the health, the housing, but they also look towards education. The FAO report recently that the Financial Accountability Officer delivered was damning, quite frankly. It showed that in the next three years, Ontario would be underfunding and cutting from health care by $5 billion. The officer also showed that there would be underfunding of education by $1.1 billion, and from justice by $0.8 million.

At the same time, if that weren’t bad enough, this isn’t just money that was going somewhere else. It wasn’t being moved to other program spending. It was being moved into a contingency fund. It was being moved into a place where there is no scrutiny, no oversight. There is no accountability for that money. It’s really the antithesis of transparency. That $20 billion—almost $20 billion over three years—is money that has been called a slush fund. It’s money that can be spent in any way the government sees fit. That makes no sense at the same time when there are these drastic, dramatic cuts from programs that we rely upon, like health and education and justice. It really makes absolutely no sense. So that remains a tremendous, tremendous concern.

And I would say for the record that I think that employers or people who are looking towards making investments in Ontario might see that and also become concerned. These investors and these multinational corporations would be looking for a willing partner, a trustworthy partner—a partner that they can rely upon and can depend upon. When the FAO exposes things like that, I’m not sure that they would feel that way.

It also remains a deep concern of ours that this government has not treated workers fairly and with respect. I would love to see, with this boundary adjustment, the creation of jobs but also the protection and the promotion of good union jobs.

I think this is potentially a very wonderful thing, but there are just some key parts missing. On the one hand, I am very thankful that it’s not an omnibus piece of legislation, that there are no poison pills hidden in it, and that it seems to be relatively straightforward. But there are so many questions behind it. In the absence of a briefing, in the absence of clarity from this government, we remain interested but somewhat concerned just for the lack of detail, if I may.

As we take a look at this, Speaker, I’m very much looking forward to the government providing us with some clarity, with some assurances, and just letting us know what their plan is. There are many opportunities which are possible here, but Speaker, unfortunately those have not yet been provided to us.

I look forward to the questions from the members across, but I can guarantee you that as they’re asking questions, I will probably be asking them my very own questions because there’s just so much that is missing from Bill 63.

I think I’ll leave my comments there, Speaker.