Thank you very much to the member opposite for the presentation.

I have a question. It’s a bit of a hypothetical, because he wasn’t here during the previous government. But if he had been here during the previous government, and the previous government had introduced legislation that said, “We will give super powers to mayors so long as they follow our agenda,” do you believe that you and your colleagues would have supported that under the previous government?

Interestingly enough, we went to a place where I wanted to ask the question—when power gets expanded in one area, it always comes at the expense of something else. In this case, it comes at the expense of councillors. People go to the polls to vote for mayors, generally, for a vision overall, but, ultimately, for councillors to make local decisions.

Can you expand again a little bit, briefly, on why it’s important that councillors have a say, are respected and have power to be able to make decisions?

The balance of this debate, I think, has really shown us that:

(1) Once again, this government is debating legislation that they did not discuss during the campaign, no matter how substantive or how much of an impact it could have on municipalities.

(2) This is legislation that was not made in consultation with or even asked for by those it affects.

(3) It has nothing to do within—its title doesn’t reflect the bill because, as the wonderful member stated, it really just is about giving power that’s not even asked for to mayors who already have the power to win every single vote which they ever do.

(4) What they’re doing at the city of Toronto is, they’re approving thousands of units of developments that are at or above all the targets that are listed, but they claim that’s going to enable more of it to be built as long as the mayor does what the Premier says.

Again, knowing that this is a government that’s about power and control, knowing that they want to put power in the hands of fewer people, why do they want to give more power to mayors? Is it just so that they’ll do the bidding of this Premier?

I want to thank the member for her submission today. I want to draw a parallel to what this bill would be like if this was the province. I would like all people to consider this fact: The Premier of Ontario, arguably the most powerful person in Ontario, has one vote in this chamber—a single vote, no veto power—and yet despite this, through appointments and through the power that he has over his own government, he’s able to win every single vote in this chamber. He doesn’t require these other additions to his power; he’s able to do it in all the same ways that mayors do it to win all their votes in their own municipalities. Now, super powers are being given to mayors only if they fall in line with what the Premier of this province wants, who already gets everything he wants.

Do you see any concerns, given the priorities this government has shown to give these powers to mayors who are not even asking for it?

I want to congratulate the member on her re-election and for her submission and speech today.

She said, for instance, the mayor of Toronto has 500,000 votes. But councillors receive cumulatively, across the city, the same number of votes, essentially, as the mayor does. People vote for councillors and expect them to have the paramountcy on local issues, the understanding of local issues. When you’re in a city of millions, you don’t expect a response from a mayor when something goes wrong.

So what is it about this government? Why do they want to weaken local councillors in their ability to make decisions when the mayors of municipalities already have overwhelming powers to be able to get their agendas across?

[Inaudible] a single vote that the mayor of Toronto has not won, not a single vote. Mayors I have read out from the city of Toronto, who represent half of the last 50 years, have spoken against it, and here you are citing the board of trade. The mayor already has the control to be able to do what it needs to do. The city of Toronto has 43% of all cranes in North America and approves, year after year, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of new housing units that they carefully consider with all parameters.

We have already demonstrated that this, other than the title, has nothing to do with housing. It is about giving more power to already powerful mayors. I have noted in the speeches made by government members that they tend not to group the words “affordable” and “housing” together. What they have said a lot of is “market housing,” and we are facing an affordable housing situation. Governments have the ability to create non-profit housing, co-operative housing—there are many solutions to this, like implementing rent control. They are not interested in any of those. Not at all. Not one.

What I’m going to say—and I’m going to say it again: This is a government obsessed with control, not just of its own members, not just of everything that happens here, obviously, in the province of Ontario or here in this House; this is a government of control that extends all the way down to municipalities. They are tabling legislation where—we already have mayors who have power through appointments and other ways. We have a mayor in the city of Toronto who has not lost a single important vote. These mayors have not asked for this legislation whatsoever.

We’ve reviewed the legislation, and it shows nothing to do with building new homes. I’ve shown that the city of Toronto builds thousands of new homes. We have 43% of all the cranes in North America here.

What exactly is this legislation about if it is not rewarding mayors who listen to your bidding?

There is no interest by this government to give any sort of power to those who dissent from them. They’re not interested in consultation. They’re interested in affirmation of everything they do. That is the interest of this government. We saw it for the last four years, and at some point it has got to stop.

Last session, we saw member after member leave this government. We had probably one of the largest groups of independents because they could not take the amount of control imposed even internally on them. And they’re now trying to control all the municipalities in Ontario. It has to stop.

The mayor of Toronto has lots of power and has won every single vote. That’s just simply the facts. Don’t take it from me; take it from the many mayors I read in my submission today.

Thank you very much.

Why did we read this submission? Because the bidding of the government, the will of the government, is to seek privatization.

Let me go back to the health care situation. As questions were raised here in this House, they referred to our public health care system as simply status quo. And when pressured on the issue of privatization, even on our sacred jewel, our public health care system here in our province and across the country, they play coy. They are not willing to speak directly against it. In fact, we know what they think when it comes to the privatization of everything, including health care.

That is why ATU, its president, members of their board joined us today to share their concerns and the real spectre of what this will allow mayors to be able to do. This legislation would even go so far as to allow municipalities that have regional chairs that are not even elected to have these mayoral powers. Think about what kind of backroom control this could have, to give unelected members, who are politicians, in a sense—to get up there and make unilateral decisions, and the ability to veto those decisions and to have complete control over everything. It does not make any sense.

When we talk about the crisis that exists in housing, there are many ways to deal with that.

This government likes to pat itself on the back so much that I think they may need to seek physiotherapy at some point.

I can say this: All of the stuff we heard about building and construction has been going on for a long time. As of 2015 until now, Toronto has had the leading number of cranes since 2015—that’s before your government, by the way—and we’ve seen a continual year-over-year increase in the number of cranes. In this current time, last year, Toronto was home to 43% of all cranes in North America—that’s Toronto. That was done under the current mayor and city of Toronto who, for the most part, control their own planning decisions. But again, this government wants complete control.

So a municipality like Toronto, where we are today, has huge teams of experts, planners who, when a submission is made—a developer comes along and says, “This is what I want to do”— go to the public and consult with the public. Again, that’s something that this government doesn’t like to do. They consider many factors such as: What is the impact on infrastructure? Do we have the existing infrastructure to support this development? Is it in keeping with the neighbourhood that’s here? Does it make sense?

In fact, municipalities like Toronto have plans for neighbourhoods, where they take time, they look ahead and they propose what makes sense, so that if a developer comes in and builds a new condominium, new homes, whatever it is—will the schools be able to have a place for new students to be able to learn; will the roads be able to deal with it; will we be able to get water to that property; will we be able to get waste away from that property? The list goes on and on.

We know that developers come with plans, very often, not in keeping with what the municipality hopes for, what communities hope for. In my own community alone, we have a development that’s coming in where what would be adequate or what would make sense to the planners and even the community would be, let’s say, 12 storeys, and developers want to come in with 30. Because of this government, they can bypass everything and go directly to the land tribunal, which, by the way, this government has weakened to not allow for community input or voices. And, certainly, outside of Toronto or in protective ravine systems they have weakened the TRCA even to have a voice.

So does this government really care about good housing, good development? No. We know that this government is all about their relationship with developers.

And when we talk about housing prices, does this government want to pursue other solutions? There are many ways to deal with it. They’re going to get up and they’re going to tell you, “Just continue to build more,” rather than deal with the issue of the fact that rent in the city of Toronto is at $2,000 a month on average. You still find vacancies in buildings. It’s not like every single rental unit is taken and so the people are being turned away. But they don’t have the guts or will to be able to address the fact that rent is out of control—so many different places, vacancies. The fact that you have properties out there that stand vacant while people are hoping for homes, other investors—the list goes on and on and on. They don’t want to address any of these things.

Speaker, in the time I have left—this was something that was mentioned in the ATU submission to me that I read out. It was a letter that was written by former mayors of the city of Toronto, of all political stripes—and, yes, a conservative is in there. This is an excellent article and, I think, is required reading. If you haven’t had a chance, well, here’s your chance to hear it right now. They are speaking unilaterally against this legislation. It’s in the Toronto Star, Monday, August 15. It’s called “Former Toronto Mayors Warn ‘Strong Mayors’ Act Will Harm Local Democracy.

“Bill 3, the Strong Mayors, Building Housing Act, proposes a radical change to local government in Toronto and Ottawa, that risks ending meaningful democratic local government in these two cities.

“The legislation assigns the mayor, regardless of who that person might be, the power to do almost everything—from preparing and approving the budget, to appointing the chairs of committees, agencies, boards and commissions, the hiring and firing of city staff—and the power to direct them to do what he or she wants.

“Such a proposal eliminates any meaningful role of city councillors and therefore the voice of the local residents who elect them.

“It gives the mayor almost complete power—and by providing a veto to the mayor over decisions thought to ‘potentially intervene with provincial priorities’ (often defined in secret by the provincial cabinet)”—we heard that before—“the province is ensuring that the all-powerful mayor becomes accountable to the province, not to the electors in their city.

“This is profoundly undemocratic and a formula for poor decisions made in the interests of those very few who have access to the office of the Premier.

“Toronto and Ottawa are large, cosmopolitan cities: in Toronto’s case, with a population larger than that of most provinces, whose residents must have the right to make democratic decisions about who represents them, and how their city government should work.

“The nearly three million residents of Toronto and the one million of Ottawa deserve better: local governments responding to their needs where decisions are made publicly and transparently.

“It is through the efforts of a local city councillor that residents can be engaged in the day-to-day business of building a city. There are numerous issues the city confronts that such public engagement supports—from development proposals, to transit routes and stops, to community facilities like libraries, to public health, housing, protection of nature and much more.

“There is no preordained answer to these questions. They are best answered by the community itself, brought together by someone they elected who is directly accountable to them—listening to each other, asserting their needs and supported and empowered by the public service, which in turn is accountable to the community through city council. Engaging people in such processes produces better answers, builds community, and helps create an engaged public, who are aware of their rights to participate in democratic processes, and use them frequently.

“Provincial and federal governments are marked by political party control, tight messaging, extreme reliance on polling and slavish adherence to the party leader. Municipal government has always been different—a place which, at its best, engages residents in the decisions that affect their lives and has debate among varying points of view, often reaching compromise on difficult issues, at council.

“The proposal to allow a mayor to have a veto on issues of provincial concern and set the budget undermines exactly that and gives the province far too much influence over decisions that should be those of the residents of Toronto and their elected officials. By doing so, it will lead to worse outcomes, and far less opportunity for residents to have a real voice.

“There are substantial risks to the proposal: A mayor who has such significant power will be subject to enormous pressures from lobbyists who want public decisions to go in their favour.

“Secondly, giving the mayor power to hire and fire senior staff destroys one of the basic principles of democratic government, which is the separation of the legislative and executive function, and eliminates the effective check and balance that exists today, where council as a whole has ultimate responsibility for the public service.

“Furthermore, taking away all effective influence from members of council means that it is far less likely for individuals of merit to want to run for an already challenging role—discouraging exactly the kind of forward-looking and publicly minded people who we need on council.

“It’s the kind of proposal that no party would run on in an election, because it has so little merit. Perhaps that’s why we didn’t hear of it until after the election was over.

“Collectively, we have been mayors of Toronto for more than half of the last 50 years. We all worked with systems where, like every other member of council, we had one vote. The mayor does not need the powers proposed in this legislation: The prestige of the mayor’s position provides more than enough of a platform for the mayor to provide leadership and have a strong influence on city council’s decisions on the city-wide issues on which they were elected.

“We urge all members of the Legislature to reject this legislation.”

I thank former mayors David Crombie, Barbara Hall, Art Eggleton, David Miller and John Sewell for writing this incredibly important opinion piece, and I thank the Toronto Star for publishing this so that we could all hear it today and read it.

They and all of us have laid it very clear: This has nothing to do with building new homes. This is all about power, tabled by a government that’s obsessed with control and power. Now they have a means to reach out to the mayors in every municipality—because it’s not going to end with Toronto and Ottawa—to say, “You do our bidding.” This is absolutely and undeniably undemocratic. It should be voted down. The members of this government themselves, if they take the time truly to understand what’s at stake here, I believe would be voting against this in that sense.

I thank the ATU Local 113 and its members for being here, and I thank all of you who have fought against this.

The birth of my sons, Aleksandar and Ilija, has been my life’s greatest joy, but it has been my life’s greatest honour to represent the people of Humber River–Black Creek. I thank the voters of my community and all those who supported me to make my re-election possible.

Speaker, the more things change, the more things sometimes stay the same. Once again, it’s just after an election. We’re debating a bill that was not discussed in the PC platform and again, contrary to the title, that has nothing to do with the title. What does this bill have to do with building more homes? It is not clear whatsoever from the actual bill itself. But what it does is strengthen mayors and give them the ability, almost unilaterally, to do whatever they want so long as it is the bidding of this provincial government, a government obsessed with control.

So today I am joined by some esteemed gentlemen from the ATU, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113. We’re joined by the president, Marvin Alfred, and board members Aleem Tharani, Matthew Chau and Brian Connolly. They know a thing or two about transit, and they’re concerned, just like we are all concerned, that one of the addictions of this government is an obsession with privatization. And so if you are giving municipalities—their mayors—all sorts of power to do whatever it is within your bidding, privatization is always that.

As such, ATU 113 has provided me a submission that it is my honour to read today, that addresses this legislation and their concerns. It reads as follows:

“The Premier is proposing to give the mayors of Ottawa and Toronto extraordinary new powers. It’s not exactly clear what problem he believes is being solved by this. We have followed city of Toronto politics for many years and we do not remember Mayor Tory ever losing a single significant vote. And here we are, in the middle of a municipal election campaign, proposing to make fundamental changes to the structure of the local government.

“These kind of changes and issues should be debated in an election, and they weren’t. If stronger mayors are important for the province, the Premier should have raised the issue in the election. If stronger mayors are important for municipal governments, should they not also campaign on the issue? If there is some kind of impasse, some important issues that just can’t be addressed through the normal process, shouldn’t someone be able to tell us what they are?

“Items at council pass overwhelmingly through consent. Mayors already have a tight grip on city staff and unwavering support from their executives and council by controlling committee appointments. The more control a mayor gets, the more public engagement in local politics will decline. Election turnout will continue to drop as people feel cut off from their political leaders. Decisions will increasingly be made behind closed doors, with no transparency or public input.

“We knew the province would propose legislation to break the TTC apart. Mayor Tory and Toronto city council were petitioned to allow public input on the city’s position, just to hear from the public through normal channels. They were refused. We know the TTC is planning to break the transit system apart and contract it out piece by piece.” That’s what they believe.

“We have asked for the decisions and the supporting decisions to be made in public, with scrutiny and debate. Local leaders are refusing to allow public debate on these important issues. A stronger mayor will only make this worse. Regardless of who occupies the job, more decisions will be made in secret, well-connected friends and lobbyists will have more power, and public institutions will continue to decline.

“Four former Toronto mayors of every political stripe recently wrote a joint statement opposing these changes. They have nothing to gain from their position. They are writing because they know how much the city has to lose. They know how effective municipalities can be when they work together transparently and in good faith with other governments.

“In the past, the province and city, along with Metrolinx and the TTC, worked together to expand transit. The relief line subway and several light rail projects were agreed to through transparent dialogue and engagement. The mayor was elected on his SmartTrack proposal to have Toronto pay to add stops to GO lines. The province went along with it. Light rail lines were slowly being extended across the city and the relief line was ready to be built. This steady progress did not end because the public or council opposed the mayor’s will. It stopped when the Premier decided he did not have to listen to anyone.

“Now, the province does not present data or evidence to the public to support these decisions. Doug Ford”—sorry, the Premier—“made it illegal for the city of Toronto to do any studies on any transit projects in which the province declared an interest. In the next few years, city streets will be ripped up and binding contracts signed with private, for-profit builders before the public gets to see the real data and design decisions. We have seen in the ongoing disaster in Ottawa with privatized light rail line that, years later and over budget, still doesn’t work. This government is bringing this to Toronto and opening the door to even more on bus service. Riders will lose services, the public will lose billions of dollars, but well-connected corporate friends will even get richer.

“Worse, the TTC privatization doesn’t just help corporations make more money; it reduces wages and opportunities for workers. The TTC has always been a way for people, especially from equity-seeking groups, to gain access to entry-level jobs, get training and then advance. The current TTC leadership’s contracting-out plan will turn every TTC job into a dead-end, low-wage job.

“These undemocratic changes to municipal government mean privatization could be rammed through even if a majority of elected councillors oppose it. John Tory was mayor through all these changes. He has seen how carefully studied and negotiated transit plans have been radically transformed in secret by this Conservative government. He has seen Toronto lose the legal right to comment on its own transit plans. Toronto has already been weakened by key decisions being moved out of public debate and into secret backrooms. This proposal will only move more decisions into secret negotiations.”

This is what they have to say—it is an honour for me to read this—and they are concerned because building homes is not prescriptive in this legislation. What does this bill actually do? The mayor of Toronto appoints chairs. If you look, there is one mayor and 25 councillors who sit there. The mayor plus the executive committee is eight. He has control over a third of council, and he has not lost a single decisive vote. But that power is not enough—and I don’t believe it was asked for. What is going to be allowed is that mayors will be allowed to appoint the heads of every single division. Again, a government obsessed with control and power will want appointments like these, or hope that they get doled out to people who will do their exact bidding. That is what the result of this is. Rather than have councils come to a decision, they want to make all those votes that go to city councillors go to nothing. Does that make any sense? Is this democratic in any way, shape or form? Consider the pressure on the CAO of the city, consider the pressure on division heads—that their job is on the line if they don’t do what the mayor, whoever it is, says that they have to do. Budgets are already created by executive committees and mayors. Now, with this proposed veto power, which will ensure the mayor wins every vote—and they’re winning them already—any amendment made to a budget can be simply turned down. How is this democratic at all?

Since, again, this debate and this bill do not specifically address building more homes, other than the title—what it really addresses is empowering mayors to do the bidding of this government, and it is all about control and their priorities.

I want to talk a little bit about their priorities and the words they use.

When it comes to the environment, they will never use the words “crisis” and “environment” together. You won’t hear that. That’s why, under their last term, they weakened the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and authorities across this province, who protect our water supplies, endangered species and many different important things. They thought that this wasn’t necessary. Certainly, what’s happening to the climate is not a crisis for them.

Health care: When Queen’s Park resumed and we heard the minister speaking, the health care crisis was referred to as a “situation”—not a “crisis,” but a “situation.” They refuse every morning—as the NDP opposition tables bills for unanimous consent to call it a crisis and work on an emergency plan, they ignore it.

Housing: That’s a crisis—