My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. The forestry industry is a major driver of our economy and generates billions in revenue every year, and if it wasn’t for the Ontario forestry industry, we wouldn’t be able to build the 1.5 million homes that we need over the next decade.

The forestry industry in Ontario is one of the biggest drivers in our housing industry. With an abundant supply of forest biomass products in our province, it is of critical importance that we support this emerging industry and its innovators. Our government must continue to explore all options to address untapped economic growth in the north and unlock the full benefits from Ontario’s biomass potential.

Can the minister please share how our government is doing everything we can to support job growth, attract investment, and secure the long-term future of our forest industry?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s seniors deserve high-quality, patient-centred care and our government is making significant strides toward better meeting the needs of long-term care residents by hearing directly from them; and

“Whereas people, including seniors, should have the option to stay in their homes and receive the care they need, if they choose and if it is possible; and

“Whereas home and community care keeps people healthy at their home, where they want to be, and plays an important role in the lives of more than 700,000 families annually; and

“Whereas a strong home and community care sector is key to the government’s plan to help end hallway health care and build a connected, patient-centred health care system; and

“Whereas home care supports will prevent unnecessary hospital and long-term-care admissions and will shorten hospital stays; and

“Whereas our government plans to invest up to an additional $1 billion over the next three years to expand home care, improve quality of care, keeping the people of Ontario in the homes that they love longer; and

“Whereas the additional funding is intended to support home care providers, address rising costs and support recruitment and training, as well as expand services; and

“Whereas these types of investments and other developments, such as virtual care options, care at home, can become a choice that seniors, recovering patients and their families make instead of only relying on more traditional venues of care;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to build on the progress this government has made on building a patient-centred home and community care system.”

I thoroughly endorse this petition. I will sign it and give it to page Julia.

I withdraw.

What I find most interesting about it is, every single person who is standing up and saying, “We should not be building more houses, we should not be building more apartments, we should not be building more condos,” lives in a house, apartment or condo. Why do they not want others to have that?

We’ve got OREA who has come forward, and they’ve talked for a few years now about the dream of home ownership. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people who live in this province aspire to own their own home. I firmly believe that. And why would we not be doing things, then, that make it easier for those individuals to purchase their first home, to move from that two-bedroom home, when they have three, four or five children, to a home that suits them? Why are we not doing things so that those individuals, those seniors, who raised their family and they’re now ready to downsize, and they want to sell that four-bedroom or five-bedroom home and go to a two-bedroom condo some place, or move into a nice apartment building someplace, or move out of the city to some place like Peterborough—or God’s country—where you have an opportunity to have a beautiful one- or two-bedroom home by the lake, by the river or out in the county—why are we obstructing that?

The reality is we have a number of councils across all of Ontario that are saying things like, “It’s just this one. There’s a sentiment in the community, there’s a loud group right around this area, who don’t want it. I’m going to have to go with them because they vote for this ward.”

The entire city votes for the mayor, though. Giving the mayor in cities like Ottawa and Toronto, where we know more than a third of those 2.5 million people are going to be moving in in the next 10 years, the ability to advance homes, to advance home ownership, to make more affordable units to live in—giving them that ability is something that is good.

You want to make sure that there are checks and balances in place, though, so the mayor cannot just unilaterally do something, the mayor cannot just unilaterally declare that this is going to happen. There is that check and balance in place where council, with a two-thirds vote, would have the opportunity to veto the mayor’s veto on that. That check and balance is in place.

You can still advocate, as a councillor, for the community that you represent, that small group in the large city that you represent, but the rest of council and the mayor have the opportunity then to look at, what are the needs of the entire city?

There was an expression that was used when I was on the election trail the first time, in 2018. We’ve all heard of NIMBYism: “Not in my backyard.” There was another expression that was given to me and I absolutely love it because I think it’s so very true. It’s called the BANANA group: “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.” It seems to be that that’s what’s been happening.

What this legislation does is it gives a tool, then, for those large municipalities of Ottawa and Toronto to advance housing, to advance the provincial priority of making sure that people have an opportunity to buy a home, to rent a home, to rent an apartment, to move into a condo, to get appropriately sized living space.

When I go back to Peterborough again, and using that as the example—$314,000 to $760,000 over the course of four years because there wasn’t enough inventory. The council in Peterborough, many of them were elected on building upward, not building outward. They didn’t want to have urban sprawl. But when those projects came forward to build up, they said no to it because there was pushback on it. We see that in larger cities as well. We see that in Ottawa; we see that in Toronto.

If you don’t have the full suite, if you don’t build everything in each of the different categories that are needed, you put pressures on so many other things. Why would a developer who is going to take 12 years to develop a piece of property—why would they build something that they’re not going to get their money back on? We have to change those timelines.

Again, coming back to Peterborough, there’s a prime example. We had a subdivision that was being built. It took eight years to get the approvals to build that subdivision. They wanted to put in some townhouses in one section of the subdivision. It took an additional five years to get the approvals for that. And by the time they got those approvals, the added costs that were put on by carrying it for five more years before they could actually develop and sell increased the price. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if you can get to market in a shorter period of time, your carrying costs are lower. If we’re talking 12 years to get something shovel-ready, there are added costs that are put onto it.

The task force that Minister Clark commissioned to find out about affordable housing, one of the things that they had said was that those additional costs add 22% to the cost of housing. If your base price is $760,000, that’s $165,000 in wasted costs. You gained nothing for it, the builder gains nothing for it, the municipality gains nothing for it and the consumer gains nothing for it. Finding a way to eliminate those additional costs, those unnecessary costs, to stop the weaponization so that the BANANA group has the ability to delay, delay, delay, means it’s going to be better for the people of Ontario.

And I cannot emphasize this enough: 2.5 million people coming into Ontario over the next 10 years. We built 100,000. We had 100,000 new starts last year during COVID, which is fantastic. That will not get us to what we need over the next 10 years—and it was a banner year. It had been more than 30 years since we had done that.

We have to find ways to speed up development where people want to move. We want to make sure that it’s still safe. We want to make sure that every check and balance is put in place, but we have to find ways to accelerate it so that those who dream of home ownership have the opportunity for home ownership.