Let’s talk about action. Included in the budget, recently announced—$1.8 billion for infrastructure across the province, $825 million of which will go to water infrastructure projects across the province of Ontario to help enable housing development, because we are in a housing crisis, but of course for health and safety purposes as well.

So if you want to talk action, why don’t you preach what’s in the budget?

Well, I’m happy to speak about some of the efforts that we’re doing to improve real estate management in the province, such as the bill that will be before the House this afternoon, in terms of centralizing real estate assets and having better oversight and a sightline into the use of our real estate so that we can address some of the most pressing challenges in society that we are facing today, like affordable housing and long-term care. I’m very happy to speak about that further.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. This bill, the Improving Real Estate Management Act, 2023, if passed, represents the next step in our plan to establish a framework, in part, to allow Ontario to act holistically and create efficiency in the management, decision-making and execution of realty activities. This will ensure alignment with government objectives, like building more housing units, including affordable housing and long-term care.

I would like to ask the member opposite, who sat on city council for many years, why the city didn’t lead the way in building a TOC program. It was this government that led the way in terms of tying housing to transit development opportunities across the city of Toronto and Yonge North.

Mr. Speaker, we are making great progress. We are building more housing, including attainable and affordable housing opportunities along our subway line, but we’re not stopping there. We are doing a very thorough analysis of all of our GO stations within the greater Toronto and Hamilton area to see where other opportunities exist.

We announced East Harbour, for example, as well as Mimico. Mimico, actually, was a station that the former previous government spoke about but never got done.

Mr. Speaker, this was a government in action, and we will build housing and community benefits that come along with it.

Thank you to the member for the question. I appreciate the member’s question very much, because it was this government that led the way in terms of tying housing with transit construction. We are expanding the subway system by 50% in the city of Toronto and York region. We want to bring housing opportunities with it, which led to the creation of the Transit-Oriented Communities Program, which we are now very much focusing on the transit stations on the Ontario Line, on Yonge North. We will be providing housing opportunities but also affordable and attainable housing models as well, and we are working with local communities to learn from them what other community needs exist within that particular area.

We are working very well with the city of Toronto. We are progressing on all of our stations and we will continue to work in partnership with Metrolinx.

Thank you to the member for the question. Under our realty portfolio under our government’s leadership, we are very carefully looking at surplus properties that we can then use for government priorities like affordable, attainable housing, like building long-term-care homes. This is a strategy that our government developed. We are well under way to building more long-term-care homes, as well as more housing in the province of Ontario.