My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure.

Ontario Place was originally created as a place to reaffirm our identity as Ontarians and Canadians, with many of us having special and fond memories from being there. The space is now used by many as a beautiful outdoor public space to make more memories with friends, family and the community, as well as the natural—the birds, the insects and animal life.

What has happened to the Ontario in Ontario Place? What has been an attraction to celebrate Ontario through design, materials, landscape and programming is now going to feature an Austrian spa franchise, Therme. Even the west island entrance is to be rebranded as Therme.

Can the minister please explain how she believes an expensive, privately owned spa developed by an Austrian corporation represents the identities of Ontarians?

It really makes me wonder, why Therme? How was this decision even made?

My question to the parliamentary assistant, since the minister is not here, is, what other options—

Interjections.

My question to the minister is, what other options for the development on the west island of Ontario Place were considered by the government before they decided on a spa with Therme, and why weren’t proposals from Ontario-based and even Canada-based companies considered?

I have a petition:

“To Raise Social Assistance Rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and (soon) $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I’ll be signing this and sending it with new page Cole.

The minister had mentioned the umpteen times that the opposition doesn’t vote with them, votes against their bills and their proposals. And I think possibly that is because sometimes the bills don’t go far enough. In fact, I wonder why the government is being so timid about some of these housing policies, and my question would be: Why not propose four units as of right per lot, and why not consider or mandate up-zoning arterial roads, main streets in urban centres? What are you afraid of?

The theme of my talk today will be about being brave and being bold and going further to address our housing crisis. We all know we are in one, and the government has been pushing many different bills regarding that. I would argue that I don’t think they go far enough, and I want to encourage them to go further.

We were talking about, earlier, four units per lot, making that as of right; upsizing main streets, arterial roads, upzoning them—why not six storeys right across? Why not eight storeys? We’re looking at Europe, Paris, amazing cities over there that have beautiful walkability, livability factors, and they are built up like that, especially along subway corridors. This government seems to let sprawl take over.

The provincial government should ensure that the elected municipal councils in Ontario and regions and cities be respected and allowed to plan for livable, walkable and affordable communities. That’s the other thing we want to emphasize: We need affordable homes. We need affordable rentals. We need affordable communities. We are driving people so far out of urban centres because of that and farther and farther away. They’re being forced to destroy farms and forests to create low-density, car-dependent, expensive and polluting sprawl.

I’m just wondering: We have these growth plans. We invested the time, energy and money. We have respected, supposedly, the experts and asked them to create these growth plans. Why not double down on the growth plan, instead? Put sharper teeth into it, enforcing smart growth principles. We know it is much cheaper to have these compact urban environments than building, or proposing to build, homes in areas that lack the infrastructure. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense, especially for a government that prides themselves on being fiscally responsible.

There’s many, many housing advocacy groups—amazing groups—all over Ontario and beyond. We have one, More Neighbours Toronto, and they have said that “the government’s new plan won’t put the kind of housing people want to buy in the places they want to be.” And that is so true. People want to be where the services are, where the amenities are, where the infrastructure is. They want walkable, livable communities and, of course, sustainable. That is what’s sustainable, especially when we’re in this climate emergency. So we need to be focusing on that and I don’t see that in Bill 97 whatsoever. I don’t see the emphasis on densification, on infill, on encouraging—what is it? You’re eliminating the requirement for municipalities to prioritize infill development before expanding urban boundaries to overrun natural lands. Why not prioritize infill developments? We have the land. Your own studies have proven that we have the land without going outside to the greenbelt.

You received a letter eons ago for other bills from a whole slew of amazing, reputable, responsible, credible planners in Ontario; some in British Columbia, as well, because obviously the things we’re doing in Ontario are alerting other people across Canada to what’s going on here and many of them are alarmed, so even they’re writing in from other provinces. And they’re saying, “Toronto has received an unprecedented flood of housing proposals, totalling 456 development projects that together contain over 237,000 residential units. The potential housing in Toronto alone now totals over 700,000 units. This represents almost half of the entire 1.5 million housing units your government wants to see built over the next 10 years.”

Here it is. In Toronto alone, you can achieve your goals. I’m with you for building these homes; albeit I think we may have a different opinion of what a home is, because I’m all for anything and everything—co-ops and garden suites and laneway suites and four units on one lot and building up the avenues—and I’m not sure you’re there yet. I think you’re still focused on the monstrosities with the white picket fence and three-car garages or whatever you’re proposing. So we need to get together on that type of home, but we actually can build the homes. It’s a lofty goal; it’s a great goal. But let’s build them in the right area, and that’s not what I see in this bill. We are in an affordability crisis, of course. We all know that, unfortunately, and I don’t see that in the bill. I don’t see anything addressing affordable housing. It’s very vague.

The rental protections, the rent control: We need more of that. Now, you are addressing a little bit with regard to renters: the tribunal—yes, that’s good stuff; the air conditioning, for sure. You remember my private member’s bill, which you all voted against for some bizarre reason—I guess you feel your communities won’t flood, but that’s another topic—Bill 56, but extreme heat is another concern with a climate emergency. We know the Intact Centre at the University of Waterloo has reported on extreme heat—flooding is number one; extreme heat, number two: “Warming and more intense extreme heat will be present for decades to come. If an extreme-heat event coincided with an extended electricity outage—with no fans or air conditioning running—loss of life could easily jump to the thousands.”

That’s great. You’re working on proposing air conditioning for tenants. It’s long overdue. But maybe requiring a maximum temperature that landlords need to adhere to, like the minimum temperature we have in the winter—but that’s good. I’m throwing you a bone. That’s good. Believe it or not, I’m throwing you a bone.

There are other things, for sure. You’re making it easier to build houses on industrial and employment lands. Our employment lands are so vital. You yourselves want jobs, job creation, manufacturing and whatnot in Ontario, so I’m not sure why we’re getting loosey-goosey with that. It’s all about building up; it really is. We need to intensify our neighbourhoods. We want to do that, and we want, as I said, the right kind of housing in the right space, where people want to live.

This morning, there was a comment by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that people want to live—you know, kind of the sprawl argument and people want to live where they grew up. That’s true. I’m from a small town; there are also people who are from small towns who move to the city, to urban centres, so we need to think about that too. Sure people want to live where they grew up, and other people want to get the heck out of those towns, move to a different place, reconfigure and start the next phase of their lives.

We have 700,000 units in the pipeline for Toronto. We could be building them right here, right now, if you doubled down on the growth plan and gave it sharper teeth. It costs more; sprawl costs more. We’ve talked about that. I agree that we need to declutter the planning system a little bit—not to the extent that you’re doing. As far as what you’re telling urban planning as a vocation, you’re basically saying, “Forget it, kids. Don’t go into urban planning because we’re just removing all that good information and good regulations, and we’re just handing it over to the minister for him to make the final decision.”

I guess our students, our kids interested in urban planning are going to have to go to a different province to study and get a job. I don’t know what’s going on there. I don’t know if you have more respect or less respect for planning departments than you do conservation authorities. I’m not sure what’s going on there.

I would just encourage you to be bolder, less timid. Be brave. I’m happy to give you a backbone injection to do that, to build up your avenues, build up your main streets, upzone them as of right, get that in in residential areas. Look at the yellowbelt in Toronto, figure that out and remove that if you have to. Let’s do it.

I would encourage you to check out my track record as Toronto city councillor for beautiful Beaches–East York and what I did for development, then you’ll see what kind of backbone I had and how I have some to spare for you guys. We have a 12-storey at Woodbine and Danforth right on the subway line where the average is two storeys—two storeys, and we have a 12. We have a couple of 10-storeys down the street that I put in on the Danforth. We have another one, Options for Homes affordable home ownership, further down, which is about 12 or 14 storeys. So I’m single-handedly trying to build up the avenue myself, because you guys could be bold and put that in and then we wouldn’t have to do it individually.

In response to your question, absolutely, living above storefronts—it’s a smart thing to do, building up the main streets. I think I’ve told you this story: When I was first elected, there was a proposal on Queen Street for a Lick’s hamburger joint. If anyone ever enjoyed one of those burgers—yummy, yummy Lick’s. Unfortunately, it went bankrupt, so developers bought the building and proposed a six-storey building. Some of my residents got quite upset about six storeys on a main street in the city of Toronto. I had to tell them, “I’m from a small town.” They were saying, “Well, we’re from a small town.” I had to tell them, “Well, I’m from a small town.” And Collingwood, at the time, was proposing a six-storey, because they were being bold—

Yes, I think definitely, especially when next generations—some of them aren’t thinking of going into that vocation. We need to allow them, if the farmers want their family to live on the farm. But it’s a fine balance too, because we still need the farmland, so we want to be careful about paving over and building in our wetlands, our farmlands, our sensitive areas like that. It is a balance.