Further debate?

I look forward to speaking on Bill 97, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023.

Speaker, of course, it is no surprise that our government is absolutely committed to making life easier and more affordable for people across the province of Ontario. A big reason why is to reverse the decades of inaction of previous governments and to address the mountains of red tape that previous governments had amassed. This latest piece of legislation and the three previous housing supply action plan pieces—through those, we’re continuing to increase Ontario’s housing supply so more families can find a home they can afford. But we’re not just working to meet the goal of building 1.5 million homes, we’re also supporting renters and increasing protection for new homebuyers.

As I mentioned earlier, this is now our government’s fourth housing supply action plan. I think the real reason why we need to talk about supporting 1.5 million homes is just to look around, Speaker, and see all of the development that has happened here in the province of Ontario and the huge demand for homes that will continue.

Speaker, I can tell you that we are extremely pleased with the latest economic development venture that is going to bring thousands of new jobs in Ontario and create smaller communities turning into larger communities, and that is of course landing Volkswagen to the province of Ontario. They’ve announced that they’re coming here to build a gigafactory. This is going to be a massive facility in St. Thomas. We will be hearing from them very shortly as they return to Ontario to talk to us about the details, but if we think about the fact that it’s going to be a multi-billion-dollar facility that is being built, it will require thousands of employees, which will, in itself, create thousands of spinoff employees.

All of these families will need a place to live. There will be a tremendous amount of new homes built in Ontario just to satisfy this one sliver, this one sector, the auto sector of Ontario and the growth. We have talked many times in the past about the fact that, under the previous government, they had made the declaration that Ontario would be getting out of the manufacturing sector and settling into the service sector. That was going to be our lot here in Ontario. Thankfully, in the previous Liberal government’s—what turned out to be their final—economic statement, when they made that declaration—we declared the opposite, that we’re not throwing in the towel on the manufacturing sector; that we believe deeply in the people of Ontario and the expertise that they have created. We have turned that around and saved the 100,000 auto sector jobs, but also have opened the door now for tens of thousands more jobs being created in this electric vehicle revolution. Because of that, it is going to put an even larger demand on housing. The 1.5 million homes that will be built in the province of Ontario are going to be absolutely critical to the people of Ontario.

These changes that we’ve made—you heard me in question period earlier today talk about the fact that they came with no help from the NDP or the Liberal members of Parliament. They voted against, and I went down the line and started talking about the various things that they voted against. It all was to help these families and all to help build these 1.5 million homes in Ontario. You can’t do that if you don’t have—and I pointed at the Minister of Labour—the skilled workers that are being trained. They voted against all of the programs to bring in skilled workers in Ontario and to help train them.

I talked about the fact that you can’t have those companies come here, you can’t have 1.5 million homes if you don’t have—and I pointed at the Minister of Transportation—the roads and the bridges and the highways to get you to those homes and to get you to those businesses. I pointed to the finance minister and the Treasury Board president. This opposition has voted against every single tax break that we have offered to families, to seniors, to kids in school—all of these things they voted against, each and every one of those items, as well, again hurting families, slowing down the growth, doing everything they can to delay progress and to stop the building of 1.5 million homes.

I pointed at the Minister of Energy and talked about the huge energy reduction programs that have come from this government that the opposition has voted against. All of those are critical in building 1.5 million homes. I can tell you, Speaker, I could have pointed, had I had more time, to each and every other department, each and every other ministry. I could have talked about the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the programs that we have that are helping to bring in our auto workers. We have 24 colleges and universities that have programs for those auto workers.

When I sat with Volkswagen and when the Premier sat with Volkswagen—for myself, many times; the Premier four times in his office, with the executives from Volkswagen—they always talked about the talent that is found here in Ontario. They’ve asked us, “How are you going to get these people into St. Thomas? Where are they going to live?” These are the kinds of questions that we talk about on a daily basis to make sure that we have the right people, the right talent, the right training, the right ways to get there, the right electricity sources for all of these groups who are coming here. That’s why we’ve seen these record housing starts. Just last year, rental housing starts in the province set their own record as well.

That is a result, absolutely, of our government’s policies, and that’s why we’re continuing to build on that work, to build houses at a record pace. It’s really critical that we have support for our housing bills, because that’s the support that we need as we travel to other countries and other companies to visit and talk to them about why they need to be here in Ontario.

This bill is important because it has a lot of other changes that help protect renters. It supports landlords. It’s a really wonderful mix. It clarifies, it enhances the tenants’ rights, for instance, to do something as simple as install an air conditioner. It further strengthens protections against evictions due to renovations or demolitions or conversions. These are all things that are very important. We want people to come to Ontario. We want people to build in Ontario. We want people to build rental properties. We want people to rent properties. But all of these things need us to help them along, and so we’ve done things like protecting homebuyers with a cooling-off or a cancellation period. Those are really important items to have when you’re buying a new home.

We also want to make sure that deposit insurance for first-home savings accounts will be expanded to credit unions. These are the kinds of things we’re doing. You can see, Speaker, that every little nuance, every little thing that we’re doing, is to help those families, help people get into a home, help people get into their first home, help people rent with confidence. All of these things are all critical.

We’re reducing the cost of building housing. We’re putting 74 provincial fees that are going to be frozen at their current rate. That’s going to help keep prices where they are. All of the things that we’re doing is because we have tens of thousands.

The Premier said it earlier today: Governments don’t create jobs, but we can create the environment for job creators to create jobs here. And as a result of all the policies the Premier has talked about today and all the policies that we talk about in this Legislature, over and over and over from the economic development side—we’ve seen the results, Speaker: Over 600,000 men and women went to work today in a job that they did not have, that was not in existence when we got elected; 600,000 new jobs since we got elected. That is almost unprecedented in our history, and we’re only beginning.

We have great companies who are making announcements here in Ontario. All of those people, all of those companies will have employees that will need a place to live. So we’re giving them this confidence that we’re doing when we’re protecting renters and we’re supporting landlords and we’re freezing fees so that house prices can stay where they are.

Speaker, we’re going to invest $6.5 million to appoint 40 additional adjudicators and five staff to the Landlord and Tenant Board, and that more than doubles the number of LTB full-time adjudicators. We understand that that’s a critical part of the housing structure. We’re going to seek continued input on a proposed land use planning policy document. That’s going to streamline Ontario’s land use rules, and that’s going to encourage more housing. You see, Speaker, everything we’ve talked about is about encouraging more housing because of this huge demand.

I talked a few minutes ago about the fact that, when we first took office, the previous Liberal government had said, “We’re out of the manufacturing business in Ontario; that’s not where we want to go.” It’s printed in their document that we are moving from the manufacturing to the service sector. They threw the towel in and settled for a different prize. Some 300,000 manufacturing jobs fled the province.

We took office, understood the problem in a businesslike way, and immediately were able to reduce the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually, or in the new budget now, it’s $8 billion annually of lower costs for business. I have heard the opposition say, “Oh, my gosh, $8 billion less revenue for you. How are you going to survive?” We understand that lowering taxes, lowering costs, all of that means higher revenue. That’s exactly what has happened here in the province of Ontario.

When we first got elected, our revenue in the province was $154 billion. We reduced all the costs of doing business by $8 billion, reduced our own revenue temporarily and watched it bounce now to $204 billion annually. Our revenue is $50 billion a year higher than it was. Why? Because we reduced the cost of doing business and businesses came. Some 85,000 businesses opened in Ontario last year; they hired 600,000 people in the last four and a half years. They need a place to live. That’s why we have this bill, Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023. It’s because all of these companies that are coming here need a place for their employees to live. That is the bottom line of every bit of it.

When we talk to these companies around the world, they say a couple of things that are consistent. No matter which country this year, no matter which company, they talk about the fact that the world is in a turmoil. Coming off a pandemic, we’re not yet settled. We have Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine causing a lot of turmoil. We have this elephant in the room of China that we don’t quite know what to do with. There’s a lot of turmoil going on, and they all look at Ontario and they point to Ontario as a sea of calm. Country after country after country have said those exact words to us this year: Ontario is a sea of calm. It’s stable. It’s reliable. It’s predictable. We know what we’re going to get in Ontario—and it all happens to be lower cost, by the way. Lower-cost jurisdiction, low taxes: That’s what they see in Ontario. It’s a stable environment.

The other thing they say to us is that Ontario is safe. It’s a safe place for our employees, it’s safe for our families, and it’s safe for our executives to go overseas. They found Ontario to be stable and safe. That’s why these companies are coming here, because we provide that stability and that safety. Those employees are going to need places to live. The thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs that are being created, the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are being created from all these investments are going to require many, many more homes for their workers to live in.

That means we need to have more homes built, not just in the GTA, but in places like St. Thomas and Loyalist and in Thunder Bay when we see them becoming a big part of the electric vehicle revolution, as we, hopefully, will have lithium coming out of the ground in the Far North and in northwestern Ontario, and a lithium hydroxide facility somewhere in northwestern Ontario—maybe even two of them. Those are billion-dollar facilities, each going to employ hundreds and, ultimately, thousands of people. They’re all going to need a place to live. That’s why, with this legislation and our housing supply action plan, our government is ensuring that there are enough homes for everyone, including those who will be employed all across Ontario’s world-class auto manufacturing ecosystem.

Speaker, I said it earlier: Sadly, the opposition continues to push back and vote against anything that helps Ontario’s housing supply. We’ve seen that. They voted repeatedly against the housing supply action plans 1, 2 and 3. They keep supporting the red tape. Everything they’ve done has attempted to slow down the building of more homes. They voted against the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. They voted against the More Homes Built Faster Act. They voted against the Better Municipal Governance Act. It’s quite clear now, Speaker, that the opposition is not actually interested in increasing Ontario’s housing supply, and that’s why they continue to put these roadblocks in our efforts to do exactly that.

I mentioned red tape earlier, and I have to say that the legislation that we have, the red tape legislation—this is another one of the nine red tape reduction bills that we’ve passed. In this bill, you will see how we’re looking at reducing red tape, keeping costs down. We know that we’ve taken about 400 individual actions to reduce red tape so far. And in housing, our government has cut red tape to make it easier to build the right types of housing in the right places. That’s our goal. That’s what we have done. We’ve cut red tape to reduce the timelines for development and to address local barriers to build more homes. That was our goal. That’s what we’re doing.

Now, by proposing to streamline Ontario’s land use planning rules, we’re once again cutting red tape to encourage even more housing. We know that by lowering taxes, cutting red tape, reducing energy rates—all of these things have brought the success to Ontario that we’re seeing today.

Bill 97 once again relies almost entirely on deregulation and tax cuts to incentivize the for-profit private market to deliver 1.5 million homes over a decade. Yet the recent Conservative budget reveals that project housing starts in Ontario are going down, not up.

The minister spoke about ensuring that there are enough homes for everyone in Thunder Bay, and yet, in Thunder Bay, we have two shovel-ready projects that would immediately add 105 new units of housing in our region while also making another 60 properties available for purchase.

Can the minister tell me why there is nothing in this bill to help the not-for-profit housing? This is housing that is ready to be built right now, and it’s blocked because this government is doing nothing to support middle-level housing anywhere in Ontario. So I’d like to know why that is nowhere in this bill.

I am very pleased to see that our government continues to take the housing supply crisis seriously. This is the government’s fourth housing supply action plan, which builds upon the success of the first three. The More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022, was introduced only a few months ago.

Can the minister please let us know why the government is moving on this housing supply crisis so urgently and introducing yet another plan?

We’re going to move to questions and answers.

It’s funny the member mentioned that there are tax cuts and cutting red tape. It’s those tax cuts that I spoke of earlier—

Yes, it’s those very tax cuts that I spoke of earlier. By reducing the cost of doing business in Ontario by $8 billion a year, those lower taxes have brought those businesses here. They have brought 600,000 men and women working for the first time. The reduction in red tape is a big part of that $8-billion reduction.

I realize that they voted negatively, Speaker—they voted no—to Bill 3, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act; to Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act; to Bill 39. Speaker, we understand they don’t want to build any new housing.

I’m really delighted to stand and speak to this bill because I want to bring a story from our constituents and kind of bring some reality to what people are experiencing daily. Not everybody has a beautiful home wherever they live. People have situations that are out of their own control.

So I received this letter and I have permission to use the names of these constituents and I’m going to read the letter. It’s a couple of pages, so bear with me and I ask you for your patience when we’re listening to how people are living today in all of our ridings.

“Dear Ms. ... Armstrong,

“My name is Lori ... and fiancé Ron ... resided in a two-bedroom apartment for 11 years. The apartment was located within a fourplex. We are also writing on behalf of other tenants who lived in the fourplex. Tenants in unit 1 were an elderly couple in their mid-seventies of which had health issues of heart attack and stroke. We resided in unit 2. In unit 3 this couple had unknown health issues. In unit 4 the couple who resided there were again another elderly couple in their seventies with diabetes and requiring knee surgery for both legs. The fourplex was put on the sellers’ market in June 2021. An investor purchased the fourplex. Once the finalization of the sale was completed all the residents of the fourplex were given N13 notices of terminating tenancy due to extensive renovations that were going to be involved. We were given till January 31, 2022 to vacate the premises.

“We (all the tenants of the fourplex attended) had called a meeting with the new landlord on September 27, 2021 to discuss our rights to reoccupy the unit once the renovations were complete. We were told the renovations had to be done in accordance of insurance and to upgrade to building code standards. The renovations would take four to five months to complete. It was felt by the landlord to complete all renovations at the same time instead of doing one unit at a time. We prepared to vacate by the date of January 31, 2022. We wrote a letter to the landlord stating our intentions of reoccupying once renovations were complete.

“Our belongings are being stored in a storage container upon which we pay a monthly fee. We decided to leave the utilities account open in our names so as not to pay for any reconnection fees or deposits once returning. We have been living in a motel room for now 365 days. The renovations have not been completed in the four to five months as informed. We have had no apparent contractors at our home to do any of the renovations in months. We have emailed the landlord on numerous occasions for an update on when we can reoccupy. We have received the same response each time: ‘Renovations have been stalled due to increased costs of materials and unable to secure trades.’

“As stated, we are residing in a motel with our 11-year-old cat and our belongings are kept in a storage container. The utilities (costs are minimal) are still being paid by us. We had personal property insurance while living in the apartment which we had to inform the insurance company that our property is in storage. This caused an increase in the personal property insurance.... All costs are amounting to more than double what we were paying while living in our apartment. We have not been compensated for anything. The close quarters of living in a motel are stressful at times. The financial burden is also stressful. We have tendencies of feeling anxious as we don’t know when we will return to our home.

“We also have children” who “are unable to visit us because of the living situation. I have a son with autism” who I’ve “missed spending weekends for birthdays with, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Our grandson hasn’t been able to spend weekends” with us because we are living in a motel.

“We also have a growing fear of the landlord flipping the fourplex: meaning he will resell the apartment fourplex and we don’t know where we” will “stand or what rights we have to reoccupy our home if this were to occur. There have been rumours he intends to resell as individual condominiums. We have not been informed of his intentions. We felt it was in our best interest not to look for another home for the reason of a binding lease upon which we would have to be signed for a year. We were told the renovations would only take four to five months to complete. It is now a year of being homeless.

“My fiancé and I are employed and make good wages between us. We don’t live beyond our means. We don’t make enough to buy a home or even to rent at the going rate of today’s market. The apartment where we resided was very affordable for us. According to the” Residential Tenancies Act “the landlord must charge the same rent as when we resided there. The landlord does have the right to increase the rent up to 2.5% in 2023 as well as applying for an additional amount by the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board due to renovation cost which is up to an additional 3%. This would still fall below the market rent rates of today and” be “affordable for us.

“We feel something needs to be done about landlords evicting tenants to do extensive renovations. Landlords should be held accountable to tenants when they have to evict and the tenant wants to reoccupy. Our suggestion: Landlords have other property for their tenants to reside till renovations are complete. Also, to continue paying the same amount of rent as if the tenant was living in the original rental unit. Additional suggestion: Landlords compensate for the above costs incurred while living outside of their home” to “which they want to return. Landlords need to be accountable to do their due diligence in completing renovations in a timely fashion so ... people can return to their homes. It is not the tenants’ fault that there has been an increase in material costs. It is not the tenants’ fault that there is a labour shortage.

“This is our outlook on part of the reason there is a homeless situation across our country.

“We would be happy to release further information of our situation if you feel you want to contact us.”

Speaker, I wanted to read that letter in full because here are tenants who are doing all the right things. They were told four to five months. They moved into a motel, and that’s pretty expensive. They said they didn’t want to rent or lease a full apartment because they’d have to commit to a year. They put their contents in storage. When you have contents in storage, that’s a higher risk in insurance portfolios, which means they’re paying much more. They can’t have their family come into a hotel room to celebrate holidays and special occasions. And yet landlords are allowed to control people’s lives in extreme fashion.

Imagine being out of your home for four to five months—that’s what you were told—and the contractor is coming in to do some renovations in your own home, and it goes to 365 days, a year. How would it make you feel? What kind of laws would you want? Would you want to be compensated for the extra cost that you incur because of these renovictions? I suspect you should want that because there’s no incentives if we don’t have built-in costs for long-term inconveniences—upheaval, quite frankly—of people’s lives. So what’s the incentive? Currently, it’s up to two years. Can you imagine living somewhere else for two years, waiting to be put back in the home you were in originally?

It doesn’t make good business sense for landlords to have that tenant come back and pay the same amount after they’ve fixed up a unit. The laws we have now that are being proposed are somewhat improvements, but they’re not strong enough to make sure people act according to what agreements are supposed to happen between people who don’t have the legal means to argue about where they were originally living, and it also perpetuates the cost.

She has said that the cost of today’s market, even if they wanted to go somewhere else, is out of their reach. Just recently, I think it was just yesterday—yes, April 16 here—there was an article in London’s paper that said, “A Stunning Year-Over-Year Spike in London’s Apartment Rental Rates.” It says, “London apartment rents soared by more than 25 per cent over the past year, one of the largest increases in big-city Canada, a new market snapshot shows.”

I’m going to say that’s little old London because that’s how I remember it, but it’s growing exponentially, and the cost of living is outpacing what people can afford. If these tenants were in a small fourplex and there’s rumours of it going to a condo, well, they can’t afford—she said, “We can’t afford to save enough money. We make a decent wage so that we can cover our expenses that we can predict now and budget for now, but if you’re asking us to pay 25% more rent or to buy a condo because he’s transferred it over to a condo complex, we aren’t in that position.”

The bill that’s before us talks about doubling fines when landlords break the rules, from—I think it’s from $50,000 for individuals to $100,000; that doubled that. In corporations, I think it’s up to $500,000. That’s all good, and it pays—all these fines go to the Landlord and Tenant Board. I haven’t checked this question out, but I got curious once I heard that the fees go to the Landlord and Tenant Board. I’d like to know how those fees are used. Do they help to educate tenants? Is there some kind of victims fund for tenants so that they can recover some of the losses, that if they were bad-faith landlords, bad landlords that acted in bad faith and they lost financial means—what happens? Does anyone know what happens to those fees that are paid to the Landlord and Tenant Board?

I know the government has talked about increasing adjudicators on the Landlord and Tenant Board. I believe they said 40, and that’s good. We need to speed up those processes. But again, I’d like to know how they’re going to manage that. Are they going to look after the big landlords first or are they going to look after the tenants and the small landlords that are really, really suffering when the system is broken at the landlord tribunal?

We have had many solutions to helping the rental market. No one is disputing that people need to pay their rent on time so that landlords can have a good business investment, but when we’re rolling back rent control, that’s something that leaves people in a position of uncertainty when their annual lease is due for rent increase. That’s so unfair. It’s just so unfair. You’re not able to budget if you don’t have a predictability of your rent increase.

Part of this bill could have had a strengthening of putting on rent controls on all buildings, because it does look like, in this bill, if you’re going to build a new rental building as a developer, gosh, the sky’s the limit for what you can charge for rents in this province. With people such as Lori and Ron, these are the people who we’re leaving behind when we don’t strengthen legislation to ensure we’re not causing another trickle effect of another problem. You fix something over here, and something is broken because you haven’t dealt with the whole picture.

The other couple of examples I want to use—it’s interesting, because the bill does talk to the examples that have come into my office before the bill was written. Here we go; we have a woman here named Nicole. She called back in January of last year and she had an issue with her landlord with wanting to put a window air conditioner in her three-storey apartment building.

Again, that is something that has gone to the Human Rights Tribunal. There has been a decision placed that tenants now can do that. There are stipulations it has to be safe, make sure that they’re the ones apparently going to be responsible for the extra electricity costs. If you already have electricity covered in your rental agreement right now, can the landlord increase those rates? There are so many unanswered questions.

I really think, if the government is going to allow those air conditioners to be put in and put conditions on those, one of the conditions that I think should be in there is that the landlord should actually oversee that installation. Because what if you’re an elderly person, or maybe you don’t know a contractor, or you hire a contractor, a handyman, 1-800, and they come and they do the work and everything looks good on paper, but then it’s not installed properly? Where is the landlord’s responsibility to make sure that apartment building is safe—working with the tenant, and both of them making sure that they’re happy with the installation, that it’s a safe installation and it’s going to be there and work the proper way.

Just putting it on one party when two parties have a vested interest in something I don’t think makes for good outcomes. I really don’t. It just causes, I think, more arguments. But if you had the landlord involved in making sure that that got done properly, you can get things done on time, instead of the landlord calling up the tenant, “Oh, your air conditioner is in there. Give me the paperwork.” I can hear it in the constit office. I can hear all about it.

The other one who had the same problem with the renoviction was Henryk, and he’s an elderly gentleman. He came to my office, and again, it was a renoviction. He had to leave his unit, and he has been out of his unit for quite some time. He came to me in—I think it was November of 2022. He has been out of his unit for—and that was before that. He came to see me in November, and he was out of his unit for months and months and months.

It’s not right and it’s not fair. What I’d like to see is the rights and the fairness balanced between both parties in having someone leave their unit because it’s going to be renovated. I know there’s a stipulation in there that says that if the tenant could stay there while renovations are being done—that’s another thing we need to assess. If you ever have renovations in your home, I don’t think you’re asked to leave your home. If you’re going to do the kitchen, somebody comes in and, yes, you might be without a kitchen sink for a couple of weeks, but you’re not asked to leave your home for months and years at a time for those renovations to be done. There has to be more of that.

The Landlord and Tenant Board: Again, there needs to be more support for tenants when they go there. I’ve heard so many stories that they feel that they’re being pushed into agreements; they can’t hear the proceedings, perhaps; they’re not getting proper representation; they get cut off. Those kinds of things don’t help the tenant-landlord situation either. I think people in this Legislature want things to work for both parties, but we have to create that environment for that to work. That means making things happen for both parties, not just one; levelling the playing field; making sure adjudicators provide the services that they’re supposed to—not cutting people off, not giving opportunity for representation, not explaining things. How many of us have had phone calls from tenants where they didn’t even understand what was happening to them and they were evicted?

There are some things in this bill that go beyond some of the things that we expected, so it is somewhat supportable, but there are things in the section where there’s sprawl. We have a lot of land inside London. London Psychiatric Hospital was a wonderful piece of land that government owned, and the Liberals put up for sale and the sale was completed under the Conservatives. There’s a piece of land that could have been kept in the public realm and there could have been a mixed housing in that. It was right in the city of London. It was on a transit route, as the government talks about wanting to have.

Having those infill projects are good for the locally owned businesses. It’s good for the economy if you build those homes inside the city limits. They support local business and small business. We all want our BIAs to thrive. They had a very difficult time under the pandemic. Here’s a way we can bump up that economy if we build homes inside the city boundaries. There are opportunities, like I said, with the London Psychiatric Hospital, and they sold it to a developer. Now, with the fact that development charges are being waived, gosh, they haven’t built since they bought it; I wonder what—they’re going to take advantage of that, I’m sure. That means, again, economic loss, funding loss for the city of London.

I look forward to the questions from the other side. I specifically focused on the renovictions, and I’d like to hear what they think about Lori and Ron. Did they do anything incorrectly? The circumstances of what happened—why has it taken a year? Why hasn’t their landlord responded? To have them, the tenant, prove that the landlord is doing something wrong, that’s another expertise all in itself in order to get justice.

I’ll end my debate here and I look forward to questions.

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?

Next question?

We’re going to move to further debate.

Thank you for the question. We know that the status quo is broken. We’ve seen the system in the past; the dream of home ownership, it falls further and further out of reach of hard-working families. I spoke with someone one day and said, “From the time you knock on a farmer’s door north of Toronto and start negotiations for the purchase of the land to the time you hand over the first key, how long does it take?” “It’s now 16 years,” is the answer that I got, which is a little less time, actually, than it takes for young Ontarians to save for a mortgage.

Again, we know we need to do more to hit the target of 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years, and that’s why this is the fourth bill now put forward.

When we had the Volkswagen announcement made here, one of the biggest deals in the history of the entire province—as you’ll soon hear the details coming—all of the American media just blew up about “How did this jurisdiction in Canada win this bid?” They talked about the top 10 things—I think it was the top eight things or the top 10 things—that Ontario did, and one of them was what they called “mega-sites.” It’s having an actual piece of land that’s available that has servicing or services available.

So the employment lands are really critical. You cannot attract economic development opportunities if you don’t have a place for those businesses to be. So we need 1.5 million homes, but we also need land to be able to have these industrial and commercial developments take place.

I can tell you, I would also encourage you to look at, when I was in opposition, my private member’s bill that encouraged 14-storey wood buildings. It was really something designed to support us in the north; a really great opportunity to build and sequester carbon by building wood buildings. So I would also encourage to have a peek at that. It’s just a little race down memory line, but it’s really fascinating and it would shine a light on the kinds of things that interest us.

Interjections.

But I can tell you I was home in North Bay on Friday, one of the rare times I got back to my beautiful home in the beautiful city of North Bay, and I went to my constit office and we held a press conference at Northern Pines. It is one of the three homelessness buildings that we have built; one of the 100 units—a 60-unit, a 24-unit and a 16-unit. I was able to share the news that they’re receiving $3 million more annually.

I think I did an announcement for your riding, as well, MPP Vanthof—

Thank you to the minister for his remarks. I listened intently, and I was wondering if the minister could elaborate—he’s doing great work on behalf of our Premier and our government to bring businesses back to Ontario after the previous Liberal government, supported by the NDP, drove businesses out of Ontario.

In Bill 97 and our proposed changes to the planning policy document is: “protecting employment lands.” I know it’s very important to do that, so I was wondering if the minister can elaborate on why our government is focusing on doing this to ensure we attract businesses going forward.

I’m going to take us a little off-topic. It’s nothing for the minister to fear what’s going to come out of my mouth. Actually, I’ve noticed when the minister speaks, he always has quite a delivery. He sounds very proud about the legislation that he is bringing forward, and I’ve always found that an interesting delivery when he does so. I’ve also noticed that he’s always talked about the daily vitamin; I think he’s said that in a number of his speeches. He sends to the Premier every morning a new business and he talks about it—I’m not sure what’s in that vitamin. I’m curious what he sent this morning.

Madam Speaker, I hate to break it to you, but this bill on helping homeowners will unfortunately help to perpetuate homelessness. This government refuses to get rid of the loophole it created that denies any rent protections to tenants living in rentals first occupied after November 2018, in a lot of cases resulting in double-digit rent increases, directly leading to homelessness. In fact, this government has defended rent increases as high as 57%.

Minister, will this government put real rent control in place for tenants who moved into their units after November 2018?

I listened intently to the member opposite for her statement, and I too have heard from many constituents. In a previous life, I actually dealt directly with the Landlord and Tenant Board, and I had to deal with many situations, including landlords who were unable to pay their mortgages because they weren’t getting the rental from the renters. This was actually a consistent issue.

One thing in common with all of us is that we hear the frustration with the backlog and the delays in the Landlord and Tenant Board. I know other members opposite have talked about this. We actually have a quote from the member for Toronto Centre: “We are seeing many people struggling as they’re waiting for a hearing date, and of course, while they’re waiting, that means everything is in limbo.... It benefits no one when the tribunal system doesn’t work.” That came directly from the member for Toronto Centre.

We’re going to be increasing the adjudicators, and we’re wondering and we’re hopeful that you will be receptive to this move and talk to your constituents about—

We’re going to move to questions and answers.

I’m glad that the government is recognizing that we need more adjudicators. They need to be experienced and knowledgeable and trained, absolutely, and they need to have support services when tenants come to the Landlord and Tenant Board—and for small landlords too, because a lot of small landlords don’t know what’s going on either. Between the tenants and landlords—the corporate landlords, they kind of know; they’ve got their legal representation. But I hear more from people who are living in smaller units, single-family homes, and they’re struggling. So having more adjudicators is a good start, but we need to make sure that they’re qualified, trained and look at the portfolio in there and try to figure out who we can help that doesn’t have those resources.

Next question.

Thank you to the member from London–Fanshawe for her portion of debate today and for sharing her constituent’s story, which should touch the ears of, hopefully, many in this Legislature today, to hear about what tenants go through at no fault of their own, playing by the rules, thinking they’re doing a good thing, paying all of the bills. There has to be a repercussion now for this landlord, but that will be a very extensive process through the Landlord and Tenant Board.

Could the member possibly go a little bit further into what that will mean for those constituents trying to get their money back or get into the unit that they’ve been promised?

One of the hurdles is that legal proceedings are very expensive, and they said they make a good wage, so who knows if they’ll actually meet the very low bar of legal aid. That could be out of their realm, out of their accessibility. When you can’t access that legal aid, first of all because it’s costly—but then you also want the advice. So if you can’t get either one of those things, they probably will not be equipped to go to the Landlord and Tenant Board and win that case, which means the landlord will get away with this renoviction and there will be no enforcement. It will teach the landlord that there is incentive to taking advantage of good tenants when they don’t know their rights.

But then when they do, how are these fines going to be enforceable? I’d like to know, because oftentimes tenants, as I described, don’t have the means to actually take to task the landlords at the Landlord and Tenant Board. So to the member: Yes, it’s good that you have the fines, but there have to be ways to get there to punish those bad landlords.

So I agree with the member, education is a key piece. And maybe the Landlord and Tenant Board should have that as part of their mandate: to educate tenants and landlords of the right things to do and the wrong things and what’s punishable. Maybe that’s part of their 40 adjudicators. Rather than creating more, why don’t you ask the Landlord and Tenant Board to start educating tenants? Have sessions so that people can connect. If that’s where you go to fight a landlord, that’s also where you go to get education on your rights before you have a problem with your landlord, or landlords should go there before they have a problem with their tenant.

We do have a plan. We had an opposition day back in November 2022. We outlined our plan very clearly to your government of how to build affordable homes, how to build not-for-profit homes, how to make sure rent is affordable. If you were here on the opposition day—sometimes it’s very scant attendance during oppo days, but if members were here, they would have been very clear on what the NDP’s position is on housing. I can even send over the opposition day notes if the member wishes. Our plan is here. We’ve talked about it several times, and we’ll keep talking about it.