I really want to thank the great member for Oxford for his question.

Our government is working to make sure all Ontarians have access to the dream of owning a home. We had close to 100,000 new housing construction starts in 2021, which is the highest in over 30 years. Last year, we also surpassed 96,000, which is 30% higher than the annual 65,000 home average over the past 20 years—pure neglect by the previous Liberal government.

In 2022, we saw the most purpose-built rentals on record, with almost 15,000 units. This represents a 7.5% increase from 2021.

Through our More Homes for Everyone plan, which the opposition NDP voted against, we’ve already made changes that will accelerate approval timelines for new housing and protect homeowners from unethical practices.

As the Premier said yesterday, it’s all hands on deck to solve the housing supply crisis. We’re working—

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.

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—

More Homes Built Faster Act.

We have heard the Leader of the Opposition say that she shares our goal and objective of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031. While we have that commitment in common, it is only our government that has taken action and demonstrated our commitment to actually getting this done. The opposition has not presented anything credible or concrete beyond telling us what they oppose.

My question to the opposition is, what is their plan? How would they build 1.5 million new homes without a plan?

I’m very happy and very delighted to stand to support Bill 97, Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. Today, as we see the dream of owning your own home become so far—all my constituents in Erin Mills, when they come to speak to me, they speak about the house prices. They talk about, “How can we imagine that our kids will have houses in our neighbourhood? We want our kids to be in Mississauga, close to their family.” Now, the smallest house in Mississauga maybe became higher than $1 million, which is not achievable for even a middle-class family with two members of the family working and having income.

When we look into this current situation in the market, it is due to lack of availability, lack of variation and different housing options. When I came to Canada 28 years ago and I decided to—at some point, when I get back to my profession—buy a house, and we were a one-family income at the time because my wife was still studying to do her credentials as a doctor, we managed to buy a house.

I used to take a tour—when I was working for Tim Hortons night shifts in the morning, I would tour in the neighbourhood, and I liked some street. I said, “This street with a park and everything looks nice. I like that street and I would love to maybe someday buy a house in this neighbourhood.”

When we decided to start looking, I tried to always look into that street. The real estate agent kept coming back and saying, “No, we can’t. There’s no availability on that street.” Of course, the first question any real estate agent asks you when you ask to buy a house, they ask you, “What’s your budget? What’s the range of the price?” We put a range which can be affordable to us. One day, I was crossing the street and found an on-sale sign on one of the houses in the street I liked, and I called the real estate agent. I said, “This is the house I want. I want this house.”

The guy checked and came back to me. He said, “Your taste is much higher than your budget.” He said, “This is beyond the budget you talked about.” I said, “Let’s just let me see it.” I wanted to walk in. Anyway, he got me a visitation, and we managed to work out to put an offer on the house. At the time, we managed to get the house because of the 5% new homebuyer, which allowed us to put 5% only to buy the house. We put the offer and we got the house. It’s actually the house I still live in until today.

The moral of the story is, with one family income, with a newcomer—at the time I was three years, four years in the country. But the dream to own a house and grow roots, and start looking to settle and feel at home or “this is my future and this is my family home,” is the dream of every Ontarian. When I talk to even my kids now, who are—one of them is doing his internship and the other guy is in second year of dentistry. They have a concern. They have a concern about if they will be able to afford buying a house in Mississauga, or do they have to go further out to be able to afford housing.

This is what we are having today, a crisis situation. Availability of housing is not there. That’s causing pricing to go up.

A couple of months back—three months, I believe—there was a house on sale on my street. Out of curiosity, as soon as the for-sale sign came, I checked the asking price, just to know what’s the average of my house, because it’s very similar—two houses from my house. When it got sold, I called and I said, “Can you check, please, and tell me how much it was sold for?” And it was sold above the asking price: $480,000 above asking price—some $400,000-plus above the asking price. Why? He said there were 12 bets, that 12 people betted on the house to get the house.

Why is there no availability? Everybody sees, “That’s a house, looks like the house I want, the size I want, the price I want. I will continue bidding until I get it.” That will drive the house price up.

This government has been trying very hard to come up with solutions for a crisis we are tackling in hand now. It’s not the first bill. Actually, this government put four housing bills before this one.

We put the More Homes for Everyone Act, which is to protect homebuyers from unethical development practices and accelerating development timelines to get more homes built faster.

We put the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, empowering municipal leaders at first-tier cities to work more effectively with the province to reduce timelines for development and standardize processes and address local barriers to increasing the supply of housing.

The third one was the More Homes Built Faster Act. To help with the crisis, towns and rural communities grow with a mix of ownership and rental housing types that meet the needs of all Ontarians, from single-family homes to townhouses and mid-rise apartments.

Then we came up with the fourth, which was the Better Municipal Governance Act, which allowed a province-appointed facility in some of our fastest-growing regions—Durham, Halton, Niagara, Peel, Waterloo and York—to help determine the best way to extend these powers into two-tier municipalities.

And that’s the fifth piece we are having in hand. Madam Speaker, we have a crisis in hand now, and we are expecting to receive 500,000 new immigrants for the next three years. That’s almost like 1.5 million new people coming to Canada. How many of those will be coming to Ontario? The estimate and the statistics are showing that between 40% and 60% of those go into the three biggest or four biggest cities, because it’s very normal.

Any newcomer, any new immigrant is looking for more services, easier transportation, easy access to malls and groceries and any aspect of life he needs. He most probably will be taking English classes and going to school, doing his credentials, studying, so he needs full access to many, many ranges of service. That’s why they will come to the big cities. They will come to Mississauga. They will come to Toronto. Mississauga especially has been receiving a lot of new immigrants; Mississauga and Oakville are receiving lots of new immigrants, especially Arabic speakers, Middle Eastern, which made housing prices go up because there’s a huge demand. Everybody wants to come to the area where they think they will be settling in in the new country. So we are expecting more and more. We are expecting to see more immigrants coming to Mississauga. There is no more land in Mississauga to build on. We have to intensify, add more density to be able to accommodate more residents in Mississauga.

Also, we are building a lot of infrastructure transportation projects. LRT, GO train extensions and adding more tracks for GO trains will allow more people to be able to live in Mississauga and work in Toronto or work somewhere else. These are the facts we have in hand today. We need to tackle that.

This piece of legislation is actually adding to all the different pieces we added before to be able to accommodate this growth. It’s not going to happen in a day and night; it’s going to take time. But when we look at the other four pieces of legislation we’ve brought, when we look at the trends and see what happened based on those four pieces, starting in 2019, the first one, till the last one, which was very late last year, there is an increase in the rental housing market in 2022. Last year, Ontario surpassed 96,000 housing starts, the second-highest number since 1988; 15,000 new purpose-built rentals.

Doesn’t that tell us that this is the right direction? We are walking in the right direction. We are going in the direction where we are accelerating, encouraging, creating a good environment for investors and developers to start putting together projects, getting shovels in the ground and getting those units available for utilization very soon. I think adding more in this direction is needed. We tried to address the crisis with the last pieces. This piece is another building block in this suite of legislation which is allowing more housing to be built.

We are looking into new changes to help Ontarians to be able to buy a new home, to have their own house. When we look into the exact pieces that this legislation will add, we are proposing some changes to the Planning Act so we can facilitate priority projects. It gives the minister some authority to exempt individual projects from certain provincial policies, and specifies zoning as part of the MZOs. This is to, again, accelerate some of the projects which we feel go with the plan we are putting out. It requires homebuilders to work with the provincial land and development facilitator to come to an agreement. So we are adding some facilities so that they can negotiate and get things done faster.

Integrate some of the government policies into the single provincial planning statement: Developers were complaining that every city, every region has its own policies. After they satisfied the provincial requirements, then they face some different requirements in their region or their city. That’s kind of duplicating some of the work they are doing. So we are integrating this provincial policy statement and A Place to Grow plan for the greater Golden Horseshoe. We’re providing a variety of housing options, adding employment zones, density near transit stations—so where there is a transit station, we’ll allow more density to be built around that.

Also, to help accelerate the projects we have in hand, we are freezing some of the provincial fees to reduce costs to start the projects. There are 74 different provincial fees that will be frozen if this bill passes, including the Ontario Land Tribunal and the building code.

Now, we are having another issue at hand, which is because of COVID. Because of stopping the evictions because of the economic situation during those two or three years of COVID, we have a huge backlog in the Landlord and Tenant Board, the landlord-tenant tribunal. We needed to accelerate that because we have been receiving emails from tenants, saying, “I have been waiting for six months, seven months, eight months.” And those issues always have some financial burdens, either on the tenant or the landlord.

So we appointed about $6.5 million to hire an additional 40 adjudicators, which is double the number we have, and five administration staff. The process and scheduling and resolving applications will be faster. We will be able to clear the backlog which accumulated through the three years. We’re also improving the service standards and the client experience with the landlord and tenant tribunal.

Also, we have an issue at hand which we are tackling in this piece of legislation. Some of the older buildings don’t have air conditioning, and the majority of time, the landlord or the management company or the owner of the unit do not allow the tenants to install their air conditioning—in multiple different ways. Either we don’t know if the circuit can accommodate it or the price of the unit includes the utilities, so that any equipment added will cause electricity bills to go up and we don’t want to install that.

It was a negotiation between the tenants and the landlords, especially when the case is older people. Like all the people, they actually suffer in the summer, during the summer months. My mom used to—it’s still in the rental unit to date. We had to install her air conditioning unit, a mobile one, so that she can afford the weather in the summer, especially that her apartment is facing the sun. At least six hours of the day, the sun is coming through the front windows. So we had to go through some arrangements.

If the landlord is understanding, it goes well. If they don’t or they are not co-operative, it becomes an issue. If this bill passes, it actually gives the tenant the right to install an air conditioning unit on the window, of course, with all the precautions needed for protecting the electric circuits and the fire hazards and everything else. That’s not negotiable. But the fact that he has the right to install an air conditioner will give them that right. And, even if the rent is including the electricity costs, they might have to pay some costs—again, to be negotiated. During that period of time, the two or three months, they might have to pay some costs for the electricity. That basically will allow a good portion of renters to be able to install air conditioning during summer months.

Also, if this bill passes, we are proposing some changes on the deposit insurance for first-home savings accounts at Ontario credit unions. There are 1.7 million Ontarians who are members of credit unions. They are putting in savings. So we are opening that, allowing Ontarians to save up to $40,000 towards buying new homes.

In summary, Madam Speaker, I think this bill will add another building block towards solving or tackling the crisis of housing. Maybe it’s not the only piece, maybe it’s not a bulletproof solution, but it’s at least a building block towards solving some of the issues. Also, it will work with other pieces, and maybe other pieces will be coming to tackle other parts of the problem. When we look into what we did, I think no government did as much as we did to tackle the housing crisis. After 12 years of Liberal government that did not do anything towards it, even planning—I don’t think they even saw that crisis coming at the time. Now, we are in the crisis. We have to move fast.

According to the University of Toronto, the Smart Prosperity Institute predicted Ontario will need a total of 1,506,400 net new homes by 2031, which is much nearer than the 1.5 million our government committed to in the next 10 years. So in summary, I think this is a good move. We need more steps towards solving this crisis, tackling the crisis. The status quo is not an option. We have to come up with solutions. It’s maybe not the final solution, but it’s a step towards finding a suitable solution for the crisis. I really hope that the opposition comes to the table and tries to work with us hand in hand. As Premier Doug Ford said, we need all hands on deck to be able to solve this issue.