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—