Thank you to the member for the question.

The thing that this government is doing is creating a fantastic cover story for the assaults that they are making on the environment. They purport that it is all about housing and it’s all about long-term care.

Do you know what? This government has been in power for five years. The conditions in long-term care are on your watch.

There is no need to build on the greenbelt, no need to build on wetlands, no need to expand into green areas, into farmland, when experts, including your own housing task force, have said that you have more than enough existing land to build the housing that is needed in the province of Ontario.

This is a perfect example of this government rushing into plans that they had not made transparent and that are going to benefit—who? We don’t know.

For example, when it comes to moving the science centre from that area in Flemingdon or destroying the science centre building, experts have said that’s a bad idea, that’s a bad plan.

Who thinks this is a good idea? I’m going to say that it’s the private corporation that is now going to get a 95-year lease at Ontario Place. This government won’t even release the details of this lease. I would say that those are the people who will be happy with this.

Future generations and homeowners, perhaps, who end up with a house on a flood plain might not be so happy.

Absolutely; we, together, know what a crisis we’re facing in Hamilton when it comes to affordable housing—social housing, in fact.

The project that you reference, in fact—I was on that committee, trying to identify surplus land that the city of Hamilton owned and would be able to put forward to build affordable housing units.

We also know that there’s the HATS group, the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters, that is putting forward a solution, trying to find an appropriate location to build tiny shelters that are a temporary solution for all the homeless people in our province.

People are coming up with good solutions and good ideas. Everyone is trying to address this problem.

Financing is a huge issue. That’s a delay that these organizations face, as well.

A 30-day waiting period that you’re trying to waive is not the magic wand that’s all of a sudden going to make all of the social housing units that we need appear.

I would say that the organizations like Stop Sprawl in Hamilton, Save our Streams—these are people who are very thoughtful and very knowledgeable about the issue and are very concerned about the supply of all kinds of housing in the province.

It has been made clear by professional planners and the government’s own housing task force that Hamilton has enough space within the urban boundaries to build 110,000 units. So we have the land we need. We have the space.

What we need is a government that’s more focused on building and incentivizing people when it comes to finances than they are on enriching developers by making their land now developable.

I listened intently to the member across talking about the interests of the public and saving money. It is a huge issue for my constituents and, I would think, every voter in Ontario and every resident of Ontario.

One of the biggest problems we have in Canada, as we all know, is, there are two seasons for construction—there’s the winter, and then there’s not the winter—so sometimes we only have a few months to get the job done.

I’m wondering, given these deficiencies in our system and the fact that we only have a few months to get things done, what impact that will have on, say, a building project, a long-term-care facility, a retirement home, when they can’t get those shovels in the ground a few days earlier to complete that construction on time and in a faster manner for the taxpayers and the people of Ontario.

I would say to the member, with all due respect, absolutely nobody is buying this cover story.

In the province of Ontario, have we been building? Yes. Have things got shovels in the ground? Absolutely. So this notion that with those two months of construction time—by the way, we have a lot longer construction period in the province.

Waiting 30 days to do it properly, to listen to the people of the province of Ontario, to make sure the people who are moving into a long-term-care facility aren’t, in fact, putting themselves at risk, because they’re on a flood plain—what does it harm the government to do your job, to take the time to do the due diligence that is your responsibility, to protect the environment and to protect the people of the province of Ontario?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thanks to the member from Durham for that question. When it comes to contractors or builders, it’s not just about a 30-day period. Sometimes when they have to wait—after the environmental consultation has been fully completed, with all the checklists, they have to wait for 30 days. It’s not just 30 days; it could be a season that they had to wait. Whether they’re building a municipal road or they’re building any other project across this province, once they complete the consultation, we really want them to get things done by building things faster.

My question for the member for Sudbury is this: Since 2018, in just five short years, this PC government has been focused on building Ontario. We have built schools, when the previous Liberal-NDP coalition closed schools down. We are building hospitals, when the previous Liberal-NDP coalition brought our health care system to its knees. We are building transit, with four new transit lines in the GTA, despite the fact that the NDP votes no.

Bill 69, if passed, will help predictable infrastructure projects and let us build infrastructure faster, without compromising the environmental assessment process. The members opposite seem intent against building the infrastructure that the people of Ontario need, deserve and expect. Why doesn’t the opposition, why doesn’t the NDP, want to join us in building Ontario?