SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2023 09:00AM
  • May/29/23 11:40:00 a.m.

I beg leave to present a report from the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy and move its adoption.

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Thank you to the member for the question.

As I alluded to in my remarks, we’re establishing a transition board to work with, including the region of Peel, the four municipalities involved.

With Bill 23, I talked to many municipal colleagues in my riding—I believe it is 72, all told, in my riding of Perth–Wellington, and they always appreciate the open-door policy I have with them, working with them. When Bill 23 came before this place—they all understand that we need more housing, and that includes in rural Ontario and the region of Peel, which this piece of legislation helps to achieve, among many other things. They all know that this government will continue to work with them to get more housing built and to continue to support them where they need to be supported, whether that’s through infrastructure funding to get those—

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Just listening to the debate, one of the concerns I have with this bill is how quickly it’s coming through. It was tabled on our last sitting day in the afternoon, and then my understanding is that it’s going to be debated all night tonight to rush it through.

I think of Caledon, which has a very small population and a large land area. It reminds me of Greater Sudbury, where we have a small population and a land area of roughly the GTHA. If you’re trying to fund infrastructure with a small tax base, it’s very difficult to do, when you’re trying to cover infrastructure and roads and things like that.

I’m wondering, how do we ensure that Caledon has the feedback required when bills like this are rushed through as quickly as possible?

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