Supplementary question: the member for Ottawa West–Nepean.

To reply, the Associate Minister of Housing.

The Associate Minister of Housing.

My question this morning is to the Premier. Another expert report has just been released, this time using advanced mapping technology, that shows yet again this government does not need to build on the greenbelt to achieve our housing goals. Yes, we are in a housing crisis. We need housing; we need affordable housing. But this study shows that Ontario could deliver the next 30 years of housing in the greater Toronto-Hamilton area using a portion of land already zoned for development.

My question: Given the mounting evidence that we already have the necessary land to build housing, why are you putting the greenbelt, our farms, our forests and our wetlands at risk?

Thank you, Speaker, and good morning. I’d like to thank the member opposite for the question.

Speaker, we all know that Ontario is expected to grow by more than two million people by 2031, with approximately 1.5 million living just in the greater Golden Horseshoe alone. The federal government has also announced that Canada will increase immigration by another 500,000 newcomers by 2025. We know Ontario is expected to get a significant portion of new Canadians, and so we have to start planning now so the next generation of Ontarians have a place to live. The decision we made will result in the construction of at least 50,000 new homes and will expand the greenbelt by approximately 2,000 acres.

Speaker, Ontario’s population reached a historic 15 million people last year, and it’s expected that this growth is going to continue. We are going to get 1.5 million homes built by 2031 because we desperately need it, Speaker.

Speaker, I am so proud to be part of a government that’s taking a responsible, targeted approach to deliver on its plan to build a million and a half homes by 2031. This plan is just part of our larger commitment to make life easier and much more affordable for the people of Ontario.

Speaker, under this Premier and this infrastructure minister, we’re investing more than $159 billion over the next decade to support infrastructure projects including transit, highways, schools, hospitals, long-term-care projects. This transportation minister is building more municipalities while improving local transit. This labour minister—we’re doubling our economic immigrants. And under this economic development minister, we’re attracting $7 billion in St. Thomas.

Speaker, our province is growing. We’re welcoming newcomers. We need to build housing, and we’re going to get it done.

To reply, the Associate Minister of Housing.

The supplementary question.

I do want to thank the member opposite for her question. Speaker, yes, it’s very, very important that we have high-employment zones. We have many of them right across this province. But what we also heard from many of these employers is the desperately needed housing in and around those employment zones, so that their employees could get to work much faster, rather than sitting in commutes for hours.

And so, we’re listening and we’re making sure that the people of this province can get to work in a timely manner by still protecting those high-employment zones and getting that building, bringing in this investment, and everybody has a great place to live, to work and to raise their family.

That is also why we’re taking the provincial policy statement, putting it together with A Place to Grow and making it one provincial policy statement, to make the wording so much easier, more easy to understand and easier to follow for all municipalities.

I really appreciated the thoughtful comments from the member who talked about the social determinants of health, but also pointed out that the social determinants of safety are related, if not the same. Working with folks in the community and different agencies supporting those who are human trafficking survivors—who are the first to say that a shelter is not an appropriate place for them, that there are layers to the needs. Transitional housing or supportive housing or whatever we want to call it needs to be appropriate for the need, and that just doesn’t exist in my community and in most.

When we don’t have the housing that’s needed, when we are forcing people back into harm—when I had heard from the interim police chief a while back, he said “We can move people that are in the parks, but we can’t give them housing.” When there’s such a need in our community for safety, why don’t we see that in this bill, and why don’t we hear that from this government?