Chairman Mao would have the agency.

I’d like thank my colleague from Essex for his dynamic presentation.

I’m honoured to rise today in this chamber, representing the amazing constituents of Newmarket–Aurora, to speak to actions our government is taking to help more and more Ontarians realize their dream of home ownership. The Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023, is the latest in a series of steps our government is taking to increase housing supply and help more Ontarians find a home they can afford.

I’m going to tell you about some of the housing challenges that I have heard from a variety of people in my riding and beyond. Afterwards, I’m going to address how our plan will help each of those challenges.

First off, and I think we’ve heard this: The cost of homes is a challenge for young people to enter into the market—even for a young couple. Example: both living at home, not paying rent, but earning good salaries of well over 80K, but holding off getting married until they can afford a home. Let’s look at the implications of this scenario. Young couples staying home longer—this delays parents’ consideration of downsizing. Young couples waiting longer to start a family, which then means family planning is delayed—delay of getting into the market means a delay for young people to start building their own personal development and self-reliance.

Secondly: seniors—people retiring—who would like to downsize and stay in their community, but there are no homes applicable to their age. Thus, where are the age-friendly communities that meet the needs of people of all ages?

Thirdly: retired people living in their home and who have an apartment suite, who are landlords, yet having challenges with their tenants. I have heard of this situation far too often—retired, house is paid for, and they turn an in-law suite into a rental to generate income for their retirement, and then all of a sudden it becomes a nightmare.

Fourthly: seniors and retirees who are purchasing new-build homes for retirement purposes and then are faced with a situation where the builder is not building within the agreed-upon time frame. This puts the buyer in a precarious situation, as they need to sell their home but have no home to go to due to challenges faced by the builder.

I note all of these challenges—as it has been explained to me—as these are real challenges that residents of our communities are facing.

So what is the role of government? It is to ensure that we create an environment that addresses this housing crisis by making certain we propose changes that react to market conditions and encourage development of all types of housing and significantly increase our housing supply. We have already introduced a range of measures to increase housing supply, and we can see their growing and positive impact.

A Statistics Canada study revealed that from 2011 to 2021 Ontario had the fourth-largest decline in home ownership rates amongst provinces and territories in Canada. What does that tell us? Well, it reveals that there were decades of inaction, burdensome red tape, and the “not in my backyard” ideology—that all-so-unfortunate opposition by residents to proposed developments in their local areas—as well as support for strict land use regulations.

I am proud that we are a government who want to provide housing for people of this province—for all the people in this province. With the steps taken to date, housing starts in Ontario reached a level not seen in more than 30 years. Just last year, rental housing starts in our province reached an all-time high. These trends have continued into 2023. For the first quarter of this year, we have had an 11% rise in housing starts compared with this time last year, and purpose-built rental housing starts are currently more than double compared to the same period since last year.

I want to address the four points that I raised from listening to real resident challenges. How does our plan make housing more affordable? Well, we’re streamlining land use planning policies, making policies for land use planning in Ontario easier to follow; providing the tools to support growth in large and fast-growing municipalities near transit stations and other strategic areas; allowing more homes to be build in rural areas; giving municipalities the flexibility to expand settlement area boundaries at any time; and making planning policies simpler and more flexible while balancing the need to protect employment lands, agriculture and the environment.

The second item that I had addressed, the various types of homes required for the various type of Ontarians: Here, I am speaking to age-friendly communities. Our proposed changes would help refocus by maintaining a mix of housing types. This is critical, as all municipalities would be required to provide a range and mix of housing options, such as low- and mid-rise apartments or multi-generational housing, and work with service managers to address the full range of housing options, including housing affordability needs, increasing housing supply and includes building up near transit.

Currently, 29 of Ontario’s largest and fastest-growing municipalities would be required to plan for growth in major transit station areas and other strategic growth areas—for example, downtowns. We’re also addressing minimum density targets that would apply to major transit station areas and strategic growth areas in the large and fastest-growing municipalities.

In addition, we are looking at attainable housing programs, specifically modular housing construction and other innovative options to reduce the cost of building attainable housing and speed up the creation of housing. As part of this work, the government will engage with the housing sector, municipalities and Indigenous communities to consider different opportunities to build housing using modular and other technologies. This is just another step for the development of the attainable housing program, which will leverage crown lands and seek partnerships for development lands across the province.

Now to helping vulnerable Ontarians, funding for homelessness: Starting in 2023-24, Ontario is investing an additional $202 million each year in the Homelessness Prevention Program and the Indigenous Supportive Housing Program. This is an increase of over 40% from 2022-23. These are truly historic investments in homelessness prevention and respond directly to the requests of the municipalities and Indigenous partners.

I was so proud to announce a 76% increase compared to the previous year to the municipality of York region’s HPP. This program gives local supportive housing service managers the flexibility to allocate funding where it is most needed—for example, to capital projects—as well as to make better use of existing resources. It reduces the red tape that service managers encounter and ensures the focus is on delivering support that our most vulnerable rely on every day instead of spending time on administrative tasks and reporting.

Thirdly—and I’ve got to speed up—helping tenants and landlords: To address the concerns raised around tenants who are in arrears of rent, this bill proposes a rent arrears repayment agreement. A tenant enters into agreement with their landlord to pay the rent they owe and avoid eviction. To make it easier for both tenants and landlords, the government is proposing to require use of the Landlord and Tenant Board’s plain language repayment agreement form. This would help ensure all parties better understand their rights and responsibilities and the rental rules that apply should the agreement be breached.

I’m running out of time, Madam Speaker, so I’m going to get to the point here that, in conclusion, the measures outlined in this latest plan will continue laying the groundwork for increased housing supply as market conditions improve. But more needs to be—

Further debate?

Thank you. Question?

Madam Speaker, I generously invited the NDP to demonstrate how they were going to get to $125 billion. The member from Waterloo has demonstrated how she would get to $3 billion. Okay, you’ve got $122 billion to go, and that gets you one sixth of the way to 1.5 million homes. Great—she did a great job and demonstrated how she would get to $3 billion.

Interjection.

What this legislation does is that it requires an application being made by a landlord to be supported by evidence, which evidence has to be delivered to the tenant at the time the notice of termination is delivered. That’s very useful for tenants. In fact, I can tell you that when I represented tenants at the Landlord and Tenant Board, I routinely represented good tenants and good landlords and routinely defeated applications of termination, on a routine basis. So the assertion made by the NDP that somehow this legislation isn’t working for tenants is flatly wrong.

The member from Essex referenced our former member, MPP Natyshak, and asked where he’s been. He’s spent some time on the Windsor Salt picket line of late, supporting those workers, and I think that that’s a good place for him to put energy.

But he asked a financing question, and financing and budgets are about priorities. We learned in public accounts just this week that this government has been subsidizing the building of private casinos in Ontario to the tune of $3.3 billion. By the end of this fiscal year, it will be up to $5 billion.

What we would do—instead of financing the capital costs of casinos in a housing crisis, we would be investing directly and partnering with not-for-profits, the co-op housing movement, municipalities who are ready and willing to come to the table. That funding, that $3.3 billion, would be going into housing—affordable, attainable housing, which are words that your government doesn’t seem to be able to say.

Do you think it’s appropriate to be financing private casinos in a housing crisis?

In 2022, housing starts were at 96,000; in 2023, at 80,300; in 2024, by your own budget, your housing starts are down to 82,700. So you are going in the wrong direction. Maybe you should stop focusing on our plan and actually bring forward a plan that actually will work for the people of this province.

Thank you to the member from Waterloo for the question. Well, definitely air conditioning is almost a necessity anymore given the heat, so what I would say there is: What are we doing to help renters? Number one, we have to ensure that we’re building a suite of rental buildings so that they have places to rent. That’s part of our bill, is that we are striving to ensure that there’s more rentals available.

As I noted in my speech, in fact, we have record numbers of rental buildings in these past 30-plus years. The more rentals that we have available, back to the point from one of my colleagues, the more supply that we have with rentals, the lower the price for the renters. Unfortunately, we have been in a situation where we haven’t been building rentals. We are now, and we’re getting it done.

I do appreciate the conversation today. I agree with the member from Newmarket: Really, this is about supply, and it is about building more supply in order to drive prices down. I live in a constituency where there is one of the highest growths of new homes in all of Canada, as has been evidenced by the fact that I have had four different ridings in the past 18 years.

I would like to speak to both the members who spoke on our behalf to talk about those housing starts, because I heard—and I think my ears may be a bit clogged—the member from Kitchener-Waterloo mention that the housing starts were down. Now, if she would drive in Nepean, if she would drive anywhere in Peel, if she would drive anywhere in Vaughan, if she would drive anywhere in the GTA or in the greater Ottawa area, she would see that people from around the world are choosing Ontario as their home, because we are competitive and, as a result of that, prices are going up because we don’t have the supply for housing. But the housing is starting to occur because of this government, because this government has the critical decisions that are required—

It’s interesting that the member from Essex comes at this position as a lawyer. Let me be clear: The lawyers in Ontario are doing very well these days. I mean, you’re in so many court cases as a government for violation of human rights, including housing rights, that the lawyers are doing okay.

But I do want to just touch on some of the issues that the member from Newmarket–Aurora had referenced. I want to ask her a question around air conditioning, because when the minister was in the media studio, he was asked by one of the reporters, “You know, people can’t stay in their rental housing situation. They can’t afford the rent. How are they going to afford paying for the hydro of an air conditioner?”

If the member could please address that other financial burden of the cost of high hydro as it relates to air conditioning, I would be really appreciative.

If I understand the question correctly, the question was about what calculations will bring us to 250,000 homes under the NDP plan and what calculation will bring us to 1.5 million homes under the NDP plan. Of course, it depends on what price you put the home at. I, admittedly, unilaterally selected the number $500,000, so if I took $500,000 and multiplied it by 1.5 million homes, which is the proposal, it is something in the neighbourhood of $750 billion, which is probably a number that none of us can even conceive and probably exceeds all of the combined provincial budgets of all of the Canadian provinces and territories, and a few states in the United States thrown in, as well.

My question is for the member from Essex. We have heard the Leader of the Opposition say she shares our goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031. I’m curious if the member from Essex has done the math from the NDP plan to build 1.5 million homes, instead of only 250,000 homes?

Further questions?

Wow.

On a point of order.

I would say that if we’re going to talk about examinations, I would send you both back to school, but hey. Because frankly, to simply parrot “supply and demand” without any understanding of the rest of the market is to show a lack of understanding of what people are actually dealing with.

Interjection.

I noticed that the bill did correct some drafting errors—reminding us, frankly, of Bill 23’s draconian elimination of planning appeal rights for conservation authorities and upper-tier municipalities, a reminder also of the broken promises about the greenbelt and certainly the appearance of widespread corruption in regard to the greenbelt—

The questions about who is benefiting certainly haven’t come from me alone. Those questions are widespread in the media and amongst people throughout the province who are very, very concerned at how easy it is to say one thing one day, and the next day say something completely different and do something completely different.

In terms of the greenbelt, in order to put luxury homes on conservation land—it certainly doesn’t make sense. And then, of course, this idea of taking even more farmland and subdividing it—well, we know that the farming community has organized itself and spoken against this, and it sounds like the government may be listening. I hope that’s the case, because we need that farmland. We need that food.

I am coming to the end of what I wanted to talk about. Again, I think that we have such an incredible problem with people being kicked out, with rents made completely unaffordable, and there is so little here to help. The problems keep getting worse and worse and worse, and then even when solutions are offered, there’s no support for those solutions.

Honestly, it boggles my mind that there is nothing there to support Suomi Koti or Giiwa on Court. Suomi Koti could even be coming out of a seniors’ fund for housing. Do we not have any funding available to support more seniors’ housing? Supportive housing? It doesn’t have to be fully staffed with PSWs. It might have one PSW. There’s a whole range of different levels that seniors are looking for when they can no longer—and no longer want to—manage a home and everything that goes with a home. What is the plan for that? Because I can tell you again, in my region—seven-year waiting lists. Well, in my mother’s case, she probably will be dead by then, I imagine.

So there are very, very clear problems that are not addressed in the bill. And there is so much more that the government could be doing to support housing so that everybody can afford to get into the market to get a place, to rent a place, to keep a roof over their heads.

Again, you point out that this is the fourth bill, and yet there’s no help for renters and there’s no help for seniors, for example. So I hope that the government will do more.

Point of order?

The member from Thunder Bay–Superior North.

Thank you to the member from Thunder Bay.

I can understand that you say the two projects in Thunder Bay have not been able to work, because we understand that the status quo cannot give us the solution for the crisis we’re facing right now. That’s why this is the fourth time we’re putting together all these actions to help us against this housing crisis. I would hope that, if you go through each and every one of them slowly, then you will really understand the solutions that we’re going to bring.

I also want to point out one thing and see if you can see this through and be able to support us in this bill. As part of our plan, we are consulting on having a cooling-off or cancellation period for new freehold home purchases. First-time homebuyers deserve peace of mind when making what is likely the biggest purchase of their life in their new home. Does the member of the opposition not support consumer-friendly solutions such as this?

I know that the member has an area with a lot of need, and as she had mentioned, there is lots of opportunity and need for investment with struggling populations.

Not too long ago, I visited the Back Door Mission in Oshawa, which does important outreach to street-involved and unsheltered communities. One of the things that I heard—and the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions heard—is that there are housing units available, but there isn’t subsidy available. The government isn’t keeping up with the need, and the cost is going through the roof.

So we have agencies that could house people across Durham region, but they don’t have the subsidy and they can’t afford to. That’s a failure of government, whether that’s a matter of emails getting lost in the chain or whatever.

What is in this bill that would help the folks who are really desperately needing housing—especially with help from agencies?

The member and I both represent ridings from the north. We know that the situation with the opioid epidemic is deadly. We also know that we have a huge problem with people who are homeless, who are not housed. Those are the realities of the north. We have four times more opioid deaths in northern Ontario—in her riding, in my riding—than we do in the rest of Ontario. Lots of it is directly linked to people being unhoused.

Did you see anything in the bill that speaks directly to the hardship that people are facing in trying to find housing in northern Ontario?