This government’s plan to build on the greenbelt is very alarming. In a letter I received from the federal Minister of Environment, Minister Guilbeault, concerning your actions on the greenbelt, he writes in part: “There are portions of Ontario’s greenbelt that contain critical habitat for species listed under the federal Species at Risk Act. Environment and Climate Change Canada officials have reached out the government of Ontario officials to ensure that the provincial and federal laws designed to support the identification, protection and mitigation of harm to species at risk and their habitats of concern are respected in the provincial approach to housing.”

So, my question is very simple, and I ask it on behalf of so many Ontarians who are very concerned with your government’s approach to housing: What steps are you actually taking to protect species at risk as you rush to pave over wetlands, agricultural lands and the greenbelt?

With so much at stake, why are you risking federal intervention and why are you further endangering our already vulnerable species, biodiversity and our green spaces in this province?

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.

Speaker, I have tons of respect for the member who just asked the question. We get along. If we would be alone in a room, we’d probably resolve a lot of the things that are debated on the floor of this Legislature.

The comment that I was making is, this government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force that was implemented actually told this government that the lands that are required in order to build additional homes are already available. We don’t need to go onto the greenbelt. That was the point that I was stressing through a lot of my presentation today—there’s already available lands, plenty of room to build on. Let’s use those lands before we go anywhere else or we consider anything else, because putting the greenbelt in harm’s way is going to be a loss forever.

So when the farming community is coming out to the government and saying, “Hey, you should reconsider these actions because they’re going to negatively impact not only me, but the future of the farming community and those who are coming in behind me, like my children who are looking at building their own farms or coming into the field”—and the changes that this government was proposing were going to increase costs on them immensely.