Thank you to my honourable colleague for reminding everyone of the acronym for my ministry—peanut butter sandwich delivery.

Good morning, and thank you, Speaker, for this great opportunity to speak on such a wonderful bill, and it’s all about housing.

I’m pleased to speak in the House today in support of the third reading of our government’s Bill 97, Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023.

Together with my esteemed colleagues the Honourable Steve Clark, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing; Associate Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Nina Tangri; and their parliamentary assistant, PA Rae, we have been working relentlessly to address Ontario’s housing supply challenges.

Our great province is filled with hard-working Ontarians seeking the perfect place to call home and one that fits both their needs and their budget. We are dedicated to helping them achieve their dream of home ownership and ensuring they can confidently spend their hard-earned money. Using every tool at our disposal, we support Ontarians in making informed choices when it comes to finding a forever home in our province.

Speaker, we are all aware of the housing crisis in Ontario, and we recognize the immense economic impact of home building. Our goal is to construct 1.5 million homes by 2031, effectively addressing the housing supply crisis.

A strong residential construction industry is crucial for the prosperity of our province.

Under our Premier’s leadership, we have focused on cutting red tape and modernizing processes to accelerate home construction. That’s why our government introduced Ontario’s first-ever housing supply action plan in 2019, and look how far we have come since 2019. I believe this is our housing supply action plan 4.0. Speaker, I want to acknowledge my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for his hard work on these initiatives. It seems like a movie or one of those dramas: season 1, season 2, season 3. So I will say this is season number 4, and I’m sure the minister will say soon there will be season 5, season 6, season 7 of the housing supply action plan—not that I’m saying anything, but just wanted to mention: hint, hint.

Speaker, housing supply action plan 4.0, recently announced by Minister Clark, includes our plan to strengthen protections for buyers and enhance their confidence in purchasing a new home. As the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery, we oversee Ontario’s legislation for new homes, including the New Home Construction Licensing Act, and the builder regulator, the Home Construction Regulatory Authority, or the HCRA.

We are committed to innovating and strengthening our protections for homebuyers, and here’s how we plan to do it: In the coming weeks, we will consult with the public, consumer groups and the homebuilding sector. Through the Ontario Regulatory Registry, we aim to explore the possibility of a cooling-off period for buyers of new freehold homes and whether to create new requirements that buyers of all new homes receive legal advice on their purchase agreements. Speaker, we will explore whether a purchaser of a new freehold home should be able to cancel their purchase agreement within a specific time frame and how builders could be required to disclose a cooling-off period to purchasers. Additionally, we intend to consult on issues related to price escalation in the new home construction sector. These proposed changes would enhance consumers’ understanding of their rights and obligations, and empower all new home buyers to make confident decisions in the most significant purchase of their lives.

Our government is committed to strengthening consumer confidence in the new home sector and protecting Ontarians from unethical practices in the home-building marketplace. Speaker, just in 2021, we established the Home Construction Regulatory Authority, the HCRA, an independent not-for-profit corporation that administers and enforces the New Home Construction Licensing Act, 2017, and licensing act regulations. The HCRA’s mandate includes upholding professional standards for new home builders, protecting the public interest and educating consumers to make informed decisions. It is also to regulate builders of new homes and ensure compliance with a mandatory code of ethics. The HCRA has the authority to enforce compliance through education, warnings, placing conditions on a builder’s licence or by suspending or revoking a builder’s licence, and the HCRA has taken such steps to better protect consumers.

Speaker, just last fall, in fact, I believe our government passed changes to the licensing act that crack down on predatory actions by builders of new homes in Ontario. These changes increase the existing maximum financial penalties against unethical builders who unfairly cancel a contract. Those bad actors now face the risk of permanently losing their licence.

Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, through the housing supply action plan 4.0, our government is taking bold actions to tackle Ontario’s housing supply crisis. We have introduced various measures to increase the supply of housing, accelerate construction and strengthen consumer protection. We will continue to execute housing supply action plans every year of our current mandate, as we promised, to reach our goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

In 2021, we witnessed the highest number of new housing starts in Ontario in over three decades, and the credit goes to Premier Ford as well as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Steve Clark, and our entire government, all government members, for making sure that Ontarians can have their dream homes. I’m sure all of us are working to make sure that we continue to make that dream a reality. As a government, Speaker, we are proud of this achievement, but we also know that it is just the beginning.

I must also address the rapidly growing condominium sector in Ontario and our ongoing efforts to enhance protections for condo owners and residents. I want to start with something that affects more than a million of our fellow Ontarians’ condo living. Condos are not just homes. They play a major role as a housing option for millions of individuals and families, and are a testament to the strength and growth of our province, accounting for half of all new homes being built.

This robust expansion of the condo sector, which is valued at nearly $45 billion and provides jobs for over 300,000 Ontarians, is something we can all be proud of, but it means we must constantly re-evaluate our laws and consumer protections. While most condos are well run and satisfy their owners and residents, we are aware that there are challenges. Therefore, we will continue to assess the potential future expansion of the Condominium Authority Tribunal’s jurisdiction to support Ontario’s valued condo communities.

Speaker, it is no secret that buying or selling a home is a significant milestone. As such, Ontarians should feel confident in the professionals who guide them through this process. That is why we are doubling down on protections for Ontarians navigating the real estate market.

The Trust in Real Estate Services Act, 2020, or as we say, TRESA 2020, makes important changes to how real estate professionals interact with the public, ensuring their practices reflects the changing realities of the industry. In the first phase of TRESA 2020, changes were made to allow registrants and brokers to incorporate and be paid through a personal real estate corporation. This first phase has also allowed registrants to use more recognizable terms, such as real estate agent and realtor, to describe brokers and salespersons in their advertisements.

The second phase of legislative and associated regulation changes, once in force, will also encourage transparency and ethical practices by introducing a new code of ethics regulation, strengthening disclosure requirements and other registrants’ obligations, to better protect the public. In addition, the changes will allow a registrant to conduct an open offer process and disclose the details of competing offers, of course without divulging personal or identifying information contained in the offers at the seller’s direction. These changes, backed by the stakeholders and the Real Estate Council of Ontario, are all part of our commitment to Ontarians.

Speaker, we also want to speed up residential home construction. Our partnership with Ontario One Call is crucial in achieving this. It aims to increase the efficiency, timeliness and coordination of digging activities by excavators and promote safe digging practices. Their role in coordinating excavation work and promoting safe digging practices is a cornerstone of our construction projects.

We are actively improving the locate delivery system to ensure businesses can start their projects quicker, avoiding unnecessary delays. In particular, we are looking at innovative models for locate delivery through a dedicated-locator model, which is currently in place for all broadband projects. This means a faster rollout of critical infrastructure commitments like new homes, improved public transit and expanded broadband services in underserved areas. These changes will help businesses get shovels in the ground faster and reduce delays in obtaining necessary information about the location of underground infrastructure, such as telecommunications, gas, electrical and water lines, helping the province deliver on the many infrastructure projects that are, in turn, helping Ontarians and fuelling our economic growth.

Speaker, our efforts don’t stop here. We are also creating new data standards that support e-permitting for planning and development applications. Working with municipalities and home builders, the new data standard will provide clear, uniform rules and guidance about how data should be captured, shared and used.

I know I only have 50 seconds, but, Speaker, let’s make our shared vision of a bright and prosperous future for all Ontarians a reality. The quicker we get shovels in the ground, the faster we can help Ontarians realize their dream of home ownership, or as my grandfather says, the Canadian dream.

I know you all will have valuable feedback on the proposed amendments. We definitely encourage everyone to give us your feedback, and I look forward to a productive debate conversation.

But in the end, I just want to say thank you to the minister, Premier, associate minister, PA and everyone—all my colleagues—for all the great work they are doing in making sure that Ontarians can have a home they all can enjoy with their families.

Thank you to my colleague from Thornhill. As we made very clear almost a year—Friday’s a year. In the election last year, we made a very clear commitment to build 1.5 million homes, and I’d also like to highlight the two other major parties in this place also committed to doing that.

We’re actually taking action on that, Speaker, which this housing supply action plan bill does in Bill 97 through our protections for tenants and homebuyers, but also, again, the proposed provincial planning statement and those aspects, even in the city of Thornhill, reducing duplication and ensuring that there’s one planning document. Right now, there are two, and that causes confusion and extra red tape for housing construction. So working with—whether that’s mixed use, whether that’s condos, whether that’s semi-detached housing, ensuring those houses get built in all communities across Ontario.

So many. If you open up an act, I’m going to try to introduce an amendment to change it. That’s how it works. That’s my job. There are a lot of things I would like to change with how this government approaches housing and the real estate sector to ensure that our housing sector provides homes to people first. That’s the goal. And they should be affordable homes that meet their needs.

Another measure we introduced was around “use it or lose it.

This is how it works: If a developer gets all the approvals that they need to build and they don’t build within a fair and reasonable period of time, and they don’t have a good reason for not building, then there should be penalties imposed, because that will stimulate the construction of homes so we have enough homes for current residents to move out of their parents’ basements and for newcomers who are moving in who want to call Ontario home. Maybe they’re studying at the University of Toronto or the University of Waterloo and they need a home. It makes a lot of sense to me, and it’s something that municipalities are recommending. Unfortunately, the government chose to reject that amendment, which is interesting, because you’re A-okay with targeting municipalities, fining them, but you’re not okay with looking at developers who are choosing to sit on properties and sit on building permits for no good reason. I can imagine that if a municipality was going to move forward with this kind of amendment, there would be some reasonable conditions that we’d set up. Maybe it’s an affordable housing project; maybe it’s a project that’s in the public interest; maybe the developer had a really good reason and they’ve come into financial difficulty and they can’t get the financing that they originally thought they could. That’s a reason not to impose a penalty. But then there are some who sit on permits and they don’t build. This could be a very effective way, and a very cheap way, to increase supply. That was rejected.

This was an interesting amendment—I would say of all the schedules in Bill 97, schedule 4 is a complete and total mystery to me. It seems to be a mystery for the Conservative members, as well, because I’ve asked numerous questions in committee to the Minister for Municipal Affairs and Housing, to the committee members present, even to people who came in and spoke. I asked, “What does this actually mean?” People couldn’t really give a straight answer. I’ll explain it for the people listening. Essentially, schedule 4 of Bill 97 allows the minister to appoint a facilitator to give advice and recommendations “to the minister in respect of growth, land use and other matters,” and to “perform ... other functions”—not specified—“as the minister may specify.” So we don’t even know what they are. They can sign agreements with landowners. We don’t know what they are. Are they transparent? There’s no requirement here. Where’s the accountability? I have no idea. Could a facilitator, through the ministry, sign an agreement and bypass elected officials? Maybe. I don’t know. Does this apply to the divorce that’s happening between Brampton and Caledon and Mississauga? I don’t know. No one knows. So we thought, “Let’s introduce an amendment. Let’s keep it real simple. We’ll say that if the facilitator is making an agreement with a landowner or giving advice to the minister about growth and planning, then that needs to be transparent. Put it on a website, all the decisions and recommendations, so we all know what’s going on.” That makes a lot of sense, but you rejected that. I thought Conservatives were for transparency and accountability, but I guess not.

So that was a pity. The thing that disappointed me most about that is that no one really could answer questions about what that actually means. That’s really what surprises me about that one.

These are amendments all about helping renters who are in buildings that are facing demolition. We introduced a bunch of amendments—because we had the City of Toronto Act we needed to introduce amendments to, and then also the Municipal Act. So we got busy there.

Then, we introduced an amendment that really looks at the issue of renovictions. This amendment is focused on making sure that if a landlord is going to evict, they have a good reason to evict; that the renovation that is needed actually requires a tenant to leave. Right now, with Bill 97, you can get any kind of report, and you can say, “Oh, the tenant needs to leave. These renovations are significant.” And that’s it.

I looked at what other municipalities have done that have really effectively clamped down on illegal evictions. The example I’d like to use is New Westminster, BC. They brought in this interesting new law that says that if a landlord is going to renovict a tenant, they need to show that they have got the building permits necessary to prove that they’re actually going to do the renovation. It makes a lot of sense, because if a landlord is going to do the renovation, they have to get the building permits anyway. So why not make sure they do their due diligence so that we stop illegal renovictions, where some landlords say they’re going to renovate, but really, they have no intention of doing so; they just want to move in another tenant who’s going to pay the higher rent. This is simple. Landlords are doing it already. Get a permit, show us that you got a permit, put it in your application to the Landlord and Tenant Board in your application to evict. Conservatives didn’t like that, so that was a no, which is a real pity. But hopefully we’ll see that in future bills.

Then we had 4.2—we’re in schedule 6 now; this is the Planning Act. With the Planning Act, with Bill 23 and also with Bill 97, the Conservatives have brought in a whole lot of measures to really transform how we plan and build. One issue that’s particularly concerning to me is that Bill 23 changed the definition of what affordable housing is, which is really concerning. Bill 23 changed the definition of affordable housing so that it’s based on the market: A house is affordable if you can rent it for about 80% of average market rent, and a home is considered affordable if it sells for 80% of the sale price. That’s the new definition of affordable housing for the Ontario government. It’s different than what it used to be. It’s different than what the federal government has. It’s different from what the city of Toronto is looking at doing. The Conservatives decided to create their own. And why that’s so messed up is because they’re looking at giving upwards of $100,000 in development fee discounts to any developer that meets this new, completely unaffordable definition of affordable housing. So you could build a home in Brampton, sell it for $800,000, and you still get that affordable housing development fee exemption, and it’s taxpayers who are going to have to make up the difference. I don’t know how on earth that is fair for anyone, because $800,000 for a home in Brampton is not affordable for a middle-income person, for a moderate-income person, for a low-income person.

As a result of those development fee discounts, municipalities all across the GTHA have imposed a Ford tax, a property tax increase, to pay for the infrastructure that we need to build—because if we’re going to give developers a discount, someone else has to pay for it, and it’s Ontarians. I’m just going to review this again: Durham region, 5% tax hike; Pickering, 6% to 8%; Clarington, 4%; Waterloo region, 8.55%; Burlington, 7.5%; Niagara region, 7.58%—I had a wonderful co-op student help me gather this information, and I’m very grateful for them—York region, 3.9%; Newmarket, 7.67%. It goes on and on and on. And what’s hard to stomach with these property tax increases is that residents are not going to see improvements in their services. Most regions are going to see cuts in their services, and they’re going to see a delay in the rollout of infrastructure and the improvement of infrastructure because of these tax hikes. It’s a shame.

So we proposed to bring in an affordable housing amendment that goes back to the original definition that Ontario has for affordable housing. And the definition of affordable housing that we are proposing is that it’s based on what the resident can pay—not what the ever-increasing market is, but what the resident can pay, and that is 30% of gross annual household income for low- and moderate-income households; they shouldn’t pay any more than that on rent or the carrying costs of a mortgage for it to be affordable. And for a home to be bought, it’s essentially the same thing: They shouldn’t be spending more than 30% of their income. It’s standard. It’s what all levels of government are aiming towards. It’s what we had, and the government rejected it. I think that’s a shame.

I am waiting for this government to release what the actual affordable housing definitions are going to be—I know you’ve put 80%, but we’re actually waiting for the release of how much the rent will be and how much the home prices will be in each region, because the Conservatives said they’d release that every year. I am eagerly waiting for that to come out, because that’s really going to show how unaffordable this government’s definition is. I can’t wait for that template to come out.

So then we move to 5.1; this was a government amendment. There’s nothing I look forward to like seeing the amendments that the government makes to bills, because that’s when we realize what you’re going to change and what you’re not. I found this really interesting.

With Bill 97, the government is moving forward with making changes to converting lands that are zoned for employment into housing, and it’s being done very quickly. We had some stakeholders come in to express their enthusiasm and their concern for opening up employment lands to housing—their enthusiasm and some concern. I want to read out a few, because this is a big deal.

We had the Toronto Board of Trade express some concern. They asked the Conservatives to press “pause.” They liked the idea in principle, as do I, but they asked the government to press “pause” and think carefully before proceeding, because right now we have a housing supply crisis, but in 10 years’ time we could have an employment lands crisis.

How we’ve designed all our employment lands is that that’s where all the transit nodes are. If we’re going to turn downtown Toronto and much of that area into housing instead of commercial, then how is that going to affect employment trends and commuting patterns? Does that mean we’re going to have to change our transit systems? What’s it going to look like, exactly? People have some genuine concerns.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture also had some concerns. They said to reconsider this amendment: “The resulting impacts of reduced protections for employment lands could result in increased pressure to utilize ... prime agricultural lands and specialty crop areas for employment uses in the future.”

You’ve introduced some amendments—I’m interested to see what this is going to look like. My request to you, and what I heard from stakeholders, is to just tread carefully. If we’re going to convert employment lands, do it carefully.

That was a government amendment, so you passed that one.

Oh, this is one of my favourites—we’re also in the Planning Act now, and we introduced an amendment to really improve the Conservatives’ position on allowing missing-middle housing. We introduced an amendment that would allow townhomes, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in areas zoned for development, in neighbourhoods people want to live in, in order to increase housing supply and also to increase a more affordable housing supply.

When you look at how much homes cost, a semi-detached home is usually half a million dollars cheaper than a single detached home, and a townhome is cheaper than a semi-detached home. If you’ve got a duplex and you sever it, those two homes are cheaper. So when you’re a family who wants to start out or you’re a couple who wants to start out—and you want to increase the supply of more affordable homes, there’s a real benefit in gently increasing density in municipal areas. It makes a lot of sense to me. It’s about the missing middle.

So we introduced this motion and, surprisingly, the government chose to vote that down, which is a pity. It’s a pity, because Bill 23 makes some modest improvements to missing-middle housing but not enough. We gave the Conservatives the opportunity to do the right thing, to walk and talk, and instead the Conservatives just chose to focus on talking. That’s a pity. You voted it down.

The next amendment we introduced was really about moving forward with density and intensification, and the reason we introduced this amendment is because in the new provincial planning statement, the Conservatives are looking at getting rid of all mandatory density requirements for municipalities, and the Conservatives are looking at getting rid of all mandatory density requirements for new subdivisions. What that means is that if a developer wants to come along—maybe they bought some greenbelt land or some farm-belt land—they’re not required to build for density so that we can efficiently provide services, provide transit and schools and daycares and roads in an efficient way. They can build single-family homes on quarter-acre lots and then have the municipality pay for that servicing. It is incredibly unsustainable, it is incredibly expensive, and it really jeopardizes our precious farmland.

You heard from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture that we only have so much farmland in Canada, and Ontario is so unique. We have some of the most productive and precious farmland in the world. We should be doing everything we can to protect it, but we’re not. Once it’s paved, it is gone. Eliminating density requirements and intensification requirements makes it even easier for land to be paved over, and it will make it harder for us to meet our housing supply targets, because we’re building less homes per acre than we could and we should.

We called for an amendment to go back to the 2018 density targets and intensification targets—pretty standard, part of the growth plan. The government chose to vote that down, which says a lot about this government’s interest in building expensive sprawl and this government’s disinterest in protecting farmland and building homes for Ontarians to meet supply. It’s a real concern.

We introduced an amendment that would allow inclusionary zoning in municipalities that want it. This is a really important amendment. The reason why this is important is because other cities have brought in inclusionary zoning. In the case of Montreal, for example, they have built thousands of affordable housing units at minimal cost to government since 2005. Municipalities in Ontario also want that right to move forward on inclusionary zoning. Inclusionary zoning is this: If there’s a new development that’s going to be built, then there’s a requirement that a percentage of those homes are affordable.

The city of Toronto spent years and years studying, listening to people, developing bylaws. They came up with a compromise: a fair inclusionary zoning law. The inclusionary zoning law said we’re going to exempt purpose-built rentals for a while. We’re going to focus on condos. For any new condo that is 100 homes or more—so these are the big buildings—we are going to require developers to have a percentage of them be affordable. It would be phased in over time. They looked at how much profit developers make. They looked at it very closely. They concluded that developers could continue to make the profit that they need to make it viable and build these affordable housing units. The law is on the books. It’s ready to go. However, the Ontario government, the Conservative government, is refusing to allow the city of Toronto to move forward with this new law. You’re refusing to allow them—they’ve made dozens and dozens and dozens of requests to the government, and you refuse to allow them—

Thank you for the hour leadoff from the official opposition.I first want to welcome—although they have already had to leave for more exciting things, I think—the grade 8 students from McNab Public School in my riding who are here on a school trip. Welcome to the Legislature of Ontario.

I have to point out to the member, it is really hard to sit here and listen to the fantasy that goes on for an hour—dreaming that somehow homes are going to just magically fall from the sky here in the province of Ontario, or the tooth fairy is going to build them as she whistles by, or Peter Pan is coming to Ontario.

I’m not sure what they are thinking over there. We’re doing all of the things that are required and everybody understands are necessary.

She says it’s not about supply; it is absolutely about supply, because supply is what will bring down the price. But, no, they want to artificially invent a housing system in the province of Ontario that simply won’t get it done.

I will ask the member one more time—four different bills that will bring that supply up by 1.5 million homes by 2031. Why won’t you support it?

Thank you very much for that question.

We have been very clear that we are very much in support of increasing housing supply and meeting our 1.5 million housing target by 2031. But what we are also very clear about is that it is not just about increasing supply; it’s also about addressing affordability. They’re related, but one doesn’t automatically solve the other, which is why we are proposing a comprehensive approach where we build homes for Ontarians first and not investors; we clamp down on investor-led speculation; we make renting safe and affordable so people can save up enough for a down payment to buy a home—I don’t know anyone who can save up a down payment, paying $3,000 a month in rent—and we get serious about building affordable housing.

There’s very little in this bill that looks at creating housing and meeting the housing needs for people who are in a really tough spot. Maybe they are on a fixed income. Maybe they are fleeing an abusive relationship. Maybe they’ve just moved to Canada and they don’t know the laws and they moved into a housing situation that’s really not good. There’s very little in this bill for that.

The Conservatives have done a few things that concern me, around making housing affordable for people who are struggling. The government has decided to cut funding to municipalities and housing, which means there’s less funding available for shelters. The government also decided to cut funding to the rent top-up program. So if someone wants to find a rental home and get a top-up from the government so that they can afford the rent, rebuild their lives, have a home, move into the private market, get that little bit of help—that’s also being cut. It’s those kinds of programs that we need to really help people who are struggling.

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—

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?

It’s an honour to rise this afternoon for the third reading of Bill 97, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. I want to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the associate minister and the parliamentary assistant and their team for all their work on this bill.

Speaker, before I begin, I should note that I will be sharing my time today with my friend the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

As the minister said, this is another bill that will help support our government’s goal to build 1.5 million homes by 2031, including 120,000 in Mississauga. It will continue to lay the foundation for growth to build the housing that we desperately need.

Speaker, I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating that Canada has the least housing per capita in the G7, as Scotiabank reported in 2021: There were an average of 471 homes per thousand people across the G7; in Canada, there were 424; in Ontario, it was under 400; and in the GTA, we had only 360 homes per 1,000 people. At the same time, Ontario grew by 445,000 people in 2022—more than every US state, including faster-growing states like Florida and Texas. Just to stay at 400 homes per 1,000 people, Ontario would need 178,000 more homes for their 445,000 new residents in 2022. And this growth will only continue with the new federal immigration targets to bring 500,000 people to Canada each year. Of course, we know that most of them will come to Ontario and the GTA.

Many years of neglect under the previous government and many years of mayors and councillors pandering to NIMBYism and BANANAism—far too many Ontario families and new Canadians are being priced out of the housing market, through no fault of their own. I spoke about some of them on Monday who have given up hope and are looking for housing outside Ontario.

But we are making progress. As the minister said, in 2021, there were over 100,000 housing starts in Ontario, which is the highest level since David Peterson was the Premier in 1987; last year, there were almost as many: 96,000 housing starts, 30% higher than the average over the last 20 years. There were also 15,000 rental housing starts last year, which is the highest level in Ontario’s history. As the minister said, there are more cranes in Toronto right now than there are in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Seattle, and San Francisco combined. Still, we recognize that there is much more to do.

If passed, Bill 97 would help to speed up the approval process for new housing by updating the provincial policy statement and A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, to create a single province-wide land use planning policy document with a special focus on housing. The public consultation on this began on April 6, and I want to thank the minister for extending the comment period from 60 to 120 days. I urge everyone to read the policy. It is available online at the Environmental Registry, and you can submit your comments until August 4. Michael Collins-Williams, the CEO of the West End Home Builders’ Association, said this proposal “will help get shovels in the ground faster.” He said, “These policy changes will move us towards more of the only thing that really matters”—building more homes.

As I said on Monday, Mississauga is Ontario’s third-largest city, but over the last 10 years, the city approved an average of 2,100 new homes each year, far below the 12,000 we need. Mississauga was the only major city in Canada to actually shrink in the last census—from 722,000 in the 2016 census to 718,000 in the 2021 census. We were the sixth-largest city in Canada, but we have fallen to the seventh, behind Winnipeg, which grew from 705,000 to 750,000, or about 9,000 each year. On Monday, I said that’s the growth we need to see in Mississauga. Mayor Hazel McCallion understood this. Our city grew by about 12,000 people each year for 36 years under her leadership, but we have lost almost 1,000 people every year under Mayor Crombie. In the Globe and Mail, Oliver Moore wrote that the city is “shrinking because of deliberate municipal policies.” He said that the hollowing out of our neighbourhoods makes it harder to run businesses, fill schools or justify spending on city priorities. This week, we’re granting the city’s request for independence with Bill 112.

But as I said on Monday, we need all levels of government, including our municipal partners, to do their part and allow more homes to be built where it makes sense, where there are existing services, infrastructure and transit. We expect the city of Mississauga to keep their pledge of at least 120,000 new homes over the next 10 years. But this message might not have been received, because later on Monday night, the Mississauga planning and development committee rejected more applications for new housing, including 530 new units and a daycare centre in a shiny tower on a transit corridor, just south of the Port Credit GO station, just west of the Port Credit LRT station and just east of the Mississauga Transit bus terminal. There would be three transit lines about 30 to 40 metres away from this building. The councillors were actually concerned that the building might be too close to the Lakeshore West rail corridor. Mayor Crombie said last night that she’s not opposed to building height and density “in the right locations,” but it’s hard to think of a better location.

As the minister said, many years of NIMBYism and BANANAism have created Ontario’s housing supply crisis. Our government is fighting back, and we will continue to use every available tool to support the construction of new homes that Ontario families need and deserve.

Speaker, we also recognize that renters need help, and I’d like to take a moment now to speak about schedule 7 of Bill 97, which would strengthen the protections against renovictions and also clarify the right of tenants to install air conditioning.

As Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario president Tony Irwin said, “From protecting tenants’ ability to use air conditioning as we approach the summer season to enhancing right-of-first-refusal protections after renovations, to doubling fines for bad apple operators, the NDP should have no reason to vote against this bill.”

Bill 97 and the changes to the regulations the minister has proposed in regulation 332/12 would also freeze 74 provincial fees to help reduce the cost of housing. This includes fees related to new developments like land use planning and building fees, including fees related to the building code and Ontario Land Tribunal and fees paid to renters and landlords at Tribunals Ontario. Again, this is only one of many steps this government is taking.

In closing, again, I want to thank the minister and his team for all their work on another important bill to help increase the supply of housing to provide more affordable options for Ontario families. I hope that all members will support this bill going forward.

In my own riding of Mississauga–Lakeshore, there is a lot of NIMBYism and BANANAism going on there—that we cannot be building buildings at a GO train station. That’s where we should be building more density, but there are a lot of community groups that are against that, and I really do not know why.

We’re going to continue building the homes for our children and our future immigrants who are coming to this country.

I want to thank the member from Algoma–Manitoulin for his address today.

This morning, Minister Clark, in his very, very good opening remarks, talked about housing starts being at a 30-year high and rental starts being at an all-time high. Last year, more rental starts—and this year, we’re on target to even exceed that. This year we’re doubling—double, already ahead, from the trend of last year. So our plan is working.

I ask the member from Algoma–Manitoulin, when a plan is working and the most important thing right now that people talk about all the time is building more homes, as the population of our province is up to 15 million people—400,000-and-some came here last year. It’s absolutely paramount that we build more homes.

Are you telling me today that you can’t support our housing supply action plans, when you speak today in this Legislature, or can you support them because it is of paramount importance that we build those 1.5 million homes?