The beautiful community of Gogama in my riding is located across the street from a new gold mine. In 2020, the Premier came to the groundbreaking ceremony. He said, “This gold mine will bring economic prosperity and change lives in Gogama.” I agreed, Speaker, but for this to happen, people need a place to live, and businesses a place to set up shop. The good news is that there are plenty of empty lots and empty homes located on paved roads, with streetlights, hydro, telephone, Internet, water and sewage—everything a modern family or business needs. The bad news? None of them are available for sale or rent. Do you know who owns them all, Speaker? The government of Ontario or, as the locals call them, the worst slumlord in this province.

Since 2020, my office has been relentless in trying to motivate this government to put them up for sale, or at least to rent them out. I wrote and delivered letters to the Premier, to the Ministers of Finance, Government and Consumer Services, Infrastructure, and Natural Resources and Forestry. And the answer for the last three years has been crickets.

While over a dozen properties are left to rot in Gogama, they, like many others in our province, are facing a housing crisis. Gogama is missing out on the prosperity the Premier promised. The people of northern Ontario are tired of waiting. This government needs to put these homes and lots up for sale right now.

I do want to thank the member opposite for the question.

Look, the region of Peel includes some of the largest and fastest-growing communities in Canada, and they’re poised for massive and significant growth over this next decade. In the region of Peel, as a second layer of government, municipalities and everyone that wants to build housing have had to have that red tape, that bureaucracy when it comes to getting housing built. As we know, we desperately need to get a million and a half homes built by 2031, and by the dissolution of the region of Peel, this is one great way for us to be able to do that.

Now if the legislation passes, as you know, we are intending to appoint a transition board for the region of Peel and their advice to the province is going to be on a range of restructuring matters, including service delivery, allocation of assets and liabilities, labour relations, long-term financial sustainability, among many others. I ask all members of this House to vote yes.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Housing. Throughout Ontario, individuals and families are encountering challenges relating to housing availability and affordability. Recently, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced additional funding by our government that will help to support community housing providers across the province. This funding has the potential to make meaningful impact by providing much-needed housing for vulnerable individuals and families in my local community of Cambridge and the region of Waterloo.

Can the associate minister please provide further details on how our government is helping to increase the availability of affordable housing options for those most in need?

Can the associate minister please expand on how this additional funding will help support housing providers in addressing the needs of vulnerable individuals and families?

I do want to thank the great member for asking that very, very important question. Our government recognizes the urgent need for affordable housing right across our province, and that’s why last week, together with the federal government, we announced a joint investment of over $46 million to support the creation of 267 new affordable housing units across Ontario.

Through the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative, funding will be used for new construction, repairs and maintenance to sustain and expand community housing options. For example, Indwell’s St. Peter’s supportive housing project in Kitchener will receive $5.5 million to develop 41 affordable and supportive apartments for those on the region’s housing wait-list. This investment demonstrates our government’s commitment to tackling the housing supply crisis and improving the lives of vulnerable Ontarians.

The $46 million announced can also be used to support community housing providers whose original program arrangements are expiring and help them to become more sustainable. We also consulted with local housing providers and municipalities to understand where support is most urgently needed and strategically targeted groups like those Indwell will serve through tailored support and unit design.

Speaker, I’m confident that these 267 units will make a very big difference for those who need an affordable place to live close to home, because when community thrives, Ontario thrives.

Part of our plan has been, right from the beginning—part of the plan is that we understood how important it was to build houses across the province of Ontario, but not just single-family detached homes. We wanted to ensure that we had more purpose-built rentals because we were hearing stories like this on and on and on again.

One of the things the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has raised is how important it was that the federal government continue to contribute to the province of Ontario, but that they actually equalize that support. As you know, Mr. Speaker, they have reduced our funding by—I think it’s about $500 million when it comes to the housing support program in the province of Ontario. So I’d ask the member opposite if she could actually—the opposition could do us a favour. The NDP, of course, hold the balance of power in Ottawa, like they did here. If the NDP in Ottawa could do us a favour, if they could ask Jagmeet Singh to inquire with the federal government if he will equalize and send us that cheque for $500 million that is so important to the people of the province of Ontario so that we can continue to provide this valuable support.