Thank you, Speaker, and through you to the member from University–Rosedale: I have a farming community in the north part of my riding, Myrtle Station, that some of you will know. I know the member from Oshawa is familiar with that area. I was up there this weekend talking to some of the farmers about what this particular legislation brings, particularly allowing them to sever a lot for their son or their daughter. There are many big farms up there that are looking forward to doing that. It also means that there will be more housing to accommodate the farm workers that they bring in in some of those areas as well.

Through you, Speaker, does the member from University–Rosedale oppose this aspect of the legislation? I’m not alone here on this side of the House with farming communities.

The proposed legislation continues to take a responsible, targeted approach to delivering our government’s plan, while laying a strong foundation to make life easier and more affordable for people across the province. I’d like to extend my thanks to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Associate Minister of Housing, the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and, last but not least, his parliamentary assistant for all the work they’ve put into the development of our fourth housing supply action plan.

If passed, the proposed changes would further strengthen homebuyer protections, support tenants and streamline the rules around land use planning. These types of changes have been long anticipated and are now well informed by a layer of input from many sectors. Our government has made real progress in tackling Ontario’s housing supply crisis, with current housing starts remaining above historic averages, as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing pointed out this morning in a response to an answer in question period.

Like the rest of North America, Ontario is experiencing challenging headwinds that are slowing down new home construction, including inflation, soaring interest rates and labour shortages. Now, despite these challenges, our government will continue to take action to ensure Ontario is ready to build more homes as market conditions improve. What’s clear is that our government is committed to helping new home buyers. We’re absolutely committed.

For instance, our plan includes initiatives to better protect homebuyers and their financial investments by expanding deposit insurance for first home savings accounts at credit unions and exploring a cooling-off or cancellation period on purchases of newly built freehold homes, as well as mandatory legal review of purchase agreements for all new home purchases.

To reduce the cost of building housing, we’re planning to freeze 74 provincial fees at current levels. This includes fees that directly or indirectly increase the cost of housing. We’re also proposing to speed up government approval processes by updating the provincial policy statement 2020 and integrating it with A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, to create a single province-wide, housing-focused land use planning policy document. Within municipalities, this has been long awaited—long awaited. I’m part of an upper-tier government with the region of Durham, and it’s underpinned by eight municipalities, including the town of Whitby, and this particular integration, in many instances, has been long awaited.

The proposed new provincial planning statement streamlines planning policy to increase housing supply and approvals by simplifying existing policies, making them more flexible and making them more supportive in building new housing. Now, on this side of the House, we have other former municipal politicians who understand exactly what I’m saying when I speak about simplifying existing policies related to planning and development and making them more flexible. Indeed, the Speaker is a former municipal councillor and reeve and mayor and understands the breadth and scope of the changes I’m referring to in making it more supportive, at building new housing.

These new policies would increase housing supply by focusing development into urban areas through density targets for areas such as major transit station areas like GO Transit stations like I have in the town of Whitby. It’s in the south part of my riding. It borders on Victoria Street, which runs east and west through the town. This type of development has long been a part of the town’s current official plan. And as my friend from Oshawa will know, we have a lot of GO stations, moving from Whitby through to Oshawa and, yes, through to Bowmanville.

Interjection.

Right. And we know the effect of that on the economic development of the city of Oshawa in particular but also Bowmanville and Whitby, Ajax, and, to a degree, in Pickering as well.

The new policies would make more land available for development, with fewer and more flexible requirements for expanding settlement area boundaries and a more focused approach, Speaker, to protecting lands for employment. Why is that important? Well, you’ll know, from your own practical experience as a municipal politician, it’s going to allow and support the implementation of individual economic development plans at the municipal level. And if you’re an upper-tier government, that’s going to affect the implementation and evaluation of economic recovery plans overall. It’s going to underpin that process. So that’s a significant development.

The new policies would balance the need for housing with a need to protect resources by making it simpler and easier to plan for and encourage housing development while protecting prime agricultural areas, including specialty crop areas, and continuing to direct development away from hazard land.

I mentioned I was up in Myrtle Station, talking to the farmers about developing and building, taking an acre of land and building another house for their daughter or son. But I also talked about specialty crop areas, because we have a big agri business up in the region of Durham as well.

These new policies would ensure the creation of the necessary infrastructure to support housing developments by integrating planning for land use and infrastructure, protecting corridors for major infrastructure and coordinating school and municipal planning. So why is the coordination of school and municipal planning important? I’ll give you a practical example: I’ve had five new developments built in the west part of the town of Whitby since 2020, now 2022. I would suggest that what those new developments have brought, 20,000 people—there was an opportunity for a more coordinated level of dialogue both at the town level but also with the trustees of all three boards that find a place in the town of Whitby: the Catholic board, the public school board and the francophone board as well. The focus here is to ensure the coordination between municipalities and school boards to consider school and child care needs earlier in the planning process.

My colleague from Niagara West, who is just behind me, will appreciate this as a former parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education, because it’s an area that has pressure points throughout the province. He has contributed in a strong way some of the solutions that you see evident here today and which I bring forward as part of debate, and I thank him for that.

These new policies, Speaker, will allow that families moving to new housing can expect that local schools will be available for their children. That’s part of the discussion that ensues on the capital priorities that we bring to the Ministry of Education and that’s worked well. I can speak to millions of dollars that have come into the town of Whitby either to build new schools, refurbish schools or develop child care spaces, whether it’s Willows Walk school or other schools of that type. I’m thankful to the Ministry of Education for their level of investment in hard-working families in the town of Whitby.

Speaker, through the new proposed provincial policy statement, we would continue to protect and support our province’s agriculture, including within the region of Durham. Within the region of Durham, we have a very strong agricultural-agribusiness plank as part of our economic recovery plan for the region of Durham. In fact, we have a standing committee within the region of Durham dealing with agriculture and they have contributed significantly over the years in this particular area. As under the current provincial policy statement and A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the proposed new document would continue to require planning authorities, such as municipalities, to protect specialty crop areas with policies to support agricultural uses, agriculture-related uses, and various uses on the farm.

I just spoke about a standing committee of the region of Durham. That particular committee deals with certain aspects of what I just said. More directly, the actual policy base falls within other standing committees of the Durham regional council.

Speaker, planning authorities would be required to map and designate prime agricultural areas and to support an agri-food network along the lines that I’ve just described. My colleague from Oshawa is well familiar with it because, in the north part of Oshawa in particular, there still are aspects that are agri-food-based, contribute to the region of Durham’s economic recovery plan, and contribute well to job creation and our local economies, whether it’s Oshawa, Whitby or, for that matter, Clarington, which borders the Oshawa riding.

On this new planning framework, yes, there’s a consultation under way. It started early in April and concludes June 6, 2023.

But meanwhile, Speaker, the government continues to work with municipal partners, whether it’s the town of Whitby or the city of Oshawa or other municipalities that form the region of Durham, to ensure that cities, towns and rural communities throughout the region grow with a mix of ownership and rental housing that meets the needs of people across the province. We live in a very diverse region of Durham.

Speaker, we’re also proposing several changes to further protect renters while supporting landlords. There has been a $6.5-million investment to appoint an additional 40 adjudicators and hire five staff to improve service standards and continue to reduce active applications and decision time frames at the Landlord and Tenant Board. This increase more than doubles the number of full-time adjudicators at the Landlord and Tenant Board, further strengthening protections against evictions due to renovations, demolitions and conversions, as well as those for a landlord’s own use, and clarify tenants’ rights to install air conditioners.

Our government has been steadfastly focused on Ontario’s housing supply crisis since the moment we first took office. We’ve introduced policies that are helping to get more homes built across Ontario, but we know more needs to be done. We absolutely know that more needs to be done. This legislation is the next step in our plan to ensure that Ontario’s housing supply continues to grow over the long term so more Ontarians can find a home they can actually afford.

Speaker, facts matter. In 2022, Ontario saw the second-highest number of housing starts since 1988, with just over 96,000 new homes. This is 30% higher than the annual average for the past 20 years. Ontario also broke ground on nearly 15,000 new purpose-built rentals—the highest number on record.

Importantly, Ontario will continue to call on the federal government to defer the Harmonized Sales Tax on all new large-scale purpose-built rental housing projects to tackle the ongoing housing affordability crisis. We’re going to support this measure, as it would help spur the construction of more rental housing units while helping to create jobs, encourage economic development and support growth.

The province is also continuing the process of launching third-party audits of select municipalities to get a factual understanding of their finances, including their reserve funds and development charge administration, as part of its commitment to ensure there should be no funding shortfall for housing-enabling infrastructure as a result of the More Homes Built Faster Act, provided municipalities achieve and exceed their housing pledge levels and growth targets. And 27 of 29 of those municipalities have already submitted their pledge.

Speaker, I’ve got two minutes, so I’m just going to move into my conclusion right now.

Always a leader in innovation, Ontario is looking at modular construction and other leading-edge options to reduce the cost of building attainable housing and speed up the creation of housing. As part of this work, we’ll engage with the housing sector, municipalities and Indigenous communities to consider different opportunities to build housing using modular and other technologies in communities across the province.

Speaker, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act 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 actually afford. In my case, that means the region of Durham, the town of Whitby. In partnership with the eight municipalities throughout the region of Durham and in other parts of the province, Speaker, be assured we will help create the homes that hard-working Ontarians need today, tomorrow and in the decades to come.

To the member from Sudbury: Thank you for the question.

The housing supply action is the latest in a series of steps we’re taking to increase housing supply and to help more Ontarians find a home that they can afford. I spoke about partnerships. Our plan is a plan that has been developed out of collaboration and consultation with a number of sectors, including municipalities. I purposely alluded in my presentation today—through you, Speaker. I’m sorry—through you to the member for Sudbury.

I spoke earlier in my presentation about the importance of involvement and collaboration with municipalities—

I spoke about the $6.5-million investment in the Landlord and Tenant Board to hire more adjudicators. I think that’s part of what I want to share.

I also want to share proposed changes which would double the maximum fines for offences under the Residential Tenancies Act, which underpins what we’re talking about. Maximum fines for offences under the act would be increasing to $100,000 for individuals, $500,000 for a corporation—the strictest and most comprehensive fines in Canada. This sends a strong message to bad actors overall.

Added to that, we’re going to bring more clarity and transparency to both landlords and tenants, as well.

Again, I draw on my experience as both a regional councillor and a local councillor—and also stepping back and reflecting on my time as the president of the Durham Region Non-Profit Housing Corp.

What I see that this legislation does—I’m just looking at my notes here. I think what it does is, it provides, for fast-growing municipalities like mine—I alluded to having five new developments in my riding since 2018-22—specific policy direction to ensure sufficient land and housing supply. Yes, the town of Whitby has an official plan, but the town’s—just like the seven other municipalities and cities—has to be consistent with the region of Durham’s official plan. This specific policy direction that we’re providing does come with some flexibility. I think it’s going to ensure the land and housing supply that this fourth plan and others have been looking to do, and I think it’s going to have the type of effect to provide—

It’s why we’re working with municipalities. That’s what we’re doing through the official plan process to support growth. As part of that, when you’re developing an official plan for a local municipality, you’re looking at affordability as well. And there are features that I’ve alluded to, both in my presentation earlier and in my responses earlier, that speak to that.

What we’re also addressing is opportunities in areas of high growth near transit, and I spoke about the opportunity that exists in the southern part of the town of Whitby.

To the question from the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore—I also spoke about some of the opportunities this legislation brings.

Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity of presenting today and responding to the questions.