The Associate Minister of Housing.

It’s my honour, obviously, to share my time, as we’ve already heard from the great Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the associate minister in this place. It’s an honour to speak on our government’s proposed legislation that would support a much-needed fourth housing supply action plan. Our proposals are crucial to our government’s work to get housing built that Ontarians desperately need.

Speaker, my riding of Perth–Wellington is home to over 4,000 farm operations and many predominantly rural municipalities. These communities, like others across Ontario, are feeling pressure and demand for housing that is greater than the supply currently is. Whether it’s for farm workers, rental housing for young people and new immigrants, or the missing middle, there is a need for housing in every single community in my riding. That’s why I’m pleased to be part of a government that is acting so strongly to support more homes across all areas of Ontario and delivering on our commitment to see 1.5 million new homes built by 2031.

I’m also pleased to speak on behalf of a generation of Ontarians—my generation—which has faced historic difficulties when it comes to finding a home they can actually afford. I’m proud to be part of a government that understands the difficulties that my generation and future generations will face if we do not address this housing crisis.

We’re taking historic action to tackle the housing supply crisis and build the homes Ontarians need. Our housing supply action plans have made great progress, as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing alluded to earlier, but more work needs to be done. This proposed legislation and corresponding changes to the provincial policy statement would see that more is done, not only in our urban centres, but also in our rural areas.

Ce projet de loi ferait avancer les choses tant dans nos centres urbains que dans nos régions rurales.

Speaker, our province is layered with planning rules and land use plans. All of Ontario is subject to a set of planning rules called the provincial policy statement, also often referred to as PPS. Where the PPS is the sole set of land use planning rules, it’s fairly clear what rules a developer or a builder must follow to get a proposed residential project approved. However, in the greater Golden Horseshoe, there is an additional set of planning rules called A Place to Grow. If we want to get the homes built that we desperately need now, let alone in the future for the sizable population growth we’re going to see, it is critical that builders and developers have a clear and streamlined set of rules to follow in this and all areas of our province.

Ontario is projected to grow by 5.6 million people by 2046, and the greater Toronto area alone is expected to be home to 2.9 million of those people. Not only that, but the greater Golden Horseshoe generates more than 25% of Canada’s gross domestic product. So I think all members of this House will agree that, as I said, it’s critical we get land use planning right in this region and across all regions of Ontario.

There are several challenges brought on by the magnitude of growth that is forecasted.

There will be increased demand for major infrastructure investments—this includes renewing aging infrastructure and addressing infrastructure deficits associated with growth.

There will be increased traffic congestion, with resulting delays in the movement of people and goods. Already we are seeing those delays in the greater Golden Horseshoe, and they are costing billions of dollars in lost GDP every year.

The impacts of globalization are transforming the regional economy at a rapid pace. This makes long-term planning or employment more uncertain.

Speaker, people over the age of 60 are expected to represent more than a quarter of the population by 2041, especially in communities such as mine in Perth–Wellington. That means we will need more age-friendly development that can address unique needs and circumstances. This includes a more appropriate range and mix of housing options, easier access to health care and other amenities, walkable built environments, and an age-friendly approach to community design to meet the needs of all people.

But all these planning rules on top of planning rules result in massive delays in getting land use approvals and enormous costs to the builders or developers and municipalities to get these approvals through. We need to streamline Ontario’s planning rules and encourage more housing.

That’s why, on April 6, our government launched its 60-day consultation on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, seeking input on the proposed combining of the PPS and A Place to Grow into a new province-wide land use planning policy instrument. We propose to integrate these two planning instruments into one streamlined housing-focused policy, which will be called the provincial planning statement. This would increase housing supply and speed up planning approvals by simplifying existing policy and refocusing on achieving housing outcomes. Our proposed provincial planning statement would do this by giving direction for all of Ontario, as well as direction tailored to the unique needs of large, fast-growing municipalities. As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing already noted, all of Ontario—not just the GTA—should be a place to grow. In our new proposed planning statement, this direction is organized across five key pillars. Those pillars are: generating an appropriate housing supply; making land available for development; providing infrastructure to support development; balancing housing with resources; and, obviously, implementation.

For the first of those pillars, generating an appropriate housing supply, our proposed new land use document would give specific direction to Ontario’s largest and fastest-growing municipalities in planning for major transit station areas and other strategic growth areas and in greenfield lands to ensure an appropriate supply of housing. However, simpler and more flexible policies would be given to all other municipalities to reflect local conditions while encouraging growth. For those large and fast-growing municipalities—we’ve identified 29 in Ontario.

Our proposed new planning policies would also enable more rural housing by allowing greater flexibility in smaller communities such as mine in Perth–Wellington. This could, for example, create more housing for on-farm workers or for farm operators’ children, if they choose to do so. It could also be done through engagement with the private sector in small and rural municipalities to provide infrastructure needed for new housing.

Our proposed policies would also require more housing near transit. This means Ontario’s 29 large and fastest-growing municipalities would need to plan for growth around transit in urban centres and other strategic growth areas such as downtowns, and for undeveloped land, as well. For transit-related growth in what are called the major transit station areas, we provide minimum density targets that municipalities have to meet in their land use planning. Those same municipalities would have the right to see maximums for density and height. As well, municipalities would be encouraged to meet provincial density targets for undeveloped land.

Our next pillar in our proposed provincial policy planning statement is more land for development. This is part of our plan to build all sorts of homes for Ontarians, in urban and suburban areas as well as rural parts our province, while still maintaining our strong environmental protections across Ontario.

Speaker, it’s essential that municipalities plan for future growth with regard to population and employment. Our proposal would therefore require municipalities to ensure that enough land with water and waste water pipe access is ready to meet their communities’ anticipated housing needs over the next three years. We would also require municipalities to adhere to a 25-year planning horizon.

Our government has said this time and time again, but it bears repeating: We will continue to encourage municipalities to build where it makes sense. That means major office and institutional developments should be near transit, and areas of retail and commercial activity that provide jobs should also permit and encourage housing, schools and other community uses to create a complete community. Municipalities would need to consider increasing density on employment lands as well as locations near transit corridors.

Of course, municipalities would need to balance housing needs against other necessities. That means large parcels of land must be preserved for agriculture and heavy industry that will require separation from residential areas and other sensitive uses. This would help mitigate the potential effects of their operation, such as noise and odours.

We also recognize that residential development cannot happen in a vacuum.

Being one of the former parliamentary assistants to the Minister of Education, I was very pleased to see that we’re encouraging school boards and municipalities to work together to encourage them to innovate and integrate schools into housing developments.

Infrastructure corridors must also be considered and protected. Communities need electricity; they need transit; they need transportation. And our government recognizes the growth demands being placed on large and fast-growing municipalities such as those in the greater Golden Horseshoe. So our proposed land use policies in our provincial planning statement would have special direction for them while giving them flexibility. However, all planning authorities would still be required to integrate storm, sewage and water into development planning so that they can minimize risks and accommodate growth.

Our province is blessed with many resources, and we need to protect them. That’s why our proposal would require municipalities to map and designate prime agricultural areas to support our province’s productive and valuable agri-food network.

I want to state that Ontario would maintain all greenbelt protections, including policies on environmental and agricultural lands.

Just as valuable, Ontario’s water resources need protection. Municipalities would be encouraged to adopt a watershed planning approach rather than requiring watershed plans.

Aggregates, too, are a resource that must be protected. To make it easier to build housing, we must allow access to aggregates—and that is sand and gravel used in making cement. If we’re to work to lower housing costs, we must allow access to these deposits in more cost-efficient locations, as well as streamline the approvals process needed to extract these necessary resources.

Speaker, our proposed policies would also encourage municipalities to focus on improving air quality and addressing the impacts of a changing climate.

Of course, we’re also proposing some further legislative measures to support our actions to streamline land use planning rules to build more housing.

Our proposed changes would allow the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to require landowners to enter into agreements for projects assigned to the Provincial Land and Development Facilitator. This would help ensure commitments made by property owners are fulfilled; for example, in a case where a ministerial zoning order may be contemplated.

Speaker, as you can see, our proposed policies for land use planning in Ontario are extensive. They are just what our province needs to address our housing supply crisis and meet future demand.

As I mentioned earlier, our 60-day public consultation on these proposed policies and our proposed provincial planning statement began on April 6. I encourage those who wish to comment to go to the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

As you’ve heard from my colleagues who spoke before me, our government is committed to our goal of helping build 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

Our Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants plan and its supporting proposed legislation is the package that Ontarians need now and for the projected demand in the future.

Now I’d like to turn it over to the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery.

The member from Perth–Wellington.

Thank you to my colleague the parliamentary assistant for his wonderful remarks.

I just want to say good afternoon to everyone.

Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today, as the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, in support of the housing supply action plan 4.0.

As we all know, there is a housing crisis in Ontario.

I want to say thank you to Steve Clark, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, as well as to the associate minister—

I just wanted to say that I want Ontarians to know the great work the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing is doing. I think he deserves a huge round of applause from all of us. I must say thank you—from the future generation.

Also, I want to acknowledge and thank two of my colleagues from the opposition, the member from University–Rosedale as well as the member from Humber River–Black Creek, for their input during some of the meetings with my ministry team.

Speaker, as you know, our government has made it clear that we will do everything possible to build new houses so all Ontarians can fulfill their dreams of finding a place to call home. Under the leadership of Premier Ford, caucus colleagues at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Associate Minister of Housing, we have been leading our government in this bold action to get 1.5 million homes built over the next 10 years. Each year, we continue to bring in new legislation to ensure we get more shovels in the ground faster and make it easier for Ontarians to find the right home that suits their needs and budgets.

Consumer protection is at the core of my ministerial mandate, and I’m pleased to share how we are further strengthening protections for Ontarians looking for a new home. This bill, if passed, brings meaningful change to the lives of many Ontarians who dream of owning a new home—a dream that, unfortunately for many, is seemingly more and more out of reach. This is why more action is needed now.

Just a few weeks ago, I was pleased to announce an upcoming consultation to inform the development of new measures that we are considering to better protect buyers of new homes in this province.

I want to say thank you again to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the associate minister, and the PA for working with us in making sure that we can provide the best consumer protection to Ontarians.

A piece of this plan involves exploring a potential cooling-off period for the purchases of new freehold homes to help strengthen consumer protection and build consumer confidence. A cooling-off period is a consumer protection measure designed to better protect homebuyers who are interested in purchasing a new home from a builder. This gives homebuyers more time to review or even rescind their purchase agreement within a specific time frame. In addition, builders would be required to disclose the cooling-off period to purchasers.

We would also explore how we can continue to improve consumers’ understanding of their contracts and rights through mandatory legal reviews of all agreements of purchase and sale for both new and pre-construction homes alike. This would empower all buyers of new homes to shop with confidence and give them peace of mind that they understand any risks associated with their purchase agreement.

In the future, my ministry will hold a consultation with the public, builders, consumer advocacy groups, and the legal sector on the Ontario Regulatory Registry—and I would appreciate if members opposite could also encourage their constituents to be part of this consultation so we can have a meaningful conversation and see how, together, we can protect Ontarians—that would focus on:

—a potential cooling-off period that applies to purchases of new freehold homes;

—how long such a cooling-off period should be;

—the mandatory disclosure of the cooling-off period by builders and developers to inform purchasers;

—a possible cancellation charge for purchasers who cancel their agreement; and

—the requirement for purchasers of all new homes in Ontario to receive a mandatory legal review on their agreements of purchase and sale.

This would be part of the consultation that we at the ministry would be looking at, and we would appreciate feedback from everyone. This consultation is part of our government’s broader strategy to build the homes that Ontarians need, and to better protect the individuals and families who are looking to buy them.

Speaker, as you can see, we are working to expand our robust protections and further help hard-working consumers to make smart, safe choices when they buy a new home in Ontario.

Speaker, I can assure you that we care deeply about supporting and safeguarding Ontario’s homebuyers as they make one of the most important decisions in their lifetime—finding a place to call home. I’m sure we all have done that or will do it in future, and we want to make sure that we have the right consumer protections in place to make sure that when Ontarians, families and first-time homebuyers are out there getting ready to make that purchase, they can do it with confidence that this government will have their back.

As someone who has called Ontario home for decades, with my wife and five beautiful children, I understand all too well the importance of building a stable home to live, work, play, do business and raise a family—a home that will foster the growth and development of our future generation.

I know my colleague the parliamentary assistant for municipal affairs and housing talked about homes for the future generation, and I want to commend him for his advocacy in making sure that the future generation—that includes my kids, our children, our grandchildren—have a place in Ontario that they can call home.

Simply put, we must enact legislation and regulations that have teeth to protect new home buyers, who must be able to trust that they are being protected.

All across this great province, hard-working Ontarians are eager to purchase a home.

As I mentioned earlier, through the housing supply action plan 4.0, our government is taking bold actions to make sure that we’re able to tackle the housing supply crisis that we’re facing right now.

I’ve heard from many Ontarians, and, just last week, when we had our constit week, we had the opportunity to be in our ridings, and we heard from our constituents, and I heard from grandparents and parents that we need to do something to make sure that their children, their grandchildren, can afford a home, can actually buy a home in this province. We owe this to our next generation, and we have to do this. We recognize that we have a responsibility to the people of Ontario who elected us. They expect and deserve nothing less than our support.

My ministry and I will leave no stone unturned in delivering on our promise to protect consumers and Ontarians. I feel very strongly about building a bright and promising future for today’s homebuyers and for our future generations. We want to make sure that our future generations are proud of the work that we are doing for them.

Speaker, our government has a very clear vision and a strong plan for the future of Ontario’s homebuilding marketplace. We look forward to the feedback and input we will receive from our upcoming consultations on the proposed protections—protections such as a cooling-off period that would protect homebuyers interested in purchasing a new freehold home from a builder, or the requirement for purchasers of all new homes in Ontario to receive mandatory legal review on all agreements of their purchase or sale so that Ontarians can be confident in the contracts they are signing.

As we deliver on our ambitious mandate to restore consumer confidence in the new home marketplace, I encourage our opposition members—and I did mention this earlier, as well—to please support us in these measures, to support the next generation. It is our responsibility. It is our duty to make sure that our next generation is proud of all the work that we are doing so that they can have a better future.

I’ve shared this story many times in this House, and I feel like this is a perfect opportunity for me to remind everyone. I always talk about my grandfather who came to this country. He was a World War II veteran, and he came to this country in the late 1960s to have a better future not just for himself, but also for his children. As an immigrant, I know one of the things that he was very proud of—and he always encouraged his children, and then he also encouraged us—was giving back to this country. One of his dreams that I always say—his Canadian dream—was that his children could afford a home in this province. That is a story of, I would say, all immigrants when they come to this country for a better future—it’s not only just to have a good future for their children, their grandchildren, but also the stability that they can afford a home here. My parents had the same dream for me and for my siblings, too.

I think, as the parliamentary assistant to municipal affairs and housing talked about, that his generation, the next generation—we want to make sure that we are able to provide that security, that power to buy a home to our next generation.

Honestly, we could have not done it without the leadership of Premier Ford and the great leadership of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, because he is—honestly, he and Premier Ford are making sure that our next generation can call a place home, where they can raise their families, just like how we are raising our families, have that backyard where they can play with their kids.

So thank you to you and your incredible team for making sure to bring that dream a reality.

Together, I know we can and will make our vision, and a bright and prosperous future for all Ontarians, a reality.

The Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery.

Waterloo residents are so concerned about the cost of sprawl with this bill and the undermining of our aquifer, which Waterloo region relies on. Without water—that compromises our economy, our viability as a region.

This is what Phil Pothen from Environmental Defence said: “This government has been choosing to squander what remains of Ontario’s quality farmland and rare southern forests and wetlands to enrich well-connected land speculators.... Unless we use land, labour and equipment much more efficiently, and focus home building in existing neighborhoods, we will not have the capacity to deliver” the 1.5-million-dollar—not dollar—“the 1.5 million homes we need in the next decade.” They will be $1.5 million on the greenbelt, I can assure you.

Why is this government so willing to gamble on our environment, on the long-term sustainability of this province? Why are you being so reckless in the planning process?

The member from Waterloo.

I just want to thank everyone who spoke today.

Housing and our housing plan are so important.

Being from a riding in Etobicoke, you see cranes everywhere, building, building, building. They’re doing high-rises everywhere, as an example. But the problem is, not everyone can live in Etobicoke. Not everyone can live in Toronto. It’s also very expensive to live in Toronto, and it’s very expensive to live in Etobicoke.

Minister, I do appreciate the work you have done to date.

Can you tell the people of my riding what you are doing so some of these people can find homes in other places around the province, outside of Toronto?

I want to thank the members from Mississauga–Streetsville and Mississauga East–Cooksville for your comments today. I’ll address my question to either one of you, whoever wants to answer it.

This government has had all kinds of housing bills. You’ve overridden the democratic right of the people of Toronto, Niagara, York and Peel to majority-vote democracy in our municipalities. You’re paving over the greenbelt. You’re giving a $5-billion taxpayer-funded donation to developers. And yet, the price of housing keeps going up.

When you were elected in 2018, the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Mississauga was $1,800; today, it’s $2,299. That’s a 24% increase over last year.

When will you start reducing the cost of housing in Mississauga? And what will the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Mississauga be in 2026, at the end of eight years of Conservative rule?

My question is to the Associate Minister of Housing.

In 2022, the landlord and tenant tribunal received more than 5,500 eviction applications in which the landlords sought units for themselves, family members or new buyers. That was an increase of 41% from 2019. At the same time, the number of Ontario tenants filing T5 applications—which allow renters to seek compensation from landlords who are not honest about the reason for requiring the unit—shot up by 58%.

My question to the Associate Minister of Housing is, what is in this bill that will help protect both landlords and tenants in front of the landlord and tenant tribunal?

I listened to the minister and the government members talking about this bill, and I wanted to share with them a report last week from rentals.ca that showed London was second only to Brampton in terms of the rate of year-over-year increases in rents. There was a whopping 27% jump in one-bedroom rents compared to the last year. London is also the fastest-growing city in Ontario. This has nothing to do with permit fees. This has to do with the number of people in our city who need housing. Any new housing that is being constructed doesn’t have any rent control whatsoever.

So what exactly is this government doing to protect the tenants in London who are facing these huge rent increases and who are looking at getting into units with no rent control at all?

Question?

This guy amazes me with some of his questions and some of his statements. Here is a party—the New Democratic Party—that always stands up for high taxes.

For the average home in the GTA, the fees and charges add $119,500 to the cost of a home. There are studies that are being done that show rental costs are going up because of these fees. There are statistics that show that these costs add, on a 20-year mortgage for a young couple, over $800 a month.

This is a guy, and his party, that stands up all the time for high costs, high taxes, high fees. Ontarians are done with that type of mentality.

We want to build upon the success of our plan to continue to reduce the baseline costs and to build more housing.

I thank the member for the question. It’s really important.

He is absolutely right; the changes under the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023, if passed, will introduce new actions to make life easier for renters by strengthening their rights and their protections. Some of these changes would double the maximum fines for offences under the Residential Tenancies Act—that would be now $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations. We doubled it in the past. We already have the strongest, and we’re making them even stronger, just to make sure that renters do have those protections.

When evicting a tenant to use the unit themselves or for one of their family members, a landlord would have to move into the unit by a specific deadline.

Having these measures in place is protecting tenants, which is what this government wants to do.

It’s good to be standing here today to speak about Bill 97, the government’s Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. This bill was introduced last Thursday, the Thursday before, and it came as part of a flurry of announcements and proposals and decisions that the government introduced. Not only did we get this bill, which proposes eight regulatory changes to Ontario’s renting and planning laws, but it happened at the same time as this government’s decision to begin the process of merging the growth plan with the provincial policy statement to create a new provincial planning statement, and also to rewrite and redraw six new municipal official plans. So it was really a big week for the government’s insistence that doubling down on sprawl is the way out of our housing crisis, and I’m here to tell you loud and clear that it is not.

How I’m going to take up my hour today is that I’m going to give you my initial thoughts about what this bill means, what these proposed regulatory changes mean. Then I’m going to go into the proposed changes into some more detail, especially around Bill 97, and a little bit around the growth plan and the provincial policy statement, because they really are twinned with this bill and they’re very much related to the “helping homebuyers” statement in the title. And then I’m going to talk a little bit about some of the solutions that we are advocating for, which really focus on helping Ontarians get that home they can afford and a lot less on the Conservatives’ plan, which is really to help their developer donor friends make a whole lot of money—from renters, in particular.

The Conservatives have introduced and passed many housing bills and the take-home message for me is that what this government is doing right now is not working because buying and renting a home in Ontario has never been more expensive. It’s never been more expensive. And for a period of time, when your government got into power, it would have been very easy for you to turn to the Liberals and say, “Oh, look, that’s on you.” I get that. But now this government has been in power for five years and so those claims of blaming another party are ringing hollow, because this government has had five years to fix the housing affordability crisis and you haven’t. It’s never been more expensive to rent and it has never been more expensive to buy a home.

In this bill, the title is “protecting tenants,” and when I read through the details of the proposed changes that are being made, my initial thought was that this is certainly better than the status quo—and the status quo is pretty hard, is pretty bad for renters right now. But I would summarize it as saying that these changes certainly don’t go far enough. And when I really look into the details, the proposals that this government is making to protect tenants from illegal eviction are so flimsy to the point that they would not be effective at all. It’s not just me saying this; it’s leading housing stakeholders—ACTO, FMTA, housing advocacy groups—because you really don’t deal with the issue of enforcement, and I’m going to get to that when I go into the details.

The other thing I noticed here was around this government’s decision to look at what the Human Rights Tribunal ruled, to allow tenants to have an air conditioning unit so that they’re not miserably hot or at risk of heat stroke in our increasingly hot summers. And only this government could concoct a move where they could turn a Human Rights Tribunal ruling into a rent hike for renters. Only this government could think of a clever way of doing that, so well done for you.

My other key messages before I get into the details, the other key thoughts I had are that the decision to double down on sprawl and upend our planning, how we plan and how we build in this province, is just going to make it so much more expensive for municipalities to provide the services that these new developments are going to need, from daycares to roads to electricity to transit. All these services are going to cost more, because it costs so much more to service a low-density, single-family-home subdivision than it does to service and to provide the necessary infrastructure when you build in areas that are already zoned for development.

What this means on a practical level is that the tax hikes that Ontarians are seeing in their property tax bills—they’re getting these property tax bills now. They’re going to see another tax hike and another tax hike and another tax hike, coupled with service cuts, because it is so expensive to build this infrastructure and maintain this infrastructure for this low-density suburban sprawl, this very backwards approach to planning that you’re moving forward on in this misguided hope—it’s becoming very clear now—in a way that it’s not going to address the housing affordability crisis and not even the housing supply crisis.

The final note before I get into the details is that I was troubled to hear the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing refuse to admit that he will not commit any further encroachment to the greenbelt. He did that in question period, he did that in the press conference that took place immediately after the introduction of Bill 97, and that is a real shame, because Ontarians have been very, very clear—thousands and thousands of emails and calls and rallies have been organized on this—that they want this government to keep their promise and keep the greenbelt whole and to protect farmland. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing cannot even commit to not encroaching on the greenbelt further, and I think that’s a shame.

We need real solutions to address our housing crisis, and that means not just talking about housing supply, which is absolutely essential, but also talking about housing affordability. I’m not seeing this government take housing affordability seriously or look at the relationship between housing supply and housing affordability. Sometimes I think the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has difficulty saying the words “housing affordability.”

What I want to see this government move forward on is a commitment to build more homes by ending exclusionary zoning in a serious way—you’ve taken some half-hearted steps there, but need to go further—investing in the construction of affordable homes, clamping down on investor-led speculations so first-time homebuyers can buy the home, and making rent affordable again, making it so that people who rent can afford to live in this province, because right now they can’t, and they’re leaving. The trends for interprovincial migration right now are through the roof. It’s masked because immigration trends to Ontario are going up very fast, but young people, skilled people, people who work in these high-need sectors like construction and health care—they’re looking at our province, they’re looking at the cost of buying a home, they’re looking at how much it costs to rent, they’re realizing they’re not even able to save, and they’re saying, “I’m moving to Saskatchewan, I’m moving to Alberta. I’m getting out of here.” That’s a shame because they’re taking their talents with them.

That’s my overall assessment of the bill, and now I’m going to go into the details, and there are a lot of details. The first thing I’m going to talk about is municipal rent-protection laws. When I read this bill—it was very interesting—I noticed that schedule 2 and schedule 5 of Bill 97 allow the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to eliminate, weaken and alter municipal rental replacement bylaws. I must say, this is a slight improvement from Bill 23, which just gave the Conservatives the power to weaken or eliminate rental replacement bylaws, and now the Conservatives, the government of the day, is giving themselves the power to improve rental replacement bylaws as well. I would call that a step in the right direction.

I want to take a step back for those who are listening just to explain what rental replacement bylaws are. Essentially, these are the laws that govern what developers must do if they demolish a rental building and replace it with a condo. I heard the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing talk on and on about how developers are going to come in and they’re going to look at these mid-size rental buildings, they’re going to demolish them and then they’re going to replace them with big purpose-built rentals. That is not what is happening in Ontario today. What is happening is that developers are looking at these purpose-built rentals—some of them are mid-sized; some of them are really big—and they don’t want to turn it into purpose-built rentals. Some of them might be, but the vast majority of them are going to be condos. That’s what they are, so I’ll make sure to communicate with the minister about that fact.

There are a few municipalities that have these rental replacement bylaws—Mississauga, Hamilton and Toronto—and other cities were looking into it as well, such as Ottawa, although the minister has gutted Ottawa’s rental replacement bylaw in the rewriting of Ottawa’s municipal plan, which is a shame. Toronto’s is one of the best. Toronto’s bylaw requires developers to return that tenant to an equivalent rent-controlled apartment at about the same rent, after construction of the new, bigger condo is complete, and also compensate the tenant for the period of time they are out of their unit while the construction is taking place. That can take two, sometimes three, years—sometimes more.

The amount of money a tenant receives varies depending on what the city negotiates with each developer, and it is our position that a tenant shouldn’t be losing any money. That top-up should match what the tenant paid in the building that’s being demolished and what they have to pay for an equivalent unit in the nearby area while they’re waiting for construction to be complete.

We didn’t pull this out of the sky. This is what’s happening in Burnaby, BC, right now, and Burnaby, BC, has one of the highest rates of construction in the country—just to make that point.

So this is a very important bylaw, and when people, renters, are discovering that the Ontario government is wanting to gut this rental replacement bylaw, they are terrified. They are scared. They are losing sleep because they are fearful that this government is going to gut these rental replacement bylaws and make it very difficult for them to get back into their unit that they’ve held on to for many years.

I participated in a recent protest organized by tenants in some of the buildings that are slated for demolition in the city of Toronto, about two weeks ago. Those buildings include 25 St. Mary, 145 St. George and 55 Brownlow. These are big rental buildings. Over a hundred people came out, and they spoke one after the other about how scared they were, how long they’ve lived in the area, how they don’t know if they’ll be able to find another affordable rental apartment if they have to move out.

One person we’ve been working with for a while: Her name is Pat. She’s in her eighties. She’s on a fixed income. She has worked her entire life. She is terrified that if she is forced to move, she will never find an affordable unit in the Annex community that she calls home. I don’t want her to have to move out and never get back into a unit, and I don’t want her to say goodbye to her friends and family who live in the area, as well.

And it’s not just them. We asked the city of Toronto to give us an understanding of how many units are at risk right now, and there are 3,441 properties in the city of Toronto right now that are at risk of being demolished, and if this government doesn’t come up with strong rental protection laws, at risk of never being replaced. That’s a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, because these renters want to keep their homes.

What I also find concerning is that the number of deals that developers are making with the city to demolish these units under the city’s current strong rental protection laws have been stalled, because many of these developers are sitting back and saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We shouldn’t make a deal now, under the city of Toronto’s really strong rental protection laws. We’re going to wait and see what happens with this provincial law, because maybe we’re going to get a good deal. So we’re going to wait and see, because maybe we won’t even have to move these tenants back, or we will, but the enforcement laws will be so weak that for all intents and purposes—ehh—they’ll have permanently lost their homes.”

That is exactly what’s happening. Since the passage of Bill 23, just one demolishing approval has been approved by the city of Toronto—just one. So you can imagine these tenants are pretty worried.

And it’s not just these 3,441 units that are at stake. If the Conservative government chooses to gut these municipal rental replacement bylaws, it will mean that this government is choosing to declare open season on these tenants who live in purpose-built-rental areas that are already zoned for height, because it means that it’ll be cheaper for developers to come in, knock these purpose-built rentals down and build very expensive condos that renters will not be able to afford. Someone like Pat is not going to be able to afford a $700,000 condo. They’re just not, not on a fixed income. These people will be priced out of their neighbourhoods.

That means so much is at stake. The future of private market affordable housing in the city is at stake. The affordability of our province is at stake. And there are so many private market affordable homes that are at risk because of this government’s enthusiasm to just listen to developers and not listen to what it’s like to be a renter in this city, in this province, and how they need to have affordable housing as well. I urge you to look hard at that and really come up with a provincial rental replacement law which is strong.

When I go and look at the regulation that the government has set up to get in feedback for what this provincial rental replacement bylaw will look like—which is where I think you’re going—I see some concerns. The one concern I see is that the government wants to give developers some flexibility on what kind of home a renter can return to, likely one that still has the same number of bedrooms but is likely smaller in size than the original. I think that’s concerning, that there is a move by this government to listen to developers but not to listen to renters.

It is a concern, because developers can get very creative when they’re looking at meeting the requirement of a two-bedroom unit. There are units that are being built in my riding of University–Rosedale right now that are three bedrooms plus a den, but they’re only 1,000 square feet. You need to be very careful about giving developers flexibility, because a renter might find out—if they get to move back into these units—that the unit is far smaller in size than the kind of unit they lived in in the purpose-built rental before it was demolished. I’m a little worried about that.

I want to be very clear, before I move into the next piece, about what we are advocating for. We look to what Burnaby, BC, is doing as a model. Like I said, housing construction in that area is extremely high. What we want to see is a strong commitment that renters can return to their rent-controlled unit after construction is complete; that there is a rent top-up equal to the difference in rent they paid at the home that they had—a home that they’ll have to find in the same area, during construction; and that there is a very firm commitment to guarantee that a tenant can come back into their rent-controlled unit. Renters didn’t cause this housing crisis, so renters shouldn’t be the victims of this housing crisis.

Interjection.

Never.

Their rent contract is—

You should speak to the OFA; I hope you do.

Interjection: Once you pave it over, you can’t go back.

What is also changing—and I’ll just go into this before I go into the consequences of sprawl—is the new changes to the PPS. It will require municipalities to have enough designated land available for 25 years of growth or more, instead of up to 25 years, which was the previous standard. Essentially, this government is saying, “You need to plan for growth for a really long time out so we can open as much land as possible to our developer friends.”

And there’s no longer any requirement for a municipal comprehensive review. It’s just no longer required anymore, which is, wow, radical. Municipal comprehensive reviews involve municipalities reviewing and updating their official plans so that they’re in line with the growth plan. It’s all about planning right and using the land that we have and the resources that we have in a cost-effective and useful manner. That’s what it’s about. And you’re saying, “No, let’s just do urban sprawl. It’s fine.”

I want to talk a bit about the cost of sprawl. There are a few things. One, I’m going to talk about how it’s expensive to service. When I was preparing for this speech, I looked at a recent study done by Hemson. They were paid by the city of Ottawa to look at the cost of building and maintaining services and infrastructure for low-density homes built on undeveloped land, and to compare that to the cost of maintaining and building services and infrastructure in infill development, such as apartment buildings or duplexes and triplexes—so building in areas already zoned for development. This is what they found. I hope you’re listening, because I know that you like to talk about cost-effectiveness. It costs $465 per person each year to serve new low-density homes built on undeveloped land. It’s a net loss to municipalities. Compare that to servicing homes in areas already zoned for development. It’s actually a net gain. When you factor in the property tax revenue and all that, municipalities actually gain $606. They gain when you build in areas already zoned for development, and they lose money when you service areas that are about single-family homes and suburban sprawl. When we’re talking about providing services in a cost-effective manner, sprawl is bad—just to make it really simple—and providing services to infill housing is better. This is particularly relevant right now because across the GTHA and across Ontario homeowners are opening up their property tax bills, either by email or in the mail, and they’re seeing big tax hikes. We actually did a little bit of a survey to look at what kind of tax hikes are coming. And it’s because of Bill 23 and your tax cut giveaway to developers that these hikes are coming. Durham region, 5% property tax hike; Clarington, 4%; Waterloo region, 8.55%—

Burlington, 7.5%; Niagara Falls, 7.4%; Niagara region, 7.58%; Newmarket, 7.67%—these are big tax hikes—and Toronto, 7%. There’s a whole range. I read out the higher ones, but almost all of them are seeing a property tax hike. At the same time, they’re also seeing service cuts. So you get a property tax hike, and you get service cuts, and you’re seeing delays in necessary infrastructure maintenance. When you all get in your cars or walk down the sidewalk or take the TTC, you’re going to see more potholes, because cities no longer have the money available to maintain our services to a standard that we expect.

Interjection.

This is happening in Waterloo. The member for Waterloo has raised this. There is a development at Beaver Creek Road and Conservation Drive. It’s a large subdivision, and they are delaying approval because the municipality in the region cannot afford to service it.

Interjection.

What you’re doing is actually hurting your own goals of improving housing supply. You don’t care about affordability. But on your own goals of supply, you’re failing.

I’m not going to spend tons of time on this because sometimes environmental messaging doesn’t work so well with the Conservatives, but I’m going to bring up one thing: It is so environmentally destructive to create the kind of housing development system that we’re going to create, because it locks people into soul-destroying commutes to get to where they want to go. When you’re building single-family homes, the density is not there to provide a bus or a streetcar or a train to provide transit to these areas. What that means is that when Ontarians buy these homes, they’re going to have to have one car or two cars to get wherever they want to go. It’s so expensive, and it’s going to blow our greenhouse gas targets out of the water, because transportation and building are the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. This kind of approach to planning and building will lock us into unbelievably unsustainable development patterns. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that, because I think it’s going to be not necessarily the message that’s going to convince you—but the cost thing, at least think about that. I know your constituents—

Interjection.

The 319 acres a day.