I’m just going to go back to the Premier because the words that I would have to say to that are terribly unparliamentary.

Seniors on fixed incomes are struggling the most when it comes to the cost of utilities and natural gas. A senior from Hamilton Mountain shared with me that her utility bills are so high, she had to wear coats and use two to three blankets overnight just to be able to keep warm in her own home.

Interjection.

Can the Premier explain why seniors like my constituent are supposed to survive this affordability crisis when they are being priced out of basic necessities?

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker, it’s impossible to take this member seriously when she talks about affordability because it was this party, in 2018, that ended the Liberals’ cap-and-trade and fought the carbon tax all the way to the Supreme Court. That was the Premier that led that charge.

The NDP want a bigger carbon tax, Mr. Speaker. The Premier and our Minister of Energy at the time warned the people of Ontario that the carbon tax wasn’t just going to just drive up the cost of utilities higher; it was going to drive up the cost of everything, including groceries in our grocery stores. And you know what? That is exactly what has happened. Life in Ontario is more unaffordable today because of the federal carbon tax which that member and her party supports. Stand with us and fight—

Interjections.

Thank you to the member for Whitby for his debate.

We’re talking about affordability for housing. I looked up the average price of a one-bedroom in Sudbury, and it’s $1,472; in Toronto, it’s $2,400, and it says Toronto has had a 20% increase in the last year. With minimum wage at $15.50 until October, that means if you work 40 hours a week, four weeks every month, you go home with $2,480, which is gross—obviously, that’s not all the money you go home with. But if it was all the money you went home with, that means in Toronto you would be short being able to pay your rent every month—actually, you’d have $80 in your pocket.

In the housing plan, what is the design to provide affordable housing? I grew up in geared-to-income rent housing; I have never seen more built again. I think the government is ignoring the fact that people who cannot afford to buy a house need a place they can afford to rent.

I’m going to be splitting my time this afternoon with the member from Don Valley West.

It’s an honour to rise to speak to Bill 97 with all of you this evening. Of course, this government has had nearly five years to improve the housing affordability crisis that is facing our province. But under this government’s watch, we’ve continued to see both the rental market and the price of home ownership reach all-time highs. Middle-class families starting out are having a nearly impossible time entering the housing market. Couples with a combined income that is higher than the Canadian average are spending years and years and years looking for an affordable option to enter the market and begin their families. When they do finally find something, new homeowners are struck immediately with another phenomenon made worse by this government. Not only is the price of housing skyrocketing, but the price of heating their new home is going up. The price of electricity for their new home is skyrocketing. The price of putting food on the table for their family in their new home is skyrocketing. And, of course, as a result of this government’s policies and their actions towards municipalities, these new homeowners are facing skyrocketing property taxes, as well—property tax increases that haven’t been seen in many parts of this province in nearly a generation. So when these young couples can finally enter the market, when they can finally afford a home, all of their costs to manage and maintain their new home are skyrocketing, without any support from this government. Because of their policies to starve municipalities, the neighbourhoods that these new homes are in are becoming more and more incomplete. The roads and sidewalks aren’t going to be built for years and years because the cities can’t afford to do them. The parks and community centres won’t be ready until after the children are grown.

When you starve municipalities of the funding necessary to build complete neighbourhoods, you end up with incomplete communities.

The government has set a goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031. They’ve all but explicitly acknowledged that their efforts aren’t working. This is, I believe, their fourth attempt to get things right, their fourth attempt to move the market in the right direction. The government’s biggest problem has always been, as we know, their inability to take responsibility for the failure to deliver on their promises. Clearly, what the government has been doing, what the government has been trying to do, what the government further promises to do isn’t working.

So what might work? Instead of putting all of their eggs in the basket of private builders—and unlike the New Democrats, I’m not attacking home builders. Many of Ontario’s home builders are family-owned and family-operated businesses. Most of us, if not all of us, live in a home that was built by a developer or a home builder. They contribute immensely to our communities, both with their core business and of course with their charitable work. But the reality is, their business is making money. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if we want to bring prices down, perhaps we should be looking at more not-for-profit options.

We need a government that is going to make the province a true partner in building affordable homes in Ontario. We need a government that won’t continue to push responsibility for building affordable housing onto overloaded and financially starved municipalities, unlike nearly every other province in Confederation.

To help double the pace of homebuilding, just last year, the Ontario Liberals proposed the creation of the Ontario homebuilding corporation. What is the Ontario homebuilding corporation? The corporation would allow the government to work with communities, not-for-profit housing partners and developers to build and maintain affordable homes of all types for new home buyers, either as a primary financing source or as a builder. This corporation could leverage provincially owned and underutilized lands—efforts I think the Minister of Education might have been talking about earlier this afternoon. We don’t need to be paving over the greenbelt to develop surplus lands and to build affordable housing. The corporation should be provided with the capital funding, subject to strict oversight by whatever measures the government wants to bring in, including a hard cap on the administrative expenses and salaries and a 15-year mandate to ensure housing is built rapidly. It will help cool the housing market, and it will end the wait-list for affordable public housing. Most importantly, homes sold by the corporation should only be made available to first-time homebuyers, and all the proceeds could go directly back into creating more affordable homes—it would be the never-ending cycle of financing of new home construction for new home buyers and so on and so forth.

In summary, if the government wants to address the affordability of housing, their actions to date haven’t done so. We’ve seen skyrocketing prices, both in the home ownership market and in the rental market, and it’s time for the government to explore more not-for-profit options.

Thank you to the member from Orléans for his debate.

During his debate, he talked about how the cost of everything has gone up, and we heard that very loud and clear at the doors about a year ago. The cost of food, housing, utility, property tax—now that the developer fees are being downloaded onto municipalities—are all going up. Utilities have gone up—when you think about electricity—ever since Hydro One was privatized. When you look at Hydro One—it has been five years the Conservative government has been in place. If you look at the affordability issues with food and housing and property tax—it has been about a year.

What do you see that’s new in the last year that has made things more affordable for people? Can you think of anything?

I just want to talk real quickly, because one of the members over there talked and he said that seniors live in these big homes. Well, I’m going to tell you, in their riding, in my riding and in ridings right across the province of Ontario, we have seniors hurting today. They’re living in poverty. They’re living on the streets. It’s wrong.

Here, at 5:15 today, I got an email from somebody, Jennifer Leigh—I won’t say her last name.

“Hi Wayne,

“I’m hoping you can help me out, please. Okay? My name is on the list for Ontario housing. I have been since 2012. I’m on disability for my hearing. I’m floating from couch to couch to try to get back into the good graces of housing. Can you please”—in big letters—“help me?

“Thank you,

“Jennifer Leigh”

So my question is, why is there nothing in this bill to address the housing affordability crisis in our communities, to help people like Jennifer?