Thank you. That’s very important. That member knows, in Barrie–Innisfil, the impact that our housing supply action plan is making.

Last year, rental housing, something that many members have spoken about—rental housing starts in the province reached and all-time high, something we should all be very proud of—

Interjections.

These trends have continued in 2023. I talked about it this morning in question period. I’ll repeat some of the statistics that I quoted in my answer this morning. Compared to last year, Ontario has already seen an increase of nearly 1,200 housing starts, which is an 11% rise—very positive numbers, so far, in 2023. Purpose-built rental starts are currently more than double compared to the same period last year—again, very positive steps. Whether you look at the housing starts or the rental—again, very good numbers, so far, this year.

Let’s take a look the city of Toronto, where Ontario’s housing supply has been felt pretty acutely. There have been more than 4,600 housing starts in the first two months of this year alone. What’s that number? It’s 50% higher than compared to the same numbers just a year ago—very good numbers. Even better is that more than 1,500 of these units were rental starts, which is five times the amount from last year—again, wonderful numbers.

These positive trends are a really good sign for the government that our policies that we’ve championed—that is why we’re continuing to move forward with new proposals to increase housing supply. It’s very, very good news.

Let’s talk about the bill that I’ve entitled Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. The government’s proposed changes are really the basis of a number of strong measures that I speak about when I use the term “helping homebuyers and protecting tenants.” The proposed changes would obviously make life easier for renters in the province.

It would clarify and enhance a tenant’s right to install air conditioning in their own unit. These changes would really stress the importance of ensuring that an air conditioner is installed safely and securely. And if the landlord supplies the electricity, they would be allowed to charge tenants a fee for any additional electricity costs.

The proposed changes would, if passed, also further strengthen tenant protections against evictions due to renovations, as well as those for the landlord’s own use.

The other measure that I think is very important, even though the opposition voted against similar measures when we put it in Bill 124—we’re proposing to double the maximum fines for offences under the Residential Tenancies Act to $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations. Folks, these would be the highest maximum fines in Canada for these types of events. We’re serious about putting these measures forward. We were serious in our previous bill, in the middle of the pandemic.

We have looked at other ways to increase housing supply. We’ve made a number of changes in More Homes Built Faster. The plan that we’ve identified changes the opportunity for home builders to replace older, mid-size rental apartments with more modern rental buildings, something that we’ve heard, as part of our consultations, that people wanted us to consider—

Interjections.

We’re also proposing to create a new regulation-making authority to enable a balanced regulatory framework governing municipal rental replacement bylaws. It really will do a couple of things: It will create consistency across and between municipalities—something we felt needed to take place in this space when they establish these types of bylaws—and it really could help streamline the construction and revitalization of rental housing, while at the same point protecting tenants, which is something that we heard as part of our More Homes Built Faster consultation.

An example: Where municipalities are requiring landowners to build replacement units, we’re considering regulations that could require that these units retain the same core features. I’ll get to that in a moment. We’re also looking at measures to give existing tenants the right to move back into the unit at a similar rent. This would help keep rental housing affordable in those communities, while at the same point encouraging revitalization of older, deteriorating buildings and, at the end of the day, increasing rental housing supply. In other words, we’d be taking steps to help Ontarians who rent units that are no longer in satisfactory condition so that they can access more modern and appropriate housing, but at the same time, if they leave a two-bedroom apartment, they can return to a two-bedroom apartment, at the same level of rent as before.

We’re also—and the Attorney General talked about this this morning—making a huge investment in the Landlord and Tenant Board. As I said when we made the announcement a week and a half ago in London, this is the largest investment in the Landlord and Tenant Board since its inception—a very, very good decision. It’s $6.5 million to appoint 40 new adjudicators and hire five more additional staff in hopes of tackling the backlog. It’s very, very important right now. Minister Downey was asked a question at that announcement. You’re essentially doubling the amount of adjudicators—you’re at 39 right now; you’re going to add another 40. You’re going to add another five administrative staff—something that we were responsive to. That $6.5-million investment is a game-changer in the management of that tribunal. I think everyone in this House can agree, no matter what political stripe, that we need to have an adjudicative tribunal—the Landlord and Tenant Board—that works in a fair system both for landlords and tenants. I want to thank Minister Downey for accompanying this bill with this very, very strong policy that has been celebrated from both landlords and tenants across the province.

Our plan will also better protect homebuyers and their financial investments. I was pleased to join Minister Rasheed in Toronto three weeks ago, along with Associate Minister Tangri, to announce that our government is expanding deposit insurance for credit union members saving for the purchase of their first home. The first-home savings account which was introduced by the federal government—credit union members can now use them to save for the purchase of their first home. In the event that the credit union fails, the credit union member’s money in a first-home savings account would be protected.

We’re also exploring, through Minister Rasheed’s ministry, a cooling-off period on purchases of newly built freehold homes.

We’re also exploring the requirement that purchasers of all new homes receive legal advice on their purchase agreements—something I think that, again, is responsive to many of the things that we’ve heard as part of our consultation.

These changes that are in this bill would continue to support a number of very important measures—things like intensification—while making sure that there is sufficient land to accommodate new homes and jobs that our province needs.

So to increase housing supply and speed up planning approvals, this bill and our consultations—we’re proposing to update the provincial policy statement and integrate it with A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This would create a single province-wide, housing-focused land use planning document for Ontario. This proposed merged document would simplify existing policies. It would also refocus them on achieving housing outcomes while giving large and fast-growing municipalities the tools that they need to deliver more housing. As I’ve said many, many times, all of Ontario, not just the greater Golden Horseshoe, is a place to grow. And that’s what our policies in this bill are reflecting.

More Homes for Everyone required municipalities to gradually refund zoning bylaw and site plan application fees if they fail to make a decision in a specified time period. We’ve listened to municipal feedback: We’re proposing to postpone the start date from January 1 to July 1 of this year to give them time to adjust. I want to thank municipalities for their engagement on this.

Municipalities also told us, as part of More Homes for Everyone, that some of the smaller projects need to be able to address concerns stemming from a site plan review. So we’re proposing, based on feedback, to allow municipalities to use site plan control for residential projects with 10 or fewer units in very certain circumstances—very specific recommendations that, again, responded to the feedback we received from our municipal partners.

This bill also—it was part of the announcement: We’re reducing the cost of building housing. We’re planning to freeze 74 provincial fees at current levels. This includes several fees related to Tribunals Ontario, the Ontario Land Tribunal, the building code. One of the things we heard when we had the consultation with municipalities and we talked about fees and charges—municipalities said, “What about the provincial fees?” So this decision by the government to freeze 74 provincial fees is a direct result of municipal feedback that we heard as part of consultation. We’re consulting on implementation of the fee freezes via Ontario’s Regulatory Registry, so there’s more to come on that.

In conclusion, our proposed Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, as I said at the outset of the speech, really builds on our previous actions that I detailed in the House. These are actions that support homeowners, renters and landlords, not-for-profit and private sector builders, and our municipal partners, so that, together, we can realize our goal of helping to build those 1.5 million homes by 2031.

This is a very bold and transformative plan, but under the leadership of Premier Ford, we said to the people last summer that we would put a plan in place to do this so that we can realize that goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031; pour que nous puissions réaliser ensemble notre but de contribuer à la construction de 1,5 million d’habitations d’ici 2031.

Thank you, Speaker, for giving me the chance to kick off debate. I’m now going to turn it over to my fantastic Associate Minister of Housing, the Honourable Nina Tangri.

I want to thank the member from Whitby for his eloquent speech. He always does speak so eloquently here in the House. He touched on all parts of the bill.

In my riding, probably about 64% of my constituents live in condos or apartments, and we’re growing. We grow every day. As I mentioned earlier, we have high-rises coming up constantly. There are cranes everywhere.

We have a lot of calls that I receive from our constituents with regard to the Landlord and Tenant Board. As we all know, it’s certainly not a perfect system right now. You touched on it briefly in your statement.

Can you tell us what the government is doing to help fix some of these problems at the Landlord and Tenant Board? It is an important fix, for sure, for our residents and our communities.