My question is to the Premier. This month, the government doubled down on expensive sprawl. They’ve forced municipalities to open thousands of more hectares of farmland to development. They’ve eliminated density requirements in new subdivisions. And they’ve eliminated targets to build more housing in areas already zoned for development.

My question is this: Why is this minister doubling down on sprawl when there are better ways to build more housing?

Across Ontario, homeowners are seeing their property taxes go up and their services get cut. These tax hikes are going to continue if this government continues to build spawl, because sprawl is much more expensive for municipalities to service than building more homes in existing neighbourhoods.

My question is to the Premier: Why double down on sprawl when there are cheaper and more affordable ways to build the housing that we need?

The housing crisis is making life unaffordable in Ontario and driving young workers out of the province. This government claims to understand the issue, but their actions say otherwise. They commissioned an expert task force to address the problem, yet they’ve ignored the experts and one of their most important recommendations: to build density in our towns and cities, not to expand their boundaries outward. The province last week ordered cities to do just that and destroy neighbouring farmland.

This attack on farmers will reduce the supply of local food, raising food prices, and create more sprawl, which undermines our carbon reduction goals. Farmers are against this decision, cities and regions are against it and the government’s own experts are against it.

My question to the Premier: Who is telling the Premier that he should pave over our farmland, and are they the same people who will benefit from this decision?

The member for Haldimand–Norfolk introduced a bill to protect our farmland from development. It was supported by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and all MPPs except those on the government side. This government is being very clear: They want to pave over farmland.

Speaker, my question to the Premier: Can the Premier please explain how paving over their farmland helps farmers?

Interjections.

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?

Just to that member’s comments around “fines are increased”—they increased fines in long-term care. Give me a list of all the long-term-care facilities that have been fined or shut down as they killed people in those facilities.

Building family homes on the farms—this is a question that was delivered this morning and attacked the NDP on this, even though our critic was very clear today during her presentation, saying that it’s something that we’re going to talk to shareholders with to see if it works.

We’re losing 319 acres of prime farmland every week to development.

In my riding, they’re trying to develop on heritage lands to build homes.

So my question is very clear to you—because you mentioned to our member from Oshawa: Do you agree that we should be building homes on the greenbelt?

I just want to correct—I asked a question last time, and I actually made a mistake. I want to admit I made a mistake. I know you’re all surprised at that. I actually said that we were losing 319 acres per week of prime farmland. You know what? It’s 319 acres per day—per day. So I apologize to the farmers on that particular issue.

I want to talk about a young lady in my riding who was renovicted—told that they were going to fix up the apartment. She had to move out. She ended up getting a place on the same street in a basement. And she waited and looked at the apartment, looked at the apartment—never once was anybody in there fixing it. But then, what did they do? They upped the rent and rented it out. And what happens in this bill? You’re relying on that renter who can’t afford to pay their rent in the first place to fight through the courts to take on somebody—or a corporation. It makes no sense to me.

In my riding, in Fort Erie, there’s a 13-year wait-list for an affordable one-bedroom apartment and a 57% increase in rents. So my question is: Why is there nothing in this bill that addresses the housing affordability crisis in all our communities? To you—I’ve listened to you—what is the solution to help this government stop the poverty that’s going on in this province?

I really enjoyed my colleague from Kitchener South–Hespeler’s comments.

She alluded to some of it already in her remarks, but I was wondering if she could, through you, Speaker, talk about some of—being next door to Waterloo region, I’m well aware of the growth there and the official plan that came out, and we’re protecting the countryside line. I know the mayor of Kitchener has supported this move in maintaining our farmland but also still growing. I was wondering if my colleague could talk a little bit about how this bill and our proposed provincial planning statement help continue those houses all across Ontario while maintaining our agricultural farmland.

I think what we’ve seen in our legislation is a commitment to taking as balanced an approach as possible to the competing interests of landlord and tenant. Obviously, we see here legislation about preventing and reducing renovictions, the air conditioning legislation.

Ultimately, the existence of private landlords—they provide a key source of rental housing in the market. The more we penalize landlords or force landlords to subsidize housing, the fewer of them will bother to be in the business, and we will end up having far less access to a diverse range of rental properties than we currently have.

While I hear these concerns, it’s really about balancing it, because losing the landlords will not help the housing crisis.

Waterloo region takes its farming history very clear—and again, I come back to that context of national emergency.

I think what’s important here is for communities and municipalities to come together when it comes to identifying the green spaces, the farmland, the wetlands that need to be protected, and at the same time, looking at areas that can be turned over for housing and taking a very critical and practical view of it. I think what this bill is making clear is that that is the goal—to be trying to identify that type of land.

I commented on this briefly, but one of the things that bothers me so much about what I think is literally a missing middle type of housing is that we do not build apartments, high-rise, condo-style living for families, for people with pets, children and hobbies. I refuse to accept that it’s because it’s impossible. We just haven’t done it. There hasn’t been a great deal of incentive for developers and home builders to do so, partly because of development charges and also because of the way that these builds are financed. You need to sell most of them before you can actually build it. Right now, a four-bedroom, family-style apartment is a bit of an unknown quantity on the market, and so it would be harder to sell. But again, that’s where I think that comes in—saying, “Hey, if you’re going urban, if you’re going infill, if you’re building family-style, reducing or waiving the development charges.”

So I think that’s where you need to look at—unconventional types of housing and how we’re encouraging that.