Today it’s both a pleasure and a privilege to rise for second reading of our government’s proposed Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act. At the very start, I’ll indicate that I’ll be sharing the government’s leadoff time today with the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, the newly minted Associate Minister of Housing, and my new parliamentary assistant for municipal affairs and housing, who’s being engaged with the Speaker right now in a wonderful conversation—it’s always great to have two Speakers in the House to try to keep me in line. Those other speakers will be touching on some of the finer points of some of the items in our proposed legislation and our corresponding housing supply action plan. Both support our government’s goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.

The proposed changes that the government has put forward for debate here today are a reaction to market conditions that have been in place for far too long. In fact, a recent Statistics Canada study reveals that, over a 10-year period, beginning in 2011, Ontario has had the fourth-largest decline in home ownership rates amongst provinces and territories in Canada. This is something that is unprecedented. This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard this sort of thing, but it’s something that the government continually pledges—that we value home ownership, and we want to continue to have a climate where we can build quality, affordable housing that meets people’s needs and their budgets.

Our government is fighting back. Decades of inaction, burdensome red tape and NIMBYism have created Ontario’s housing supply crisis, and we’re seeing its effects, but we are, as I said, fighting back because too many Ontarians have been priced out of the market through no fault of their own; parce que trop d’Ontariennes et d’Ontariens qui n’ont rien à se reprocher ont été exclus du marché du logement à cause des prix. And those who rent their homes want some relief, as well.

That’s why what we’ve proposed today for debate will support our government’s fourth housing supply action plan—the plan, as I’ve said many times, to build 1.5 million homes, which is our goal, because we need to make life easier and more affordable for people across this province.

If passed, the proposed changes and our plan would further support renters. They would strengthen homebuyer protections. They’d reduce the cost of building a new home—something that I know our government feels very strongly about—and they’d streamline the rules around land use planning and encourage the development of more housing.

As I said, this is our fourth housing supply action plan. It builds upon the bold actions that the government has already put in place.

Our government released its first housing supply action plan, More Homes, More Choice, in 2019. That plan cut red tape and made it easier to build the right type of housing in the right places. Its aim was to make housing more affordable and to enable taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money.

In the spring of 2022, we released our second housing supply action plan, More Homes for Everyone. Our work leading up to that action plan included extensive consultations across the province, including Ontario’s first Ontario-municipal housing summit. We received further feedback from the rural housing round table, something we had at the 2022 ROMA conference—the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference—and at meetings that we had with every municipal association in our province. In addition, the Housing Affordability Task Force that we appointed consulted with municipalities, they consulted with experts, they consulted with the industry. As a result of the work with those stakeholders, More Homes for Everyone introduced targeted policies in the immediate term to make housing fairer for hard-working Ontarians and to make it faster to build homes that Ontarians need and, we believe, they deserve. That plan sped up approvals even further, and it took steps to gradually refund fees if municipal decisions weren’t made under legislative time frames. Again, we recognized that more needed to be done, and again the government acted.

Later in the year, we came out with our third housing supply action plan, More Homes Built Faster. It built on the concrete actions that we took from our previous action plans, and it took even more direct action to ensure that Ontarians across the province could access a home that truly met their needs.

This, of course, is all while the government passed legislation to give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa more powers to work effectively with the province to cut red tape, to reduce timelines for developments, and to address local barriers that prevent more homes being built.

These are all the steps that we’re taking to ensure that we can continue to move in the right direction as we build more homes across our province.

That’s why we created the Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team—a very important decision by the government to appoint this team to work on our housing supply action plans and to make sure that things get done. It has municipal leaders, and it has industry experts. The mayor of Windsor, Drew Dilkens, is acting as chair; Cheryl Fort, the mayor of the town of Hornepayne, is vice-chair. The team that they’re chairing is made up of experts across the housing and non-profit sectors. There is a wide range of experience and perspective that really reflects the diversity of housing needs across Ontario. I think that was very important for us to hit the right note. The team will evaluate progress, and they’ll provide advice to our government on implementing the housing supply action plans so that we can continue to tackle Ontario’s housing supply crisis.

The range of measures that the government has taken to increase housing supply—and I’m going to be the first to admit it: They’re bold and they’re transformative, and even though we know that their impact will take time to be fully felt throughout the housing sector, we continue to see the growing and positive impact across Ontario that those measures have had today.

In the last two years, housing starts in Ontario have reached levels that we have not seen in our province in over 30 years—

Interjections.

Thank you, Minister.

It really is an honour to be speaking today about the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act in my new capacity as the Associate Minister of Housing.

Interjections.

I look forward to supporting our government’s initiatives to help deliver on our commitment of 1.5 million homes in Ontario by 2031.

In my own riding of Mississauga–Streetsville, housing is a challenge for many of my constituents.

The Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act is proposed legislation that is crucial to our government’s work to get more housing built in the province—housing that Ontarians across the province so desperately need.

Our housing supply action plans have made great progress in addressing our province’s housing crisis. We are now building on the bold actions we have already put forward.

As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said, more needs to be done. That is because Ontario’s housing crisis is affecting not just homebuyers. Renters, too, are struggling. This is significant, given that Statistics Canada data reveal the growth in the number of renter households has outpaced the growth of homeowner households from 2011 to 2021 in each of Canada’s 41 large urban centres. Ontario municipalities, like Barrie, Kitchener-Waterloo and Oshawa, saw some of the largest renter increases across the country.

That’s why I’m pleased to have this opportunity to highlight how the proposed Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act would better protect tenants in Ontario and make their lives easier.

Speaker, I would like to start by explaining a feature of our proposed legislation that will be welcomed by many renters. This concerns clarifying and enhancing the rules regarding air conditioning in rental units.

As we have seen for decades in summers past, the sun and humidity can take its toll on people if they don’t have access to cool space. We propose to amend the Residential Tenancies Act so that when a landlord does not provide air conditioning, tenants would be permitted to install a window-mounted or portable air conditioning unit. This would be subject to, of course, some rules. First, a tenant must give written notice to the landlord of their intention to install an air conditioning unit prior to installation. Second, the air conditioning unit must be installed safely and securely, and the installation must not cause damage to the rental unit or the rental complex. Renters would also have to ensure that the installation and maintenance of the air conditioning unit complies with any applicable laws, including municipal bylaws and any prescribed rules. Finally, tenants who do not pay for electricity—that is, it is included in their rent—could be charged a seasonal fee. This would be based on the actual electricity cost to the landlord, or a reasonable estimate based on the information provided by the tenant.

Of course, we’re not stopping there. Speaker, you can pick up a newspaper just about anywhere in Ontario and read about renters, some of them long-term renters, who are facing an uncertain future about where they and their family are going to live because their rental unit is being renovated. We know this is an issue in the rental system and we’re trying to help. That is why our proposed legislation and future regulations would, if passed, increase tenant protections, specifically against evictions due to renovations as well as those for a landlord’s own use. What our government is proposing to do is to give tenants greater access to remedies and also increase the reporting requirements that landlord must follow.

Our proposed changes state that a landlord, where they are ending a tenancy to do renovations, would be required to provide a report stating that the rental unit needs to be vacant for the renovations. A regulation would outline what details must be included in the report. Regulations would also set out the type of person who can provide this report, such as a professional engineer or an architect, for example. Once these regulations are made, if this document is not provided for the tenant along with an eviction notice, then the eviction notice would not be considered valid.

Our changes would also require landlords to provide tenants who indicated that they wanted to return to the unit with written notification of the estimated date of when the unit will be ready for occupancy after the renovations are completed. Written notification would also be required for any change in when renovations are expected to wrap up—that includes a new estimated completion date.

When the unit is ready for occupancy, the landlord would have to give the tenant a 60-day grace period to occupy that unit again. This will enable the tenant to provide the required 60-day notice to end their tenancy in their temporary accommodation if they are renting elsewhere while the renovations are completed. Landlords must continue to allow tenants to move back in at a similar rent once renovations are complete.

Currently, if a landlord fails to give the right of first refusal to an evicted tenant after renovations are completed, a tenant is able to file a complaint with the Landlord and Tenant Board within two years. So we’re proposing changes to the Residential Tenancies Act that would give a tenant two years after moving out, or six months after renovations are complete—whichever is longer—to file a complaint. Adding the proposed six-month post-renovation time frame recognizes that some renovations may take more than two years to complete.

Similarly, our proposed legislation and related regulations would tighten the rules regarding evictions when a landlord wishes to use a rental unit for their own use or for the use of one of their family members. In cases like these, in order to address less-than-genuine evictions, our proposed changes would set a time frame, to be prescribed in regulation, within which a landlord or their family member must move into the unit. If this move is not made by that deadline, the landlord would be presumed to have acted in bad faith if and when the tenant applies to the Landlord and Tenant Board for a remedy. The length of this time frame would be set at a future date once our government has consulted on a fair time period.

What’s more, our government is proposing to increase the maximum fine for these offences. If passed, our legislation would amend the Residential Tenancies Act to double the maximum fines under this act. The maximum fines would rise to $100,000 from $50,000 for individuals, and to $500,000 from $250,000 for corporations. Even currently, Ontario’s maximum fines for residential tenancy offences are the highest in all of Canada. Increasing these fines further will deter ill-intentioned landlords from committing offences such as unlawful evictions.

It is critical that tenants are protected from this type of behaviour.

However, we know that there are still many other kinds of landlord-tenant disputes that get resolved through the Landlord and Tenant Board. Our housing supply action plan wants to ensure tenants and landlords have timely access to justice. That is why the province is also investing $6.5 million to appoint an additional 40 adjudicators and hire five new staff at the Landlord and Tenant Board. This investment is critical to our dispute resolution system, and it should help eliminate the backlog of cases at the LTB and reduce wait times.

Our proposed legislation would also amend the Residential Tenancies Act to mandate the use of the Landlord and Tenant Board’s form for rent repayment agreements. This would be used when a tenant owes back rent and the landlord and the tenant agree to a repayment plan without immediately resorting to eviction. If the parties come to a repayment agreement, this legal document would set out the terms of repayment. Currently, there is no requirement for a repayment agreement to be in a certain form or format. This form provided by the Landlord and Tenant Board sets out, in plain language, that the landlord can apply to evict a tenant if the agreement is breached.

Speaker, I now want to move on to talk about what our proposed legislation would provide in terms of encouraging the building of rental housing. Our government is also working to protect and increase our province’s rental housing stock.

Building on More Homes Built Faster, we propose to make further legislative changes to the Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act—and other acts, as necessary—to establish regulation-making authority to help create a balanced regulatory framework governing municipality rental replacement bylaws. Where municipalities require landowners to build replacement units, future regulations could require that new units contain the same core features as the original unit—this means features such as the same number of bedrooms, while permitting some flexibility when it comes to the size of the unit. Future regulations could also require municipalities to impose a requirement on landowners to provide existing tenants the right to move back into the unit at similar rent levels.

As well, we will be consulting on future regulations that would help form this balanced package of rules I have just talked about.

Speaker, as you can see, our government’s proposed Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act contains stronger protections and new rights for tenants. I truly believe that these proposed changes will make life easier for renters and landlords in Ontario.

I again want to express how much I look forward to supporting our government in my new role as we work towards our goal of helping build 1.5 million homes—homes for renters, homes for first-time homebuyers, homes for empty nesters who want to downsize.

We, as a government, are committed to making Ontario the best place to live, to work and to raise a family.

I encourage all members of this House to vote in favour of this bill.

I would like to now turn the floor over to the parliamentary assistant for municipal affairs and housing.

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.