It’s my honour to introduce two good friends of mine from the village of Osgoode in the great riding of Carleton: Canadian veteran Corporal Greg Thurlow, who served from 1971 to 1989 in the air force as an air medevac specialist in search and rescue, as well as his better half, Elizabeth McNee, a dedicated community volunteer and organizer of the Osgoode senior luncheons at the Legion. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to welcome very important people, members of Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario, to Queen’s Park. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I know she’s watching at home—she’s not here in the gallery, but I’d like to wish my Italian wife, Rita De Luca-Gates, a happy 27th anniversary.

Well, Speaker, I’ll be here for 17 more years; maybe you’ll get it right. Thank you.

I want to introduce and, obviously, say hello to our friend Paul Miller, who we all spent a great deal of years with.

I also want to recognize a friend and somebody I got to learn from in a previous incarnation as minister: Vincent Georgie, who’s up with the University of Windsor today, but also with the Windsor International Film Festival.

Welcome to our assembly.

I’d like to welcome Caleb Garrow-Ledoux to the House. He’s a volunteer in the riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan. It’s his first time at Queen’s Park. Welcome.

I’d like to welcome to the House Sofia Raffat, a student intern from Toronto Metropolitan University who is working in my office. Welcome, Sofia.

It’s my pleasure to welcome a friend, a former municipal colleague and a great community champion: Mark Quemby from the town of Bracebridge—and his son Connor. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

The member for—

Interjection.

It’s my privilege to introduce Gaetan Malette, my campaign manager, from Timmins, Ontario.

Gaetan, welcome to Queen’s Park.

I am delighted to welcome today Jess Carpinone, who is a small business owner of Bread By Us in Ottawa and a member of the Better Way Alliance. She was at Queen’s Park this morning to talk about paid sick days, along with advocates from the Decent Work and Health Network, including: Sarah Shahid; Yasmin Beydoun; Deena Ladd from the Workers’ Action Centre; Julie Chowdury; Dr. Bernard Ho, emergency room physician; and Debra Slater from the EMPOWER PSW network. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I, too, would like to welcome representatives from AMAPCEO who are here today. Joining us from their team are Dave Bulmer, Cynthia Watt, Angela Freeman, Colleen Walsh, Suzanne Conquer and Jennifer Harewood. I welcome them to Queen’s Park, and I look forward to meeting with them today.

The Premier has repeatedly claimed that his carve-up of Ontario’s greenbelt is simply about providing the land we need for housing. But a new report released just yesterday found that there is more than enough land to build two million homes without punching massive holes in our greenbelt. So if it’s not about land for housing, what is it about?

Will the Premier admit that this is about paving over protected land so a select few people can make a lot of money?

Speaker, the report that was released yesterday shows what the people of this province already know: We don’t need insider schemes and torching of the greenbelt to build the housing that people need.

We need 1.5 million homes in Ontario, and it’s only getting worse. But I haven’t talked to one municipal leader—not one—one housing advocate or one regular Ontarian who thinks that the problem is that there aren’t enough mega mansions. That is not the problem.

Why won’t this government work with our municipal partners to build affordable homes on the land we already have available?

Planning experts, municipalities and the government’s own task force—despite his creative quoting from that report—have said that land availability is not the problem.

Again, will this government—and I’d love the Premier to be able to answer this question—listen to the experts, use the land we already have available, and reverse the decision to remove 7,400 acres of protected greenbelt land?

Can the Premier explain how, after four years of his leadership, things have only gotten worse?

I’d like to welcome Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario. I’ll be meeting with these folks later on this afternoon: Lauren Bates, Laura Proctor, Michel Tremblay, Jean-Rock Boutin, Tom Carothers and Anna Malfara. Welcome to your House.

It’s an honour to introduce partners from the tiny home build pilot program—from Halton Catholic District School Board: Allan Nason, construction and home-building teacher, tiny home build project; students Ava Sunderland and Aaliyah Young-Lalumiere; Jody Harbour from Grandmother’s Voice; Eden Grodzinski from Habitat for Humanity; Kelly Hoey and Michelle Murray from HIEC. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Another day, another NIMBY question from the Leader of the Opposition.

We made it very clear during the election that the Housing Affordability Task Force report would be our long-term road map. We promised Ontarians that we’d put a plan in place to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. We’re going to continue to build upon our success with all of our housing supply action plans. But we’re not done yet. We’ve got a lot more work to do with our municipal partners to get the plan in place to build those homes, and that’s exactly what this government is going to do.

Clearly, in the Housing Affordability Task Force report, it talked about the need for responsible housing growth on undeveloped land, including outside of existing municipal boundaries.

We speak to municipalities every day who are signing our housing pledge and signing on to the partnership with our government. This is very exciting.

Speaker, at the end of the day, it’s all about providing that opportunity for that young couple to realize the dream of home ownership; it’s all about making sure that when we welcome those new Ontarians to our province, we’ve got a safe, secure home that meets their needs and their budget. That’s why we’re doing the housing supply action plan.

We’re growing the greenbelt by over 2,000 acres. We’re adding parts of the Paris-Galt moraine and the urban river valleys that municipalities and conservation authorities universally have suggested be added to the greenbelt.

At the end of the day, despite the Leader of the Opposition’s NIMBYism—as we all know, building absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone; the BANANA business that we’re hearing from the leader and her members—we’re going to continue to work with municipalities, we’re going to continue to work with non-profits and ensure that more attainable and affordable housing is being built. That’s the impetus of Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster—to ensure that development charges incent the type of housing we want: more purpose-built rental, more Habitat for Humanity homes. That’s exactly what Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, does, and we’re going to continue to build on that in the days ahead.

Again, it feels like this government is living on a different planet than most people in this province, because I can tell you, you get a full-time job in this province right now and you’re at a food bank. You’re at a food bank.

How does this government expect people to get by when they create crater-sized loopholes in the only measures that keep apartments affordable? Go out there and talk with tenants, I beg you. When a tenant leaves a rental unit, there’s no limit to how much that rent can increase for the next tenant. You know what that means? It means double-digit increases. People in Hamilton saw rent increases of 26% between tenants; in Ottawa, 17%; in Toronto, a 29% increase, Speaker. Those are for the same units.

Does the government understand that they have created a system that takes away affordable housing options?

Community Living Essex told us that the wait-list for affordable housing in their region has ballooned to 5,400 people. Last year, the city of London had a wait-list of 6,000. Niagara was reporting numbers of over 9,000 households.

Municipalities are pulling every lever, but they cannot solve this housing crisis alone. Will the Premier commit today to fixing rent control loopholes and making meaningful investments in public housing?

Recently, Premier Ford and our team Hamilton attended the grand opening at Bimbo Canada. They announced a $15-million expansion and an investment to boost local manufacturing and solidify their competitive edge.

Speaker, Bimbo is Canada’s largest and oldest commercial bakery, producing over 1,000 products for 18 brands. As we walked through their exciting new facility, we saw popular names, such as Dempster’s, Villaggio, Stonemill, stacked as deep as the eye could see. With a $1.5-million investment from our government, they’re expanding their lines of tortillas, as wraps are becoming more popular in lunch bags.

But this isn’t just an investment in advanced manufacturing, it’s an investment in people, creating new, well-paying jobs in Hamilton.

I thank the leader of the official opposition for the question. Mr. Speaker, I would like to see one day the leader or the members of the opposition get up and actually stand up for Ontarians and support us in building more homes across the province.

We should be looking at our numbers. In 2021, in 2022, a record number of housing starts in our province—no thanks to the opposition. I mentioned this last week, when the previous government was in power, they held the balance of power. The lowest housing starts came in the three years when they had the opportunity. They could have made housing a priority for Ontarians. They didn’t. It took this Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, under the leadership of the Premier, the caucus members on this side and in the middle to say, “No more. Housing is going to be a priority for Ontarians. We’ll make sure to deliver it to them. We’re not going to let down anybody.”

As I said before, and I’ll say it again, no government in the past 70 years has provided more protection for tenants in this province than this government.

We paused rent increases during COVID. We made sure that tenants had protection when they needed it. The rent increase guidelines that the member is referring to in 2021 last year was capped at 1.2% increase. This year, because of our actions, we capped that at 2.5%, well below inflation. If it wasn’t for our actions, the rent increase guideline would have been at 5.3%.

So let me make that very clear: Once again, it’s this government that will stand up for the people of this province, will protect tenants and make sure—what the opposition wants is for people to be pitted against one another. That’s not going to happen. We’re going to work with our partners to make sure that we have more units in this province, and we’ll continue—

The Globe and Mail has reported that based on the province’s own numbers, in 2022, the Landlord and Tenant Board received more than 5,550 N-12 applications where landlords sought units for own use, a 41% increase from 2019. The board also received nearly 1,113 eviction applications for renovations in 2022, almost double the volume from 2019.

Tenant advocates say this spike in evictions filings is hardly a coincidence, because when a tenant is evicted, rents can increase by any amount. As a result, we’re seeing tenants being forced out of their units in bad-faith evictions and rents skyrocket.

Will the Premier make rents affordable and end bad-faith evictions by passing the NDP’s Rent Stabilization Act?

Will the Premier remove the incentives to evict tenants simply to raise rents?