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?

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?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn’t sure if the opposite member was praising this government for the work of the independent tribunal that has in place rules to protect the tenants when they have issues to bring forward.

What we have done is we have added a record number of adjudicators to the Landlord and Tenant Board to help protect the tenants as they bring their issues forward and to make sure that the claims by the landlords are legitimate or not. And then, the fines have been increased for those that are doing it inappropriately.

I can’t think of anything better than an independent tribunal listening to the tenants with legitimate concerns, staffed appropriately with a record number of adjudicators.

My question is for the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. Hamilton is a city where innovation and manufacturing go hand in hand. For decades, we have been fortunate: Our advanced industries have grown to create a manufacturing industry that embraces cutting-edge science and technology. But now more than ever, the competitive global manufacturing space threatens the future of Hamilton’s own advanced manufacturing industry.

As one of the country’s fastest-growing mid-sized cities, my constituents want to know if they will have good manufacturing jobs right at home well into the future.

Will the minister please explain how our government is continuing to secure investments in Hamilton’s manufacturing economy?

Our government is continually working to make sure that people have the supports they need and to help them find a job. That’s why we’re working across ministries to make sure that we have the services and programs available, putting people over paperwork, creating training programs, creating job opportunities.

That’s why we have also been working on supporting people who are unable to work. We recognize that. We have increased the ODSP rates with the largest increase in the history of this province. We have increased the earnings exemption threshold by 400%. We are tying the increases to inflation. We are making sure that people are getting discretionary benefits and temporary emergency supports. We’re working across multiple ministries, making sure that people can have access to the supports that they need.

This is a strategy that we’ve had for the Ontario Disability Support Program for disability support with the Journey to Belonging, making sure that people can live in their communities, creating wraparound services. This is continuous work that—

The Associate Minister of Housing last week in the House categorized where we’re at in the state of rental housing in the province. Because of our policies, as most in the House know, we had in 2021 over 13,000 new rental starts in Ontario, the highest since the early 1990s—1992, for example. Last year, as Associate Minister Parsa talked about right here in question period last week, we had over 15,000, which is the highest amount of rental starts in Ontario’s history.

But, again, Speaker, I talked earlier about Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster and what we were able to do. Affordable rental and housing developers in Oshawa reported that through Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster, they were saving over $500,000 in development charges and associated fees. What’s that going to do? It’s going to feature 24 affordable rental units, 26 affordable ownership homes. These are the policies that we’re building upon—

Thank you very much.

Supplementary question?

The final supplementary?

The next question.

Speaker, here’s the fundamental difference between the government and the NIMBY party across: We do not believe here in the government that non-profits and affordable housing providers should be charged exorbitant fees and add those onto the cost of a project. That’s the difference.

We listened to our municipal partners. Every single council that the member opposite has just quoted ran in the fall election on building more non-profit, affordable and rental accommodation. Exactly these policies that are in Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster are going to incent those types of housing. That’s the plan that the government’s put forward.

I appreciate that the opposition party will support NIMBYs and BANANAs 100% of the time. I understand that, but we owe it to Ontarians to ensure that we’ve got—

We’re always going to stand on the side of providing affordable housing opportunities, attainable housing opportunities and rental. We need more purpose-built rental in the province, and our policy to incentivize development charges on these family-sized rentals, the deeply affordable rentals that we need in our communities, that’s the policy we’re always going to stand up for. The NDP can always—

Speaker, back to the minister: When the previous Liberal government sent 300,000 manufacturing jobs running from Ontario, Hamilton was especially hit hard, but now Hamilton is back on track to lead Ontario’s manufacturing revolution. That is because Hamilton’s history is steeped in its manufacturing roots, but also in its hard-working heritage. Hamilton is home to Ontario’s brightest innovators and entrepreneurs. It is because of them that Hamilton has the diverse and flourishing economy it has.

In addition to supporting investments and creating good jobs in my city, will the minister please explain how our government is supporting Hamilton’s entrepreneurs?

The supplementary question?

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Supplementary question: the member for Waterloo.

The next question.

Just moments ago, we heard about the amazing news at Bimbo in Hamilton. I trust that everyone in this House has absolute confidence in the nutritious, high-quality food grown and produced right here in Ontario.

It’s because of the Ontario farmers’ best practices, coupled with research and innovation, that year over year our yields are increasing. And because of that, we’re in a position as the government of Ontario to be their best champions. We are increasing awareness of, and demand for, good, quality food grown and processed right here in Ontario.

We’ve recently sent a message around the world to our international markets that Ontario is open for business. Our Ontario farmers are growing capacity and increasing food production, and we have an incredible value chain that ultimately will not only meet domestic demand but demand coming from other jurisdictions around the world.

That’s why I was very pleased to take 18 delegates representing five key sectors in our agri-food industry to PAN Vietnam. We had representatives from beef, pork, grains, oilseeds and ginseng and, Speaker, it was a tremendously successful trade mission insomuch as we had memorandums of understanding signed. We hosted and facilitated over 100 business-to-business meetings. We met with business and diplomatic leaders and, Speaker, people are looking to Ontario. They are proud of the work that we’ve achieved, and I can tell you with absolute confidence, we’re going to continue to grow demand for good, quality nutritious food grown and processed right here in Ontario.

Back to the minister: There is no evidence whatsoever that giving a big corporate developer a tax break will lower the cost of buying a home. There’s no evidence whatsoever, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, AMO estimates that municipalities are on track to lose $5.1 billion in development fee revenues because of Bill 23. AMO presented to us at finance committee. This is revenue that is earmarked to pay for affordable housing, for transit, for sewage and parks—services that make our towns and cities great places to live.

Minister, it’s budget season. What exactly is your plan to help municipalities pay for the infrastructure needed to help our towns and cities grow?