I am having a great deal of difficulty hearing the minister of housing and the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan make claims about supporting more homes for everybody—including supports for non-profit housing—since you know very well that the two shovel-ready projects I’ve been talking about for the last six months in Thunder Bay have not been able to access any support or funding from this government. There doesn’t appear to be a funding stream available for not-for-profit housing projects. These projects would bring 100 new living units to Thunder Bay.

I’m wondering when the government will be creating the appropriate revenue stream so that these projects can be supported and go ahead.

One third of housing in London is owned by real estate investors who scoop up entry-level properties away from first-time homebuyers. This is on top of the 86% of condo apartments already owned by investors—86%; that’s more than twice the provincial average.

Speaker, this government is telling the people of this province that they’re building new homes. It remains to be seen whether these will be truly affordable homes.

What is this government doing to ensure that first-time homebuyers can actually get into these new homes?

They talk about record housing starts, and the reason for that is that you have removed rent control. You’ve created a power imbalance between the owner and between renters.

Professor Diana Mok from Western stated: “Interest in housing used as an investment tool likely spiked in Ontario after the province removed rent controls on new builds after 2018.” Again, this has led to an unfair power imbalance where landlords can jack up the rent in between or when someone completes their tenancy, because there is no rent control. You did that. You did that to renters.

Young families are being completely left behind. The Housing Stability Bank, a local program that helps renters get out of arrears, is reporting a 35% increase in demand for their services. People are sinking even more under water each day.

Will this government close the loophole that allows foreign investors and real estate investment trusts to stockpile rental properties across Ontario?

I’d like to thank the member for Windsor–Tecumseh for his questions. You quite rightly cited the deep concerns that many people have right now, which are about inflation and cost of living. There are two key areas which could be addressed with greater protections for folks, such as reinstating rent control and making sure that people have a safe place to call home. In the absence of it, we’ve seen terrible circumstances for a lot of people who are frightened about losing their homes.

With Bill 23, we’ve seen also that rental buildings can be purchased by some of these international key players, redeveloped into luxury condos—and what happens to those people who are in those units, Speaker? What happens to buildings full of seniors who have lived there their whole lives and lived there in a good way, in a comfortable way, in an affordable way, who are now at risk of losing their home? Those are key ways.

There are investments like these, but they also have to be backed up with union protections, good wages, benefits and a pension.

I think about so many different industries that closed. We look at what happened to the folks at Sears, who worked there for many years, and when it came time for them to close, the business looked after shareholders before it looked after workers. The loss of pensions was something that was deeply concerning.

We need legislation in this province that makes sure to protect workers—workers first. Business will look after itself, but a business is nothing without the people who comprise it.