It was said of the Blitz that a rich person driving their fancy car through the streets of London was as damaging as a German bomb. You can understand that. Why would you put your heart and soul into the war effort when a privileged few did not?

When we face a social crisis, when we need team spirit to work together, we’ll find it if people believe that society is just and offers equal opportunity.

We do face multiple crises—unaffordable homes, no family doctor, overcrowded hospitals, labour shortages, rising mortgage payments, mental health and addictions issues, education disruption, international conflicts, and overshadowing it all, climate change.

Now, the Conservatives, having promised over and over to not touch the people’s greenbelt, told by their own task force that it was not needed for housing, have withdrawn greenbelt land for development to benefit their political donors. Instead of getting housing built with as-of-right zoning in the greenbelt, it looks like as-of-donation zoning—it’s the government helping some people profit at the expense of everybody else. The worst thing about this is, it’s not just that it’s bad housing policy or bad environmental policy; it’s the corrosive effect—

Interjections.

I’d like to welcome members of the following groups: Grand(m)others Act To Save The Planet, Stop Sprawl HamOnt, Wellington Water Watchers, Greenbelt West Coalition, and Stop Sprawl Halton. They gathered on the front lawn this morning to defend the greenbelt.

Speaker, through you to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing: The minister has failed to show any objective criteria or evidence to explain how he chose which properties to remove from the greenbelt. We’ve looked at each of the 15 areas proposed for removal from the greenbelt, trying to understand what criteria the minister may have used. In every single one, we found a strong political or donor tie to the PC Party. Can the minister explain this disturbing pattern?

Why is the minister favouring these particular landowners and developers over others?

My question is to the Premier. First I’d like to thank the Premier for this lovely gesture of the inaugural speeches that the new members received. That’s a point I’m giving you, but now I’m going to have to take away that point in my question.

I may sound like a broken record here, but I need to, because I’m hearing from all my residents, and actually, all your residents, about—what? The greenbelt. Because the government has misread the room on the greenbelt. You really have. The greenbelt is full of—

Interjection.

Interjections.

We know the greenbelt is full of wetlands and watersheds, areas that protect our province from devastating flooding by absorbing stormwater. As we see more and more natural disasters come our way as a result of climate change—we know what’s going on in Brazil right now; we know what has gone on out west, out east—we should be trying to conserve these areas for all Ontarians. If we pave over them, it puts people at financial and physical risk. The average basement flood is $43,000.

My question to the Premier: Do you believe that the choice to open up the greenbelt for development puts Ontario at risk for more flooding? If not, please explain.

I know all of us here care about farmers. We’ve heard that over and over again: how they feed us every day, how hard they work. Many of us here are connected to farmers and the farming community—

Interjections.

So my question is, why would we remove Ontario’s only agricultural preserve, Duffins Rouge, if we care so much about farmers and farmland and eating? Will you be able to sleep at night knowing that you bulldozed over our last agriculture preserve?

Interjection.

I want to thank my former colleague from the city of Toronto. We spent a lot of time together, and I have a great deal of respect.

Mr. Speaker, you’ve got to look at the total greenbelt. We’ve added 2,000 acres more. Since I’ve taken office, the greenbelt has expanded. But what I suggest to the member from Beaches–East York: Sit down; speak to your colleagues about why you changed it 17 times. You changed it 17 times.

We need housing. There are people in the gallery, there are people right here who are still renting. They’re renting. We need to build homes. We need to build 1.5 million homes. We have 300,000 people showing up every single year. Are we going put them in cardboard boxes? Are we going put them in mud huts? No. They want a home. They want an affordable home—

Interjection.

Interjections.

I’d like to thank all the residents of London West who signed petitions to protect the greenbelt.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bill 23 is the Ford government’s latest attempt to remove protected land from the greenbelt, allowing developers to bulldoze and pave over 7,000 acres of farmland in the greenbelt;

“Whereas Ontario is already losing 319.6 acres of farmland and green space daily to development;

“Whereas the government’s” own “Housing Affordability Task Force found there are plenty of places to build homes without destroying the greenbelt;

“Whereas Ford’s repeated moves to tear up farmland and bulldoze wetlands have never been about housing, but are about making the rich richer;

“Whereas green spaces and farmland are what we rely on to grow our food, support natural habitats and prevent flooding;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately amend Bill 23, stop all plans to further remove protected land from the greenbelt and protect existing farmland in the province by passing the NDP’s Protecting Agricultural Land Act.”

I strongly agree with this petition. I affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Ema.

It’s a great honour to rise and be able to present this petition on behalf of Melanie Duckett-Wilson from Newmarket Ontario. The petition reads, “To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the Ontario government announced a 30-day consultation in November on removing approximately 2,995 hectares across 10 municipalities from the greenbelt, which was created in 2005 to permanently protect agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands; and

“Whereas this government also announced another 14,000 hectares of urbanized land to develop, and the regions of Peel, York, Halton and Hamilton recently had their boundaries expanded under provincial approval; and

“Whereas the greenbelt contributes $9.6 billion in GDP and supports 177,700 full-time jobs (Greenbelt Foundation, 2021); and

“Whereas this government intends to spend over $12 billion on the proposed 413 and Bradford Bypass cutting through more greenbelt knowing there are dozens of endangered species at risk;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario that the proposed ... hectares be returned to the greenbelt and the 2005 legislation be augmented to ensure no such future land rezoning takes place in the greenbelt.”

I would be pleased to affix my name to this and send it with page Alex to the table.