A petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the population of Ontario is expected to grow by more than two million people by 2031, with approximately 1.5 million of those new residents in the greater Golden Horseshoe region, the Ontario government has announced a consultation in November regarding proposed changes to the greenbelt;

“Whereas the provincial government is taking decisive and bold action to address Ontario’s housing supply crisis by building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years;

“Whereas these proposals could support municipalities’ plans for responsible growth and help build more than 50,000 new homes;

“Whereas to accommodate growth and support the building of more homes, the government is proposing to remove 15 areas of land, totalling approximately 7,400 acres, from the edge of the greenbelt area, affected areas may be adjacent to the existing greenbelt boundaries to an existing urban area must be on or near readily serviceable land and have the potential for homes to be built in the near future;

“Whereas if these lands are removed from the greenbelt, landowners will be expected to develop detailed plans to build housing quickly, and if conditions for these lands are not met, the government will return these properties to the greenbelt;

“Whereas, simultaneously, these proposals would add an additional 9,400 acres to the greenbelt, including a portion of the Paris-Galt moraine and 13 urban river valleys in the greater Golden Horseshoe for an overall greenbelt expansion of approximately 2,000 acres;

“Whereas this government is intent on fulfilling its commitment to get more homes built faster so that Ontario families can find a home that meets their needs and their budget;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“(1) That all members of provincial Parliament support the completion of the consultation and the expansion of the greenbelt; and

“(2) That all members of provincial Parliament support the government continuing to take decisive action to address Ontario’s critical housing shortage.”

I am happy to put my name to this petition and provide it to Kennedy.

I want to thank the member from Spadina–Fort York for his question, and he’s right. I did raise a lot of these comments, and a lot of those concerns I raised were under schedule 5. The huge concern I have is opening up treaty lands. See, I said that right, Speaker; it’s easy. We should all try to do that, instead of saying it the colonial way: “crown land.” We should be talking about treaty lands and what we’re doing to those particular lands in not engaging with First Nations communities and talking to them about how it’s going to be affecting the communities.

Also to your point, the intent, the idea behind this is that it’s supposed to be a wash. It goes in, but what it also does—there’s a new way of now inserting carbon into the ground which will push additional oil out, which will continue to perpetuate the idea of using oil. That’s something we should be thinking about, not only in this province but across the globe: getting away from fossil fuels.

Now, one thing we have to remember is: Watch out what you ask for. Because removing too much of that red tape also removes the oversight that we have put in place to make sure—why certain projects take longer to go through, why certain ones are successful and why others aren’t. The oversight is something that is very, very important, and sometimes removing some of the red tape eliminates that and takes away security from the variety of options and projects that are looking to move forward in this province.

As legislative representatives, that’s our role: to make sure that certain procedures, certain security measures are in place so that we keep the produce and the processes safe for all Ontarians.

A responsibility that we have as the Ontario government is to recognize that we are all treaty members. We are all part of this globe, and we need to respect the nation-to-nation relationship that is there, that is enshrined, that is their right. We should be consulting with them prior to any piece of legislation—

I think my job here as the elected MPP for Algoma–Manitoulin is to bring the lenses of how people feel and what their perceived sights are on what red tape is and how they can move the stake forward and how they can prosper as businesses. A lot of what they’re bringing forward is just—they need the ability to move their projects forward. They need to do it in a timely fashion. They want to do it in a secure way, as well—