My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. On November 16, the minister said he spoke with developers prior to announcing that lands would be removed from the greenbelt. The minister needs to clarify his remarks. Did the minister or any other government or PC Party official share with any landowner information about the government’s plan to remove lands from the greenbelt before it became public?

To the Premier: Over the weekend, CBC published new information about the amount of protected Pickering farmland owned by the De Gasperis family, who are powerful landowners and PC Party donors. CBC found another 475 acres bought by the De Gasperis family in 2020 for about $24,000 an acre. They own at least 1,775 acres of greenbelt land within the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. They bought this land cheap because it was protected as farmland in perpetuity.

How much does the Premier suppose an acre of this land would be worth after the Premier removes it from the greenbelt and makes it available for development?

How much speculative profit is the Premier giving his friends and PC donors by removing their Pickering farmland from the greenbelt?

Does the Premier finally understand how corrupt this looks?

At the end of the day, the posting that the government has on the Environmental Registry of Ontario will grow the greenbelt by over 2,000 acres and provide an opportunity for the government to have a minimum of 50,000 homes built to get us closer to our goal of 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years.

The reason that minimum of 50,000 homes is so important is because our best year in over 30 years was last year, when we had 100,000 starts in the province of Ontario. We made a promise to the people of Ontario during the election that we would table a plan in place to ensure that we get to that goal. That’s exactly what the government has done.

We are in a crisis, Speaker. We needed to take bold and transformational action as a government. That’s why our building homes faster act puts a plan in place to make sure that we do this. And this is exactly why the government has posted on the Environmental Registry the comment period regarding these lands. We have a plan to grow the greenbelt, to add over 2,000 acres of protected land into the greenbelt, but at the same time, having that minimum 50,000 homes in the ground by 2025.

The current mayor, Mayor Kevin Ashe, in Pickering has said it better than I could, Speaker. I’ll quote him now. He said that that land was put in based on “political science,” not “real science.” That is exactly why the government has put forward a plan that will grow the greenbelt and that will add urban river valleys, which I think all members of this House will support. It will add property in the Paris-Galt moraine.

But at the end of the day, we’ll have an opportunity to build a minimum of 50,000 homes. I’m with former mayor Ryan. I’m with Mayor Ashe. I’m not going to deal with political science. We’re going to deal with real science on this side of the House.

Our government was crystal clear with Ontarians during the election that we wanted to build more homes, provide more choice, give mayors stronger powers and have a plan in place to build 1.5 million homes.

I’ve said in this House countless times that I will meet with anyone—a municipal official, a not-for-profit, Habitat for Humanity, Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services, people who build one home a year, people who build 1,000 homes a year. We need every partner non-profit in the public space, every partner in the private space if we’re going to build—

Interjections.

I appreciate the comments from my colleague the member for Humber River–Black Creek. He talked about the threat to the greenbelt that this government has initiated with the changes that it has undertaken as part of Bill 23. This red tape bill is part of a package with measures including the government’s Grow Ontario strategy, which is intended to support farmers and Ontario’s food supply. Do you feel that in light of the attack on the greenbelt, in light of the construction of Highway 413, in light of the use of MZOs to pave over farmland—do you think that this bill, these measures, will actually protect Ontario’s food supply?