Thank you to the associate minister for her response. Our entrepreneurs are a critical foundation to Ontario’s economic growth and prosperity, but, as we know, starting a business is hard work and filled with great risk.

Unfortunately, under the previous Liberal government, supported by the NDP, the dream of small business ownership was challenging and costly.

Our government is reversing the harmful and destructive policies of the past.

I know that small businesses in my own community of Oakville North–Burlington serve a vital role in the strength of our local economy.

Can the minister share with us what our government is doing to help empower women to unlock their full economic potential through entrepreneurship opportunities?

Yes, Speaker. This legislation, the Rent Control for All Tenants Act, would reverse the government’s decision to end rent control for units built after 2018 and extend rent control protections to all units.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas vulnerable road users are not specifically protected by law; and

“Whereas Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act allows drivers who seriously injure or kill a vulnerable road user to avoid meaningful consequences, facing only minimal fines; and

“Whereas the friends and families of victims are unsatisfied with the lack of consequences and the government’s responses to traffic accidents that result in death or injury to a vulnerable road user;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to direct the government of Ontario to commit to reducing the number of traffic fatalities and injuries to vulnerable road users; create meaningful consequences that ensure responsibility and accountability for drivers who share the road with pedestrians, cyclists, road construction workers, emergency responders and other vulnerable road users; allow friends and family of vulnerable road users whose death or serious injury was caused by an offending driver to have their victim impact statement heard in person, in court, by the driver responsible; and pass Bill 40, Moving Ontarians Safely Act.”

I fully support this petition and will affix my signature to it.

Can I make a point of order?

I have a petition in support of the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick days significantly reduce the spread of infectious disease, promote preventive health care and reduce health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and cannot afford to lose their pay if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas enabling workers to stay home when they are sick without losing pay helps limit the spread of illness in the workplace and allows workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas legislating paid sick days through the Employment Standards Act, with transitional financial support for struggling small businesses, will ensure that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pass Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, to provide Ontario workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency.”

I couldn’t agree more with this petition, will affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Camilla.

Supplementary?

The division bells rang from 1145 to 1150.

On November 23, 2022, Madame Gélinas moved second reading of Bill 24, An Act to amend the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 and the Independent Health Facilities Act to address unfair fees charged to patients for health care services.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise and remain standing until recognized by the Clerk.

Second reading negatived.

There being no further business this morning, this House stands in recess until 1 p.m.

The House recessed from 1154 to 1300.

Report deemed adopted.

Ms. Karpoche moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 48, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 with respect to rules relating to rent / Projet de loi 48, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur la location à usage d’habitation en ce qui concerne les règles relatives au loyer.

First reading agreed to.

I have a petition to the Ontario Legislative Assembly.

“For Meaningful Climate Action Withdraw Bill 23.

“Whereas our planet is undergoing significant warming with adverse consequences for health, for agriculture, for infrastructure and our children’s future;

“Whereas the costs of inaction are severe, such as extreme weather events causing flooding and drought;

“Whereas Canada has signed the Paris accord which commits us to acting to keep temperature e rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius;

“We, the undersigned, call upon the government of Ontario to withdraw Bill 23 and to create a new bill to meet our housing needs that is compatible with protecting the greenbelt, creating affordable housing in the current urban boundaries, and meeting our climate targets.”

I’ll just gladly sign this and submit it to the Legislature.

This petition reads as follows:

“Stay Home If You Are Sick Act.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick days significantly reduce the spread of infectious disease, promote preventive health care and reduce health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and cannot afford to lose their pay if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas enabling workers to stay home when they are sick without losing pay helps limit the spread of illness in the workplace and allows workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas legislating paid sick days through the Employment Standards Act, with transitional financial support for struggling small businesses, will ensure that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pass Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, to provide Ontario workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency.”

I am very happy to provide my support to this petition. I’m going to sign it, and then I’m going to hand it over to page Kennedy to table with the Clerk.

J’aimerais remercier Ashlee Lachapelle de Dowling dans mon comté pour ces pétitions.

« Soins de santé : pas à vendre.

« À l’Assemblée législative de l’Ontario :

« Alors que les » Ontariennes et les Ontariens « reçoivent les soins basés sur leurs besoins et non leur capacité à payer;

« Alors que le gouvernement de » M. « Ford veut privatiser notre système de soins de santé;

« Alors que la privatisation poussera les infirmières, les médecins et » autres travailleurs de la santé « hors de nos hôpitaux publics et ajoutera des coûts aux patients; »

Ils demandent à l’Assemblée législative « d’arrêter immédiatement tous les plans visant à privatiser le système de soins de santé de l’Ontario et de résoudre la crise des soins de santé en :

« —abrogeant la loi 124 pour recruter, retenir, retourner et respecter les travailleurs et travailleuses de la santé avec de meilleurs salaires et » de meilleures « conditions de travail;

« —certifiant les titres de compétences de dizaines de milliers d’infirmières et d’autres professionnels de la santé formés à l’international » qui vivent « en Ontario;

« —incitant les professionnel(le)s de la santé à choisir de vivre et travailler dans le nord de » la province.

J’appuie cette pétition. J’y affixe mon nom et je demande à Mabel de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

The ayes are 26; the nays are 70.

I would like to thank Karen Dasti, from Val Caron in my riding, for this petition.

“Repeal Bill 124.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bill 124 removes the right of public employees to negotiate fair contracts;

“Whereas Bill 124 limits the wage increase in the broader public sector to a maximum of 1% per year at a time of unprecedented inflation;

“Whereas Ontario’s public servants have dealt with two years of unheralded difficulties in performing their duties to our province;

“Whereas those affected by Bill 124 are the people who teach us, care for us, make our hospitals and health care system work and protect the most vulnerable among us;

“Whereas the current provincial government is showing disrespect to public servants to keep taxes low for some of our country’s most profitable corporations;”

They petition the Legislature as follows:

“Immediately repeal Bill 124 and show respect for the public sector workers.”

I support this petition, Speaker. I will affix my name to it and ask my good page Mabel to bring it to the Clerk.

“Gogama Nursing Station.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Gogama is an isolated northern community with many seniors and residents who need access to primary care;

“Whereas the Gogama Nursing Station provided access to quality primary care for decades but service has been inconsistent and infrequent since early 2018;

“Whereas residents in isolated northern communities in Ontario deserve equitable access to health care;”

They petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To ensure that the Gogama Nursing Station is funded, staffed and fully functioning to deliver quality primary care consistently.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask my good page Kennedy to bring it to the Clerk.

That concludes the time we have available for petitions, but before I can ask for orders of the day, the member for Scarborough Southwest has a point of order.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 24, 2022, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 23, An Act to amend various statutes, to revoke various regulations and to enact the Supporting Growth and Housing in York and Durham Regions Act, 2022 / Projet de loi 23, Loi modifiant diverses lois, abrogeant divers règlements et édictant la Loi de 2022 visant à soutenir la croissance et la construction de logements dans les régions de York et de Durham.

I have a petition here to double ODSP and OW rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas CTV recently reported that at least two Ontarians with disabilities are choosing to die through medical assistance in dying (MAID) because they could not pay for housing that would reduce their suffering from their disability;

“Whereas London, Ontario, ICU physician Dr. Scott Anderson reports seeing more patients asking for MAID because they cannot afford the services they need to accommodate their disabilities;

“Whereas the Center for Justice and Social Compassion estimates that almost half of the 12,000 people in Ontario who are homeless have a disability or mental illness and 216 people experiencing homelessness died on the streets and shelters of Toronto in 2021, more than double the rate since the Conservative government took office in 2018;

“Whereas the Premier and the Conservative government have promised to raise Ontario Disability Support Program ... rates by 5%, to $1,225, of which $520 is for shelter and $705 is for food, clothing, transportation, medicine and other necessities;

“Whereas current monthly ODSP payments are 47.5% short of the municipal poverty line in Ontario and 30% below the province’s poverty line;

“Whereas it is not possible to survive on these amounts in Ontario and therefore, Ontario Works (OW) and ODSP rates kill because they do not provide Ontarians with enough income to live;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to take action on the ODSP and OW crisis by doubling OW and ODSP rates immediately so that Ontarians with disabilities have enough income to survive.”

Speaker, I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature to it and give it to page Kalila.

This petition is entitled “Ontario Dementia Strategy,” and it reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas it currently takes on average 18 months for people in Ontario to get an official dementia diagnosis, with some patients often waiting years to complete diagnostic testing;

“Whereas more than half of patients suspected of having dementia in Ontario never get a full diagnosis; research confirms that early diagnosis saves lives and reduces care partner stress;

“Whereas a PET scan test approved in Ontario in 2017 which can be key to detecting Alzheimer’s early, is still not covered under OHIP in 2022;

“Whereas the Ontario government must work together with the federal government to prepare for the approval and rollout of future disease-modifying therapies and research;

“Whereas the Alzheimer Society projects that one million Canadians will be caregivers for people with dementia, with families providing approximately 1.4 billion hours of care per year by 2050;

“Whereas research findings show that Ontario will spend $27.8 billion between 2023 and 2043 on alternate-level-of-care (ALC) and long-term-care (LTC) costs associated with people living with dementia;

“Whereas the government must follow through with its commitment to ensure Ontario’s health care system has the capacity to meet the current and future needs of people living with dementia and their care partners;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, call on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to develop, commit and fund a comprehensive Ontario dementia strategy.”

I fully support this petition and will affix my signature to it.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick days significantly reduce the spread of infectious disease, promote preventive health care and reduce health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and cannot afford to lose their pay if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas enabling workers to stay home when they are sick without losing pay helps limit the spread of illness in the workplace and allows workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas legislating paid sick days through the Employment Standards Act, with transitional financial support for struggling small businesses, will ensure that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pass Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, to provide Ontario workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency.”

I fully support this important piece of legislation and will affix my signature to it.

I have a petition entitled “Stop Ford’s Health Care Privatization Plan.” It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of their wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified...;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition, affix my signature and send it to the table with page Grace.

Thank you very much, Speaker. I’ve been here, I think, 11-and-some years, and it’s still always an honour to be able to stand here, today to talk about Bill 23, a bill that the government is putting forward as one of their solutions to our housing crisis.

I think we all agree that we need more housing in Ontario. I started my presentation before question period on that. I’ve listened to this debate intently throughout, both in the House and in the public realm, and have contributed to it through question period, specifically on the protection of farmland and how it relates to housing, and it’s a big issue.

It was stated in the Legislature by the Minister of Agriculture that the number one issue is labour, and I don’t disagree that it is an incredibly significant issue, but agriculture is like everything else in the province: You can’t look at one issue and not look at the rest. So you need to look at labour. Processors need more labour; farmers need more. You need to look at labour, but you need to look at all the other issues too, because if you’re successful building up your labour force and then you run out of something else, well, your work is for naught. No farm runs like that. No business runs like that. I don’t understand how a government can run like that, saying, “We’re going to focus on one issue and none other at all.”

Although she didn’t say it, it has been—no, I’m going to reword that. For some reason, and I hope people respond to me today on this, the government has been leery even to mention the loss of farmland. And that farmers aren’t concerned with the loss of farmland—I would also like to dispute that. I’d like to read a bit of the presentation of the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Ontario’s largest farm organization. She did get to speak at the committee hearings for Bill 23; others were denied, but she did get to speak.

This is from Peggy Brekveld, and before I continue, I’d like to congratulate Peggy Brekveld on her re-election as president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. She has been pushing land use and farmland preservation for quite a while, so the fact that she was re-elected speaks to how important that is to farmers. I would like to quote from her presentation:

“There is only one landscape. And everything has to fit, but those basics—food, water and shelter—remain the same as they were a hundred years ago. They are the cornerstones of life.

“What has changed is the actual landscape itself. We have lost farmland by sprawling cities with little regard for where. It likely looks like there is farmland everywhere, it shouldn’t matter. But it does. Farmland is a finite resource.

“When something is rare, we treat it as precious, like a gem or diamond. Agricultural land makes up less than 5% of our province. But we don’t hold it as precious.”

I would agree with the remarks of the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture: It doesn’t seem that we hold it as precious.

The member for Brantford–Brant asked a question in questions and answers, and it got me thinking, because I didn’t know the answer. He asked it to another one of our members. But that’s the role of this place: to debate, to put out your ideas and have people challenge them, so you can actually make things better. That’s actually the role of this place. It gets partisan, but that’s actually the role.

There’s 319 acres—point six—but 319 acres a day that we lose of farmland paved over forever—every day. Now, the member for Brantford–Brant asked, “How much of that land that we’re losing is slated for development already?” That’s a good question. I commend him for that question. I couldn’t find the answer, but I did find another answer. And it leads me to another question that I pose to the government.

There are 88,000 acres in Ontario right now that are slated for development—88,000 acres—yet that doesn’t seem to be enough. The government’s own housing task force identified that there was enough land. Some of that is agricultural land—I’m fully aware of that—but it has already been zoned for other development, so it’s not what’s holding the building of housing back. The housing task force said it. I challenge the government to prove or to show that the 88,000 acres that’s already slated for development in the province of Ontario isn’t enough, that the solution is actually pushing farther out—pushing the boundaries farther out—to eat up more agricultural land or more conservation land. I don’t think they have the answer to that. I’d love to see the answer.

It might not be enough to build housing where others want it built, where there’s more profit for it to be built; that, I don’t know. But I challenge that 88,000 acres isn’t enough to take a good chunk out of—between infilling, which is significant—there are some things in this bill that work, that should be more aggressive. There are good and bad things in every bill. In some, the bad very much outweighs the good.

For the members who haven’t been here for a long time, usually you put a bill forward or the government puts a bill forward, you actually have a committee process, a few amendments are accepted and actually that makes the legislation stronger. It lasts longer, and it benefits the people of Ontario much more. When you don’t do things like that—the members here who were just elected, you have the distinction of being the first government to stand and vote and clap for a bill that used the “notwithstanding” clause, and then have to rescind the very same bill within two weeks. That is a number one; you are number one. And I question how many of you actually signed up for that. Because the way the Legislature is supposed to work—those things don’t happen when the Legislature is working correctly.

With these bills, it’s the same thing. So my question to the government is, 88,000 acres isn’t enough? Show us why you need more than the 88,000 acres that are zoned for development right now. Find out why that land isn’t being used now, as opposed to grabbing more land.

Another question, I think, that needs to be asked: development charges. No one wants to pay development charges. No one wants to pay taxes. That’s not a new phenomenon. The question is, development charges pay for services, pay for infrastructure, that aren’t directly attached, or are in some ways directly attached, to the residence: water, sewer—all of those things, all things you need. So, if the development charges aren’t going to be paid by the people building the house, who is going to pay?

Many of you also come from a municipal background, as do I. We had an asset management plan. You have to keep your current infrastructure in good repair—or you try to—and it’s always hard. Specifically in rural Ontario, we know, it’s always hard. I am assuming in urban Ontario it’s equally hard, but I don’t have as much personal experience. But I do in rural.

If the new development isn’t going to pay for its own services or isn’t going to pay its share to increase the services that are needed to service it, who is going to pay? The government’s response, from what I’ve heard so far is, “We’ll just eat up reserves.” That’s the answer.

I question the business validity of that argument, because when I was a councillor we needed to keep reserves. You needed to keep reserves to be stable. You had to be able to weather something that hit you; otherwise you’d have to run to another level of government and beg for forgiveness—and I know this because I have done this for some other municipalities—for not taking that into account. When something happened you needed your hand out because you didn’t account for having to have reserves. Now the government is saying, “Use your reserves. Use your reserves.”

If some municipalities are building up way too high a level of reserves, that isn’t across the province. That is not across the province. I believe the number you quoted—$9 billion—isn’t across the province. And if that was so easy, then why is the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, who are usually very supportive of the Conservative government—usually incredibly supportive—why are they raising the warning flags and saying, “Wait a second”? There is going to be a billion dollars, in their calculations, transferred from new development costs to existing taxpayers. They didn’t say it was going to disappear. It’s not going to disappear; somebody’s going to pay for it. That is a question.

I know everyone is trying to put their bill—the government, certainly, and I think every government will do that—in the best light possible. You are demonizing development charges. If we can find a way to lower them and make them realistic—but to just say that they serve no purpose and basically we can just rip it out of reserves, you are simplifying it to the extreme and, once again, to the detriment of the future. You are.

You need to look at those issues. You really do. The land, you need to look at. You need to look at the development charges.

I heard this morning, and I read it as well, about no development charges on affordable housing. I’m not going to complain about that because there is a difference between someone who can afford to pay $1 million for a house and someone who can’t afford to pay $150,000 or $200,000. There is a difference. We need to recognize that. I’m not disputing that. But these blanket statements that housing trumps all, that housing trumps wetlands, that housing trumps—I think the insurance industry is going to have a say about this too. When we start without any regard and we just plunk, plunk, plunk houses wherever, and then all of a sudden we start getting more floods, more floods and—pardon me, Speaker, I’m going the wrong way. The insurance industry is already warning, because their costs are going up considerably. They want more houses too, but they want more houses built as safely as possible in as safe areas as possible. I want my insurance company to be stable so if I do have a catastrophe, I can afford to pay it and they can afford to actually reimburse me if something happens. When someone does buy a new house, I hope that they can have faith that their basement won’t flood, that planning has been done, and I don’t see that in this bill. I don’t.

I’m putting that forward—hopefully you can enlighten me and grill me. That’s what this place is for. It’s really not for quick talking points and calling each other names. I try not to do that, including to the Minister of Labour. Thank you for your time listening to me today.

When we last debated this bill, the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane had the floor. He still has some time, if he chooses to do so. I recognize the member for Timiskaming–Cochrane.

I think I heard three questions in there. When you take 7,000 acres out and you pave it over, and you make the greenbelt 9,200 acres bigger, you still lose 7,000 acres of farmland. You still have a net loss of 7,000 acres. Regardless of how much bigger you make the greenbelt, you’ve got a net loss of 7,000 acres of farmland.

Why we all live on farmland is because cities were once villages and villages grew up around farms. There’s no denying that. But just because we did that before, doesn’t mean that you can’t learn and try to do things better in the future. That’s what we’re doing right now, or what you’re trying to do. We disagree with some of the things you are doing, but I don’t disagree you’re trying to do things better.

What reserves are—reserves are a buffer. In our township, when we had a huge road collapse, we didn’t have to run to the bank, run to the government and beg, we could fix the road because—

Questions?

Thank you to my friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane for his speech. He’s our agriculture critic, so I want to ask him: I find it incredible that at a time when we just went through COVID and we learned all of the lessons about supply chains and food security—and we have inflation largely because of those issues—that the government would take the situation where we’re losing 319 acres a day of prime farmland and actually speed that process up by taking land out of the greenbelt and using up farmland.

What does that say for the future, whether you’re a newcomer or you’re a young person today, that we’re going to lose all that farmland? What happens if we no longer have food security?