It’s always an honour to be able to stand in this House—and, today, take part in the debate on Bill 23, a highly contentious piece of legislation. But I think there’s one thing that we all agree on in the Legislature and provincially: that there is a need for more housing.

I appreciate some of the speakers from this morning who actually brought up relevant points about how they want to portray this legislation.

Our job in the opposition is to bring up potential problems that the government needs to recognize, rectify and, hopefully, on some of these things, put the brakes on.

I just listened to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London talk about his confidence in the farming sector. I share that confidence. Where we perhaps differ, and where many farmers in this province differ—including the Ontario Federation of Agriculture—is, we put a value on every acre of farmland, because in the future we’re going to need northern Ontario.

I’ve farmed in northern Ontario my whole life. The member knows that; I bought feed from his company. When I started buying feed, we were a net importer of grain in Timiskaming, and now we’re a massive exporter. But saying that we’re going to replace the best land in the province with land in northern Ontario and that we can waste the best land in the province by paving it over for houses—I reject that; it’s not an either/or. We need to build houses, but we can’t ignore every other issue in this province to do it. We have to balance. I reject categorically the government’s line that we can only, right now, look at housing—and look away from everything else.

I want everyone in this province and the newcomers to have shelter, to have a home they can be proud of. I also want them to have a home where they don’t have to worry about the basement flooding because we ignored wetland rules, or where their sewer backs up because there was a lack of money to install new sewer systems when they built these developments, because not every municipality is sitting on huge reserves.

I was a councillor for a long time in a small municipality. The reserves are there for a reason. If you have a calamity, you need to fix it. If you’re going to drain all the reserves, because you are not putting the money in when you put in a new development to build the sewer systems, to build the underground infrastructure, to build where the schools have got to go, to do all those things, and if you’re going to put that all on the back of the current taxpayer—there’s a reason why the Association of Municipalities Ontario are quite upset about Bill 23. You’re just transferring the cost from one group to another, instead of looking, overall, at what the issues are so that we can proceed for everyone—

The greenbelt was created in 2005 to prevent further loss of farmland and natural heritage, to restrict urban sprawl, and to develop vibrant communities where people can live, work and play. It cleans our air and water, reduces our flood risks, and provides a home for wildlife. And 4,782 farms are protected by the greenbelt, with 68% more revenue earned by greenbelt farms than the average Ontario farm.

Last week, I heard from Peggy Brekveld, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, about Bill 23. She stated: “319 acres” of farmland “are being lost each day. That is 75 million carrots, 25 million apples and 1.2 million bottles of VQA wine”—for those of you who care—“per year. That’s why this matters to every single one of us around this table.”

Maybe you remember the jingle, “Good things grow in Ontario”—not without our precious farmland and greenbelt, they won’t.

Ontario is supposed to be open for business, but it’s time we ask, “Whose business?” Certainly, not Ontario farmers, once this government has its way with the land.

When the trees are logged and the farmland is paved, what will you eat? Where does this end? I thought our province’s abundance of farmland producing fresh food and products for us to enjoy and export around the world was something we were proud of. Once it’s gone, it’s gone; we won’t be able to pass a bill to develop more farmland on top of cement.

PS: Developers need to eat too.

I want to take the time this morning to recognize the tremendous contributions the Brenn family has been making to Ontario’s agriculture industry.

Brenn-B Farms has been growing crops and raising livestock on their 2,000 acres in Flamborough for four generations. Brenn-B Farms dates back to 1915, when the property was purchased by Thomas Brenn. Thomas’s great-grandsons Chris and Shawn are now running the business.

This past September, the brothers took the Premier, Minister Thompson and myself on a tour of their farm. At the time, they were harvesting potatoes. They have a reputation for growing high-quality potatoes. Brenn-B harvests about 28 million pounds of potatoes each and every year.

They are a leader in food safety and traceability. With the help of OMAFRA, they have invested in technology that can monitor their products for quality and safety, from planting to retail distribution. They sell to every major grocer, right across Canada. Brenn-B has always kept up with the changing technology. They have received recognition for being progressive farmers of the future.

I want to congratulate Brenn-B Farms for continuing their tradition of producing high-quality crops. They have been feeding people across Ontario and beyond for over a century.

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.