Speaker, through you to the member: I know that our government has committed to putting out one piece of housing legislation per year. Here we’ve seen a major policy change and two pieces of housing legislation coming forward. I was wondering if the member could expand further—and even just last year we had a record number of housing starts, I think, in almost 40 years, with 100,000 homes built—on how important it is to be able to get to our target of getting a million and a half homes. What does that mean with the immigration targets that have been set with the federal government, meaning that the population of Ontario is going to be growing by at least 350,000 people per year for the foreseeable future? How important is it that we just get those housing starts going, and how adaptable do we have to be in order to make that happen?

My question is to the member from Barrie–Innisfil about housing in a way that—I experienced this in my riding from constituents. I have a couple who are 90 years old and 80 years old, and they have a daughter who is 50 years old with developmental disabilities. And now the parents are in long-term-care homes. So their daughter, who is 50 years old and has developmental disabilities needs housing, and she needs supportive housing.

Where do the bills for stronger mayors, building homes faster, increasing municipal powers—where is that housing for people, for adult children who need those supports when their parents can’t look after them anymore?

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 17, 2022, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 39, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 and to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act, 2022 / Projet de loi 39, Loi visant à modifier la Loi de 2006 sur la cité de Toronto et la Loi de 2001 sur les municipalités et à édicter la Loi de 2022 abrogeant la Loi sur la Réserve agricole de Duffins-Rouge.

Interjection.

Thank you to the member for that question. I also don’t understand why the opposition is opposed to building more houses, to get more attainable housing online. There’s not an event or a time that goes by in the riding that I humbly represent where housing as an issue doesn’t come up, whether it’s someone who says, “I’m worried about my kids not being able to find a home,” or someone in their family who has been saving up.

This government, from day one, has become innovative in terms of how we build housing. Just recently I had Minister Clark in the riding of Barrie-Innisfil, where we announced a modular build, which is a really exciting way to get some affordable houses built and get online quite quickly. But we learned these models from other jurisdictions, so if other jurisdictions are doing things well, why not use evidence-based policy in order to improve the way we build here in Ontario and how we, of course, support the governance of the municipalities?

We’re using every tool we possibly can in order to, again, bring about attainable housing, including things like garden suites and secondary units. We need to continue to build on that progress, and that’s exactly what we’re doing in this bill.

Speaker, what we’re doing today is taking that fine-balance approach, allowing for more attainable housing to be built, but also doing it in a very wise way to still enjoy the amenities that we do and, of course, all of the lovely parks that we enjoy every day.

Since 2018, every housing bill we’ve introduced has been very fine-tuned on the issue of what do we do to ensure that people have attainable housing. I talked to a lady—her name is Cindy—in Innisfil, and she’s very excited about our transit-oriented community development in Innisfil because she knows that that has the potential to create all kinds of attainable housing.

My question is to the member for Barrie–Innisfil. The province’s own Housing Affordability Task Force, since we’re talking about evidence-based decision-making, said that access to land is not an issue. It’s not the reason why we have a housing supply shortage.

Why is this government choosing to open up the greenbelt when, before the election, you made a commitment to not open up the greenbelt, given that land is not an issue when it comes to dealing with the housing supply crisis?

I’m happy to be able to rise this morning and speak to the importance of building housing across the good province of Ontario. We know that we have such a challenge. We’ve heard time and time again the concerns that we have across this province, this country, in seeking out and finding attainable housing. It is something that is so important, very near and dear, and something that I trust that the members opposite recognize the importance of—attainable housing—but, more importantly than anything, it’s about actually doing something to accomplish that goal.

We’re moving forward in that fashion, and I’m wondering, to the member opposite, if they could please help us understand what they have against us working towards building more attainable housing in the province of Ontario.

The next question.

We’re going to move to further debate.

I’m proud to stand today to speak on Bill 39, because the bill is so important. What I’m not proud about is seeing this government introduce a bill that is a real threat to democratic norms and a bill that will double down on suburban sprawl in areas that we should protect.

I want to explain the bill to you. Bill 39 consolidates power in the hands of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, at the expense of everybody else. The bill consolidates the democratic power in the hands of the mayor of the city of Toronto, at the expense of the 2.9 million citizens in Toronto and the city councillors that were elected to represent them. The bill has very little to do with solving the housing affordability crisis and helping people get a home that is affordable. There is no evidence that I have seen from this government that Bill 39—or its twin bill, Bill 23—is going to lower housing prices to make homes affordable again or lower rent prices to make homes affordable for lower-income, moderate-income and middle-income people. What this bill is about is bulldozing the province to help the Premier’s wealthy developer friends. That’s what this bill is about. It is an affront to democracy.

I want to go through the three schedules in the bill. It’s a small bill, unlike Bill 23, which was a very big bill. I wonder if you’re going to take this bill to committee, I really do, so that city councillors, citizens, can speak about the consequences of this bill in this region. I wonder if you’re going to take it to committee. I hope you do.

This bill has three schedules. Schedule one, the City of Toronto Act: What this bill does is, it says that the mayor of the city of Toronto can get a bylaw passed with just a third of the members of city council. That is a slap in the face of representative democracy and majority rule—50 plus 1. Now the mayor can get a bylaw passed with just eight councillors. That’s really astonishing. It is truly astonishing.

I am also really disappointed, and that’s a polite word, to hear that Mayor Tory asked for these powers. That is a real shame. Because he didn’t say anything about asking for those powers when he was running for office, nor did this government say that they were once again going to meddle in municipal elections and local democratic decision-making when this government was running for government in June 2022. So it is, quite frankly, shocking to see this.

The second schedule that is in this bill is the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act. What this schedule does is, it eliminates more of the protections that exist in this area, the Duffins-Rouge area, in order to make it much easier for some of this government’s wealthiest donors, developers, to build on this land, even though, for the last 50 years, governments of all political stripes, from Bill Davis to Mike Harris to Dalton McGuinty, understood the value of protecting the greenbelt and protecting our farmland.

This land on the greenbelt is cheaper than land that can be used for development, because it has easements on it to ensure that it is protected as farmland. These developers, including some of the Ontario provincial government’s—the PC Party’s—wealthy developer friends, bought this land cheap over the years, and now they’ve finally got their own way and they get to develop it and make a huge amount of money. That’s what the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act is really all about.

Then, schedule 3, and this is also very concerning, allows the Premier to hand-pick regional council chairs. That is very concerning because the regional council chairs are democratically elected by city councillors within that region. So we’ve just gone through an election. These city councillors—some of them are new to office. Some are just getting inaugurated, they’re getting a tour of offices, they’re learning the ropes, they’re finding out the rules, they’re hiring their staff, and then all of a sudden this provincial government bill comes through and says, “Actually, there’s one thing you aren’t going to be able to do anymore: You’re not going to be able to elect your regional council chair, because we have decided that the Premier gets to hand-pick the regional council chair,” and that’s exactly what you’re going to do. I really hope you take this to committee so that we can hear from regional municipal councillors and get their perspective on the drastic change you have done.

I heard the member for Barrie–Innisfil mention that there has been some consultation with AMO. When I communicate with AMO, I’m not hearing that there has been a ton of consultation on this; they were very surprised about Bill 23. My guess is that they’re very surprised about Bill 39. The letter that they wrote to us about Bill 23 used language that I have never seen a very moderate institution like AMO—I’ve never seen them use this language before. They use the word “radical” because they’re so concerned about what this government is doing with land use planning in southern Ontario, in rapid-fire succession, without consultation, without considering the consequences on municipal budgets, without considering the consequences on democracy, without considering the consequences on meeting our climate change goals.

Interjection: It’s messed up.

What I find so frustrating—I want to go back to the City of Toronto Act and the decision to pass what I would call an undemocratic strong-mayors bill on steroids—is that this government, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t even outlined the provincial priorities that will allow the mayor to pass a bylaw through on eight city council votes. The mayor has this power to use minority rule to get a bylaw passed, and they can only do it on provincial priorities that are identified by this provincial government. But this government, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t yet identified what those provincial priorities are. I guess it will be in regulation. You will sit down; you will decide what they are. But we don’t even know what those provincial priorities are. We can guess. I’m sure it will be broad-sweeping to give the mayor a huge amount of latitude on housing, transit, development, development charges. I’m sure it will be sweeping. But I believe those kinds of decisions should be made also by the people of Toronto and the city councillors we elected to represent us.

I was in committee—Bill 23—last night, and then immediately after I went to a residents’ association AGM with my colleague MPP Wong-Tam. What struck us is how all these decisions that city councillors make on behalf of the residents of the city of Toronto are now going to be made by MPPs elsewhere—MPPs who represent other regions of the province: rural regions, Ottawa, Barrie. Now the provincial government gets to decide how much parkland we have in downtown Toronto, where 80% of people live in an apartment in my riding. Now this government gets to decide development fee charges, gets to drastically cut them, which determines the quality of the transit service that a Torontonian has when they get up in the morning and go to work. Honestly, it is disturbing.

What I also find very difficult to fathom with Bill 39 and Bill 23 is this idea that we’re doing this in order to solve our housing affordability crisis and our housing supply crisis. They are two different things. This government loves to talk about the housing supply shortage that we have. It is very real. It was real even before the federal government upped our immigration targets, which is absolutely necessary. But there’s also a housing affordability crisis, which this government—I can’t even hear—sometimes you say the word “attainable.” But the idea of talking about affordability—this government has a real difficulty in actually saying the word. That’s what I find so hard to fathom.

And what I see Bill 39—and Bill 23—do is that I see it doubling down on suburban sprawl, which is incredibly unsustainable. It will build the kinds of homes that are, on average, about 3,000 square-foot, cost easily over $1 million—which makes them unaffordable for the vast majority of people—and they lock us into unsustainable, soul-destroying commutes and unsustainable transportation patterns.

They also cost municipalities an obscene amount of money to service. When you compare it to increasing the amount of housing that we need in existing neighbourhoods, in the neighbourhoods people want to live in, it’s much cheaper for municipalities to service those areas. It also builds the kind of sustainable, greener, more livable regions and cities that we need in order to move through this climate crisis and adapt to it and respond to it. But instead, this government is doubling down on suburban sprawl. Schedule 2, in particular—and also schedule 3—makes it easier for them to do it. I have so many concerns about that.

I recall Peggy Brekveld from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. She came into committee to express her Concern about the consequences of suburban sprawl and the consequences that this government is moving forward on to take land away from farmland and pave over it. She mentioned that there are 320 acres a day of farmland that’s currently lost in Ontario each day.

We are very lucky. We have some of the best growing area, some of the best growing land in the world. We are one of those unique areas that can produce enough food to sustain Ontario, and then we can export it. But instead, we’re looking at paving over this, and that’s exactly what Bill 39 and Bill 23 are looking at doing, and I think that’s a shame.

If this government was truly interested in tackling the housing affordability crisis, I would recommend that this government actually look at the Housing Affordability Task Force recommendations that you asked a task force to develop. One of the key recommendations they made is that land is not the reason why we have a housing supply shortage. They were very clear about it. They were also very clear—they never mentioned the idea of getting rid of conservation authorities, which is a huge problem, because you are. And they never talked about paving over the greenbelt, which is exactly what, in schedule 2 in Bill 39, they’re going to do.

I find that deeply concerning, especially when I read reports like what’s here—this is a report from the CBC, which did a deep dive into who actually owns the land in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve area, the DeGasperis family: how many acres they own, what they bought it for; very concerning. And then I hear reports that the nine top developers who stand to benefit the most from opening up the greenbelt gave over $500,000 to the PC Party. That really smells very fishy. It smells very dodgy. I commend the reporters that are looking into this, and I hope the Auditor General looks into this, because it just doesn’t add up. It really doesn’t add up.

I hope some of your own members are looking into this too, because I’m sure you’re hearing about it. I read the news; I see the protests. Hundreds of people are going to your offices. That’s very surprising; I don’t often see that. They’re concerned about the greenbelt. They want to protect it too. They thought this government was going to protect it, because you said you were going to do it during the last election. And now, all of a sudden, you’re introducing bills like Bill 39 and you’re doing the exact opposite thing. That’s very concerning.

I’m going to conclude by talking a little bit about what I want this government to do to address the housing affordability crisis that they talk so much about. If this government was truly interested in helping people find a home that was affordable—that they could afford to buy, that they could afford to rent—then they would have a comprehensive housing program. They would develop a comprehensive housing program that dealt with numerous things. Yes, we need to build more homes, but we shouldn’t be building homes on farmland and greenbelt. These should be homes that the member for Barrie–Innisfil mentioned: those missing-middle homes, those townhomes, those duplexes, those triplexes in existing neighbourhoods. Bill 23 goes some way in that direction, and there could be more that could be done. We should be increasing density near transit stations. There are measures in Bill 23 that do that; I support them. But that’s the kind of sustainable housing and sustainable planning patterns that we should be moving forward on.

It is also absolutely critical that this government acknowledge that we are not going to be able to build the homes that meet the needs of Ontarians if we don’t acknowledge that it will require government investment as well. There are low-income, moderate-income, middle-income people who are not going to be served by the private housing market. Many of them are not, because they just don’t earn enough money, which means that we need government investment in programs to ensure we build the housing that is actually for Ontarians; not just for investors, but for Ontarians, so they’re paying off their own mortgage and not someone else’s. That’s what we need.

I see models that we can replicate here. I see what BC is doing, where they’re moving forward with much greater government investment in public housing. I look at what the city of Toronto is doing with their Housing Now program: They have a plan to build 10,000 homes. They broke ground this week. They’re building that on public land near transit stations—a third private market rentals, a third condos and a third affordable—to tackle the housing crisis. It’s so sensible.

What’s amazing is that the Ontario government could do this, too. We have over 6,000 properties that have been identified as being suitable for land—public land. Why don’t we use that land? We could double down on that and build the kind of housing that we need. But I don’t see this government doing that, and they should. They’re selling off public land. They’re giving it to developers. There’s no affordable housing requirements in any of the developments that you’re approving. The Mimico station: no affordable housing requirements. The foundry: no affordable housing requirements. That’s a shame, because that land should be used for affordable housing as well.

What we are also calling for is an acknowledgement that renters need protection too. What this government is choosing to do is eliminate rent controls and renter protections so that renters have to work even harder just to keep a roof over their head and have to make tough choices around whether they can pay for food, whether they can pay for transit in order to cover rent—the escalating rent. This government is reducing the controls that they have, the renter protections that they have, which I really do find a shame, because we should be going in the other direction and strengthening renter protections so people who rent can pay affordable rent, so they have money left over at the end of the month that they can save up for a down payment and buy their own home. That’s what many people want to do. But if they’re paying $3,000 a month for rent, they’re never going to do that. This government—I hope you acknowledge that, because you talk a lot about attainability. Nothing is attainable if you’re spending $3,000 a month on rent—nothing. You’re just running to stand still. That’s it.

Then what I find so concerning about Bill 39 and Bill 23 is that there is just nothing to deal with people and help people who are just struggling to get by: people who are sleeping on couches, people who are living in encampments. Encampments are once again returning to my riding, to Toronto Centre, to Spadina–Fort York, to many urban centres. They’ve got nowhere to go. The housing market is—there’s just no place for them. They’re sleeping on the streets. There’s nothing in here to address that. Instead, what I see in the fall economic statement is cuts—cuts to supportive housing programs that municipalities use. And then I see, in Bill 23, cuts to the amount of development fees that go to supportive housing programs. There’s nothing.

I really urge you to rethink this. We can have homes that meet the needs of Ontarians and respect democracy at the same time. We can have homes that meet the needs of Ontarians and protect the greenbelt, protect the environment and have a healthy, thriving farming sector. You’re heading in the opposite direction. I urge you to rethink it. There are better ways to go.

I just want to ask the member: Right now, our new city council in London is going to be meeting at noon today to add to the growing list of names of the critics of this government’s Bill 23, building homes faster. The new mayor has called a meeting today, of course, because he says he’s worried about the proposed reduction in development charges which are applied to new builds for paying for the city’s infrastructure. The member alluded to that a minute ago. Can she expand on how other municipalities are coming out as critics against this bill because of the lack of planning and foresight when it comes to what cities face today?

I’m happy to say that, across our province, our communities are growing. Ontario’s population surpassed 15 million for the first time ever this year and is projected to grow by another two million in the next decade. We have heard that one third of Ontario’s growth over the next decade is expected to happen in Toronto and Ottawa. We know that we need to plan for this growth.

Speaker, my question is, does the member opposite not agree that we need to provide the municipalities with the tools they need to plan for growth?

It’s apparent that this government has a deep fear of democracy because, with every bill that has come before this House, the government has attempted to undermine core democratic processes, shifting power and resources away from ordinary working people and their elected representatives to those with deep connections to the Conservative Party.

I have a question though, because in Thunder Bay we have two shovel-ready not-for-profit projects. My question is: Is there anything in either of these bills that would provide the necessary financial support so that these projects could go ahead? Because they could be building in April, and the province is missing in action.

We’ll move to questions and answers.

Back to the member to respond to the question.

Thank you to the member opposite. The Ontario NDP understands that we have a housing supply shortage. We made a commitment in the last election, like all parties, that we need to build 1.5 million homes to meet the need. We get it. But what we also understand is that we don’t need to sacrifice democracy, the environment, municipal budgets and farmland in order to achieve the housing supply targets that we have.

What I find concerning when we’re talking about municipalities and growth is that this government, with Bill 23, has made a decision to slash the amount of funding municipalities have to provide the infrastructure that is necessary for current Ontarians and future Ontarians who are coming here.

In the case of the city of Toronto, we’re looking at losing $230 million in funding that is meant to go to capital expenses to pay for the Yonge line subway expansion so that we can deal with the increase of people coming down on the Yonge North line, for the Ontario Line, for more daycares, for more schools. There are schools in my riding that are full, where there are signs in nearby condo developments saying, “Look, if you move into this apartment, we can’t guarantee that you’re going to have a school nearby because it’s full.”

So when we’re talking about growth, we need to talk about the infrastructure that’s needed for that growth as well and municipalities—

Development fees are used to partially subsidize—just partially—the costs of providing infrastructure to new and current Ontarians who are coming in. We’re talking schools, sewerage, transit. So when municipalities don’t have that money to provide those services, then they’re either going to bring in service cuts or they’re going to bring in big tax hikes. That’s a solution, and neither—

But what I also know is that the Housing Affordability Task Force has been very clear that access to land is not a reason why we have a housing supply shortage. I also know that there are many municipalities that are making the decision to keep growth within their existing boundary, which is kind of what you’re getting at, instead of being forced—in the case of some municipalities—to expand their boundary and be required to have development in areas that are currently farmland or green space.

I’m very much in support of keeping the boundaries where they are and using examples of Halton and Hamilton, where they’ve decided to meet their job growth and population goals by increasing density within their boundaries. Thanks for allowing me to raise that.

There is nothing in Bill 23 or Bill 39 that allocates funding to go for supportive housing and affordable housing projects, which are critical in all of our ridings; they’re absolutely necessary.

In fact, Bill 23 has cut the amount that development fees can be used for all buildings, for all units, not just affordable ones. They have cut the fee that should go to supportive housing programs, just like the one that you’re talking about.

When we look at the investigation that the Financial Accountability Officer does into the government’s books each year, we also see that over time there has been a cut in the amount of funding this government has allocated to affordable housing and supportive housing overall. And that’s a shame, because it means people in your riding and my riding suffer.

Point of order.

I always enjoy engaging with the member from University–Rosedale. Her comments are always thoughtful, and I know that we have the same goals at heart. I appreciate hearing from her today that the opposition also wants to build 1.5 million homes; I think that’s an excellent point that we can work off of together.

I’m just curious: A question that I’ve had when I have conversations with farming advocates is that number of the 300 acres that is going into development every day. When I ask those people—and I haven’t been able to find that statistic yet. I’m hoping you may have it. You may not, which is fair. But I’m just curious: How many of the 300 acres that are being converted to development every day in the province of Ontario are not already in a locally approved official plan for development?

For example, in my community, we have large settlement areas that have been designated for 20 years. As that land is converted, I don’t know if that’s exactly a tragedy that that’s going from farmland when it’s already been decided and in official plans and everything else for that long.

I’m just wondering, because I haven’t been able to find that statistic, if you might have that statistic about how much of that 300 acres is just raw farmland? Because my feeling is, based on the planning principles that we have in place in the province of Ontario, that number is probably zero, but I’m wondering if you have any insight on that.

I rise today to speak to the second reading of Bill 39. Speaker, I just don’t even know where to begin with this bill, other than to state the obvious: This is an outrageous attack on democratic principles, the principle of majority rule. Where is it in any democracy, anywhere in the world, that we say a minority of elected officials get to make the decision?

You think about this: Imagine if Prime Minister Trudeau got up today and said in Parliament, “Moving forward, from now on, one third plus one of parliamentarians get to decide yea for legislation.” People would be outraged, and rightfully so. As a matter of fact, it would be unconstitutional for the Prime Minister to do that. But here we are in the Ontario Legislature today, debating a bill that brings in minority rule in the nation’s and the provincial capital. As one journalist, who is an expert on housing, has said, “It’s nuts.” Yes, it is. Literally democracy—we are literally debating the centuries-old democratic principle of majority rule within an elected body today. Think about that.

And you know what, Speaker? It’s not even needed. The government’s own hand-picked housing task force never once—never once—said we need strong mayors, let alone minority rule to address the housing crisis. As a matter of fact, not once—actually, explicitly, the task force said, “We don’t need to open the greenbelt for development.” But here we are, in schedule 2 of this bill, opening the Duffins—

Thank you, Speaker. Please continue. The member is very passionate.

We’re in trouble.

Thank you very much, Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to Bill 39, the Better Municipal Governance Act.

I would think everybody in this Legislature would very quickly agree that Ontario is the best place in the world to call home. I know that everybody in my community—that, I think, we can all agree on. Unfortunately, there are a couple of issues. Fast-pacing demand and a lack of supply: Those are the two things I’m going to talk about today. That is what has driven house prices out of reach for many families in Ontario. Again, it’s fast-increasing demand, which I want to talk about for a moment, and then lack of supply, which I’ll also address.

Think about the fast-increasing demand. What has happened in Ontario in the last five years? What has changed in Ontario that has caused this demand? We need to go back a few years ago to 2017, 2018, when the previous Liberal government gave up on manufacturing in Ontario. They just gave up.

I’m going to read you two sentences from their long-term report on the economy. It told you what the Liberal government saw coming up. It said, “The structure of the Ontario economy will continue to shift from goods-producing to service-producing sectors,” and, they went on, “shifting employment from goods-producing industries, in particular manufacturing, to service-sector industries.”

The previous government gave up on manufacturing. They hiked hydro rates, they hiked taxes and they added red tape, and as a result we saw a loss of 300,000 jobs in the province of Ontario. That’s in the past. That’s what happened. That’s how we started.

I’ll give you one more reference, because I think it’s important that we hear. Unfortunately, Sergio Marchionne has since passed. He was the chair of then-called Fiat Chrysler, in Windsor. The headline in the Toronto Star was, “Fiat Chrysler Chief Worries about Ontario’s Competitiveness.”

Sergio was sitting on a stage in Windsor with former Premier Wynne. They were talking auto because auto was declining in Ontario. Every single auto company was reducing, closing, stopping certain vehicles in their production line. Sergio Marchionne was sitting with the Premier and she mused about Chrysler expanding. He delivered a very blunt message directly to Premier Wynne, who was sitting beside him. He said, “This is not what I would call the cheapest jurisdiction.” He was referring to hydro rates, red tape and higher taxes. He said to her, “I think you need to create the conditions to be competitive.”

So exit Premier Kathleen Wynne, enter Premier Doug Ford and our party. This is fundamentally why there is fast-increasing demand in housing today. We looked at the situation that the previous Liberal government left, of high taxes, high hydro rates, 300,000 jobs that had left, Sergio Marchionne saying that you’ve got to create the conditions to be competitive, and Premier Ford said, “All right, this is what we are going to do. We are going to lower the cost of doing business.”

We visited Ford and GM and Stellantis. We visited Toyota. We visited Honda. We visited all of the auto companies, the engine manufacturers and the parts makers. There are 700 parts makers in Ontario and 450 tool and die makers. We visited as many as we could. There are 300 companies that are in connected and autonomous vehicles: GM up in Markham, Ford in Ottawa and BlackBerry QNX in Ottawa. They each employ hundreds and hundreds of people designing the cars of the future, these connected and autonomous vehicles. We visited them all and they all gave us the same message: You’ve got to lower the cost of doing business.

And we did, Speaker. We began by reducing WSIB premiums—workplace safety costs—by 50%. That is a $2.5-billion annual savings to business. We put in an accelerated capital cost, which means they can write off the cost of their new equipment in a year. That’s a $1-billion savings. We reduced commercial and industrial hydro rates by 16%; that’s $1.3 billion. We lowered the provincial share of local property taxes by $450 million. We reduced the burden of red tape on business—at that time it was $400 million and it’s now over $550 million. All in, we reduced the cost of doing business by $7 billion annually.

So when I say to you that yes, Ontario is the best place to call home, but fast-increasing demand and lack of supply is what the problem is, the fast-increasing demand comes from the fact that we reduced the cost of doing business by $7 billion, and because of that, companies have flocked back into Ontario.

I’ll start just with the automotive because that was the immediate response. Premier Ford and myself, we went to Washington; we met with Ford. We went to Plano, Texas; we met with Toyota. We went to all of the companies and we said, “We did what you asked. We lowered the cost of doing business in Ontario. We are now competitive. What are you going to do for us?”

Ford, in Oakville—$1.8-billion investment; Honda, in Alliston—$1.4-billion investment; LG-Stellantis, in Windsor—$5.2-billion investment, their first investment in North America; GM, in Oshawa and Ingersoll—$2.3-billion investment; Stellantis, in Windsor and Brampton—$3.6-billion investment; Umicore, out of Brussels and now in Loyalist township—$1.5 billion. There’s $16 billion in new investment, just in auto—in EV—that has created tens of thousands of new jobs.

To build LG’s plant in Windsor—just to build that plant—are thousands upon thousands of employees. It’s a 4.5-million-square-foot building. To put it in our terms, in Canadian terms, it’s the size of 112 hockey arenas. That’s what’s being built down there. It needs thousands of people to build that facility down there, and once it’s built it will employ 2,500. Look at GM in Oshawa: 2,700 men and women—in fact, 50% women, 50-50—showed up at work today, in Oshawa, in a plant that was closed. All these people need a place to live, so when we say “fast-increasing demand,” you can see that just the auto sector alone has created tens upon tens of thousands of jobs. That’s why there’s demand.

Since we were first elected, pre-COVID, there were 300,000 new jobs created in Ontario. Those people need a place to live. Since the pandemic—yes, of course, like everybody else, we lost 1.1 million jobs, but we gained 1.3 million back. We added 200,000 jobs, just since the pandemic, throughout the pandemic and now. That’s 500,000 new men and women who went to work in a job this morning—more than when we were first elected, only four and a half years ago.

So when we say that fast-increasing demand is causing a problem—why we need Bill 39, the Better Municipal Governance Act—it’s because we have so many people here who are working, who need a place to live. So it’s not just automotive.

I made a couple of notes while I was sitting here, listening, earlier. I’ll just rhyme off a few to show that this is so diversified around the province and around the sectors:

—AXYZ Automation, a company in Waterdown: $25-million investment, hired 50 people. I think they mentioned the member from Flamborough–Glanbrook in their news release;

—Barry Callebaut, a chocolate manufacturer in Brantford: $104-million investment; they hired 200 people;

—Laurysen Kitchens, in Stittsville: $26-million investment, hired 20 people;

—Dot Foods, in Ingersoll: $39-million investment, 200 people;

—Justworks, in Toronto, an HR management platform in Toronto: $20-million investment, 75 new people;

—Lastman’s Bad Boy built a new facility in Pickering: $70 million, 200 new employees;

—Trusscore, in Palmerston—they make plastics and paint—$10-million investment, 68 people. They all need a place to live.

On some bigger numbers:

—Telus, $23-billion investment; they’re hiring 9,500 people over the next five years;

—Tata Consultancy Services, from India, is here today on University Avenue; 5,000 new employees they’re hiring over the next four years;

—Nokia—we did the announcement in Ottawa—hundreds of millions of dollars, 340 new employees and 100 interns that they’re hiring. All of these people need a place to live.

So when we talk about what’s happened—“Why all of this now? Why, all of a sudden, are you doing this?” Well, good heavens, there are 500,000 people working today who weren’t working just a few years ago, and I’ve just rhymed off a list here of about 20,000 more people who—these announcements are only made in the last couple of months, from Telus’ $23 billion and 9,500 employees all the way through to the Nokia one. All of these; that’s 20,000 employees I’ve listed.

Every single morning of every single day, I send Premier Ford what he calls and what I call his “one-a-day vitamin.” It’s the name of a company, where they’re locating, how many millions they’re investing, how many people they’re hiring and whether the province has any skin in the game or not. Every single day of every single week, that’s what’s happening in the province of Ontario. Every single day there are millions of dollars of investment coming into the province of Ontario. That hasn’t stopped.

Speaker, I’m going to take a moment and I am going to read yesterday’s—this is fun. Oh, that hasn’t been announced yet. But there’s good news coming in Niagara. MPP Sam Oosterhoff is going to make a $6-million announcement and 30 new jobs.

That hasn’t been announced yet either. Well, I’ll have to go back. Cambridge is getting some very good news about 40 jobs coming.

Every single day we’re reading—Unbun in London, $4 million. They are creating to provide gluten-free products to Mr. Sub and Pizza Pizza and Burger’s Priest. They’re going to sell all of these products—23 new jobs. Very nice.

Every single day of every single week, Speaker, there are great announcements coming, millions coming. So when you ask why there’s fast-increasing demand—what I’ve said—that’s why, because we’ve created the climate in Ontario for job seekers and job creators to build these jobs. They all need a place to live.

When you now look at the other side of the coin, the lack of supply—Minister Clark, my great friend Steve, has said the word “NIMBY.” He has talked about NIMBY.

I appreciate the opportunity to finish this. I’m hoping to answer some members’ questions.

In committee, when we were talking about estimates for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, government members questioned whether the greenbelt land that’s being opened for development was actually prime farmland. Well, we actually learn in this bill that the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is one of the areas that’s being opened for development, especially cropland—some of the best cropland in North America. As a matter of fact, the government sold it to farmers at well below market prices because it would be saved forever for farming. And then some land speculators bought it up cheap and now they’re going to turn millions into billions with the stroke of a pen, and the rest of us are going to foot the bill for this. This is raising questions among the farm community: Is anything sacred when it comes to protecting farmland in this province?

Speaker, this bill should just be pulled. Not even go to committee; let’s just pull it.

Unfortunately, to get into the level of detail that the member is asking for is very difficult through StatsCan data, so it would have to be something that the Ministry of Agriculture, or maybe the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, should know. But it seems to me the government would want to know this information before they actually expand and develop on even more farmland. And as a matter of fact, experts have shown there are 88,000 acres of land already approved for development in Ontario within existing urban boundaries that we can use to address the housing crisis.

The question I would ask is: Why are we opening the greenbelt for development? Why are we expanding urban boundaries when we have enough land already within existing urban boundaries to build the housing we need?

When it comes to the greenbelt, I don’t know if I have ever heard a Premier be so explicit so many times, promising not to do something when it comes to the greenbelt. I can tell you, we looked it up in the Hansard, and there are multiple occasions, just in this House alone, that the Premier said that we will not open the greenbelt for development, and that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said that we would not open the greenbelt for development. Of course, we know the infamous campaign video where the Premier explicitly said, “I will not open the greenbelt for development.”

So what so many people are asking me is: Why doesn’t the Premier keep his promise to protect the greenbelt? Because we don’t need that land to build the housing we need. We already have it approved for development.