Point of order.

Today I rise to recognize and honour the passing of our former legislator and colleague of this House, Alan William Pope, who left us this past summer at the age of 75. Alan served as the provincial member for Cochrane South from 1977 to 1990, for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

While I did have the pleasure to meet Alan a few years ago at a caucus retreat in Timmins, I spent some time trying to learn a bit more about his life. In doing so, I noted the recurring themes of determination, grit and vocation—determination on behalf of his principles, a vocation to his constituents and the people of the north.

It would be fair to refer to Alan as a king of the north. He always brought a northern Ontario lens to the issues being debated at Queen’s Park.

Speaker, as a fellow northerner proudly representing the people of Sault Ste. Marie, I am particularly humbled to deliver this tribute on behalf of Alan.

Northerners can sometimes be referred to as stubborn. We can sometimes be referred to as having a bit of a chip on our shoulders. It is incumbent upon us to fiercely fight for our constituents, because in ages past we’ve not always felt that Queen’s Park represented us to the same extent as those living in the south. Alan William Pope exemplified this. He fought like a lion for his constituents, as a member of provincial Parliament, as a parliamentary assistant, and as a member of the executive council. To quote him in short, “I hope that people will look on me as someone who is going to fight....”

Perhaps it was his heritage that bred the fight in him. Alan was born in Ayr, Scotland in 1945 and was raised in Timmins. Following his education at Timmins High School, he went on to complete post-secondary studies at Waterloo Lutheran University, now Wilfrid Laurier University, and then Osgoode Hall Law School. He was a barrister and a solicitor and president of the National Young Progressive Conservatives from 1969 to 1971.

Like a number of members of this Parliament, his elected life began in municipal politics, being elected as an alderman in the city of Timmins in 1973.

He was first elected as the member of provincial Parliament for Cochrane South in 1977, and he served at Queen’s Park until 1990. He rose quickly through the ranks under Premier Davis and Premier Miller. His journey in government began as a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Culture and Recreation. The following year, he was appointed parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. In 1979, he was appointed to cabinet first as a Minister without Portfolio and then as the Minister of Natural Resources.

To provide this House with a glimpse of the character of Alan Pope, I would like to share a brief quote from a 1981 article in the Globe and Mail:

“The Waterloo-Lutheran and Osgoode Hall graduate is tall, but not imposingly so.

“He has a presence at the podium.

“Part of that presence is a smile that hesitates, then devastates his audience....

“Some of his effect is generated by a strong voice.

“But the eyes have it.

“They gleam dark, yet are as arrestingly bright as the sun on a frozen, northern” Ontario “lake.”

I could continue, Speaker, but I hope this quote speaks to the effect that his personage had on those whom he met.

Rick Morgan, the then executive vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, said this: “He’s the kind of person prepared to make things happen.”

A reading of his elected life speaks to his expertise and knowledge of the files he was elected and appointed to execute. After four years as Minister of Natural Resources, he was appointed to various cabinet positions, including Minister of Health, Attorney General, minister for French language services, and Justice secretary.

As Minister of Natural Resources, Alan thrived on fighting steadfastly for northern and rural issues and showed his deep commitment to the land and to the people of the province, all while honing his fishing skills.

As Minister of Health, he architected the building of a new hospital for northeastern Ontario, leading to the now standing Timmins and District Hospital.

In 1985, Alan took the plunge into leading politics at the top and ran for leader to replace Frank Miller. He’s known for his now-famous keynote speech, where he abandoned traditional podium form and stood and spoke from the convention floor, where he was most comfortable, being a man of the people.

Alan was spirited, with a keen mind and a dry sense of humour. He held to his unwavering dedication and commitment to the people of the north. He never compromised on his principles and convictions on the issues and policies that mattered most.

In choosing not to seek re-election in 1990, he noted, “When you add it all up, it’s time to take a break from politics, reassess my future, refine my personal philosophy, perhaps write a book and certainly pursue a law career,” which he ultimately did do in Timmins.

While they could not be here today, I understand that Mr. Pope’s family, including his wife, Linda, and his son David, are watching from home in Calgary right now. To Linda, David and his family and friends, I say thank you. Thank you for sharing with this provincial Parliament and this great province the life and dedication of Alan.

In closing, Speaker, those who knew Alan personally are saddened to know he’s gone and are proud to have known him and to have had the pleasure of his company. He will be missed.

May he rest in peace.

Applause.

About five hours ago, when I spoke to this bill, we talked about the fact that Ontario is without question the best place in the world to call home. But there are two things that are in the way: fast, increasing demand and a lack of supply of homes.

This bill, if passed, will help our government with local decision-making powers. That’s what this really is all about. It’s to get these homes built faster so that in areas like Barrie–Innisfil, where there is such a huge demand for employees—there is an equal demand for housing, and there are so many impediments in the way of building those houses today. This bill, the Better Municipal Governance Act, is intended to speed up the process of building the hundreds of thousands of homes we need each and every year.

I’ll next recognize the member for Sault Ste. Marie.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 22, 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.

I want to thank the Minister of Economic Development. He often comes to Barrie and meets with our local manufacturers.

When speaking to this bill, I talked about Linamar transportation, and the minister is very familiar with Linamar transportation and has done a lot of work with them. Something I mentioned in this Legislature that they have trouble with is, when they’re trying to recruit workers, oftentimes the impediment is trying to find attainable housing in the community that they’re trying to bring the workers into. So I want to ask the minister how this bill and all of what we’re doing to build more housing is going to help the manufacturing sectors and employers like Linamar transportation with attracting more of those workers.

Next question?

Further debate?

Thank you for the compliment of my two terms as mayor of the city of North Bay. One of the real joys of my life was being mayor of our hometown.

I congratulate Mayor Peter Chirico and the 10 new councillors in the city of North Bay and all of the new mayors and councillors—the entire 11 mayors in my riding.

I can say that we really look forward to this Better Municipal Governance Act. The whole purpose of it is to address the housing supply crisis by working specifically with our municipal partners on our shared provincial-municipal priorities. I think that the whole goal is to build a million and a half new homes over 10 years, and this will be a critical piece in that puzzle of getting these million and a half homes built.

I am very pleased to be able to stand and put some thoughts on the record here about Bill 39. I wish I had more time, so I’m going to cut right to the chase. This particular bill is a lot for just three schedules—and I’m going to focus mostly on one of the schedules we haven’t heard a lot about, because being from Durham region, I think it’s very important that somebody out of the seven Durham MPPs gets up and tells this story, so I will be the one.

Interjection.

Schedules 1 and 2 of this bill are about democracy.

Interjections.

Speaker, this is fundamentally about democracy, but I’m going to break it down for you in terms of the schoolyard, because that’s what I come from and I think that breaking it down for folks makes it a bit clearer. If you have six kids in the yard and they’re deciding whether to play freeze tag or hide and seek—normally, if you have a group of three and three, one of them is going to be the deciding factor. Whether you play freeze tag or hide and seek, you need four to decide—but not anymore, not in the province of Ontario, not with this. Now you just need two—because a third is all that’s required now for councils. One of these provisions in this schedule is that a mayor, for certain motions, only needs a third of council to support them.

Here is a letter that I got from someone: “Bill 39 needs to be stopped! I did not just vote in a municipal election to now have the person that I elected not necessarily have a voice at the table. The strong-mayor powers directly threaten our democracy. Nobody should be granted the power of pushing through bylaws or other legislation with only one third of the vote. What are you doing in this province? How are we sitting back and allowing this government to enact these laws which give ultimate power to the few

“Do the right thing! Stand up to Ford and put an end to all this nonsense. Bill 39, Bill 28 and stopping public comments on his greenbelt plan are all direct attacks on democracy and our ability to use our voices as a collective. That’s how dictators lead. This is not the future I want for my children.

“Do the right thing! Stop this bill!!!!

“Christina Coghlan.”

That’s a real person. Folks are having real opinions. I would have said that the government is hearing these, that they’re getting the same emails and phone calls, but some of their offices—I don’t know if you knew this—aren’t even staffed up yet. I’m happy to share those emails with them, but this is part of why Ontarians aren’t getting answers.

Here is another one, a letter from James: “I am writing to ask you to vote against Bill 39, Better Municipal Governance Act, 2022. I believe this bill conflicts with our Canadian democratic principles. Schedule 1 allows bylaws to be passed with the support of fewer than half of city councillors in Toronto and Ottawa. I believe that if the majority of a city opposes a bylaw, then that bylaw should not pass....

“Normally I would only write to my own MPP, but this law only affects the cities of Toronto and Ottawa, so I believe that MPPs from other regions should consider the opinions of people who would be affected by this bill.”

Also, it begs the question, who’s next?

The member from Brampton North was hooting and hollering about Oshawa, so I’ll tell him about Oshawa. This is an article from insauga:

“Oshawa Council Tells Queen’s Park Hands Off the Greenbelt.

“Oshawa council has given clear direction to the Province on their recent ‘swap’ of environmentally sensitive lands for lands in the Paris-Galt moraine—keep your hands off the greenbelt.

“Oshawa councillor Rosemary McConkey brought the motion before council on day one of the new term....” She basically said, “‘When you make a promise you should keep it’—and pointed out that even though Oshawa wasn’t directly involved the deal ‘will definitely affect our headwaters’ and could lead to a further loss of pristine lands in the future.

“‘This will be hard to undo once it has started’....

“Councillor Bob Chapman agreed, saying the province ‘shouldn’t be encroaching on the greenbelt. It’s sacrosanct.’”

We’re in this House talking about Bill 39 today—but Bills 23 and 39 are all attacks on our future.

I want to take us back, though, into our history, in the limited time that I’ve got.

I got a letter from Bonnie Littley, who is the co-founder of the Rouge Duffins Greenspace Coalition. She campaigned in the early 2000s to protect the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act—schedule 2 in this bill. She said:

“The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve was public land sold back to farmers at $4,000 an acre on the condition it remained agricultural by the way of easement on title in 1999. To protect this prime (class 1 and 2) farmland for future generations in perpetuity! This speculation will be a huge rip-off of the public purse! It is the most protected land in all of Ontario! Easements on title. In the greenbelt. An MZO to protect the area from Pickering doing the planning. The former provincial government took their planning rights away when they kept trying to pave the preserve and created the Central Pickering Development Plan, where the preserve is enshrined as agricultural. Plus its own legislation Bill 16, the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.

“The minister spoke of lands that are appropriate for development because they are beside an urban area. That logic is 1980s sprawl logic since a ton of ag lands are beside urban areas. The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is also nestled beside the Rouge Park, which also has a lot of agricultural activity and the other side protects one side of Duffins Creek. Then it can be argued it’s appropriate to have an ag preserve where it is.

“Also, why is there no mention of the homes being built right now in Seaton? Pickering is also identified as an urban growth centre in the provincial growth plan and is required to hit certain densities in the urban core before moving into new greenfield sites. They are approving condo towers as we speak. In short. They don’t need any new lands for development. Period. This is not passing the smell test.”

I had a chance to meet Bonnie, and we had a good chat at the rally—there were 200 people, give or take—in Pickering. I was glad to spend a freezing cold Saturday with them. A lot of those folks have been fighting this fight for a long time.

A bit of history, Speaker: In 1993, the NDP government established the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. In 1998, the city of Pickering endorsed the conclusion of a rural study which called for that land to remain rural.

Just for folks at home who are thinking, “What is she talking about?”, schedule 2 of this bill says that the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act should be repealed—and that’s like this government has to peel off that safety, that protection, in order to take that chunk of land out of the greenbelt. When everyone is talking about Bill 23 and pulling stuff out of the greenbelt for development, in our neck of the woods, this has to happen first, before they can get at it, because this is super-duper-protected land.

In 1999, the Ontario government, Durham and Pickering signed an agreement to protect these lands as farmland in perpetuity, which means forever and ever and ever. After this agreement was signed, the Ontario government began selling that land to farmers for cheap, but as a condition of the sale, the purchaser had to agree to easements or limitations protecting the land forever as farmland.

In 2005, a Globe and Mail article said that the sale of those lands was overseen by Tony—Miele? Is that how you say it? I’d have to ask the PCs; I think you guys all know him. He was the then president of the Ontario Realty Corp. He has been in a couple of different articles lately, like the Toronto Star “Friends with Benefits?” investigation on the PC-connected beneficiaries of the Highway 416 proposal. Even more amazingly, that guy who was involved in selling off the land is the chair of the PC Ontario fund, the PC Party’s campaign donation war chest. It’s just so interconnected.

Back in the day, in 2003, shortly after Miele sold the protected farmland to various farmers for next to nothing, companies owned or controlled by Silvio De Gasperis snapped up these properties from the farmers, buying all but three lots of its current land holdings, totalling more than 1,300 acres. He paid a total of $8.6 million at the time, which is next to nothing. He bought up a lot of land that was supposed to be protected forever and ever and ever.

There was a developer-funded growth-management study that contradicted that earlier recommendation. Then the Liberals came and put it into the greenbelt, thwarting De Gasperis and his plans for vast riches.

Fast-forward, and here we are. A land dispute is being resurrected nearly two decades later by this PC government, whose political donations are collected and managed by that same Tony Miele, and De Gasperis stands to make bajillions of dollars—somebody could correct me on the exact figure.

I’m out of time.

Earlier today, I talked about visiting an enterprise located in Thornhill by the name of Macrodyne. Macrodyne Technologies is a thriving, state-of-the-art facility that creates hydraulic presses, and they serve international markets. They are very, very good at what they do, and they showed me exactly what they do. I was incredibly impressed. When I sat down with them in the boardroom, I asked them, “What is your biggest issue? What can Ontario do to help you?” And they said this, very succinctly: “Please build more homes.” Their biggest problem was keeping employment. Nobody would stay there. There aren’t enough homes. There is simply nowhere for them to live.

On this side of the House, we understand the need for working diligently with our large municipal partners to build more homes.

Do the opposition not recognize that the province has a role to play in ensuring that we plan for growth?

I want to thank the member for Oshawa for that presentation.

To the member, through you, Speaker: I’ve been grappling with this notion of minoritarian rule, as the member said. I’m grappling with the notion that a 30% vote is now a majority in the mentality of this legislation and, I’m going to presume, with the government.

I just want to reflect on the fact that in the last election, 10% of the electorate voted for this caucus; 10% of the electorate voted for your caucus, Speaker, the Liberal caucus; in addition, a part voted for the Green member and the Green member elected; and 20% voted for this government. If this Legislature is actually reflective of what the people of Ontario voted for, we would be a majority. It would seem that if Bill 39 is to be believed, the NDP currently could be in government with the Liberals. How does the member feel being in government—if the government applies this principle?

We’ll go to questions.

It’s interesting that nothing in this bill has anything to do with housing—but I’ll answer his question using the TRCA response to the planned repeal of the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. This is from November 16. It was posted online by the conservation authority and was then mysteriously taken down; I don’t know why. Anyway, it was archived online—because nothing ever really goes away. I’m quoting from that. They said, “It is well established that earlier this year the province’s own housing experts implored them to protect the greenbelt, noting that there is sufficient developable land available to address the housing supply crisis without greenbelt lands.”

They also said in this scathing letter that disappeared, “Unlike the typical process followed for other urbanization proposals there has been no watershed plan or subwatershed plan and supporting environmental studies completed for this area involving Toronto and Region Conservation Authority ... to inform this decision.”

This is where we find ourselves today.

I’m more than happy to answer any more of their awesome questions.

You asked me how I’d feel about being in government. I would love to be in government, and I would be so excited to get rid of a lot of those folks over there.

Let’s talk about what the member had asked about actually building homes. You are putting a lot of faith in people who are really excited about massive profit margins to build homes—they don’t have to, by the way. By reclassifying watersheds—now that’s Bill 23, but it’s all the same here, the greenbelt and just opening it up. These developers are under no obligation to build anything. The minute that you reclassify a watershed and it’s now, what, “the land formerly known as wet,” or whatever you’re going to call that wetland—it’s now moist meadow or something—they’ve already made bajillions of dollars on paper. They don’t have to build anything. At what point do we see in this legislation or Bill 23 that they will, indeed, actually build homes? Show me.

Interjection.

Thank you to the member from Oshawa for her presentation.

Speaker, young families, newcomers and those all over the province dream of having their own home near where they work and play—a dream which continues to be out of reach for too many as demand outpaces supply and places more and more pressures on our housing market. Industry experts have said that bold, decisive action is needed now to address our current supply crisis.

According to a Scotiabank report, we need 1.2 million new homes now to meet the G7 per capita rate for the 10-year target that the task force and our government have set.

The need for action is clear.

So my question to the member is, why does she not agree that urgent action is needed to address Ontario’s housing crisis?

I am honoured to stand here to speak on Bill 39, the Better Municipal Governance Act.

Ontario is growing rapidly. Each year, Ontario welcomes new Canadians, eager to start a life, start a family in their new home, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see that with hard work someone in Ontario can have a life that previously they could only dream about—or so that is what we might have once thought. There’s one thing that many dream about that they aren’t always able to make a reality, and that is a home that meets their needs.

Unfortunately, with the state of Ontario’s housing crisis, we’re seeing more and more Ontarians unsatisfied with their living situation. Sometimes that may be due to location—and there are many, many reasons for that. One of the reasons is, they can’t find a place close to work so they have to commute long hours daily for their paycheque, or the area they need to live in does not have the homes to accommodate the size of their family or the size of the family they hope to have someday.

We see seniors who want to downsize to a community that better meets their needs, but that’s not an option.

We have millennials who want out of their parents’ home—actually, their parents want them out as well—but that’s not an option.

New Canadians who drop everything they have back in their home countries find themselves living in cramped apartments. I see this in my riding of Brampton North, and it is not right.

It all boils down to one thing: There are simply not enough homes.

Speaker, there’s no doubt in my mind that Ontario is the greatest place in the world. As I’ve said before in this House, Ontario thrives off its diversity. I think we have unanimous agreement on that. It’s no secret that people want to live here; quite frankly, we need them to. We need more people to move to Ontario. We need more diversity, not less diversity.

That’s why it breaks my heart to hear stories of dissatisfaction from newcomers when they come to Canada, saying, “I miss my home” and “Canada is not exactly what I thought it was.” I see it in my riding—in particular, the neighbourhood of Springdale, home to some of the hardest-working people you’ll find anywhere in this country, many new Canadians who are eager to build that foundation in their new home. They’re eager to build that foundation in Canada for future generations of their family to benefit, but this sacrifice they make is made significantly more difficult when they’re living in outrageous living conditions.

We see, particularly, international students in Brampton, who are sometimes crammed into basement apartments, sharing a washroom with up to seven other people.

Ontario is a place where it doesn’t matter where you come from, who you love or how you choose to worship God; everybody deserves the same opportunity to succeed. We’ve attracted the world’s most amazing people, who have helped to build this identity in this province. However, we need to continue to work to maintain the dignity of our system.

I’ll speak about another neighbourhood in my riding, M section. M section is a neighbourhood which the former member for Brampton North loved very much, actually, and which has a significant population of seniors. These seniors are hard-working Ontarians who paid their dues to the province. Now they hope to downsize, and they can’t find an affordable home to meet their needs in a livable community. These are Ontarians, these are neighbours who worked incredibly hard for what they have. However, as Ontario’s population continued to grow through the years, our housing supply simply did not keep up, leaving these seniors with incredibly limited options. Funnily enough, if there were enough options for the seniors in M section to downsize their homes, maybe that would have allowed some of the millennials living in their parents’ basements in another neighbourhood called Snelgrove, in my riding, to find a home that they might prefer.

As I heard from Ontario’s realtor association this week, we need to help young people find a home because it will make them happy and it will also make their parents really happy.

Speaker, as we all saw with the Minister of Education’s fantastic work in negotiating a deal with CUPE that keeps kids in class, we on this side like to make parents happy. We know that’s important to them, and it seems like our government is the only one that truly wants to give the people of this province what they want. We serve the people of Ontario, while the NIMBY members opposite would much rather appease their downtown Toronto environmentalist buddies, slowing down projects across the province, hurting families. We talk about an acronym—we hear the opposite side wants to talk about their amendments to the bill, and I guess you could phrase their feedback in an acronym. I’d say “NDP—Needlessly Delay Projects” that would benefit Ontarians. They used to just be NIMBYs, “not in my backyard”—but now it seems like the members opposite not only don’t want new development in their backyard; they don’t want new development in anybody’s backyard.

Some of the members of my generation want backyards. Some new Canadians who come to our country deserve backyards. Some seniors who have backyards deserve livable, downsized homes, where they can stay in their community and continue to thrive and live.

Unfortunately—this should be straightforward; this should be unanimously agreed on by every member of this House. We all went out to the people of Ontario, we looked Ontarians in the eyes, and we all said that we’re going to build 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. The members on the other side, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V—that’s a generational reference that a lot of the New Democrats may not understand—popped in the same target in their platform. But now, when we’re taking actions to build 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years say, they’re saying that they disagree with it; they want to needlessly delay. We hear them, colleagues. What do we hear? “We need more consultation. Wait. Slow down. We need you to consult with this, to consult with that. Have you considered this amendment? Have you considered that amendment?”

Frankly, Ontarians don’t need more committees or working groups. They need action. They need a government that’s going to get things done. That’s exactly what our PC government is here to do for the people of Ontario.

I’ll speak about Halloween. We saw Halloween in my community—I believe in all communities in Ontario. I’ll talk about some of the neighbourhoods in my riding—neighbourhoods like Heart Lake and Snelgrove, where there used to be a hundred kids who would knock on the door; now there are only three, four, five, maybe a dozen. Part of the reason is, Heart Lake is a community that was built decades ago by young families who wanted to build a better life for their children; unfortunately, a lot of those same children are priced out of the neighbourhood and are forced to live elsewhere. Many of those children, if they still live in the neighbourhood, are living in the basement. They’re not living with a backyard. They’re not living in a house that meets their needs, a house where would be satisfied to raise their family. What I would say to families there, what I told them at the door, is that this is a government that has your back. Our Premier, our Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, our entire PC caucus is laser-focused on delivering the housing supply you need to have a better life for you and your family.

Housing affordability is not something that respects municipal borders. If you can’t afford a house in Brampton, shifting your life and your family over to Brantford or to Brant county will not solve the issues in affordability. Ontario is in a housing supply crisis—it’s not Toronto, not Peel; it’s the province of Ontario.

Another scary statistic, a shocking statistic, that was shared with me was that 53% of Ontarians under the age of 40 are considering moving to another province. We have a labour shortage in this province. We have almost 400,000 jobs that are being unfilled at this point. We need an economy that grows. We need people here to help our economy succeed.

We have Alberta aggressively targeting Ontario drivers and Ontario families, saying, “Move to Alberta. We want you here.” What we need in Ontario is to say, “No, we want you to stay here. We want you to work here, get a great job, have a great family, and build a better life for you and for future generations.” That’s not what I hear from the members opposite.

We’re going to hear a lot about “this statute” and “this amendment” and “this schedule” and all the issues that they like to talk about.

The people of Ontario know—they said it in the last election—that one party has their backs for housing affordability. That’s the PC Party of Ontario.

For the past few weeks, we have had a lot of hearings to listen to stakeholders, and one of the stakeholders told me—he was answering my question. I asked him, “How many years does it take for you when you have submitted all your documents and then you can deliver a house?” He said it was 10 to 11 years.

I want to ask the member from the opposite side: Under their proposal, how fast can they deliver 1.5 million houses in 10 years?

Interjection: A bajillion years.

I’m going to go to an article from the CBC—I don’t know if it was yesterday or today; it’s hard to keep up: “Wealthy Ontario Developer Close to Winning Long Battle to Build Homes on Protected Greenbelt.” In my area, Silvio De Gasperis started buying up parcels of land back in 2003. Back in 2005, he told the National Post that the province’s move to include the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve in the greenbelt would cost his company an estimated $240 million in lost revenue. He said, “McGuinty has already hurt me. I’m going to hurt him.” He “then launched a campaign to stymie plans for the greenbelt, working with Pickering to develop the preserve land anyway....

“Victor Doyle, a former senior provincial planner who helped design the greenbelt”—in his words, to answer your question—“said he felt ‘deceived as a planner and as a citizen....

“‘It’s all about, in my view, rewarding the land development interests who own this land and are clearly of primary interest to the government,’ Doyle said.”

These are folks who stand to make a boatload of money. They have been investing in this Conservative government since 2014—

Interjections.

How long?

Thank you. Other questions?

I was wanting to ask you about the greenbelt. This bill does make it much easier for PC donors who happen to own land in a section of the greenbelt that’s being opened up by this act. Why do you think the government is choosing to open up sections of the greenbelt in areas near you?