Thank you, our members from this side, for explaining to us the importance of this housing crisis. Actually, when I’m going around in my riding, everybody is just coming to us, telling us about the problem of affordable housing.

But I also know there are some, especially at the municipal level—a lot of them will be saying, “Not in my backyard.” How are we going to overcome that and make sure that we can achieve our goals?

My question is to the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke—

Interjection.

Interjections.

You talked about the relief from development charges for developers. That’s your plan to sort of goose the housing supply. But can you tell me what you’re going to do to protect taxpayers who are going to end up with this additional burden? If it’s not being paid by the developers, it’s going to be paid by your local taxpayers. So is there any other solution that you have other than putting this on the backs of already strained and stretched municipal taxpayers?

Thank you very much, Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity. Like the opposition critic for housing, I did take some time to read the bill last night. It was very long—123 pages—and it intersects and amends 13 acts. It’s not easy to digest, certainly. But I do recognize, as I was reading the bill, that a few things were coming to mind. One of them was the fact that the government is reframing this whole affordable housing crisis as a supply crisis. Certainly this bill is trying to get to that, but I don’t think it gets to the affordability piece.

What the bill does do, interestingly enough, is gut certain things. You’re gutting the conservation authority, you’re undermining food security by not protecting farmland, and you’re taking away critical revenues for cash-strapped cities.

The bill also ignores the fact that there’s a rising cost of construction, a labour shortage, land values and other building regulations that are stopping the construction of affordable housing. How will your bill address those concerns that I’ve just raised?

Thank you for the question. I know you listen to your constituents, just as municipal politicians listen to their constituents. So it’s important that we have a full conversation around how we move forward, but that’s no reason to have red tape and bureaucracy in the middle holding things up and having a results-driven—a process-driven result instead of an intentional result.

Part of how we’re going to do it is to make sure there are forums for conversations, that they’re the appropriate forums and the appropriate conversations, but we will not have projects delayed simply because people are using the tools of government to delay them with no merit.

So we have to do things differently. We have to do them faster. We have to be more efficient. We’re going to create safe and affordable homes for people in Ontario. Again, it goes back to creating the supply and incentivizing the people who are going to build the homes across Ontario.

The Attorney General touched upon an interesting matter, which is called a costs award, and throughout the process of land planning, objectors—whether they be reasonable objectors or unreasonable objectors—could often delay a project by months and months, sometimes even years. Simply by filing an objection and paying a very nominal fee, let’s say $175 or $200, they could hold up a development for months at a time, simply by filing a one-page objection and paying the fee.

The Attorney General touched on this idea of a costs award. How does a costs award prevent spurious objections from holding up development for months at a time?

I want to thank the member very much for that question. It goes back to what I’ve said here. What you’re talking about there is the status quo. You don’t want to see those changes. You don’t want to see things that are standing in the way of building affordable housing and housing in general. You don’t want to see those changes.

Well, the reality is, I say to the member, those are some of the things that exist today that our ministry—and this was not without consultation. This was with broad consultation that we have come to the conclusion that these are some of the impediments that have to be dealt with. I know the Attorney General talked about changes at the land tribunal as well. We’re going to remove some of those impediments that have been holding back Ontario. It takes too long to get things done. We’ve said that we got elected on getting it done, and we’re going to get it done.

Quick question: Words are important. Affordable or attainable, and what does that mean?

Question?

The government seems to be responding interestingly about development charges, but I’m going to stay the course here. With the development charges and exemptions, I do worry that municipalities are going to have to share that cost or move that cost onto the ratepayers and our neighbours in the community, but that’s not what I’m going to ask about.

I’m going to ask about the permits that the developers get and sit on when municipalities have plans and they’re trying to plan for growth. How come there’s no “use it or lose it” in this bill? The developers hold on to these permits, they don’t use them and it’s gumming up the works. Why don’t we see that here? Do you have anything to say about holding developers accountable so that this housing does indeed get built?