Absolutely, I would. Speaker, it’s a real privilege and a pleasure to rise for the second reading of our government’s proposed More Homes Built Faster Act.

I want to indicate that I’ll be sharing the government’s leadoff time with the Associate Minister of Housing and also the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The three of us will be sharing the debate. The associate minister and the parliamentary assistant will be touching on some very specific details of our plan.

But at the onset, I want to extend the government’s congratulations not just to all the candidates who were successful on Monday for the municipal election but to all candidates who were putting their names forward. I think members of this House appreciate the fact that in Ontario’s 444 municipalities we’ve got some outstanding men and women who were elected on October 24 but also who put their names forward. I think we all in this House agree that the municipal level of government is so very important to be able to work collaboratively with our government. This bill is exactly to go along with that. Congratulations to all those who were successful, but I congratulate everyone who put their name on a ballot on Monday.

Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act: Ontario is a prosperous and a growing province, the best place in the world to call home. However, too many Ontarians are struggling to find a home that’s right for them. This is true, Speaker, for young people eager to start a family in the community of their choosing, for newcomers ready to put down roots and start a family right here in Ontario and for seniors looking to downsize but wanting to stay close to their family and their community. This isn’t just a big-city crisis. The housing supply shortage affects all Ontarians: rural, urban, suburban, north and south, young and old.

The problem is clear: There simply aren’t enough homes being built. The solution is equally clear: We need to build more homes and we need to build them faster. That’s why our government has set a very clear goal. During the election, we were honest, we were open and we were transparent with the people of Ontario. We said our goal over the next 10 years was to build 1.5 million homes. Over the last four years, the government has introduced dozens of new policies to get housing built faster. We’ve come a long way in our four years of government, but we know that more needs to be done. That’s why we worked with our partner ministries across government to take action. Our proposals in Bill 23, if passed, would lay a strong foundation on which we can build the 1.5 million homes Ontarians desperately need.

Ontario is expected to grow by more than two million people over the next 10 years. Over two thirds of this growth is expected to take place in the greater Golden Horseshoe. The need for both near- and long-term solutions to address the housing shortage is why we’re here this morning.

Speaker, before I talk about our proposed legislation, I’d like to take a few moments to reflect on the success of our previous housing supply action plans. Because we are building on what we’ve done over the past few years, we want to send a clear message to Ontarians that we want to continue to do so. This past spring, we looked the people of Ontario in the eye during the election and we said that a re-elected government under the leadership of Premier Ford would have a new housing supply action plan each year over the next four years. And we will continue to develop policies to make it easier to get shovels in the ground faster.

In 2019, our first plan, More Homes, More Choice, took some very important steps in that very first housing supply action plan. We wanted to speed up planning timelines. We wanted to make development costs more predictable, to make it easier to build laneway homes and basement suites and to harmonize provincial and national building codes. Our changes were effective. Last year we had over 100,000 new housing starts in Ontario. That is the highest amount of housing starts since 1987 and it’s well above the average over the past 30 years, which was 67,500 starts.

We knew that we had to do more. We had to put a plan in place that was going to get us closer to that 1.5 million homes. So earlier this year we released our second housing supply action plan, More Homes for Everyone. We went even further to speed up approvals and took steps to gradually refund fees if decisions weren’t made within legislated time frames. We created new tools, like the community infrastructure and housing accelerator, which is designed to give municipalities the opportunity to work in partnership with the province in order to unlock the priority housing, among other things, along with key community infrastructure.

As we build our second plan, we’ve relied on feedback from public and stakeholder consultations as well as the Housing Affordability Task Force. This task force was made up of industry leaders and experts who recommended impactful measures to increase the supply of market housing. The task force report now serves as our long-term housing road map for the future. It informs the work that we do with our municipal and industry partners as we develop policies and create tools that help build more multi-unit housing, more multi-generational housing and gentle density.

And with our commitment to continue to strengthen housing policies, we recently named the chair and the vice-chair of the new Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team. The team will support improvements to our annual housing supply action plans. And we will keep up that momentum, especially in these turbulent economic times. That’s why in our new housing supply action plan we are proposing even more steps to get housing built faster across our province. If passed, our proposed changes would help reduce unnecessary burdens and red tape that are delaying construction and driving up the cost of a home even higher. They would also allow for more homes to be built near transit—something that everyone has told us throughout our extensive consultations. We need to encourage municipalities to update their zoning and to help enable more gentle density in residential areas. These changes would also support and protect homebuyers. It would use surplus provincial properties to build more attainable homes.

Speaker, before I begin giving some details on our proposed changes, I’d like to say a few words with my colleagues across the aisle in mind. Many of the members opposite have been very clear that they are concerned about Ontario’s housing supply and that they expect our government to act. I take these members at their word, and I would urge them to recognize that what we are planning and proposing in this action is exactly what they’ve been asking for. The More Homes Built Faster Act contains practical measures that will have a real and a positive impact, making it easier for Ontarians to find the right home for their needs and their budget. I hope that the members opposite will give this proposal the careful consideration it deserves, and I hope that the members opposite will support our sincere efforts to tackle Ontario’s housing crisis.

We have the capacity in our province to allow for more gentle density in areas where it makes sense. Our proposed changes will permit up to three units—that’s up to three units in the main building, or up to two in the main building plus one unit in a smaller building—on most pieces of urban land without needing a bylaw amendment to permit these added units. The example I’ll use is, a property owner could have a main residence with a basement and attic apartment or an apartment in the main residence plus a garden home.

By increasing supply, this change would clearly benefit Ontarians across the province who are looking for an apartment or a home to rent. But it would also benefit existing homeowners, who could use the additional space to help pay off their mortgage or to provide a home for their extended family. The new units would be exempt from development charges and parkland dedication fees, and municipalities couldn’t set minimum unit sizes or require more than one parking space per unit.

To continue to make it easier to build more density, we’re consulting on proposed building code changes—changes such as removing requirements for standpipe systems with four-storey stacked townhomes and matching national building code requirements for four- to six-storey wood buildings. These changes would reduce costs, all while continuing to protect the public.

We know that steps like these need to be taken to keep up with growth. But we simply can’t keep up if the approvals process is holding back housing in communities across the province.

And the costs for delays can be staggering. A study just last month by the Building Industry and Land Development Association reports that costs can increase substantially each month a permit is stuck in the approval process. They found that the development application timelines in the GTA have gotten 40% longer over the past two years, and each month of delay in a typical high-density project amounts to $2,600 to $3,300 in additional construction costs per unit. In fact, Speaker, the Ontario Association of Architects also looked into the cost delays, and they concluded the total cost of site plan review—just those site plan review application delays—could increase it between the range of $300 million and $900 million every year in Ontario.

These costs are staggering, and these are shocking numbers, especially when you take into consideration that currently the time to obtain development approvals on a four-storey apartment building and a 40-storey condominium is virtually the same time. It’s unbelievable. Again, Speaker—I want to repeat that—the time frames for a four-storey apartment building and a 40-storey condominium are virtually the same time frames for approval.

That’s why we’re proposing to remove site plan control requirements from most projects that are under 10 units. This would reduce the stacks of approvals sitting on desks at city halls and speed things up for all housing proposals, all while reducing construction costs. We’ll continue to ensure we protect public safety through building permits and both building and fire code requirements. For larger projects, we’re going to be proposing to speed up approvals by focusing site plan reviews on health and safety issues, issues like safe access to and from a building, rather than architectural or decorative landscape details.

Of course, sometimes we’ll see certain residential developments stall no matter how much we’re able to adjust the approvals process and no matter how much these projects are needed in their communities.

Speaker, we can’t examine the details of how to build housing without looking at the bigger picture. How land is used in Ontario is guided by a number of different provincial policies and plans, some of which are outdated or obsolete. We’re seeking feedback on how to revoke some of them as well as merging A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the provincial policy statement into a single province-wide planning policy. This would create a much more streamlined land use planning framework and help municipalities approve housing faster.

Working with our municipal partners is key to ensuring the amount of housing available is keeping up with the population growth projections. Municipalities already have growth forecasts that help them plan for what their communities will need, up to the year 2051, through their official plans. But those forecasts assume that there is enough housing to meet the communities’ needs today. That’s simply not the case. So we’re asking 29 of Ontario’s largest municipalities to pledge to help fill that gap over the next 10 years. Again, these pledges are in addition to existing longer-term municipal growth plans and would help kick-start development by outlining a more realistic strategy.

As municipalities pledge to build more housing, we need to ensure that it’s the housing that people can afford. Much attention has been paid to the lack of attainable housing in our province. Ontarians with well-paying jobs, some even with two-income families, are struggling to find a place to live. Our government knows that we need to tackle this problem, Speaker, but we also need more affordable housing. We need it especially around transit and in other high-density areas. That’s why we’re proposing to create ways for missing-middle and low-income Ontarians to enter the housing market. This includes building on surplus government properties and building new transit, and I’m very, very pleased to be working with the Minister of Infrastructure on this plan. We have a number of sites—I go into municipalities all across Ontario; mayors every week tell me about surplus properties that we believe could be used for more attainable housing. So I look forward to that. We’ll also be consulting on how to make inclusionary zoning rules more consistent and using a standardized approach to determining an affordable price or affordable rent.

Speaker, we know the demand for rental housing is also skyrocketing in parts of the province, just as we know that many Ontarians have no choice but to rent since they are shut out of the housing market by high prices and by inadequate supply. That’s why we’ll be consulting on ways to enable rent-to-own arrangements, such as an alternative home financing model, so that we can help more renters realize their dream of home ownership.

When it comes to that dream of buying a first house, our government is determined to stand up for ordinary, hard-working Ontarians. We’ve all heard stories in this House of people putting down a down payment on preconstruction on a condo or a new home but never get to move in because the project was unfairly cancelled or the purchase agreement was terminated years later.

As part of the proposed changes to the New Home Construction Licensing Act, our government is further strengthening consumer protection for new homebuyers. I want to thank the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, the Honourable Kaleed Rasheed, for his leadership on this file and the strong message that he has sent about our government’s commitment to stand up for Ontarians.

Our plan would double the maximum administrative penalty to a maximum of $50,000 for unethical builders and vendors of new homes that unfairly cancel projects or purchase agreements. There would be no limit to additional monetary benefit penalties either. It would also enable the Home Construction Regulatory Authority to use the money from these penalties to make payments directly back to those affected consumers. It would also have the authority to impose financial penalties for transgressions that occurred on or after April 14, 2022, when our previous bill, More Homes for Everyone, received royal assent. Unethical developers that engage in these business practices now face the risk of permanently losing their builder’s licence, which is a very, very strict penalty that we can all agree is well deserved and recognized in the province.

Under these proposed changes, unethical builders could now be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars per infraction and, for repeat offenders, we’re also proposing to double the maximum penalty, where individuals could face charges of $100,000 and corporations $500,000. Individuals who are found guilty will also face a sentence of up to two years in prison, and to support these proposed legislative amendments we’re going to consult on regulations relating to administrative monetary penalties as well. We’re sending a very clear message to developers and home builders: They must stick to the deals that they make with Ontarians. Our new proposals will make sure that they do.

As I touched upon earlier, I can’t implement all these proposed measures alone. Increasing housing supply across the province needs everyone on the same side. We need all levels of government working alongside industry partners, not-for-profits. We’re counting on the support of the sector. We want to work together in lockstep to build up near transit, to unlock innovative approaches to design and construction, and to get shovels in the ground faster for all types of housing. I want to, again, reiterate: I’m talking about all types of housing—not just detached homes, but semi-detached, triplexes, fourplexes, family-sized condos and purpose-built rentals. We need housing of every time, of every shape, of every size and of every price range.

Increased housing supply across Ontario does need that all-of-government approach and it needs all the industries to work together. We say we need support of all partners, and I want to emphasize that also includes the federal government. We know too well that CMHC’s own data shows that Ontario has been shortchanged about $480 million under the National Housing Strategy. We’re counting on Ottawa to come to the table and fix this unjustifiable shortfall. We’re counting on all members of this House to finally support our efforts to ensure that Ontarians get their fair share from them.

We’re also looking to our federal counterparts to help with our availability of labour, something that is talked about a lot when we indicate that we want to build 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. We need all levels of government to work together to make sure we can do everything we can—everybody does their fair share—to provide more attainable housing in our province. Our municipal partners that oversee site plan approvals along with building permits, and the housing construction industry—we really need all the boots on the ground—remain the driving force in getting housing projects through the finish line.

I’ll say it again, Speaker: To make important changes like this, we can’t do it alone. The province can’t do it alone. The proposed changes we are speaking about today would require an all-hands-on-deck approach, because that’s what we all need to deal with the housing crisis. It’s a long-term strategy. It requires a long-term commitment from all the partners.

But, Speaker, our government is building a very strong foundation for action that will increase housing supply in Ontario. While we know not every aspect of this plan will be felt overnight, the proposed changes will make housing more attainable over the long term.

Before I turn it over to the associate minister, I just again want to express to all members of the House that this bill is a comprehensive bill. Everything in this bill is set to increase housing supply and get it done faster. Many of the measures members of the opposition have talked about extensively, and we are hopeful and optimistic that all members of this House will support this bill. We need everyone moving in the same direction. We need a lot of support. So I’m asking, and I’m hopeful, and I’ll be listening with intent to every word that you’re saying.

With that, Speaker, I want to include the associate minister and the parliamentary assistant, so I’ll conclude my remarks and turn it over to Minister Parsa.