The member from Nickel Belt.

Merci au membre de l’opposition pour cette question. On doit dire que la loi 3 est venue pour aider le logement. C’est sûr que ça fait suite au More Homes, More Choice Act. On sait très bien qu’en travaillant avec les municipalités et en leur donnant plus de pouvoir, on réussira à faciliter de façon considérable la façon où on obtient des permis ou aider les promoteurs à bâtir, parce qu’on le sait, puis je le sais, en tant que maire—peut-être que plusieurs d’entre nous ont vécu cette situation en tant que maires, certains de vous en tant que conseillers.

Mais je dois dire que, oui, c’est quelque chose qui est difficile pour nos promoteurs. Ils sont là. Ils sont prêts à s’engager dans la construction. Ils veulent participer à faire en sorte qu’il y ait plus de logement abordable à travers la province, mais grâce à nos maires, qui peuvent mettre en place certaines—comment dirais-je—facilités pour obtenir les permis en travaillant avec leur bureau d’urbanisme et leur bureau de construction de différents départements au sein de la municipalité—je l’ai vécu moi-même. Je sais que souvent les gens essayent d’obtenir des permis et ont de la difficulté. Puis, je crois que si les maires avaient un peu plus de pouvoir, ça pourrait—

I’m very pleased to speak again here on this bill that we’re discussing today. This is the so-called strong-mayors bill.

I’ve got to say, it’s been interesting this afternoon listening to some of the debate in here. I really appreciated the comments from the member from Toronto Centre about their experience as a city councillor in some really difficult times, I would say, for the city of Toronto, and the reality of actually how planning changes are made, where the real issues are and of course about the need for truly affordable housing.

Madam Speaker, the last time I spoke in second reading, I covered a lot of areas and I want to go back to some of them today. I think that the overall theme of my comments last time is something I want to reiterate here today: We have a government that continues consistently to show absolute disdain for local democracy by unilaterally interfering with municipal politics, in both cases, in the middle of municipal elections with absolutely zero consultation, and this will, in fact, have the impact of disenfranchising voters.

I also want to reflect for a moment on the fact that this government said nothing about this idea, this legislation, this policy, during the last provincial election, so that all of us who were elected here would have had an opportunity, had that been in the platform to at least have the conversation with voters about whether this is something they really wanted to adopt, that they thought was necessary, but that never could happen because this government didn’t even run on it. They just secreted it away. In fact, there was nothing from this government that was spoken about during the Housing Affordability Task Force that this government actually brought about—nothing along the lines of this need or this necessity or this policy being reviewed.

I want to say that that really is extraordinary because there were some ideas that came forward that were good ideas that came out of that task force—not everything I would agree with, but there were some things there. The government had an opportunity, surely, to come out of that and put forward some real solutions that would work for Ontario in our cities, for so many people in this province, and they chose not to. Instead they chose this bill that only mentions housing once in the title. It doesn’t actually address housing at all. Once again, Ontarians are left thinking, “What is this legislation really about? Why would this government want to hand over such enormous and extraordinary powers to mayors in at least two of our largest cities and potentially more?”

Before I get into some of my comments, I want to take a moment to appeal, as some of my colleagues have done previously, to the members of this Legislature who were elected to the government side in this last election in June. Some of this will be new to you, but it ain’t new to us. I think some of you have perhaps heard already from some of your constituents with concerns about how the government lacks transparency and accountability, how they refuse to share their mandate letters again. Maybe you thought to yourself, “This wasn’t exactly what I signed up for. I would like to have to be able to respond to my constituents. I would like to be more beholden to my constituents and less beholden to a Premier who just wants to dictate the way everything has to be”—based on what I think are just generally—I’m just saying; I don’t know—maybe past personal issues with their successes as a municipal representative. I don’t know. But why are we all being weighted down with that?

I’ve got to say that when I was elected in 2018, I really thought this was an opportunity to make Ontario better, and, at the end of the day, that’s what we all want. I think we were all elected to try to make life better for people. That’s what this is about, and I really do believe that that better is possible, but we don’t get there unless we listen to each other. Majorities come and majorities go, and many would say that our political system does not actually serve the people of this province very effectively because it’s this first-past-the-post system that so many people would love to see changed; there are much more effective ways to run government and elections. But the way that it operates right now even, there still should be opportunity to try to make things better, and one of the ways we do that as legislators is to actually look carefully at legislation, listen to each other, listen to critiques of legislation, make that legislation stronger, amend that legislation—learn. That’s what we were elected to do: to pass good laws.

So I would ask again, because I know that the government put this piece of legislation through some committee hearings—very limited, unfortunately, again—and there really was no prior consultation at all. Let’s be clear. But there’s other legislation we haven’t seen any consultation around, like the budget or the very egregious Bill 7 that just passed in this House. And again, just because you may not like what you’re going to hear, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen and hear it and, hopefully, take into consideration what people, especially experts in these fields, have to say.

That’s one of the things I want to talk about today, Speaker. I want to talk a little bit about some of the comments that came up in the committee hearings. I wasn’t there, but I’ve been reading through Hansard and looking at some of the comments that came from committee from many of the experts who appeared—experts from academics to elected officials to planners. There were a lot of experts there. One thing that really struck me is a comment that a lot of the municipal associations said, which is—basically, I’ll sum up it with, “Why isn’t the government exercising powers they already have? What is this really about?”

In fact, I want to also mention that the five living past mayors of the city of Toronto—there are Tories, there are Liberals, there are New Democrats, there are independents—have all said they’re opposed to this legislation and to this idea of a strong-mayor system, and I think that should say something, because they’ve all been in these boots and they don’t think it’s a healthy approach to governing.

I wanted to go through a few of the things that other people said, because one of the comments that I thought was particularly interesting was from Mayor Sendzik of St. Catharines, who had written in some really interesting comments, especially about the official planning process. One of the things that he said is: “The idea that giving more powers to mayors will magically lead to more housing is too simplistic. If this is all it takes to address the housing crisis, why not give mayors more powers to end homelessness and tackle mental health issues and addictions? Add in more powers to end climate change and mayors will become superheroes.”

I think he said that sarcastically.

“But that is what Ontario Premier Doug Ford is attempting to do as a means to solve the housing crisis through his government’s new sweeping legislation.... In essence it follows this line of thinking: We have a housing crisis, therefore if mayors had more powers, the housing crisis would be solved. The press release announcing the legislation even proclaimed it as ‘empowering mayors to build housing faster.’”

Then he goes on to say, “The sweeping set of new powers for mayors includes the abilities to hire ... chief administrative officers and senior staff positions.” It goes on to say that the point here is, there would be the ability, then, as well—let’s just consider it—if a very NIMBY mayor was elected, they could hire people to support that position.

He said, “After eight years as mayor of St. Catharines, I can confidently state I didn’t need special powers to build more housing. In St. Catharines we have approved more housing developments, of all types, over the last eight years than any time in the last 30 years. We achieved this because of a progressive city official plan, approved in 2012.”

Now, Speaker, I want to point out that, as my colleague from Toronto Centre mentioned, this government’s approach to official plans—official plans which are developed after a great deal of consideration and consultation, with experts and planning coming to the table, much discussion and debate. Cities end up with these plans. This government came in in 2018 and immediately tore up one of the official plans of the city of Toronto, and the city of Ottawa has yet to receive, as I understand it, approval for their official plan. So who’s holding up the processes? It’s this government. It’s this government that sets us back every single time. So it’s not about improving the efficiency of the process or moving forward to build more affordable housing quicker. It’s just simply not about that; it can’t be, because if that was the case, this would not be the route you would take.

I want to also mention—just because I’m going to run out of time mentioning everybody who did provide written comments on this—the Association of Municipalities of Ontario was not consulted at all on this legislation. It’s unbelievable. And when they appeared before the committee, they were pretty careful—not everybody is opposed or in favour. There’s a variety of opinions there. But they did ask the government to please engage in a broad consultation with the public and with the professional and political municipal associations. They were obviously very, very frustrated by this decision because they’ve put a lot of time and work into engaging with us as elected representatives, into engaging with this government over really important issues. And to have this kind of thing, then, just come in, have this government just roll right over everything they consider to be a priority has got to be pretty frustrating. I would ask the government to consider, certainly, the concerns that have been raised and what a difference it would have made if they had consulted properly.

I want to talk a little bit about housing and what would fix our housing crisis. Speaker, it’s true that there will be bad mayors. We’ve seen a few. There will be bad mayors. There will be inept mayors. There will be corrupt mayors. There will be mayors who just want to give a green light to their favourite developers.

The member from Nipissing-Pembroke.

Thank you very much, Speaker. I want to thank the new member for Glengarry–Prescott–Russell for his address today. I recognize the tack that the opposition is on, but the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has repeatedly said how this is one of the tools in our tool box, along with More Homes, More Choice and More Homes for Everyone, previous bills—that we are putting together a plan and a package that will lead to the building of those 1.5 million homes in the province of Ontario to support the growth in population, which is expected to be about six million more over the next 10 years.

So if the member could elaborate and maybe help the opposition understand what our plan is—that it is not simply one silver bullet, as the minister said; it is a combination of a number of steps that we have taken and continue to take. If the member could elaborate on that, I’d appreciate it.

L’Ontario est déterminé à soutenir les municipalités et cherche à améliorer les politiques d’aménagement et à réduire les formalités administratives afin d’accélérer la construction de logement.

Le gouvernement donne l’exemple et encourage ces autres partenaires à faire front commun en prenant des mesures concrètes pour aider toutes les Ontariennes et tous les Ontariens à trouver un logement répondant à leurs besoins.

Je voudrais poser la question au député de la circonscription de Glengarry–Prescott–Russell : comment ce projet de loi va-t-il aider leur communauté et les personnes qui habitent à Glengarry–Prescott–Russell?

Je vais poser presque la même question que l’autre députée, parce que nous n’avons pas entendu une réponse. La question est : où dans ce projet de loi est-ce qu’il y a le mot « abordable », des mots qui parlent du logement? C’est seulement dans le titre.

Nous sommes d’accord que, vraiment, il y a une crise du logement, surtout une crise avec les sans-abri. Mais la seule chose que ce projet de loi fait c’est d’enlever les pouvoirs des conseillers et donner le pouvoir au maire. C’est vraiment seulement un projet de loi vraiment antidémocratique.

Est-ce que vous pouvez nous montrer dans ce projet de loi où sont mentionnées les maisons, sauf dans le titre?

Thank you to my colleague for the question. Of course, if it wouldn’t be for the need of affordable housing in the province, we wouldn’t even be talking about the strong-mayor act. This is a tool that we need to get more houses built, and the municipalities are the ones that can help us do that. They’re the only other government that can help us actually get shovels in the ground and have some houses built faster in all the province of Ontario.

Questions?

They may all be the same mayor.

Thank you very much for the presentation. You mentioned in your presentation NIMBYism. You mentioned in your presentation the need for larger building sizes to support families, and you mentioned in your presentation about a bill that talks about giving powers to the mayors of Ottawa and Toronto, the potential for abuse of that power.

And so, given your concerns about that development and the potential abuse of that power, I’m wondering why New Democrats are supporting a NIMBY city councillor who’s anti-growth and anti-development in the mayor’s race in the city of Ottawa.

They may all be the same mayor. But at the end of the day, that’s why we have councils and we have checks and balances. And that’s why all of our constituents elect city councillors—councillors to represent their interests, their needs, their desires at city council. Taking away the power of those city councillors and giving it to this mayor is a system that’s going to mean that those voters’ voices are no longer heard. And it’s going to end up meaning worse outcomes for cities. I think that’s pretty much guaranteed.

We do need to fix things. We need to fix democracy, but that’s a whole other conversation. I’d love to get into it. But here are some things that I think this government, if they were interested in really building more homes and tackling the affordable housing crisis, would do. First, move forward to end exclusionary zoning. This, I have to tell you, is an issue that aligns just about everyone: right, left, centre, academics, politicians, planners. To build more affordable housing, we could be building more affordable townhouses, more duplexes, more triplexes in existing neighbourhoods in order to meet the existing housing demand. It’s a win-win. The government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force recommended this. End exclusionary zoning. This is something we could work across party lines to get done. Let’s do it.

We could also—we could and we should—move forward on addressing the issue of what kind of homes we are building, because right now, what we’re seeing are mostly condos, purpose-built rentals and multi-million-dollar single-family homes. The average condo being built today is 600 square feet. We need 1,400- to 2,000-square-foot townhomes and condos, purpose-built rentals at the three-bedroom, four-bedroom range. You heard the member from Toronto Centre already say that. We need truly affordable housing with space for families. If you go into these apartment buildings in my riding, these condo towers that are mostly rental now, they are young families. They’re living there and they want to raise their families there. I’ve had people who don’t live around here say to me, “Well, you know what? When they have families, they’re going to try to find a house to buy somewhere else.” Really? Where?

Also, is that what we really need? Is that what we want our cities to become, just places where people live up to a certain point and then they leave? No. We want people to raise their families there. But to do that, we have to make sure we’re also investing in the things that will make their quality of life good. That means that in a family of four, maybe those kids share a bedroom. I shared a bedroom most of my life, of course. My family just had one bathroom. We survived. But we’re talking about 600 square feet. We’re talking about families crammed into a one-bedroom—many, many, many families. We can do better than that. We can do better for those children. We can do better for families that can’t afford to buy a $1.5-million home right now.

What about the young people? I was just talking to some folks in my community today who work in affordable housing, particularly in supportive housing, and one of the things they were really highlighting for me was the need for more supports for youth, but also for young people. So when you’re talking about whether you’re a student or young person just starting out, you cannot see anything beyond living in a 500-square-foot unit at $2,500 rent. It’s outrageous. How can you afford to do that?

People in our communities are saying very clearly—folks who do own their own homes are saying, “My gosh, I never imagined a world in this province, in this wealthy place, this province of Ontario that I came to because it was a land of plenty—I can’t imagine that now my grandchildren will never be able to have the kind of status of living that I have, the quality of living that I have.” That’s so tragic to me. That’s a real shift. That’s the first generation in many, many, many generations that are feeling that way. It’s not a good sign.

We could—and this is the third thing I want to mention—introduce legislation that focuses on inclusionary zoning so that when there is a new development built, there are community benefits. That’s parks. What is a community benefit? Parks, daycares, as well as supportive and truly affordable housing incorporated into developments. We have seen some of these things emerge, but they only come about when developers are pushed to include them, because they won’t unless they’re pushed. We’ve seen it over and over and over again; communities have very little power.

We saw what the government did to the OMB and, I would say, the very late-in-the-day attempts by the previous government to make some changes to that. This government scrapped it and made it even worse, and now we as community-members have very little say in anything.

People in my community—I want you to know—they’re not NIMBY at all. They’re not saying, “We don’t want towers.” They’re saying, “More towers, and also more of that kind of mid-level rise—and we’d like to see, by the way, that our already crowded park that we have to all cram into doesn’t get more and more crowded. And if it’s going to, build us a new community centre. Build us some child care so kids don’t have to go somewhere else.” These are things that are community benefits.

Make sure there’s some truly affordable units in there. Move to properly invest in community and supportive housing. I cannot stress that enough. In Ontario’s worst homelessness crisis in decades, right now, people are still sleeping in parks and they’re still unable to find supportive housing that they desperately need. Hotels are being contracted long-term. Those contracts are running out. Where are those people going to go? And this government chose instead to cut $246 million from municipal affairs and housing, at this time.

Finally, I would wrap up and say, Speaker, the other thing this government could do is to actually put in place a plan to build affordable and non-market housing on public land, on land that the public already owns, instead of always selling it off to the highest bidder. Properly fund school boards so school boards—instead of having to tear them down like they had to do in my community and sell them off to condo developers, at a massive loss in the end, give them the okay to lease out that land. Build affordable housing in those properties. Build the things that our communities need, that people really need and that are really going to solve the homelessness crisis, and stop playing games with the people of this province.

What this legislation is really about is taking away power from Ontarians. It’s shameful, and this government can be assured I will not be supporting this legislation. I hope that they make a decision to repeal it before it’s too late.

I am glad to be able to ask a question. I appreciated the remarks from the member for Davenport. You talked about what would be better for our communities and that a number of mayors have asked, “What is this really about?” You mentioned that five former mayors of the city of Toronto have said that they oppose this. There would be many ways to strengthen councils, many ways to support councils and communities, but I worry about the harm that could happen. There are lots of ways to support; we talk about that all the time in here. But what if the provincial priorities don’t align with municipal priorities? Who wins if they’re out of step?

The member from Newmarket–Aurora.

Wow. Well, I didn’t expect that from the member of the Liberal caucus, but that’s fascinating. I’ve got to say that this member should look to the current mayor of Ottawa, who doesn’t support this legislation. I hope this member who just asked that question—I would have hoped they would have stood up and said they’re not going to support this legislation. That’s what I was hoping to hear.

You know what? We in our communities are looking for a different kind of development, right? Development that is dense—we know that density has to be built. I haven’t met one person who I’ve spoken to—who I’m supporting, certainly, in this election—who doesn’t support greater density. But we need, as I said very clearly, to make sure that that density includes affordable housing, truly affordable housing, community benefits. That is not NIMBYism. That’s not NIMBYism. That’s the bare minimum that we should be expecting in every development that takes place in every part of our province.

I will add, Speaker, our mayor actually goes along with a lot of what they say, so maybe not the best example. But what does it take? What’s coming next? Are they going to be attacking the people of Newmarket–Aurora? Are they going to be attacking the people of Brampton, who are now represented by a Conservative, because they suddenly don’t like what their mayor is saying? What’s next?

I didn’t even get a chance to talk about it: This government has done nothing to support all of those families across this province that rely on renting. We have rental rates going through the roof, along with inflation, and this government has done absolutely nothing to support tenants. You want to talk to me about supporting legislation? Come talk to us. Come talk to us about bringing in inclusionary zoning or ending exclusionary zoning or building more affordable units. Come talk to us then, and we’ll support you.

Who is harmed when we’re not actually working together? We’re all harmed. We need to work together. But at the same time, communities themselves have priorities. They have things that they know about their own communities and cities and stuff, and that’s why it’s really disturbing when you hear that the government is holding up or tearing up official plans, because that kind of work takes years.

I would say that one of the things that’s most concerning about this legislation is that the government is going to allow a mayor to unilaterally hire—

I rise to support the third reading of Bill 3, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. I will be sharing time with my colleague Mike Harris.

We all know that Ontario is in a housing crisis. We all acknowledge that, but I don’t know why we do not have that urgency to make sure that this is resolved. Even the members opposite acknowledge that there is a need, but let’s face it, this is not only a need, it is a crisis, yet we are not doing it urgently enough.

Just now, I heard the member mentioning that we can have not only just the mayor, we can have the councillors involved. That is what we have been doing for years. If we just maintain the status quo, it will not achieve what we need. I will share with you a little bit more how these created a lot of delays. Not only does it make us having this crisis even worse, it also increased the price of housing.

I really feel for the next generation as they struggle to own their first home. It is difficult to get the house they need within the budget they have. They’re basically locked out of this market, and the prices keep rising and rising every year to the point that they cannot afford it.

I have four children, and I’m happy that they all do their best, save their money and get their house. My eldest one also got a house, but then after she got their second child, she was thinking of moving from the condo to find a bigger house so that she can accommodate the growing family. But the market kept on rising. Now she has lost the chance with the money that she got from the condo to even buy a home. She is the only one without a home to call herself having a home. So there is a lot of crisis.

The price of housing is partially because of the delays that we created in getting the houses built. More importantly, a number of immigrants came to Ontario over the past 10 years or even more. There is a need for housing to meet their needs, but more importantly, as I say, we need affordable, co-op housing for low-income families. The members opposite have already mentioned the need many times, and we agree. That’s why we want to use this special, innovative way in order to pass and make sure things go faster.

One of our commitments in our election campaign was to build more affordable housing. In fact, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has committed to building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. Well, it is our government that has traditionally been doing promises made, promises kept. That is why our minister wasted no time in making way to ensure that we get all the things done. That is why our minister, even before this term, had already passed the housing supply action plan to prepare for this new bill that we’re presenting in order to be very innovative to deal with this housing crisis that we’re facing.

To achieve our goal of 1.5 million houses in 10 years, we have to ensure that the construction of new houses can be done effectively, especially reducing the red tape from the municipal governments that has held up the progress, and that’s where the problem is. We have a group of municipal governments, each one having their own way, and they have been stalling everything for years. Every red tape that we have to face caused that housing crisis.

To remove these roadblocks, our minister had met with mayors and various municipal governments to find ways to accomplish our goals. It does not just come out of the air that we want to do this. This has been in the making for a while, discussing with different mayors, discussing with different municipalities.

We need to empower mayors so that they can and will have the power to move things along faster, making decisions for executions instead of being delayed by many internal meetings and analyses. The crisis we are facing just cannot wait. We’re always looking at different ways we can to ensure mayors have the tools they need to support Ontarians. We need to deliver the results. We know that urgent action is needed to address the Ontario housing crisis, as too many families are already struggling with housing and rising costs of daily living. This timely legislation would also allow regulations to be made and the proposed changes to be in place at the beginning of the next council term. It would help to ensure that these mayors are able to drive priorities. They can go through and have these projects go ahead. Not only that: The people who are voting in the mayors will know who is the mayor that can deliver for them and resolve this housing crisis.

These changes, if passed, would help empower mayors to bring forward budgets that could reallocate funding to priority items in Toronto and Ottawa and add to our government’s track record of support for and co-operation with municipalities. We have done wide consultations and evaluations confirming that cutting red tape will speed up the local planning process by giving municipal leaders new tools and powers to help reduce timelines for development, standardize processes and address local barriers, and will directly lead to increasing housing supply. This is the most practical way that we need.

At present, there is very glaring evidence that municipal planning approvals, including approval of zoning and a lot of other things that they have been arguing about, can delay and hinder the building of the plan that is presented to them. The delays, as I mentioned before, not only affect the housing supply, but they also get housing prices higher and higher. It is making it so unaffordable for the next generation. Analysis shows that these barriers add approximately $168,000—or 22%—to the average cost of a single detached home in Toronto. This is not fair. Our younger generation has to bear this cost because of the delay. While taking a 100-unit condominium building in Toronto as an example, the association concluded that the delay in approvals cost home builders almost $2,000 per unit per month. The delay is really costing us a lot.

We have selected Toronto and Ottawa to start this program because forecasts show that more than one third of Ontario’s growth over the next decade will occur in Toronto and Ottawa. More importantly, these cities have shown us that they have shovels all ready. We are going to work hand in hand with our municipal partners and ensure that things get done. We are using practical ways to make sure things get done. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the success in development and gradually apply it to other cities across the province.

While we are empowering the mayors, we are also careful that we have all the checks and balances in place. Mayors, like all members of council, are subject to local codes of conduct, rules and regulations. All municipalities are required to provide access to integrity commissioners. We are doing this in a very careful way.

I’m sure my colleague will have a lot more to add to what I’ve just said, and I hope by now you are convinced that we need to move on this very quickly.

As I was listening to the member, I noted that the member did speak about the Housing Affordability Task Force, and the comments made did sound pretty positive. So, to help communities across Ontario build more attainable homes, which includes homes for all Ontarians, which the member also mentioned, Ontario is also launching the Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team. This team will work to implement the recommendations we have heard from the Housing Affordability Task Force. The chair and the vice-chair are both municipal leaders. Does the opposition not think that it is important to have them at the table?

Colleagues, I think it’s really important that we understand the context of this bill is another tool in the tool box for mayors, as of now in Toronto and Ottawa, to be able to use these tools should they be deemed necessary.

The opposition and the member from Davenport want to talk about building more homes, and that’s fine. But they have consistently voted against the measures that our government has introduced to do that.

So colleagues, let’s go back. The More Homes, More Choice Act: How did they vote? No. The More Homes for Everyone Act: How did they vote? No. And then now they’re saying, with the strong-mayors bill that we have before us, that they’re going to vote no again.

I would like to know from the member opposite why they consistently vote against bills that have actually been proven and shown to build more homes. We’ve had more purpose-built rental housing starts, we’ve had more housing starts, period, in 30 years. Why do the opposition and that member consistently vote no against—

On that side of the House, they keep saying that the strong mayors, better homes or more homes bill is about housing, but “homes” does not appear anywhere in the legislation itself; it only appears in the title.

On this side of the House, we’re saying that this is an attack on our democracy, because in the city of Toronto, for example, where this is going to take effect, we only have one city councillor for 130,000 representatives, and now, this bill is going to strip that councillor of almost all of their power. So we will not have any representation. But in the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Steve Clark—I’ll withdraw the name. In his riding, there are 10 municipalities, 10 mayors and 59 municipally elected representatives in each riding. We have one for 130,000—in the minister’s riding, there are 59 municipal representatives—and our city councillors are being stripped of their power. Do you think that this bill is an attack on our local democracy?