SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
September 7, 2022 09:00AM
  • Sep/7/22 4:00:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 3 

I didn’t hear the first part of your question, but I will say that I worked well with everyone, including the Chair of the committee, and my amendments were not late. It was a soft deadline, as you know, at committee, so there was just confusion, I think, by the minister. But we can talk about that later.

Laneway suites versus garden suites: I think what you mean is that garden suites were just recently passed by the city of Toronto. It was phase 2 of our plan, and my plan was laneway suites. Laneway suites happened in my time. I ran for city council on term limits, so I was only there for two terms, eight years. I knew that going in. That was my pledge to level the playing field for democracy and bring gender equity, youth and more women to Toronto city hall. I knew I only had eight years to get things done, and laneway suites happened under my time, under me, because I was there. I can’t attest to why it didn’t happen prior to that. Kudos to you for it already existing in your neighbourhood, but it happened in my second term of office, and garden suites now.

We are in a housing crisis, and people want to see housing built—all types of housing, not just single-family homes, because single-family detached homes will never solve our housing crisis; it will take all types of housing, and we need people to understand that.

People it would hurt? Well, I think it hurts democracy, because it’s not actually about building homes, which we found out at committee when my amendments were viewed as out of scope in principle. I really hope that we can build housing in our time, in the next four years here.

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