Those are fantastic questions. It’s important for members of this House to remember that under our proposed changes, mayors are still subject to the legislative accountability and transparency measure. This includes proposed new laws that would prevent the mayor from using the new powers when they would have a conflict.

The legislation also explicitly prevents the mayor from being able to hire certain positions. The posts would include positions like the police chief, the chief building official, the medical officer of health. There are many, many others that are under legislative prescription.

We’re giving mayors the tools they need to get things done, to get shovels in the ground faster. And we’re going to hold them accountable to the decisions they make. We’re counting on them to cut red tape to get housing built faster so that families can realize attainable home ownership.

Thank you for the question.

I thank the unbelievably hard worker from Don Valley North for the great question.

Simply put, Ontario is in a housing crisis that requires strong leadership and bold solutions.

As I said yesterday here in this House, we have an ambitious plan to build 1.5 million new homes in the next 10 years, and our plan is working. Just last year, we had over 100,000 housing starts in our province—that’s the highest in over 30 years—13,000 of which were rental units.

Ontarians have seen the dream of home ownership start to slip under the leadership and governance of the previous Liberal government, always backed by the NDP, but that is going to change under the leadership of this Premier and this government.

My question is for the Associate Minister of Housing.

Speaker, housing affordability in Ontario has eroded at a significant rate, making it challenging for first-time buyers to become homeowners. In fast-growing, high-density areas in Toronto, housing affordability continues to be at an elevated level of crisis. Almost half of all households rent their homes, limiting their spending on other life necessities.

A report from the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force demonstrated that average house prices in Ontario have climbed 180% while average incomes have grown roughly only 38%.

Can the Associate Minister of Housing tell us how our government will address the housing affordability crisis and ensure that we help young families fulfill their dream of home ownership?