The bill enacts the Anti-Money Laundering in Housing Act, 2022. The act requires the minister to develop and implement a landowner transparency plan so that numbered corporations, trusts and partnerships will be required to reveal their true, individual, beneficial owners in a public land registry. The purpose of this act is to clamp down on money laundering, tax evasion and fraud, which is taking place in the real estate sector in Ontario.

Ms. Hunter moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 9, An Act to amend the Health Insurance Act and the Health Protection and Promotion Act in respect of addressing gun violence and its impacts / Projet de loi 9, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l’assurance-santé et la Loi sur la protection et la promotion de la santé en ce qui concerne la violence armée et ses répercussions.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and woefully inadequate to cover the basic costs of food and rent;

“Whereas individuals on the Ontario Works program receive just $733 per month and individuals on the Ontario Disability Support Program receive just $1,169 per month...;

“Whereas the Ontario government has not increased social assistance rates since 2018, and Canada’s inflation rate in January 2022 was 5.1%, the highest rate in 30 years;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to increase social assistance rates to a base of $2,000 per month for those on Ontario Works and to increase other programs accordingly.”

I support this petition. Since this petition was given to me, the rate of inflation has gotten worse and the Ontario government has only increased social assistance rates for ODSP by 5%, which means they’re still below the poverty line, so this petition is still relevant. I give this petition to page Lucia to take to the Clerk.

Thank you, Speaker. On behalf of the people of Scarborough–Guildwood who elected me, I am reintroducing this bill.

Gun violence and its devastating impacts on communities is a deepening public health crisis in the province of Ontario. With the number of firearms incidents increasing each year and the widespread trauma associated with acts of gun violence often going unrecognized, unmentioned and untreated, the Safe and Healthy Communities Act (Addressing Gun Violence), 2022, would amend the Health Insurance Act to ensure that services include prescribed hospital-based and community-based violence intervention programs. Additionally, this bill includes provisions for trauma-informed counselling for survivors and others affected by gun violence.

The Safe and Healthy Communities Act (Addressing Gun Violence), 2022, also amends the Health Protection and Promotion Act to allow boards of public health to have programs and services for reducing gun violence and for increasing the capacity of communities to assist survivors and others affected by gun violence so that they can heal.