I really want to thank the member from Niagara Centre for your hour lead here. I learned so much. You have a lot of experience to bring to us.

I also want to thank the members on the other side, who—I watched—did stay and paid attention, because we can see that it’s an important bill. We have a lot to learn from one another and respect the experiences that we all bring to this House, so I want to thank you for that.

The dangers here in a bill that has potential to bring in authoritarian rule at a municipal level—these dangers are quite significant. I was wondering if you could just expand a little bit further on your disappointment and my disappointment that we have short-circuited this debate on such an important piece of legislation. We haven’t talked to all of the stakeholders and we haven’t given us, as legislators, adequate time to bring to this House the information that we need.

On this side of the House, we know that we need homes in this province. As you know, two million people will be moving into the Golden Horseshoe in the next 10 years, and we need approximately 1.5 million homes.

To the member from Niagara Centre: During the 1990s, Bob Rae removed rent control on new builds. Do you remember that? If you do, do you support what Bob Rae did at that time and what we’re doing today to build more rental for this province?

Thank you to the member from Niagara Centre. We’ll now start with questions. We’ll start on the government side, the member from Mississauga–Lakeshore.

The member from Toronto Centre.

To the member from Niagara Centre, thank you for your presentation. This legislation, at its core, is quite simple. We need to support efficient local decision-making to help cut through the red tape so that we can build more homes. Why doesn’t the opposition trust Ontarians, our local citizens, to elect their own efficient local leaders?