Essex county.

I appreciate the opportunity to continue debate this morning on this bill. Since we were here last evening, perhaps a bit of a recap: Last night, we were talking a lot about some of the changes in the bill with respect to the voting processes in some of our municipal councils with respect to the provincial policy statement. We heard a lot from colleagues opposite that somehow this would be a very undemocratic process, that the process the government was bringing in hadn’t been used before, that it would change democracy forever, it would crash the Western hemisphere, it would kill Westminster parliamentary traditions and revert us back to prior to the Magna Carta and the world would fall apart.

Now, of course, we’ve had other provincial policy statements. As we reminded everybody yesterday, the last time there was a provincial policy statement—and again, what we’re doing in this bill is suggesting that, because there is a housing crisis in the province of Ontario, we are coming forward with another piece. We’ve talked about this—a number of pieces every single year that we’ve been in government—and here is another piece, and it is accompanied with a provincial policy statement that allows those impacted municipalities to pass items related to the provincial policy statement with a one-third vote.

Again, you will hear that this is the end of democracy. You’re going to hear this a lot, colleagues; I guarantee it, because that’s all we heard last night.

But there was, of course, another provincial policy statement that was passed in this House, and it was called the Green Energy Act. As we talked about last night, many people remember the Green Energy Act. Many people remember that provincial policy statement.

You will hear how 33% is an undemocratic way when you talk about a provincial policy statement. Now bearing in mind that the municipalities, of course, are creatures of the province and we are all democratically elected with a massive majority—but you’re going to hear about that.

The last time there was a provincial policy statement, again, was the Green Energy Act, and we know how destructive and devastating that was, how hard the Minister of Energy has had to work to actually—

In fact, there are a number of colleagues around here from southwestern Ontario, and a number of colleagues on that side of the House, whose communities were dead set against having windmills.

And now they’re going to get up in their place, as they did all night last night, and suggest that since we’ve given back municipalities the authority to comment on provincial policy statements, that it is ending democracy. This is how the NDP look at it, right? So when you restore authority to municipalities, authority that they took away, it’s somehow ruining democracy.

We touched on this last night, colleagues, but I think it bears repeating. Their concept of democracy is a bit skewed, right? As we said last night, they had a leadership race that nobody wanted to be involved in. They had one candidate in a leadership race. It was an acclamation. Of 30 members of the caucus, only eight members supported the one member who is actually running for the leader, so that’s a bit awkward.

But then it gets even more awkward because their philosophy on democracy is like the Fidel Castro style. They’re still going to have a vote for their leadership. There’s one person running, the ballot is going to come out, and there will be one name on the ballot. I wonder who you can vote for on that? It’s like a Fidel Castro-style leadership, right? You get one person that you can vote for. It’s the strangest thing.

They’re going to have a debate. I’m not sure how that debate is going to work. She’s going to ask the question and then she’s going to debate back and forth, but that’s the concept of democracy that the NDP have. It is very skewed.

Let’s look at what the bill does. The bill gives back power to municipalities in terms of the provincial policy statement, power that they voted to take away. In fact, their existing kind-of leader brags that he brought in the green energy program with the Liberals. He brags about it all the time. It was his policy.

But then, colleagues, we gave them an opportunity back in 2018, as I said last night, to redress what they had done. We knew that they had taken away municipalities’ rights and their powers, and in 2018 we repealed the Green Energy Act in this House. We repealed it because it was a terrible, terrible, terrible piece of job-killing, economy-killing, soul-killing—it hurt people. They couldn’t buy homes. It was just a terrible piece of legislation that they supported. It drove out jobs. And you know what? They had the opportunity to vote in favour of repealing that act, restoring democracy to municipalities, and again they voted against giving back municipalities the opportunity to have a say in provincial policy statements. It really is indicative of who the NDP and, really, the Liberals are.

We also touched upon last night about how it was actually only the Liberals and the NDP that have ever attacked farmland in this province, and in this area in particular. I know quite well because my area encompasses the Rouge National Urban Park, and it was the Liberals, supported by the NDP, who kicked off a farmer who had been on that land for 200 years—his family had been on that land for 200 years; class A farmland. They kicked him off to create a park within the Rouge National Urban Park, the Bob Hunter park. It took them 15 years or so to open up that park, but they kicked the farmer off. When we were creating the Rouge National Urban Park, the Liberals, supported by the NDP, refused to hand over the lands to the Rouge National Urban Park because, under our federal government at the time, a Conservative government, we insisted that those lands be preserved for farmers. They wanted to have the land reforested and evict all of those farmers. That’s what they fought for. The Greens supported that, the Liberals supported that, the NDP supported that and they fought for that.

The member for Milton will recall those very difficult debates in Ottawa. They were supported here under a minority Liberal-NDP government. They were supported here in helping to try to evict farmers. It was only the Conservative government in Ottawa that stood up to them and said, “No, we will not evict farmers. We will not remove them from their lands. We will not reforest their lands.” So, in every instance, it has always been a Conservative government that has stood up for democracy. It’s been a Conservative government that has stood up for our farmers. It’s a Conservative government that is standing up for people who want to actually have home ownership.

These are a group of people—opposite colleagues will all know this—who will say no to everything. If it means it’s advancing people, if it means making people’s lives better, they will vote against it. That is why we’re going to pass this bill. I’m very excited, and I hope that the colleagues opposite will rethink their position and vote with us.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on December 7, 2022, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 39, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 and to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act, 2022 / Projet de loi 39, Loi visant à modifier la Loi de 2006 sur la cité de Toronto et la Loi de 2001 sur les municipalités et à édicter la Loi de 2022 abrogeant la Loi sur la Réserve agricole de Duffins-Rouge.

It is now time for questions.

I always enjoy being in the House and listening to the House leader. He has a wonderful way of seeing things through his lens.

My question is going to be very simple to him this morning. There are 88,000 acres of already available land that has been zoned for development that is available. But my question to him is one that’s very simple: Why hasn’t this government looked at those lands in order to meet the needs, the 1.5 million homes that are going to be required to be built in order to accommodate those who are looking to come to Ontario? Why hasn’t the government even followed the recommendations from their own task force?

Again, the question is very simple. There are 88,000 acres that will meet the needs of all housing development. Why hasn’t this government taken that up?

I’m glad the member from Algoma–Manitoulin brought this up, because in Waterloo region—and House leader, please, I’m really looking forward to your comments on this—there is land that is zoned directly adjacent to our landfill site—directly adjacent—and this is land that Waterloo region wants to “bring in” as part of their official plan. Do you know anybody who wants to move out of their parents’ basement next to a garbage dump?

My question is with respect to the strong-mayor powers. We often hear the government talk about how Mayor Tory was elected with this large majority, but the fact of the matter was, after his secret meeting with the Premier prior to the municipal election, it wasn’t mentioned at any time throughout the municipal election.

Does the government House leader believe that the election might have changed if folks in Toronto had actually known that this secret meeting had taken place and they were planning to give minority rule to Toronto city council?

That’s a good question, and I’m sure some of that land will also be needed, but what we have right now is that thousands of acres of land that have actually already been serviced are available to be used for the construction of new homes in the crisis that we are having right now.

So what the member is suggesting is a typical NDP thing, right? Forget the fact that we have land that’s already serviced, land that is good to go, land that abuts all of the other services and communities—like in mine; roads, schools, recreational facilities—forget all of that. Let’s start all over and maybe in 10, 15, 20 years we can get those lands serviced.

What we’re saying is, we have a crisis now. Let’s use the land that is already serviced to build those houses that people can have tomorrow and into the future, starting right now.

We heard the member for Spadina–Fort York talk about all of the cranes that are open in his—but then in his very same speech criticized the very same buildings that are being constructed in his own community.

So the member is right, and this is why we need to ensure that the lands that are serviced and available for construction are used for the purpose that those services were put in, to build homes, to get people the opportunity to have a home. Look, if you want to rent, that’s great, but if you want to have the dream of home ownership, your government should make that dream available to you, and that is exactly what we’re doing—and not by a garbage dump.

A bit of information for the NDP: The mayor of Toronto is already the most powerful mayor in the province of Ontario. He already has powers that no other mayor has in the province of Ontario, save and except for, perhaps, Ottawa, who has some of the powers but not all of those powers.

The reason why the mayor of Toronto has powers that are in excess of any other is because this House, including the members opposite, voted to give the mayor powers that exceed every other mayor. One of the reasons why is because it is the capital city; it is the economic engine of the province of Ontario; it is the economic engine of Canada.

So when the member asked me, do I think the votes would be different? No, I don’t, because I think most people appreciate the fact that Toronto is very, very important to the economy of the entire country and that it is our job as Ontario parliamentarians to do whatever we can to assist Toronto, the people who live here and the people who want to live here in getting ahead, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.

We have two new GO train stations in Stouffville, one at what’s called Bloomington and one in Gormley. They are in the middle of nowhere right now because all of the land around them was frozen by the greenbelt, the two most underused stations, probably, on the line—huge, massive, beautiful stations.

What does this bill allow us to do? It allows us to intensify around GO train stations in my riding, in your riding. We brought in transit-oriented communities; they voted against that. But you would think that they would appreciate the fact that we are building homes next to transit that we are paying for, that the people—

You voted against all of those bills, but it should be no secret to the people of the province of Ontario or members of this Legislature that we had every intention to ensure that we continue to build homes for the people or put in place the policies that will allow people to build homes and to have home ownership in this province.

My question is to the House leader: If this government was so intent on opening up the greenbelt for further development, why didn’t you tell Ontarians that you were planning on opening up the greenbelt before the election?

You know, it’s not hypothetical. The minister is too young to remember the Bob Rae government, the one time that they had the opportunity to govern. That dream was a nightmare for the people of the province of Ontario, between 1990 and 1995. As bad as 15 years of them combined was, that five years was catastrophic for the people of the province of Ontario, and if it wasn’t for the Mike Harris government between 1995 and 2003 that put Ontario back on the right track to prosperity, this province would have been a mess.

Further questions?

I’m pleased to stand near the end of the debate. I’m going to be sharing my time with the member from University–Rosedale.

Look, the government House leader can say whatever he wants. This bill is an attack on democracy. Everyone knows it. That’s why we had some very impassioned presentations to the committee on very short notice. Very few people came forward to the committee to speak who were actually in favour of this bill. Folks are outraged right across the province and they’re outraged on a number of different levels, for the attack on democracy and for the attack on the greenbelt.

It’s interesting to listen—I just brought it up in my question—to the government talk about how there’s some kind of a mandate for this and a mandate for that. This is a government that doesn’t come out and tell the truth before they go out and campaign, Speaker. With the greenbelt, as a matter of fact, they said the exact opposite of what they ended up doing. The Premier is on film in the 2018 election divvying up the greenbelt to his friends. Then he came out and said, “No, no, I’m not going to touch the greenbelt.” As a matter of fact, I think the leader of the Green Party—I saw some research that he did: 18 times, the Premier and the housing minister, between the two of them, promised they wouldn’t touch the greenbelt. Now they’re carving it up for their developer friends.

On the issue of strong mayors: Look, again, the mayor of Toronto came out and admitted that he had a meeting—and it was a secret meeting, because no one knew about it—with the Premier of the province. He requested special powers so that he could rule Toronto city council with one third of the vote—the first time in North America, as the civil liberties association at our committee pointed out, that a government is going to do away with majority rule and institute a system of minority rule. That was planned prior to the municipal election, in a meeting that they didn’t tell anyone about. As one of the former mayors said, they’re closing down the front door to the people of Toronto and they’re opening up the back door to lobbyists and friends of the Conservative Party.

Let’s be clear: Throughout the election, this was never mentioned by the mayor. So here’s a mayor who meets with the Premier, negotiates special powers of minority rule and then goes into a campaign and doesn’t mention it at all through the campaign to the people of Toronto. I can see—and I think that most of the people on this side of the House can see—the anger that is starting to bubble up now that people understand what this mayor and this Premier have done.

We had a group of former mayors come out from all different parties: Art Eggleton, David Crombie, Barbara Hall, David Miller, John Sewell, and they wrote a letter letting the Premier know—begging the Premier and saying: “Listen, don’t do this. Don’t do this to democracy. Don’t be the first jurisdiction in North America that institutes minority rule.”

In their letter they said, “This bill would allow you as mayor to pass bylaws with support from just over one third of council members in any matter somehow defined as ‘within a provincial interest.’” And that isn’t defined, Speaker. It’s not defined at all. It’s whatever the Premier says can be in the provincial interest, and then that is pushed through by one third of councillors. Eight councillors and the mayor of Toronto can go forward and pass bylaws, ignoring the other two thirds.

We just had a letter come from councillors in the city of Toronto, from all political stripes, saying, “Listen, we don’t want these powers. We don’t want the mayor to have these powers.” AMO did a survey—this is just on the veto powers contained in Bill 3—and 75% of mayors across the province and 95% of city councillors say, “No. This is undemocratic.” That’s just the veto powers. Now we have minority rule.

These mayors say: “We are fearful of the real substantive risks this change would pose for our city. The principle of majority rule has always been and must continue to be how council conducts the public’s business.

“We are now in a time when our provincial government is revealing its real agenda for our future. It is a disturbing future. It includes the unwinding of our greenbelt and the hollowing out of the mandate of conservation authorities that were created to protect us from environmental disaster.

“The province is also taking steps toward the intentional reduction of farmland in favour of more urban sprawl and the stripping away of rules and regulations supporting the building of healthy and affordable communities. All of this is taking place within a matter of months into a new mandate, without having put these troublesome changes before the voters. This is alarming in the extreme.”

These mayors have written this and said, “If you tell the government you’re not interested in these powers, we will come and we will support you. We will help you.” This isn’t intended to be punitive. They’re shocked. They’re surprised that John Tory would enter into an agreement like this in secret with the Premier of the province of Ontario prior to an election and not mention it at any time during the election campaign—shocking.

It shouldn’t actually be that shocking to us. For me, as the municipal affairs critic and as a former city councillor, this is probably the most shocking legislation. It’s certainly up there with taking charter rights away from workers to collectively bargain a collective agreement, which happened earlier. But I guess it really shouldn’t surprise me because there’s a long history with this government—

Interjection.

Shortly after the 2018 election, they tabled Bill 5, which cancelled the regional chair elections and cut the size of Toronto city council. That happened with the municipal election campaign already under way, and when a lower court found Bill 5 to be unconstitutional and they granted a stay, then the government passed Bill 31, which invoked the “notwithstanding” clause to bypass charter rights—not the first time they were going to do that. After an appeal, Bill 5 went ahead; Bill 31 was left to die on the order paper. Then in 2020, this government tabled Bill 218, which was supposed to be a COVID recovery bill, but inside of that, sneakily, had repealed the legislation that allowed municipalities to have ranked ballots.

Back in September, the government, right before the municipal election, when clearly they already knew that they had cooked up this secret deal with the mayor of Toronto for strong-mayor powers—they introduced the veto powers under strong mayors. Then they went and they decided to suspend everyone’s charter rights to collectively bargain, something that is internationally recognized, that workers have the right to collectively bargain, and they used the “notwithstanding” clause for that. We know what happened with that. Then they come forward with strong-mayor legislation that does away, for the first time in North America, with majority rule and institutes a system of minority rule that the civil liberties association and pretty much everyone else in Ontario who cares about democracy is shocked and alarmed with.

Then, after telling people for years that—I guess it’s been five years now that the Premier has been saying, “I won’t touch the greenbelt; I won’t touch the greenbelt.” He fought an election on the promise he wouldn’t touch the greenbelt. They’re opening up the greenbelt for development, despite the fact that their own Housing Affordability Task Force clearly said that land was not a problem. We have more than enough land. That’s the government’s own experts on the Housing Affordability Task Force, and yet what we see is the opening up of the greenbelt.

We’ve been pointing out every day in the Legislature, Speaker, these shady deals: people buying land in the greenbelt; developers buying land. They’re not buying it to farm on. They know what’s going to happen. They knew it was going to be taken out of the greenbelt. Now they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars. And that land was put into the greenbelt at a certain price. That’s taking money directly from the public and putting it in the pockets of developers who speculated on that land and banked it.

So that long, long history—I’m going to hand things over to my friend from University–Rosedale, but the record of contempt for democracy from this government is absolutely shocking. To hear the government House leader stand up and pretend that they’re somehow making democracy better when they’re destroying democracy in our province on a number of different levels is absolutely appalling. The people of Ontario are not going to stand for it.

These two issues, minority rule and opening up the greenbelt, are going to be the end of this government.

I want to thank my honourable colleague for his passionate speech and all of his work. As everyone would know, obviously I represent the great community of Milton, one of the fastest-growing in the province—lots of young families, lots of young people looking to be able to buy a home and having a hard time.

I’m going to flip the question a little bit and I’m going to ask the member to maybe explain to us what it would mean, hypothetically, if we were to approach the NDP approach: to say no to everything and not introduce any measures; to continue to introduce more and more red tape; to continue to make life unaffordable for Ontarians and especially young people.

I’m a proud father of three young adults, soon to be, who obviously want to get into their own place eventually. That’s a dream that every young person has. So I’m wondering if the member can highlight, if we were to approach, hypothetically, the NDP approach, what it would mean for kids like mine and others—

This bill came at record speed through committee. Record speed—just one day of committee hearings. Just 18 people got to speak. The overwhelming sense we got from committee members, as well as the hundreds of written submissions that came in, was that Bill 39 is a very bad bill. Bill 39 threatens the fundamental tenets of representative democracy, which is that municipalities pass laws using a majority vote. Bill 39 brings in minority rule.

Bill 39 opens up the greenbelt and paves the way for thousands of acres of class 1 farmland to be used for development. It’s important to note that the developers who own the land that is being opened up to development happen to be some of the PC Party’s biggest donors. Collusion or coincidence? It’s the Auditor General’s job and the Integrity Commissioner’s job to find out. Ontarians want to know. A lot of Ontarians have already made up their minds. It looks suspicious.

I want to summarize some of my initial reactions when I heard the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing speak yesterday. He talks about how we need to change the status quo. The government needs to be reminded that you are the status quo. You’ve been in power for over four years. When we’re talking about the cost of housing, it’s this government that is now responsible. When we’re talking about the rise in evictions, it’s this government that’s now responsible. When we’re talking about the escalating rise in home prices beyond what anyone but upper-middle-class and high-income earners can afford, it’s this government that’s now responsible. When we’re talking about the rising cost of rent and now how you need to earn over $108,000 a year in Toronto to find a two-bedroom apartment, it’s this government that’s now responsible for that too. You’re the status quo. The housing affordability crisis? It’s on you. The work that you have done to address the housing affordability crisis hasn’t helped.

I hear a lot of talk about how the government says that the NDP is opposed to building 1.5 million homes. That is simply not true. We put it in our election platform. We’ve been very clear about it. We need 1.5 million homes to meet the needs of current Ontarians and future Ontarians, but more importantly, we need to make sure the homes that we are building are for Ontarians to live in, to raise their children in, to have pets, to retire in. That’s what these homes need to be for. This government is very interested in building homes without thinking about the size of them or who owns them. What we’re seeing in downtown Toronto—and now, all across southern Ontario, actually—is this increase in the number of people who own six homes, eight homes, 100 homes. That’s a concern. This government is not addressing that, nor is this government looking seriously at what kind of homes we’re building. Are they family-sized homes? No. They’re 600-square-foot condos, and they’re McMansions. When you go to the Statistics Canada data, that is what Ontario is building right now.

We proposed targets in Bill 23, saying you need to look at what kind of homes you’re building and give municipalities these targets. No, you weren’t interested in that—no, no, no.

We are “yes” to ending exclusionary zoning. We are “yes” to fast-tracking construction workers. High school students, people coming from elsewhere—we’re “yes” to fast-tracking construction workers. We’re “yes” to increasing density near transit. We’re “yes” to establishing a public builder to ensure we build housing on public land that is affordable for people. We are “yes” to rent control so people can afford their rent each month. We’re “yes” to curbing speculation.

When I think about what else the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said, honestly, I had a lot of questions. He talked a lot about these provincial facilitators that are going to go to Durham, Halton, Peel, Waterloo, York and Niagara to once again meddle with jurisdiction—the upper-tier municipalities, the lower-tier municipalities—and also to bring strong-mayor powers into those regions as well. That’s what he indicated. Did he consult with these municipalities and with these mayors? Has he communicated with them about what they want? I doubt it, because when I look at what AMO, which represents 444 municipalities across Ontario, they tell us very clearly—they’ve done a survey on strong-mayor powers, and they have found that 77% of mayors and 95% of municipal councillors are opposed to strong-mayor powers. The AMO board is unanimously opposed to Bill 39 and the provisions of minority rule.

Yet the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing is talking on and on about how he is—he’s not just going to acknowledge that he’s doing something which is harming democracy; he’s looking at doubling down and bringing it to additional regions. It’s very concerning to hear. You didn’t talk about that before the June election, did you? It’s very concerning to hear.

I wasn’t the only one who was concerned. There are many people who spoke in committee. I want to bring up some of the things that they raised.

Victor Doyle has spoken publicly about this. He is the former senior provincial planner who helped design the greenbelt. He’s devastated at what this government is doing, and his quote: I feel “deceived as a planner and as a citizen,” given that Premier Ford and the housing minister both previously promised to leave the greenbelt alone. That’s the senior provincial planner who helped design the greenbelt.

Then there’s the CCLA. They’re very concerned about this government’s decision to bring in minority rule. They say that no person, no elected representative, no member of a legislative body who supports democracy should support a bill that tries to take apart the democratic fabric of a duly elected representative body. That’s from CCLA—my goodness. This is not a radical group, you guys. That’s what they’re telling you to do, and you’re like, “No, full steam ahead. We’ve got to expand it.” It’s very, very concerning.

It’s not only CCLA that is opposed. It’s former mayors, it’s thousands of citizens, it’s the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, it’s CELA, it’s AMO, it’s Ecology Ottawa, it’s Friends of Kensington Market, it’s Friends of the Golden Horseshoe, it’s the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, it’s the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, it’s the Toronto and York Regional Labour Council—thousands of people who have contacted you. They’re very concerned about this bill.

I want to bring up what the Ontario Federation of Agriculture said. They note—and many people have noted this to you—that the Housing Affordability Task Force, your own blue-ribbon, hand-picked task force, very developer-heavy, was very clear that you do not need to open up the greenbelt and you do not need to open up new land in order to meet the housing supply crisis. They’re very clear. OFA says this in their submission as well. They go into detail about the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act specifically because that’s in schedule 2 and that’s the largest chunk of the greenbelt land that’s being opened up for development. They talk about the quality of the land there. They say, “Land within the DRAP consists mostly of class 1 soils—Ontario’s most productive, yet finite, agricultural land.” That’s what you’re doing. It’s very concerning.

I urge you to vote against this bill. I urge you to keep your election promises and keep the greenbelt intact. I urge you to respect the power you have and keep majority rule and ensure that municipalities have majority rule. I also urge you to take a serious look at how you’re looking at addressing the housing affordability crisis. It is not just about increasing the supply that the developers want to build for maximum profit. It’s about affordability, and it’s about ensuring that the homes we build are for Ontarians to live in. Thank you.

I recognize the member for University–Rosedale.

A developer bought up greenbelt land—listen to this. He borrowed $100 million at 21% interest, but didn’t know the bill was coming forward. Eighteen times the minister and the Premier promised not to touch the greenbelt.

My question is to the Niagara Centre MPP: As a former city councillor yourself, do you believe that the loss of development fees will hurt their communities and cause all municipalities in the province of Ontario to raise taxes?

Point of order, Speaker.

Mushkegowuk–James Bay.

Can you explain to the people of Ontario why democracy is so important and why this government is attacking the democracy in this province?

It’s a great question and something that municipalities all over Ontario are grappling with. As a matter of the fact, Markham’s mayor and councillors began their new term at council with a special council meeting where they rejected Bill 23 precisely for that reason, and that’s in the government House leader’s own riding. Taxes are going to have to increase $600 to $1,000 per year for the average homeowner. That’s what the town of Markham is saying.

I think the government House leader should pay attention to home and talk to his mayor and council about how much their taxes are going to go up because of the irresponsible actions of this government.

He can get as mean and nasty as he wants in the Legislature. We’ll continue to talk about real issues here on this side of the House.