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?

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.

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?

Mr. Rice bought 700 acres of the greenbelt. He paid $80 million this September, two months before this bill came to this House. It will be worth millions of dollars more if this bill is passed. It just happens, Madam Speaker, that he is a big donor to the PC Party.

We’re losing 319 acres of prime farmland every single day in the province of Ontario. COVID should have taught us that if you can’t feed yourself, what are our kids and grandkids going to do?

My question is very clear: Why did the Conservative government never, never consult with AMO on this bill?

So I agree we’ve got a crisis in housing, and I agree that we should be building housing. What we don’t agree upon—which I think is fair and reasonable and accurate, by the way—is that we know today that there are 880 acres of land that they can develop immediately. I do not agree, and I know my other colleagues here from Niagara—he’s from Niagara as well—and right across the province of Ontario don’t agree that we should be developing on the greenbelt.

I believe that’s fair and reasonable, because if we really care about the kids and the new Canadians coming to this country, we need to make sure that we protect the greenbelt. We need to make sure we protect our air source, our quality of air. We need to protect our food source. I already said it in one of my questions today, although the Conservatives never answered: We’re losing 315 acres of prime farmland every single day in the province of Ontario.

Madam Speaker, I believe you’re around the Burlington area, or in that area. You understand how important it is to have a food source, an affordable food source. And what we should have learned during COVID is that if you don’t protect the citizens of the province of Ontario and Canada—by the way, 5,000 seniors died of COVID. Some of them died unnecessarily, and they died because we didn’t have PPE, because we didn’t manufacture PPE in the province of Ontario, which made absolutely no sense, because it was taken out of the country and shipped somewhere else. And then, when we needed it, we weren’t manufacturing. So what happened is we decided to build our own PPE, and the problem was that we couldn’t do it quick enough. And who suffered, where the military had to be called into our seniors’ homes, where seniors died terrible, terrible deaths because we didn’t have the PPE?

Why are we destroying our farmland? Why are we developing on the farmland? Why are we developing on the greenbelt if your own task force said that we have enough land to build, that we have enough land to meet what we need in the province of Ontario?

But I want to say, because I listen to these guys all the time—it drives me nuts, by the way. Well, not really, but I do listen to you guys.

Interjections.

But I want to say this clearly, and I think this is important to say, because I listen to that side of the House talk about this all the time. They talk about our skilled trades all the time. But let me tell you: I agree that our skilled trades should be building these homes. And I talked to the trades yesterday, by the way.

They had a luncheon, and I went to talk to them. They don’t want to be developing on the greenbelt. They don’t want to be ripping up farmland, because they understand how important the greenbelt is to our environment. They understand how important it is to have food, and they understand that they have kids and grandkids and they want to make sure their kids are going to be okay. Because we all—I don’t think there’s anybody in this House; I don’t even think anybody who is sitting in the gallery wouldn’t agree that when we leave this earth, we want to make sure that we leave it better than when we got here, that we make sure our kids and our grandkids can have the same quality of life we’ve had. Because quite frankly, everybody in this room is privileged. Everybody in this room makes—well, not everybody, because I don’t know what the Clerks make, but I would say everybody makes above $116,000. On that side of the House, they probably make a little more.

We need our skilled trades working in the province of Ontario. So I agree our skilled trades should do it, but I also agree that as we build these homes or, quite frankly, if we build other infrastructure—in my area I’ve been waiting 15 years for a hospital to get built. But I believe local workers should do it. Do you agree with that, Madam Speaker? I don’t know if you can answer, but I’m sure you agree that local workers, local companies, local engineers should be doing the work.

IBW: I talked to them yesterday. I talked to LiUNA yesterday. They’re all in agreement. So when you stand up here, like you did last night—late at night, by the way—and say, “Well, that side is just the party of no,” it’s not accurate. It’s wrong. It’s misleading. I am not a party of no. I’m saying build the houses. I’m saying use our skilled trades. I’m saying our kids need it. I’m saying our new Canadians need it. What we don’t need to do is build on the greenbelt. Ripping up our farmland—what are we doing? Why are we destroying our food source?

Has anybody gone to the grocery store lately? They came out with a poll yesterday—I’m not sure it was a poll, but it said that food prices are going to go up another 5% this year. Does it make sense getting rid of our local food? Why are we not supporting our farmers? It makes no sense.

So when you come here and talk about building houses, I agree 100%. What I don’t agree with is tearing up the greenbelt. I think it’s fair, and I think it’s reasonable. I’ve already said, Madam Speaker, a developer, Mr. Rice—think about this. Again, I know you can’t talk, but I appreciate you looking at me because I’m talking to you like I’m supposed to be, right, unlike other people who kind of do this all the time.

Mr. Rice bought 700 acres of the greenbelt. He paid $80 million in September of this year. If this bill gets passed, do you know how much that land is worth? A lot more than $80 million. He just happened—and it’s in the record, so I’m not talking out of school. I believe it’s accurate. I don’t want to say anything here that isn’t accurate, unlike some people in this House do quite regularly, quite frankly. It will be worth millions of dollars more—millions. He was a donor to the PC Party. I asked the question, because I thought it was fair to ask that question, how can you support that? Do you know what happened? Nothing. They never answered; never said a word on it.

I’ve got two minutes left. I should probably start my speech. But it’s frustrating to sit here and listen every day that we don’t believe in building homes. We absolutely do. I’m going to start—I’ve got a couple of minutes left. I’ll try and get through some of it.

If Bill 23 was the nail, Bill 39 is the hammer. This legislation tightens the grip that this government has on municipalities and strips communities of local decision-making powers. It’s an anti-democratic approach to local government. I’m going to try and talk about two things: first, the construction of this bill and how it affects our municipalities, and second, the effects that this government will have on the province in the name of getting their developers and friends even richer.

I’m going to ask anybody here—and I don’t know about the people who are sitting up here, whether you guys are businesses or not, but I’ll ask anybody—because they talk about interest rates; you know, we’ve got interest rates and how hard it’s going to be for our kids to buy. We have another developer that borrowed $100 million to buy greenbelt land and—get this—do you know what it was at? Can anybody answer what the interest rates were? Anybody? Because I’m struggling to pay an interest rate if it’s 5%. He borrowed $100 million at 21%. Who does that if they don’t have advanced knowledge of what’s going on? I just wanted to get that out, because that’s exactly what happened.

Twenty-one per cent—holy God. And we remember—remember, going back in the 1980s? Anybody that old? I’m sure there are a couple on that side that are. Remember when interest rates were 21%? When you had to borrow for your house, it was 21%. How many remember that? And what happened? The government was giving people money to buy their homes—$5,000, grants and stuff like that—so people can get into, in some cases, a semi or a small house. Remember that? This guy borrowed $100 million at 21%. But he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know you were going to develop on the greenbelt. He was just lucky—lucky guy.

Anyway, I’ve got four seconds left. I appreciate you giving me the time to speak this morning. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.