Speaker, let’s be clear with the people of Ontario what we’re debating with Bill 39. We are debating turning over centuries of democratic principles. That’s what’s at stake right now—the democratic principle of majority rule. We all know Winston Churchill’s famous quote that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried; well, I guess the government wants to try another form of government called “minority rule” at city councils. That’s what’s at stake right here.

I used to think Conservatives were about conserving things. They’re certainly not about conserving democratic institutions and democratic principles. They’re certainly not conserving class 1 and 2 farmland in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve.

We don’t need to get rid of democracy and democratic principles to build housing, to restore the dream of home ownership. We don’t need to pave over the farmland that feeds us and dismantle environmental protections to build the housing people need that’s affordable in the communities where they want to live.

The government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force, hand-picked by the Premier, didn’t put forward things I always support, but they put forward a number of solutions that the government is actually not even bringing forward. The task force never said, “Open the greenbelt for development.” They never said, “Get rid of the triple protections on the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve.” And they never said, “Overturn democratic rule in this province.”

A couple of things they did talk about, in Bills 44 and 45, were getting rid of exclusionary zoning, so we can bring in gentle density—so if the government truly wants to restore home ownership, why don’t we pass Bill 44, which I’ve put forward, which puts forward the housing task force recommendations on how to do gentle density? And while we’re at it, let’s pass Bill 45, which shows how we can bring in mid-rise development across this province, so we can actually build homes that people can afford, close to where they work, in communities where they want to live, without paving over the farmland that feeds us and contributes $50 billion to the province’s economy. We can do it without undermining democracy like Bill 39 does.