Speaker, it’s a great pleasure for me to lead off debate on third reading of our proposed Better Municipal Governance Act. At the onset of my speech, I want to indicate that I’ll be sharing the government’s time with my colleagues the Associate Minister of Housing and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Housing.

I’m proud to speak about the good work that we know Bill 39 will do if it’s passed. The proposed act is another step towards fulfilling our commitment to get 1.5 million homes built by 2031.

Madam Speaker, it’s great to see you in the chair this afternoon.

I want to start the conversation by reminding members of this House that our government received a very strong mandate when we were re-elected in June. The mandate we had was to help more Ontarians find a home that meets their needs and their budgets. I also want to point out that in achieving that goal, municipal governments continue to play a very large and essential role in helping us fulfill that mandate.

As Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, it’s my job to make sure that municipalities have the tools that they need to get more homes built quickly. That’s exactly what this legislation is going to provide.

At the start, Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the housing crisis. Ontario is a growing and prospering province, and it is indeed the best place in the world to call home. But it’s hard to call Ontario home when you can’t find a home that you can afford. That, unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, is the situation today in our province, where far too many young people are nearly giving up on the dream of home ownership.

The housing supply shortage that we have in Ontario affects all Ontarians, whether you live in rural, urban or suburban Ontario, whether you live in the north, the south, the east or the west. Our government recognizes the scale and the seriousness of the problem, and the need to act without delay to tackle it. As a government, we remain, and will continue to remain, laser-focused on policies that will get more homes built faster.

Madam Speaker, let’s look at some of the highlights of what the government has been able to do so far. We’ve actually introduced three housing supply action plans: More Homes, More Choice in 2019; More Homes for Everyone, earlier this year, in 2022; and our most recent plan, More Homes Built Faster, which just received royal assent on November 28. In total, over the last four years, our government has introduced over 85 initiatives to build more housing.

That includes our Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, which came into force late last month on November 23. That act brought local government in Ontario firmly into the 21st century, with a recognition that major and fast-growing municipalities like Toronto and Ottawa must have the tools to get housing built. It’s built on best practices from other jurisdictions, and it has provided a road map for other parts of Canada as they work to make local government respond to the needs of their constituents. Because, Madam Speaker, we trust Ontarians to elect leaders who will deliver, and we’re counting on local elected officials, especially mayors, to help tackle Ontario’s housing supply crisis.

The Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act is a precursor to the bill that we’re discussing today, which I will address shortly, but I’m proud to say, now that enough time has passed to see the effects, we have proof that the first housing supply action plan and the related initiatives worked very well. As I’ve said many, many times in this House, Ontario saw around 100,000 new housing starts in 2021, which was the highest number since 1987 and far, far higher than the 30-year average, which was just 67,500. Even despite economic headwinds, we are expecting to see nearly 100,000 starts this year as well.

So yes, Madam Speaker, we’ve come a long way, but we know how much more needs to be done if we’re going to reach that 1.5 million new homes by 2031. Projections already show that our province is expected to grow by more than two million people by 2031, and approximately 1.5 million of those new residents are expected to settle in the greater Golden Horseshoe. On top of that, we now have the federal government’s recently enhanced immigration target of a half a million new residents per year, which will put even more pressure on the housing market.

Now, I want to be very clear on this, Speaker: We are counting on these newcomers. We want to be able to welcome them to Ontario, because they are so very important for our future here in Ontario. We know how critical immigration is for ensuring that Ontario has the workforce it needs, so that our economy can continue to grow and so that the quality of life for all Ontarians continues to improve.

But that means we need to make sure that newcomers to our province are able to find a home—a suitable home, a home that they can afford. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that the same is true for long-time residents of our province. That’s why the government has worked hard and we’ve taken decisive action to bring the housing supply crisis to an end.

On November 28, our next step in addressing the housing supply crisis, the More Homes Built Faster Act, received royal assent. The legislation supports our third housing supply action plan. This action plan represents, and I’ve said this many times, our boldest and most transformational plan to date. It cuts through red tape, it eliminates unnecessary costs and it addresses the bottlenecks that are slowing our progress in building the housing that Ontario needs.

It does a number of very positive aspects. It promotes the building of more homes near transit, and it promotes more gentle-density housing. Unlike some of the assertions that the opposition has made in the House today, it uses provincial lands for more attainable homes. It protects new homebuyers. It includes consultations on how to help more renters become homeowners. It has many, many aspects. It’s the plan that Ontario needs.

Madam Speaker, we know that if we address the barriers that are causing housing delays, we can help lower the costs of building homes. These barriers include a very complex land use policy that makes it very difficult to access land in urban areas and the lengthy planning approvals for new homes.

I also want to point out that one feature of this plan, which is gentle density, works only in some cases. There are cases such as near major transit hubs where bringing more housing, more jobs, more retail and more public amenities to the area is beneficial for a community. With more housing being built closer to transit, more people can get to and from school and work much faster. I think we can all acknowledge that faster commutes save money. They enable people to spend more time with their families. They make people’s lives easier.

Really, Madam Speaker, that bill that just received royal assent has helped us, as well as all the other three housing supply action plans. It really brings us to why we’re here today, and why we’re here today is to deal with a bill which is our next step, our next piece to ensure that mayors have the tools to get shovels in the ground, and that’s the Better Municipal Governance Act, Bill 39. This legislation builds upon our Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, which I talked about a few minutes ago.

That act, along with its associated regulations, gives the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the ability to drive policy changes. It enables them to select certain municipal department heads, and it empowers them to bring forward budgets. Those changes can help our municipal partners deal with those shared priorities. We’ve made it clear as a government that increased housing supply is one of those priorities.

Our new proposed legislation, Bill 39, is going to build upon those tools that were in that first bill that I talked about earlier, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. It would make further changes to both the Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act, and if passed, the mayors in the cities of Toronto and Ottawa would have a new tool to move forward on those very narrowly scoped shared municipal-provincial priorities. I’m going to say this again: priorities like ensuring we get 1.5 million homes built over the next 10 years, by 2031—

Interjections.