Two weeks ago, I shared with the government that about 1,000 tenants in my riding are facing major rent increases—some as high as 14%—all because the Premier made unlimited rent increases legal for new buildings in 2018. I have introduced a bill to extend rent control protections to all tenants in the province.

Will the Premier give tenants the stability they need and protect them from rent gouging by passing the Rent Control for All Tenants Act?

The fall economic statement in 2018 targeted a rent control piece for one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to incent new, purpose-built rental construction in the province.

What happened, Speaker? Last year, in 2021, we had the highest level of purpose-built rental construction since the early 1990s.

In addition, during the pandemic, the government did a number of things, working very closely with the Attorney General. We froze evictions to ensure that at the height of the pandemic our most vulnerable had a safe, secure place to call home.

Speaker, I don’t want to couch my words. Make no mistake, the government is not going to go back to the times when there was no purpose-built rental construction in Ontario. We want to build upon the success of that 2018 amendment to ensure that there is an incentive to build more purpose-built rentals.

In the supplementary, I’ll talk about other measures that this member and her party voted against.