Point of order.

I think, if you seek it, Madam Speaker, you will find that you have the unanimous consent of the House to give a huge round of applause to the Canadians for their effort today. Members of the Ontario Legislature will be cheering them in their game against Croatia on Sunday.

Madam Speaker, it’s always a pleasure to rise in the House, especially today. We’re talking about something that our government is doing to make sure we are addressing a housing crisis.

As we know, from Windsor to Ottawa, from Toronto to Thunder Bay, no matter where you go in Ontario, we’ve seen the boom in Ontario, which means there’s Team Prosperity, working hard, coming together. But at the same time we see the issue, as more and more new Canadians are coming to Canada, as our kids are growing up and need housing. The need for the houses is increasing more than the houses we are building right now. Because of this, we are getting into a situation where we are having a housing crisis.

As Ontarians face the rising cost of living and shortage of homes, our government received a strong mandate to help Ontarians find a home that meets their needs and their budget. I can tell you, Madam Speaker—and you can ask any of our members in the House—when we talk about consultation, the best consultation they did was a month before June 2, when all of us went door to door, asking Ontarians what matters most to them. Most of the Ontarians asked these candidates, irrespective of which party they belong to: “We are in a real crisis and we need to come together, work together, solve this crisis together.”

That is what we’re doing here. The government has listened to the most and the best consultation on the ground, which led to the result on June 2. With a huge mandate, they picked a government and the members who are going to stand up and make sure they’re going to work and solve this housing crisis by building 1.5 million homes in the next 10 years.

That is exactly what Bill 23 is doing. The name itself says it: More Homes Built Faster. It will help Ontario to build the homes that the people need. Our goal is to build 1.5 million homes in the next 10 years to meet the market demand and make sure that everyone in the province—those who are here, those who are growing up and those who are going to come to Canada and choose Ontario as their new home—will have reliable and appropriate housing.

Madam Speaker, if passed, the proposal contained in the bill would help cities, towns and rural communities grow with a mix of ownership and rental housing that meets the needs of all Ontarians, from single-family homes to townhomes and mid-rise apartments.

I always talk about how a house is a place—it’s not just having a roof over you. It is a place where you come back, you work hard and build your life and give back to the community. I always believe, whenever I talk about the art of living—it’s how we live; and the art of giving is how we live life better. The art of giving includes whether it is giving your time, giving your love, giving your respect or giving and sharing your resources. But in order to do that, we have to make sure that we understand and learn and make sure we deliver what Ontarians need.

That is why, Madam Speaker, we’re preparing to build these homes faster than ever. And we are not alone in this; we’re not the only ones talking about it. I’ll give you an example. The president of the Canada India Foundation, Satish Thakkar, stated, “It was long overdue reforms required in the municipal affairs to address the need of housing shortage in Ontario.” He further said, “It will also pave the way for addressing the issue of longer approval processing time.... We also need to streamline our supply chain”—and when you’re going to build these houses, you will need the labour—“and address labour’s shortage in construction industry.”

Madam Speaker, in its 15-year history, the Canada India Foundation, CIF, has been a champion for its community service in Ontario. They have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars with their charity golf tournament for the benefit of the families of fallen heroes. They have hosted series of industry-specific bilateral forums on infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, health care, mining, education, attended by many, many leaders from industry, public policy, government and domain experts.

Madam Speaker, we always talk about the Ontario spirit, by helping and supporting, by giving to the community. CIF founded a free meal distribution program named Thank You Meals, wherein they delivered meals to those working on the front line and fighting COVID-19. CIF is actively engaged in a strategy that involves aspects of business and economy, trade and investment, cultural and scientific exchanges and people-to-people interactions.

I just want to take a moment, Madam Speaker, and congratulate the leadership of CIF, with the chair, Satish Thakkar; national convenor, Ritesh Malik; and the past president Anil Shah; and all the other members for their commitment and passion for giving back to the public. You are a true example of Ontario spirit. Thank you for doing this.

Madam Speaker, everyone on this side agrees that we need to build these homes. We will need the hard work and dedication of the province’s skilled tradespeople. It is these hard-working men and women that put in the work every day across many areas of work and that keep the lights on, the water running, keep us warm and help build the future of our province.

It has been mentioned many times in the past as well: The skilled trades have been neglected for years. As a result, unfortunately, we have a skilled trades shortage. If you want to build homes, they’re not going to magically appear. They’re not like—Lego?

Further questions?

Applause.

Further debate?

I really want to applaud the member from University–Rosedale. I’m pretty sure that she knows the most about housing of anyone I’ve ever met in real life, and I appreciate her words on this. Some of the things that you heard at committee, we’re hearing across—those of us having the conversations with our municipalities are hearing that the development charges issue is a real thing. That reserve—it’s like this government is shaking everybody’s piggy bank and saying, “Ooh, you’ve got money in there. We’re going to spend your money, and make you spend it without asking what that reserve is for.” For these regional municipalities that have a lot of lower-tier municipalities with big plans and projects in the pipeline, that money is earmarked for something.

So I guess I’d like to ask you some of the specifics that you heard, because the government isn’t listening. The member opposite had asked his question. Can you please break it down for them again, so that they stop shaking and smashing other people’s piggy banks, instead of spending the money they should and collecting the development charges, so that municipalities can make the best decisions?

Interjection.

The government’s Housing Affordability Task Force was unequivocal that access to land is not the reason why we are having difficulty meeting our housing supply targets. Southern Ontario has more than enough land available to build the housing that we need for current and future Ontarians in land already zoned for development.

Environmental Defence has done a study looking at people’s enthusiasm for increasing density, so building more townhomes, duplexes and triplexes in existing neighbourhoods, and mid-rise buildings across transit corridors, and their polling clearly shows that people are pretty in support of that. I also find that in my riding: People want their children to move out of their basement and live in the neighbourhood that they grew up in, and they understand that we have a housing affordability crisis.

When we’re talking about building permits, in the city of Toronto, they approve about 30,000 building permits a year, and about 15,000 are done, so there is a discrepancy there that I think needs to be addressed, at least in the riding that I represent.

Thank you to the member for Oshawa—

Interjection.

Lego.

Lego blocks that you just put together and it’s done. No, it’s the hard work of those skilled trades workers. What we need today and in the next decade—Ontario will need 100,000 workers in construction alone to make sure that we can continue to keep up with the demand for new houses.

We want to make sure that by 2025, when we know that one in five new jobs in the province is going to be in the skilled trades—we have to be ready for it. By the way, these are exciting, in-demand careers with good pay that often come with benefits and a pension.

Madam Speaker, we often talk about doing good, giving back to the community. I can tell you, all of us, when we run for election, when we run for office, we want to give back to the community. So I want to share with everybody in this House: If you’re looking for community service, what could be better community service than helping your residents?

You know that we have a need for—a growing population who need to go into the skilled trades. I often say there are people looking for jobs, and there are jobs looking for people. What we can do, together: We have a champion in each and every riding—124 champions. We don’t even need to cover the whole province; the province is already covered within this chamber. When we go back to the constituency office—I call it a community office—take a moment, and what we should do: We should go back and advocate for more skilled trades in this province of Ontario.

There are three programs which I can talk about and something which we can relate through, each one of us. As you know, our focus since day one has been to fix the skilled trades—a system that was neglected by the previous government—by focusing on attracting young people to the sector and making sure that the accreditation and the learning experience are comprehensive and easy to use.

Again, Madam Speaker, it’s not me alone; it’s the people around who are saying the same thing. For an example, James Hogarth, the president of Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, said, with the establishment of Skilled Trades Ontario, “We look forward to working with their leadership to promote and strengthen the construction trades, to ensure that Ontario leads the way with the best, safest, and most up-to-date training standards in Canada.”

Madam Speaker, it’s not a hidden secret; I actually have a strong youth population in my riding of Mississauga–Malton. As you all know, in my riding, we have about 24% of youth, 26% of youth, that are unemployed. I’m talking about the data before COVID. It is absolutely important and necessary: We have to help our youth, give them the tools so they can succeed. That’s why what we did was—there’s a program called Level Up! It’s a skilled trades career fair which has launched under Skilled Trades Ontario, encouraging young people to pursue careers in the trades.

Our young people are the leaders of today and tomorrow. Even if you look around and if you talk about our staff, many of the young people who are on our staff—for an example, my OLIP interns, Esma, Adam, Antonio. You know, Madam Speaker, these are the people—they have a lot of energy. Because of them—they come up with these brilliant ideas—we’re able to achieve many things within this House. So I just want to take a moment to thank each and every person who helps and supports us at the offices.

Talking about the program—I was talking about the career fair. For grade 7 to 12 students interested in attending the career fair, there’s another program called the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program. I encourage everyone in the House, the 124 of us, the champions of our ridings: Let’s go back to our ridings and help promote the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program. Through you, we can actually reach out to all the youths in Ontario. What we could do—sustainably building Ontario would include the homes that our province will need as our province’s population continues to rise and housing supply continues to feel the pressure.

Along with helping our youth, what we’re doing next: We’re actually making sure that we’re making real investments—$560 million to help the Skills Development Fund—and we’re able to help, through 388 projects, 400,000 people around the province take the next step in their career. These 400,000 are the cheques being collected and making sure they’re able to give back to the communities.

Another thing that all of our champions here can do: We’re going through the third round of the Skills Development Fund and we’re accepting applications with an offering of $130 million to applicable projects aiming to develop people’s skills. I just want to say thank you to the President of the Treasury Board and his PAs for doing an incredible job. Thank you for giving us $40 million so that we can invest back and make sure that we can help through the Skills Development Fund. So I will encourage again all of the members of this House to go back to your ridings and reach out to organizations and encourage them to apply to the Skills Development Fund.

Many of these projects are directly impacting our construction trades that play an essential role in our mission to build 1.5 million homes in the next 10 years. Madam Speaker, you can see the approach is working and we are having a real impact on employers’ ability to get the resources to train, so that we can work together to build these homes.

Another example of the fruit of this fund is a project led by the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario which will help thousands of young people prepare for well-paying jobs.

As you can see, Madam Speaker, we are making real progress in addressing the neglect that the previous government had left us with. We need to take dramatic action to address the housing crisis, and that is why I encourage everyone in the House to support Bill 23, More Homes Build Faster Act, that will allow the province to grow in a way that it hasn’t done in the past. The bill will allow more homes to be built near transit. It will unlock innovative approaches to design and construction and get shovels in the ground faster.

This bill will also see the introduction of strengthened consumer protection measures for homebuyers and will use provincial land to build more attainable homes so that more Ontarians can realize the dreams of home ownership.

Madam Speaker, we have to put everything together, we are taking action to make sure that we build an additional 50,000 homes while leading an overall expansion of the greenbelt. As we all know, Ontario is expected to grow by more than two million people by 2031, with approximately 1.5 million of those new residents in the greater Golden Horseshoe. To accommodate that growth and support the building of more homes: That is what our government is doing. We’re making sure we’re putting tools in place, so that we can build more homes.

We’ve been clear that if these conditions are met, we know our municipalities will have tools so that we can reduce the time it takes to build or approve a home construction. By reducing the cost, by reducing the duration to approve a house, we’ll be able to build houses faster.

Again, it’s no secret. Ontario’s housing supply crisis is a problem which has been decades in the making. It will take both short-term strategies and long-term commitments from all levels of government, for the hard-working Ontarians and the non-profits to drive this change. That is why we will be releasing a new action plan every year over four years, starting with today’s plan to help build more homes and make life more affordable for all Ontarians.

Under the leadership of Premier Ford and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, we will build 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years and help get people into the skilled trades to build them. When we come together, we will be able to build a better and stronger Ontario. I encourage each and every one to read and know more about Bill 23. Let’s all come together, work together and build 1.5 million homes—a commitment that we all gave to Ontarians, that we will solve the housing crisis. It is our time to take action and help solve that crisis.

Thank you to the member opposite for that question. I just want to say again: When we’re talking about not-in-my-backyard policies or politics, often we talk about how this is going to help to reduce the NIMBYism.

What I want to talk about is that when we went to the people of Ontario and we did the broader consultation—the consultation that happened on June 2—when we spoke to the residents, they said, “We are in a housing crisis.” We need to take steps to make sure that we are able to solve this housing crisis, through this bill and many other bills that we are having. We are making sure that we take action to build houses—that we build it faster, that we build it cheaper—so that the people of Ontario, who are already here and who want to make this place their new home, have access to these homes. That is what we are doing in this bill, Madam Speaker.

What we are doing through this Level Up! career fair: We are making sure that children have access to real people doing the job, making sure that they actually explain to them what it is to be a tradesman. That is what those career fairs are doing. I encourage each one of you, please—we are going to have five career fairs—to take a look at our ministry website and reach out to the residents in your area and encourage them to visit those career fairs.

It is now time for questions.

It’s always good to hear my friend hold forth in this place.

Question: NIMBYism—I hear this a lot from my friends in government, but I want to recount a story and get the member’s reaction. Back home there’s a community association that is actually contesting a development. It’s not for affordable rental housing or commercial development; it’s five embassies that are going to be crammed into the Mechanicsville neighbourhood. They’ve contested the person leading the development, the National Capital Commission. They didn’t want to be granted status, but they wanted to keep their green space; most of the community members here are low-income folks that live in big buildings.

I guess I want the member to reckon with what happens if we prevent the right of residents to rightfully contest development that’s not in the community interest.

I’m glad to be able to ask a question. The member talked about consultation, and that the best consultation had been what happened leading up to the election. I assume he meant knocking on doors and talking to real, live humans, which I’m glad to hear that some of the government members are still doing.

My question is about—there was a woman; I knocked on her door, and it has kind of haunted me ever since. She and her husband, in their retirement years, bought a house—excuse me; they tried to buy a house, paid for a house, but that developer is not delivering, is not building the house. They’re not getting the house. They’ve got their money back, though—no interest on that—years later. They’ve just been handed the money back: “Oh, sorry. We decided not to build it.” And they’re not only out the money, they can’t get into the market now, how many years later, because they got in back then. Nobody protects them. Nobody cares about them—I do; it’s haunted me.

We’re not seeing protections in here. We’re seeing carte blanche for developers, but some of those developers—maybe you play golf with them; maybe you don’t—are not doing right by people who are buying their products. What would you say to those developers, and how would you help families in my broader community, like them?

I am glad to have the opportunity to stand and offer a few comments on Bill 23, which is titled by this government the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022.

This is the second time that it has come before the House since it has been to and through committee and back. So for the folks at home who blinked—yes, things are moving that fast, and unfortunately, we aren’t seeing the changes that we’d like to see with it having come back from committee. My colleague from University–Rosedale—for anyone who missed her speech and is very interested in knowing and understanding the housing file, they should check that out. I really appreciated the remarks, and I will let them stand for themselves and not go into what could have or should have happened at committee.

But I will talk about the concerns across our communities, what we’re hearing from folks about this bill, which—the government wants everybody to wear the “We’re Building Homes” T-shirt. And the fact of the matter is, we do need more homes. We do need affordable homes. We need to see a range in supply, absolutely. But the problem is this bill makes a mess of that landscape, so to speak.

The bill would download most land use planning and authority onto lower-tier municipalities while limiting the ability of municipalities to collect development charges for certain growth-related infrastructure costs. The bill also allows the government to limit municipal protections for tenants facing displacement due to redevelopment and severely reduces the power of conservation authorities to protect wetlands, biodiversity and ecological health. That’s sort of the banner. That’s how we’re breaking it down today.

I wanted to read something that puts it into people-speak—

Interjections.

Back to the bill: This can get confusing for people, and I’m not trying to condescend. There are a lot of moving parts in this bill. And when the government says, “We need homes, we need homes,” and everybody does the nod of, “Yes, of course, we need homes”—but I’m going to highlight some challenges in this bill that are going to make things, I will say, more problematic and will not streamline the process the way that the government has said that they will, whether that’s just a mistake on their part—although we heard it at committee; there are ways that this government could have improved—well, not just this legislation. This legislation is a bag of malarkey, but there are things that could help us to have the homes and the responsible planning that needs to happen.

Here is an article from the Pointer: “Bill 23 Is ‘Ecological Insanity,’ Implodes Sustainable Urban Planning in Unhinged Give Over to Sprawl Developers”—

Interjections.

Interjections.

“Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, creates an open season on critical ecosystems and habitats in Ontario, a fundamental shift in land use policy that will lead to the destruction of wetlands, woodlots and other critical habitat and effectively sets fire to the province’s carbon reduction targets.

“The legislation mirrors what subdivision developers have been aggressively lobbying for—a bill that paves the way, literally, for more land gobbling sprawl across southern Ontario.”

One of the quotes from the article, from Tim Gray, who is the executive director of Environmental Defence: “It’s pretty much a catastrophic attack on planning that looks to blow up the system ... And that, of course, is gonna have devastating impacts on the environment, but also on the livability and sustainability of our city.”

I’m going to read from my regional chair. Chair Henry put out a statement on Bill 23, the province’s most recent housing supply bill, and some of the pieces of his statement are:

“While we welcome potential changes to help streamline processes ... there are concerns with provincial Bill 23....

“It has proposed numerous changes to the Planning Act and Development Charges Act that, if passed, will significantly impact how municipal governments plan for, and recover the costs associated with growth. It has unintended consequences and widespread implications that impact all Ontarians economically, socially and environmentally.”

He goes on to say, “Successful urban planning also requires a vision—a bigger picture. It’s about shaping communities that balance growth, services and protecting our environment for our residents. We need to protect our wetlands to mitigate flooding; and to take care of the woodlands that support the air we breathe. Ensuring a safe, prosperous and healthy future is what we have been elected to do.”

He goes on to say, “And we believe that growth should pay for growth. Development charges have traditionally been collected to fund large infrastructure projects required for new builds. Without them, municipalities are forced to cover the costs through increased property taxes and water and sewer rates—a burden on existing residents and businesses....

“We encourage the province to engage in further dialogue with municipalities and residents to help ensure the environment—and the health and safety of all Ontarians—remains at the forefront.”

We did talk about what happened at committee. AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario—normally this government tends to stand up and read their comments in debate, but interestingly, they haven’t for this one. But part of their submission on Bill 23 is this:

“AMO shares the concerns expressed by Conservation Ontario that the changes proposed in Bill 23 will not meet the goals for increasing housing supply and will instead increase the risks to life and property for Ontario residents. The diminished role of CAs could also lead to more development being located in natural hazards, higher costs as a result of property damage due to flooding or other climate change events, increased burden on municipal partners, and the decline of the ecosystem approach currently applied through the established integrated watershed management lens.

“Municipalities have successfully relied on the benefits of a long-standing conservation authority partnership which has used local watershed science to guide decision-making. Bill 23 places new responsibilities on municipalities related to natural hazards and natural resources that they are unprepared for and under-resourced to take on.”

It’s a long submission. I would encourage the government members to read it.

Connected to that is what I will share from my local conservation authority. In my area, it’s the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority—yes, famously known for purple woods and their phenomenal maple syrup. I had kind of—not a funny joke, but had said to them that once the government has finished with all the conservation authorities, the only thing they will be allowed to do is make maple syrup, but considering that that’s one of the fees and that they may have to freeze their fees, they may actually—who knows?

I don’t mean to make light of it, but the conservation authorities—so this bill makes some changes, and I’m just going to put this into kind of everyday language and then I’ll read what they have said, which is probably a little bit more helpful, but what I’m going to explain is what I want folks at home to understand.

This bill has made changes so that they can’t enter in any agreement about planning. They can still enter into agreements with a municipality, like maybe a tree-planting agreement kind of thing but not about planning. They’re literally not allowed to offer input. So if a municipality, as happens all the time, goes to a conservation authority and their expertise and says, “Hey, I have a developer who has got a suggested subdivision here. Can you put eyes on this and flag any problems,” the conservation authority would do that with their experts and planners and provide that feedback, and the municipality doesn’t have to do anything with that. They can ignore it. The council can override any input—the conservation authorities actually can’t get in the way of, okay? They were allowed to offer input, and then the municipality could decide what to do with permitting and what information to give to the developer, like, “Hey, here’s a wetland. You don’t want your houses to sink,” or what have you.

Now, the municipalities are still required by their rules and whatnot to ensure that they meet the requirements under the Planning Act and their environmental requirements, but they’re not allowed to talk to the conservation authorities. That’s now not allowed. You’ve got community leaders who have to still have the environmental lens put on it, but they’re not allowed to talk to the experts, so now they’re going to have to figure out how to build that capacity in their own planning departments. Maybe it’s hire someone or use a planner they currently have and have them suddenly develop the expertise or whatnot. I don’t know how that makes the process faster, and I maybe oversimplified that, but that’s the gist.

Now they are forbidden from getting their input, recognizing that a CA, a conservation authority, could provide that input when asked, and it didn’t even have to be heeded. Tell me how this makes it faster. I’m willing to bet you can’t, because it won’t. But it was on the wish list of—I don’t know. Was this on Silvio’s wish list? I don’t know.

The Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority has said basically what I said: “This amendment would prohibit conservation authorities from offering our expertise on ecology, natural heritage, wetlands, and biodiversity for proposals under prescribed acts such as the Planning Act. We are concerned that the proposed amendment will have unintended consequences that will lead to slower and more costly approvals and environmental degradation.”

And the thing is, the conservation authorities have been building relationships with municipalities. Through the years, we’ve known that there have been challenges to be overcome, but for the most part, they have worked out through the years a relationship that works. To just punch that relationship in the face and say, “You’re not allowed to talk anymore,” is so weird and problematic.

As they have said:

“We have well-established practices and locally supported agreements with our municipalities that provides effective and timeline-compliant advice. Without the ability to comment on development applications, there would be information gaps resulting in slower development approvals and added costs to developers to fill these information gaps. Municipalities would need to establish alternative capacity for environmental review that would be less cost-effective than the service conservation authorities currently provide.... Without conservation authority review of development applications, there would be an increased risk of environmental impacts.

“The proposed amendments will deprive our multiple municipal partners of the locally grown expertise they want and need—and rely on daily—to understand and implement environmental planning considerations; it will lead to fewer homes built slower and thereby directly undermine the objectives of the government’s housing plans....

“Also of concern are proposed changes that could negatively impact our ability to protect people and property from flooding and erosion.... This will result in longer response times, increased costs and an increased risk to people and property from natural hazards. Municipalities will also assume sole liability for the impact of development on natural hazards within municipal boundaries and on neighbouring upstream and downstream communities....”

What they have said is, succinctly, “We respectfully recommend that development authorized under the Planning Act not be exempted from a requirement for the permit under the” Conservation Authorities Act “and that all current conservation authority hazard-related responsibilities remain unchanged.”

Guys, this letter wasn’t just written by tree huggers, okay? Because I know every time we talk about the environment, you roll your eyes or you have that look of, “Ugh, you guys are in the way of progress.” But the people who signed onto this letter are the folks on the board. Just like at every conservation authority, they’re elected members of our community who have a finger on the pulse of what is needed and what is challenging our municipalities, whether that’s councillors, mayors—in this case, the mayor of Clarington, the mayor of Whitby, the mayor of Oshawa and the chair of the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, Bob Chapman. These are folks who actually know what they’re talking about. I would also argue that so do tree huggers—just saying, but moving on.

Phil Pothen, Ontario environment program manager from Environmental Defence, went on to also say, to break it down about planning, “This bill’s attack on regional planning is counterproductive for housing affordability—as well as being environmentally disastrous:

“—devolving planning decisions to lower-tier municipalities would produce development that is more scattered and thus much more environmentally harmful, but also more uncoordinated and expensive.”

So what he is saying is, “This is precisely the opposite of what’s needed at a time when we need to preserve every acre of farmland and habitat, and use scarce construction materials, construction labour, equipment and supporting infrastructure to maximize the number of well-designed and low-cost homes, and transform existing post-WWII subdivisions into public transit-supporting complete communities.”

So the harm that this bill does to that coordinated regional approach doesn’t make sense to me, and I would ask that the government explain that. Because the idea of coordinated strategies across regions—doesn’t that make sense in terms of resources, in terms of initiatives and the outcomes, better planning? In this case, it says, “No. We’re just going to give it to the lower tier.” So as I said, it may be scattered, but disparate, right? How does that improve things?

I realize it was probably also on the wish list, right? Like, folks who are self-serving don’t want to serve others, you know? So I think when you’ve got interests that are profit-driven, they want to earn profit, they want to not have to answer to environmental voices or regional plans. But that doesn’t mean that they should, right?

Anyway, the letter is a seven-page document signed by more than 125 organizations and almost 100 individuals. This is a media statement about a letter that came out on November 21: “Massive Coalition of Groups Unite to Condemn” the “Government’s Secret Sprawl Plans

“Today a rare coalition of farmers, housing advocates, urban planners, environmentalists, labour unions, health care workers and community groups from across Ontario united and released a damning statement of the province’s recently proposed recipe for sprawl: Bill 23 and the proposal to remove precious farmland and natural areas from the protected greenbelt.”

David Crombie, former mayor of Toronto and former chair of the provincial Greenbelt Council, had said, “I am profoundly disturbed by the government’s proposed actions.... They won’t solve the housing crisis but they will make it harder to fix our existing neighbourhoods, towns and cities as well as protect the farmland and natural areas that sustain them. If the Premier doesn’t put the brakes on these ill-considered plans, we’ll have more sprawl and much less local food and protection against flooding and the climate crisis.”

Anyways, a seven-page letter, and they’ve outlined that this bill, “Taken together, the changes would:

“—do little or nothing to address the shortage of truly affordable housing;

“—facilitate expensive urban sprawl and inappropriate high-rises at the expense of more diverse housing types designed for all stages of life and ranges of income;

“—divert limited construction materials and labour away from building mixed and affordable housing and direct them instead towards sprawl development...;

“—remove from the greenbelt thousands of acres of valuable natural areas and agricultural land and turn them into sprawl development;

“—undermine the protection of wetlands, woodlands, rivers, streams and wildlife habitat across Ontario;

“—destroy key land use planning processes that Ontario municipalities, conservation authorities and residents need in order to protect, manage and plan for climate-resilient ecosystems and communities;

“—create an ecologically vulnerable ‘Swiss cheese’ greenbelt by allowing land speculators to develop the lands that the government would have removed from greenbelt protection.”

Speaker, I’m running out of time here, and I have letters from the community. For those of us who have staff and community offices—I’m looking at some of the government members—you would know, if you check your email, that our inboxes are filled with people concerned and protesting this on the environmental side, on the planning side. Because it’s all one and the same; we want livable, healthful communities. We want our municipal governments that we elect to be able to make decisions based on the growth plans, on responsible development—factoring in green space, yes, but factoring in floods, the potential for that mess that a property owner could be faced with when a developer doesn’t have anybody watching over them and just puts a house on a swamp. Are we allowed to call them swamps? We’re not allowed to call this wetlands anymore because this bill changes all of the designations, but it comes to the same. We need healthy communities.

I want to ensure that the member opposite—we all have a common goal. We have all been elected by our residents to make sure that—all those residents—we are able to help them. This government, Madam Speaker, doesn’t take it lightly.

When it comes to strengthening consumer protections, we are making sure that we are strengthening the consumer protections for homebuyers by adding the strictest and the most comprehensive penalties for unethical developers in all of Canada. We are doing the most here. This plan will double the maximum penalties and fines for builders and vendors who will try to make extra money off the backs of hard-working Ontarians by illegally cancelling new home projects or purchasing agreements.

Madam Speaker, we are also creating a new attainable home ownership program to drive development of attainable housing on surplus provincial government lands. We want to ensure each and every Ontarian—we want to make sure that we all work together and get out of this housing—

Each and all of us has a moral responsibility. When we are writing to our residents, please inform them about the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program. For anyone between grades 7 and 12, reach out to your guidance counsellors. The students will get paid to do this apprenticeship program and will build our Ontario, where we can build 1.5 million—

Benefits.

To the member from Mississauga–Malton: It’s nice to ask you a question. We heard at committee from many people—although many people were denied the right to speak at committee, which is a whole other conversation. But we heard from the city of Toronto. We also heard from other mayors across Ontario, but especially the city of Toronto. They all had the same worry, and that is what they are going to do with the development charge problem.

Specifically for the city of Toronto, which, as we know, is the economic engine for Ontario, it’s a $230-million hole in their budget every year. How do you suppose that they fill that hole? What are your ideas?

I’m going to throw a little bit of a curveball at the member from Mississauga on this. I met yesterday with some members from the Ontario Real Estate Association, and they were very excited about Bill 23. They said they were actually very much in favour of it because it’s going to make a massive difference for us.

But their concern, to me, was that we didn’t have enough tradespeople. You addressed it somewhat in your speech when you talked about OYAP. Now, I know a great deal about OYAP, but what I’ve found is that a lot of times when we’re here talking about things, we’ll use acronyms and the average person who’s watching doesn’t understand what it is we’re talking about. Could you elaborate a little bit on what OYAP is and why you believe that’s going to help build homes?

Further questions?

Continue.

It is now time for questions.

I appreciate the comments of the member from Oshawa. Do you know what? I know we’ve often heard some very heartbreaking stories about our constituents, Ontarians who’ve been priced out of the housing market, unable to find a home that would meet their needs.

For the last eight years, I was a town councillor in the town of Tecumseh, and I received a number of them on my own for infill developments. The Baillargeon family is one case. They wanted to build a shed for their growing family to help store and add a bedroom within. They were refused because of a lack of clarity as a result of the Gilmor decision, which gave some uncertainty about when a conservation authority could issue a permit. There were cases on James Crescent, Dillon Drive and Chene Street in my former ward where, for over two years, permits could not be issued by the conservation authority.

Speaker, will the opposition let us know why this status quo, which prolongs approval delays and passes these excessive construction costs on to hard-working Ontarians, young families, students and seniors, is the better option ahead of us?