It’s a pleasure to lead off third reading debate for the proposed More Homes Built Faster Act. But I wanted to make sure that the Minister of the Environment had a chance to do his unanimous consent—and I see that the Minister of Red Tape Reduction, the Associate Minister of Housing and I all have our red ties on today. I think we can all agree in this House, no matter what political stripe you hold, that we’re so immensely proud of Canada’s men’s soccer team and we all wish them all the best. We wish them much success at this World Cup—something that many Ontarians, especially of my vintage, have been waiting for for decades. It’s a great day to be a Canadian.

The bill that we’re debating in third reading today supports our government’s third housing supply action plan—you heard that correctly, Speaker—in three years. Our government made housing such a priority because we know that too many Ontarians are finding it hard to find the right home and things are getting more challenging for them. This isn’t specific to any generation or age group. It’s difficult for young people who are eager to raise a family in the community of their choice. It’s also difficult for newcomers who are coming to Canada and ready to put down roots and start a new life. We’re also seeing seniors who are looking to downsize and find a home where they can stay near their family and near their loved ones. It’s not just limited to one part of our province. It’s not just a big-city problem. The housing shortage affects all Ontarians, whether they live in rural or urban areas, or suburban areas, and whether they live in the north or the south of our province.

Speaker, the problem we’re dealing with in Ontario is clear: There simply isn’t enough housing to meet the demands of our growing province.

We knew, as a government, that we needed to get a plan in place to build more homes faster. And I’m so pleased that this plan, which has been tabled and has finished second reading and has gone to committee and now is here today for third reading, has already received high praise from so many housing partners and beyond. A news release issued by the Ontario Real Estate Association—many people in this House met with OREA members; some even were at the conference to hear President Clinton speak—said it’s “just what the doctor ordered when it comes to getting more homes for families built faster right across the province.”

I’m going to quote another individual I’ve come to meet and to work with over the last four years, who I respect immensely, and that’s Justin Marchand, the CEO of Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services. Here’s what Mr. Marchand said: “The Ford government is taking a balanced approach to ensure the needs of existing residents are respected ... while also ensuring there are new opportunities for new residents and a growing Ontario.” He went on to say that the proposed legislation “strongly supports economic growth, while simultaneously supporting municipalities to build stronger, more vibrant and resilient communities.”

David Wilkes, president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, said, “The plan introduced ... by the government is the clear, powerful transformation we need to solve our housing supply and affordability crisis.”

Joseph Mancinelli of the Labourers’ International Union of North America said that our bill is “a positive step forward in building a transformational action plan that will cut red tape and invest in critical housing infrastructure while spurring economic development and creating thousands of jobs for our members and men and women across the skilled trades.”

I want to thank Mr. Mancinelli and LIUNA for their strong support and their strong partnership in moving forward with getting our skilled trades and housing connected.

I could go on, Speaker, but it is clear that many people and many organizations across this province support the initiatives we’re proposing. The many stakeholders who have praised the plan all agree that it’s balanced, transformative and much needed—and “much needed” is a key phrase, because Ontario is in a housing supply crisis. There are far too many hard-working Ontarians looking for homes that meet their needs and their budget.

Our government’s proposed More Homes Built Faster Act would support our goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next decade. It proposes bold action to meet that goal. This bill also builds on the dozens of pieces of legislation, regulations and overall policies that our government has introduced over the last four years, under the leadership of Premier Ford, to help build more housing.

The actions we’ve taken are working well, but more needs to be done to address this evolving housing supply crisis.

Speaker, there are many Ontarians who work hard day in and day out but who cannot find a home of their own that they can afford.

Statistics Canada reports that houses are about 300% more expensive in Toronto than in the 1990s. It’s not your parents’ or your grandparents’ housing market anymore. The impact is very severe.

For example, the Generation Squeeze Lab at the University of British Columbia, in a report funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., calculated that it would take the typical young person in the greater Toronto area 27 years of full-time employment to save for a 20% down payment on the average-priced house.

It’s no exaggeration to say that we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to get homes built as quickly as we can to meet this enormous demand and desperate need that is in Ontario today.

On top of the housing crisis we’re currently experiencing, we expect that Ontario’s population is going to grow by over two million people by 2031, and we expect that approximately 1.5 million of that will be right here in the greater Golden Horseshoe. That’s why—and this is very important—we need both near- and long-term plans and solutions to deal with the current housing shortage and to deal with the growth-fuelled demand for housing that we know is coming. We know that the demand for housing in the greater Golden Horseshoe and in Ontario is going to get even more fuelled because of population growth.

The other thing I want to say is that this is not some abstract point that I’m trying to make here today. The dream of home ownership is being dashed, and so many well-intentioned, talented people are struggling to find attainable housing for themselves and for their families. This is the reality that many Ontarians are facing. This is the reality that our government must continue to work on to help change.

The task before us is enormous, but like any task, it’s accomplished one step at a time. So let’s look at the steps that this government has put forward to help deal with that problem.

In 2019, our first housing supply action plan, More Homes, More Choice, made very important strides to speed up planning timelines, it made development costs more predictable, Madam Speaker—it’s great to see you in the chair this morning—it made it easier to build laneway homes and basement suites, and it further harmonized provincial and national building codes. We know that those changes were effective—and Madam Speaker, now that you’re in the chair, I want to make sure you realize that I’m going be sharing my time with the Associate Minister of Housing and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. And I want to again welcome you to the chair this morning. It’s great to see you there.

We know that the changes in our first housing supply action plan, More Homes, More Choice, were effective, because last year, 2021, we had 100,000 housing starts, which was the most that this province has seen since 1987, in over 30 years. We also know that the 30-year average for housing starts was about 67,500. So we look at last year—significant growth in housing starts that made it effective. A lot of those extra starts were due to our first housing supply action plan. But we knew we had to do more.

So we released our second housing supply action plan, More Homes for Everyone, earlier this year. The second action plan built upon our first and helped to speed up approvals even further. It set out steps to gradually refund fees if municipal planning decisions weren’t made within legislative time frames. It also created new tools, like the Community Infrastructure and Housing Accelerator. This tool will give municipalities the opportunity to work in partnership with the province to unlock lands for priority housing and lands for key infrastructure needed to support more homes.

I want to stress that we built our second housing supply action plan on feedback from the public and feedback from stakeholders, while also heeding the recommendations from our Housing Affordability Task Force. We appointed industry leaders and experts to our task force, and they recommended strong measures that could increase the supply of market housing in Ontario. The task force completed its report to the government this past February. In their report, they recommended measures the government could take to increase the supply of housing. They noted that the roots of the housing supply problem were decades in the making. They also noted that past efforts to cool the housing market gave only temporary relief to homebuyers. The task force said we have to start thinking long-term, and they echoed the government’s alarm on the housing supply front.

The reason we needed to move forward was clear to us. We had to move quickly.

The task force identified bottlenecks that occur because of delays in approvals for development and zoning applications. They noted that this has to be addressed if we’re going to get shovels in the ground faster to create new construction. They also pointed out that these approvals are often delayed or hindered because of opposition from members of local municipal councils. Too often, we hear excuses similar to, “I’m not against increased density; it’s just not in the right neighbourhood.” We hear that all the time. These sorts of objections have to stop being a barrier to creating homes for people to move into.

That’s why we passed the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act in September. The legislation and its accompanying regulations give the mayors of our two biggest cities, Toronto and Ottawa, more authority to move forward provincial-municipal priorities like building more homes in their communities.

We followed up on that introduction with our Better Municipal Governance Act last week. The act, if passed, would take decisive action to address the housing supply crisis by assessing how best to extend strong-mayor powers and reduce municipal duplication to deliver on our shared provincial-municipal priorities—primarily the building of 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years.

Madam Speaker, all of the work that we’ve done on the housing front leads us here today.

The task force’s work has been invaluable to our government and is our long-term housing road map; it’s the long-term view of how we can deal with housing supply. Their recommendations are guiding the work that we’re speaking about today in the More Homes Built Faster Act—the policies and the tools that will help us build more multi-unit housing, get that gentle density that will enable Ontario to accommodate those in need of attainable housing.

Our proposed act and the new housing supply action plan contain numerous measures that will help address the housing crisis. The measures range from reducing government fees to fixing development-approval delays that slow down construction and increase costs.

The government is going to create a new attainable housing program to drive the development of housing across the province. I look forward to working with the Minister of Infrastructure, the Honourable Kinga Surma, on creating this program that would really leverage these unused government assets.

Other measures in the bill include increasing the Non-Resident Speculation Tax to defer non-resident investors from speculating on the province’s housing market, and freezing, reducing and exempting government charges to spur more new construction and further reduce the cost of housing.

Our proposed act would require building more density near transit. It would unlock innovative approaches to design and construction, and it would remove red tape to get shovels in the ground faster.

It would also make it easier to build small housing projects, speeding up all of those housing proposals while ensuring that building permits and our very robust building and fire code requirements would continue to protect public safety.

We’re also proposing to help speed up proceedings at the Ontario Land Tribunal. This would help us to resolve cases more efficiently and streamline processes by allowing for regulations to prioritize cases that would meet certain conditions, as well as establishing service standards—something that I think everyone in this House can agree with.

Other measures would double maximum fines for unethical builders and vendors of new homes who unfairly cancel projects or terminate purchase agreements—very important.

We’re also proposing to update Ontario’s heritage policies by introducing legislative and regulatory amendments to the Ontario Heritage Act. These changes will increase the threshold for heritage designation, and it would update guidelines for the conservation of provincial heritage projects. These changes continue to support the conservation of heritage resources that are so important in Ontario, while providing both clarity and flexibility to ensure that critical housing and other priority projects can move forward in a timely manner.

We have also been in the process of consulting with the public, with stakeholders, with municipalities, and engaging with Indigenous communities to review provincial housing and land use policies to find ways that we can remove barriers to get housing built faster.

Madam Speaker, these are just a few of the many proposed changes that we’re speaking to here today with this bill

I’m going to leave the finer details of the proposed act to be elaborated on by my colleagues the Associate Minister of Housing and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the member for Thunder Bay–Atikokan.

Before I turn the floor over to the associate minister, I want to speak to the committee hearings on the bill. Our government values expert, stakeholder and public input. That’s why four separate public hearings were held to gather feedback on the bill. I want to thank the government House leader for his work in that regard, and the committee. We have acted on the suggestions, recommendations and questions that we heard through committee.

In particular, we’ve introduced amendments that will ensure municipalities can continue to promote green standards that will lead to more energy-efficient buildings.

We will always support common-sense measures that balance the need to build more homes with concern for efficiency and the environment. That balance is precisely what our bill achieves, and it’s what Ontarians expect.

Achieving the goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years is not easy. A housing crisis that’s many decades in the making can’t be fixed overnight. But the proposed More Homes Built Faster Act and its corresponding plan are part of a very strong foundation that our government is laying so that we can start construction as soon as possible.

We need to ensure that housing keeps up with growth. In partnership with municipalities, the private sector, non-profits and the federal government, we believe as a government that we can get this done.

Our government is following through on the commitment that we made to Ontarians, and we are counting on the support of others to help us with this important priority. We are going to get it done. We made that promise in June to the people of Ontario. We are going to deliver on it, and we are going to deliver on changes to our policies, as the housing supply issue evolves.

I’m now very pleased to pass the torch over to my great friend Associate Minister Michael Parsa to continue the conversation.

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—