This petition is on behalf of my community in St. Paul’s. It’s called “Protect Ontario Tenants: Pass the Rent Stabilization Act Now.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas average rent has increased by over 50% in the past 10 years;

“Whereas average monthly rent in Ontario is now over $2,000;

“Whereas nearly half of Ontarians pay unaffordable rental housing costs because they spend more than a third of their income on rent;

“Whereas the rent affordability crisis risks all other tenant rights to a safe and stable home as tenants are fearful of unlawful evictions of affordable and/or rent-controlled units if they were to exercise them;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the government of Ontario to implement the Rent Stabilization Act to establish:

“—rent control that operates during and between tenancies so a new tenant pays the same rent as a former tenant, with allowable annual rent increases calculated by the government of Ontario and based on annual inflation;

“—a public rent registry so tenants can find out what a former tenant paid in rent;

“—access to legal aid for tenants that want to contest an illegal rent hike; and” lastly

“—stronger enforcement and tougher penalties for landlords who do not properly maintain a renter’s home.”

I absolutely support this petition, shout out our community on Vaughan Road, and I will hand it to Rachel for tabling at the front.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas most people in Ontario who receive social assistance are being forced to survive on as little as $650 a month;

“Whereas affordable, subsidized rent-geared-to-income housing is inaccessible to most people, with wait-lists of many years;

“Whereas clients need to eat, as well as pay their rent, and since clients would still have to dip into their basic needs allowance to cover rent because even doubling the shelter allowances still won’t cover all of the rent at today’s prices;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to call on the Premier of Ontario to double the Ontario Disability Support Program and Ontario Works rates” now.

I absolutely support and will hand these petitions over to Karma for the Clerks.

“Petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas data shows there are an estimated 131,000 vacant homes in Toronto as of 2021, representing an increase of 32% in the past five years;

“Whereas one in four homes across Ontario are purchased for the sake of investment as the cost of housing for working Ontarians is further and further out of reach;

“Whereas average rent prices in Toronto have increased by 20% over the last year, with 60% of renters reporting they have to cut back on food to afford rent;

“Whereas the housing crisis is as much about increasing affordable supply as it is limiting demand from housing profiteers and speculators;

“Whereas failing to make housing affordable risks Ontario’s economic recovery as working Ontarians will be driven out of the province or made unhoused, to rely on far more expensive budget items such as shelters, hospitals and prisons;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to fix the housing affordability crisis in Ontario through proven-effective policies including, but not limited to, implementing speculation taxes, rent and vacancy control, improving demoviction and renoviction protections, addressing the ‘missing middle’ of housing supply and increasing social, supportive, and transitional housing investments.”

Again, thank you very much to my community and communities across Toronto, actually, that signed this petition, and I’m handing it over to Mitchell for the Clerks.

“Petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the nursing shortage across Ontario has pushed our public health care system to collapse;

“Whereas the vacancy rate for registered nurse positions in Ontario is 12.63%, nearly double the vacancy rate of 2017;

“Whereas Bill 124 has capped the wages of public sector workers, including nurses, to a 1% increase per year, which once adjusted to the current inflation rate of ... 8% in 2022, represents a pay cut of 7%;

"Whereas any increase in hospital beds across the province is inconsequential without the staff to provide the care;

“Whereas public health care is a human right that must be available to all Ontarians when they need it;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately repeal the wage-suppressing Bill 124 as part of the solution to recruit and retain nurses and front-line health care workers in the sector.”

Again, thank you for the job of all of our front-line health care workers. I couldn’t support this more.

Thank you, Molly.

As I was saying this morning, I really appreciate this opportunity to join the debate on Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act. As every MPP in this chamber is hearing from their constituents, we are in a dire housing crisis in this province.

I just want to set the stage a little bit in terms of what’s going on in my community in London. London recently achieved a number of firsts, and they are not firsts that we are proud of. Rentals.ca just reported earlier this week that London experienced the biggest average rent increase in Canada, a 33% increase in average rents over the last year. Tenants in London are being hit hard by having to deal with a 33% rent increase, and the reality is that many may be financially evicted from their units because they can no longer afford the rent.

That’s especially the case for tenants who are living in buildings that were built after November 2018, because one of the earliest things this government did on the housing file was to remove rent control off of new builds, or post-November-2018 construction. That is causing huge pressures in our housing market, when tenants are facing that kind of rent increase and struggling to try to afford that in the face of all of the other affordability questions or pressures that Ontarians are experiencing.

Two other firsts: The latest census data that was released earlier this fall showed that London is the fastest-growing city in Canada. There was a 10% increase in population over the last decade, and that, of course, exacerbates the pressure that we are experiencing in our housing stock. And London is a destination that embraces newcomers, that has really put a focus on welcoming newcomers to locate in our city, and so that is another issue that is putting pressure on the housing stock, combined with our post-secondary institutions and the need to ensure that there is housing available for all of the students who come to study in our city.

The third first that we recently became aware of—again, from Statistics Canada—is that London’s homeownership rate is dead last among major Ontario cities. So actually, that is not a first; that’s the opposite of a first. We have the fewest percentage of homeowners in our city compared to other cities in Ontario. The Ontario average is 68.4%. In London, we’re four points below that: Only 62.6% of our population own homes.

As we all know—I have young adults in their twenties; many of us are in that same demographic. It is particularly challenging, disheartening and frustrating for these young adults to ever imagine a future where they will be able to afford a home. We hear that a lot about Toronto, but it’s the same reality in communities like London. That was corroborated in the data that show that in London, only 50% of young adults aged 30 to 34 in London own a home. That’s down from 56.3% in the previous census, and there was a four percentage point decline for young adults aged 35 to 39. So the housing crisis is real. The housing crisis is affecting both tenants and people who want to own a home, particularly young people who are looking to get into the housing market, and we collectively have a responsibility to do something to address this crisis.

The bill that is before us today attempts to do that, and that is important. We need to see more homes built faster, as in the title of the bill. But we also need a whole swath of other strong measures and bold actions to be taken.

The intensification provisions that are in this bill, the changes to the Planning Act, will take some baby steps to increasing that stock that we know we need to achieve. The government’s task force before the election had shown that Ontario will need 1.5 million new homes built over the next decade. It was sad to hear that the government’s own background papers estimate that the intensification provisions in this legislation will add about 50,000 new units over the next decade. That is far, far short of the 1.5 million homes that are necessary to meet the needs of our growing population. In terms of supply, we need purpose-built rentals. We need non-market options. We need co-op housing. We need supportive housing. We need so much more than what this bill is going to deliver.

And when we have a population that is so reliant on rental housing, we need to strengthen protections for tenants. What does this bill do? We see in schedules 1 and 4 that this bill weakens protections for tenants. It allows the minister to impose limits and conditions on rental replacement bylaws that require that any affordable units that are demolished or converted during redevelopment are replaced. This bill eliminates those rental replacement provisions that are in place through municipal bylaws in Toronto and Mississauga, but it also prohibits any municipality from having those kinds of provisions.

Former Toronto city planner Jennifer Keesmaat said this is going to this is going to make it open season on low-income tenants who are living in purpose-built rentals that, like many of the purpose-built rentals in our province, are deteriorating in condition and are demolished. Those units will be gone. Municipalities will no longer be able to require that tenants can move back into a new building that is constructed at the same rent. Once again, it is going to displace thousands of vulnerable tenants across this province and increase the pressure on other communities that perhaps have lower average rents versus Toronto and Mississauga, where those bylaws are in place.

We need to ensure that there is a strong public role in new housing investments to make sure that those new builds that are constructed actually are affordable. This legislation defines affordable as 80% of market rent, but when market rent is over $2,000, 80% of that is far from affordable for many, many, many people in this province. We need to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing as well as those supportive homes that are so, so lacking in supply in our province.

We also need to take stronger regulatory measures, like a speculation tax, a vacancy tax. We heard earlier this week that the government is increasing the non-resident speculation tax, but there is so much more that can be done on the regulatory side to really spur the construction of those 1.5 million homes we need.

This bill is a step forward in some senses. As the government has estimated, it will increase our supply by 50,000 units over 10 years, and the difference between the 50,000 units that will be spurred by this bill and the $1.5-million target that we know we have to meet—the difference, this government has decided, will be made up by municipalities. So the legislation requires municipalities to have a housing pledge with a specific target that they are supposed to meet in terms of new home construction. But as the Globe and Mail has pointed out and as various commentators have pointed out, a housing pledge without any kind of penalty for municipalities that don’t meet that pledge is not going to produce those units that are necessary.

Before I reach the end of my time, I want to raise some very significant concerns about other measures that are proposed in this bill, in schedule 2 and schedule 9. Those relate to the Conservation Authorities Act and, in schedule 9, the Planning Act. Specifically, I’m referring to the changes that the government is proposing to the role of conservation authorities in planning matters. The changes that are set out in these two schedules of the bill limit or, as some would say, gut the oversight role of conservation authorities in the planning process.

In schedule 2, the role of conservation authorities in reviewing and commenting on planning and development matters within their jurisdiction will be strictly limited to matters falling under their core mandate, so that would be flooding, erosion or drought. The bill would prohibit conservation authorities from reviewing or commenting on specific proposals under a prescribed act. Conservation authorities will no longer be allowed to prohibit certain activities relating to the use or modification of water courses, wetlands, erosion and other matters. This is of grave concern to many people in this province, not just environmentalists, but of course environmentalists have sounded the alarm. We are in a climate crisis. We just saw the impact of Hurricane Fiona. These are not just 100-year severe weather events; these are 500-year severe weather events that we are experiencing on this planet. There was just a recent report showing that we’re going to be nowhere close to meeting that UN target of reducing global warming in the amount of time that we have to unless we take stronger measures. Undermining the role of conservation authorities, limiting the role of conservation authorities is exactly counter to what we should be doing.

Interestingly, the federal parliamentary budget office had recognized the work that Ontario’s conservation authorities had been doing to keep losses associated with flooding in Ontario lower than losses seen in other Canadian provinces. The last thing we want to do is to limit and undermine the role of conservation authorities in sound and sustainable development planning.

I just want to close by saying that this government has given us no confidence that it is committed to housing. We just saw in this year’s estimate a $100-million cut to the provincial government’s housing program. They have to do a lot better than what’s in this bill.

This bill is very interesting to me, because it’s going to affect municipalities probably the most, and I know there are some people who have been councillors. Do you know what didn’t happen in this bill? There was little to no consultation with AMO and with the mayors in the province of Ontario who it’s going to affect the most. There was some, a select few, but in my riding there was little to no consultation—little to no consultation. I wanted to get that out.

We would say yes, it was in the betterment of the province of Ontario, but you’ve got to talk to the people who are going to be affected. We just had elections. Why do we have elections if you’re not going to talk to them? It makes no sense to me.

So my question is, through you: What is in this bill that will protect renters from unjust evictions and rent increases?

Thank you, Speaker. Well done. Thank you to the member for London West for your comments on this bill. You’ve certainly given us a lot of important reflections.

Over the past few months, I’ve been speaking with a lot of people in Ontario living on social assistance. The rates for a single individual are $733 a month. Even after the government’s historic increase to ODSP, people are only getting $1,228 a month. That’s not enough to afford rent in Ontario right now. And now we have a bill that’s redefining affordability based on market rent, rather than what incomes people actually have. I’m wondering if you can expand on the challenge that this represents for people living on social assistance in Ontario.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill today. Right now in Ontario, we’re living in a housing crisis that’s only getting worse. Average rent in Ottawa increased 14% this year compared to last. We have people across Ottawa West–Nepean who are paying half their income on often poor-quality, insecure and unsafe housing. People on ODSP and OW, if they’re lucky, can manage to pay rent on only $733 or $1,228 a month.

We have a desperate need to see more non-profit housing built in order to accommodate the vast waiting list. There’s currently an eight-year wait-list for access to social housing in Ottawa. We have 500 families who are currently living in hotels, many of them with kids, many of them for multiple years. I know I’m not the only parent in the House right now, Speaker, and, like many parents, I’ve spent nights in hotels with kids, and I’m sure you can appreciate how difficult it is for kids to sleep in that environment. These are families that are in these conditions, day in and day out, for years. It’s not exactly setting these children up for success.

I’ve also spoken to many people over the past year who are homeowners but are unsure if their kids ever will be. They still have their kids living at home, unsure when they’ll ever be able to move out. I’ve spoken with parents and grandparents who are disappointed that their kids had to move far away from home just in order to be able to afford housing and that they don’t get to see their kids or grandkids very often.

When we’re talking about legislation, it’s always important to remember that we’re not just discussing numbers on a page or theoretical ideas about policy; we’re talking about real people, real families who are being impacted by this crisis, real families that have to choose between eating and heating because of exploitative landlords and absurd housing costs. So as I begin, I want to share some of these stories to remind us of the human side of the issue and the impact on real people.

A constituent in my riding, who wishes to remain anonymous for his own safety, was recently informed that the building he has lived in for over two decades has been sold. The new owners of 2929 Carling Avenue are planning a complete renovation of the building, and are taking action to evict their current tenants. Many of the tenants of this building, including my constituent, are living on social assistance and cannot afford to enter a new rental agreement because of the high cost of rent in Ottawa.

Renovictions like this are forcing out people with disabilities, people on Ontario Works and ODSP, single moms and their children, just so that landlords can increase their profits by doubling the rent. This constituent is now struggling with the stress of losing his home during a housing affordability crisis, and is pleading for this government to fight for tenants’ rights and end these renovictions so that the people of this province can have a roof over their heads.

Another constituent in my riding of Ottawa West–Nepean, Laura, has been struggling to find affordable housing in Ottawa. Laura has described what she and her family have been through in Ottawa’s housing market as one of the most painful, defeating and humiliating experiences of her life. Her husband has found a well-paying job in Ottawa and makes around $90,000 per year. They have both worked extremely hard to climb their way out of poverty. They have positive rental references, positive personal references, positive private financial references, and even have parents co-signing behind them, but to the absolute dread of every landlord in the market right now, they have poor credit scores.

Laura and her husband have been pushed by property managers to up their bid for a better chance to get a house, but have been told that without good credit, they will not be accepted. This has put her family in a vulnerable position. All they have been able to find is a short-term room rental for her husband. Laura and her 10-month-old have been forced to move back in with her parents, four hours outside of Ottawa, because they have been continuously denied access to affordable housing. This has left their new family split apart for over four months now, and they have been seeking housing for literally the entirety of their daughter’s life.

Housing is a human right, and renters need protection, but what is this government doing to protect tenants? Rental prices in Ottawa are increasing to alarming amounts between tenants, and many are being forced further from their workplaces just to find anything remotely affordable. It’s also allowing landlords to ask for more and more unreasonable demands from tenants.

Another woman, Tracy, reached out to me on Twitter. She is on ODSP and was searching for housing. She found an available unit, but the landlord told her she would not be able to apply for the housing, because the landlord wanted an income of at least $40,000 a year. People living on ODSP make only $14,000 a year, Speaker. They are never going to be able to afford housing unless we actually increase the rates and take steps to ensure that housing is truly affordable.

Many of the people living on social assistance who I have spoken to over the past months have highlighted this issue. They aren’t receiving enough income to pay for rent, and then they face discrimination in the housing market, with landlords refusing to return their calls as soon as they learn they are on social assistance. It’s not right, Speaker. We’ve got people living in tents, in boxes, on our streets because they just can’t find an affordable place to live. Until we take that crisis seriously, we’re going to see more people in that situation. What does that say about our society, and what does that say about this government if they’re prepared to allow that to happen?

Which leads us to Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act. There are elements of this bill that are potentially positive steps forward. We are living in a housing crisis, and expanding the housing supply is necessary. We undoubtedly need to build more compact, mixed-use communities across the province. It’s also good to see that there will be policy changes regarding infill housing. Allowing for secondary and tertiary suites within existing homes is a welcome change, and something I note the NDP has long called for. I’m glad the government has listened to the opposition on this.

Let’s go through some of the elements of the bill, starting with changes to the Development Charges Act. The bill will exempt development charges for the development of affordable housing. However, it defines an affordable residential unit as being a rental unit where the rent is no greater than 80% of average market rent, or a non-rental unit where the home was sold at no more than 80% of the average purchase price. The problem with this definition is that the average market rent for a studio apartment, so the bottom of the housing market in Ottawa, is $1,700 currently. That means the definition of an affordable rental unit in Ottawa for an affordable studio would be $1,360. That’s still not affordable for my constituents. It’s not affordable housing for seniors on a low fixed income. It’s not affordable for young families struggling under the weight of the cost-of-living crisis, desperate to try to get on the housing ladder but with no help in sight. It’s not affordable for all of the people I’ve spoken to on ODSP and OW whose payments wouldn’t even cover rent at $1,360. So let’s be absolutely clear: This is not affordable housing.

I would like to welcome, though, the section in the bill that supports non-profit housing developments, including co-ops that are mandated under inclusionary zoning bylaws, and exempts them from development charges. Co-ops are such a great form of affordable housing that provides residents with a real say over how their homes are managed and shared. I wish there was more in this bill regarding non-profit housing, as it’s not just lack of supply that is causing housing costs to soar but the lack of non-profit housing to drive down prices from wealthy development speculators.

Additionally, while the bill will exempt development charges for at least 25 years, 25 years is not long enough for many people who will still be living in poverty 25 years from now or on a fixed income, because you simply don’t get over a disability or being a senior in the space of 25 years.

At the end of the day, we also need to be honest that no amount of building new homes for profit is going to get people on social assistance into safe housing when they are only getting $733 a month.

We also support the need to build homes that are more affordable and to address the missing middle in our housing market—duplexes, triplexes and townhomes in particular.

We support densification and utilizing existing neighbourhoods to address the housing crisis, but we also need to maintain and protect existing affordable rental and community housing supply.

While it is clear that the bill makes strides to address the housing crisis by increasing the supply of for-profit homes, it is also clear that there are provisions in this bill that will have negative implications for renters in particular.

As the critic for poverty and homelessness, I want to spend some time outlining the issues that I see with this bill in relation to its impact on renters and people experiencing poverty.

We need to be building market and non-market affordable homes. It’s important that we are ensuring that the homes we are constructing can be afforded by Ontarians of all income levels. It does not make sense to construct millions of homes that are out of the price range of those who are most in need of housing while not constructing any that people at the low end of the spectrum can afford.

It also makes no sense to change regulations and overrule local decision-making in a way that has negative impacts on renters and people experiencing poverty.

Schedule 1 and schedule 4 contain provisions that will impose limits and conditions on rental replacement bylaws. This will reduce protections for renters and undermine local decision-making by municipalities. Rental replacement bylaws are important for when existing apartment buildings are demolished or converted into condominiums. These bylaws ensure that the new building contains sufficient rental units to replace the ones being demolished and that the renters who were living in the units that were replaced are given the opportunity to move back into the newly created or refurbished building at the same rental rate as they had previously. This is an important protection for renters, and particularly for renters who have been living in the same unit for decades—units that are affordable. It means that seniors, people living with disabilities, and families are not unjustly forced into an extremely competitive rental market simply because their building has undergone a demolition or repurposing. Without rental replacement bylaws, we risk driving more renters into the market, driving up demand for existing units and therefore also driving up prices. This is a recipe for trouble and could very well lead to a net loss of affordable units in Ontario. Ever-increasing rental prices could be stopped by enacting rent control to ensure that tenants pay the same rent that previous tenants paid. Our election platform called for this, and it is a call that is supported by many of the tenant advocates I spoke with.

I do not see this sort of protection in this bill. In fact, the current government ended rent control for new buildings in 2018. The end of rent control in conjunction with this new attack on rental replacement bylaws demonstrates that this government is just not interested in protecting renters. It’s part of a pattern of actions taken by this government which have made it harder and harder to rent in Ontario. It is imperative that Ontario’s housing strategy take into consideration the needs of renters. We need to ensure that we are building purpose-built rental units that are family-friendly and are protected by rent control. Without these purpose-built rentals, rent control and rental replacement bylaws, this bill is only going to exacerbate the challenging situation that many renters in Ontario are facing.

Let’s go back to a section of the bill I touched on earlier, schedule 3. This portion of the bill redefines affordability in a way that does not reflect the lived reality of many Ontarians. According to this schedule, a unit can be classified as affordable if the rent or purchase price is no greater than 80% of market value. This is a problem, because it links the definition of affordability to the market instead of to what Ontarians can actually afford. To put this into perspective, let’s say an individual on ODSP has been evicted from their unit. Currently, the average rental rate in Ottawa for all apartments is $1,800 a month. Under the definition set out in this this bill, a unit would be deemed affordable so long as the rental rate was $1,440, or 80% of the average rental rate. Keep in mind, as the government is well aware, an individual on ODSP receives only $1,228 per month. That means this individual is already $200 behind without even accounting for food costs, Internet, utilities and other expenses. The affordable unit costs more than their entire support payment. That’s just not right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t use this opportunity to say the government needs to double social assistance rates. We need to ensure that everyone can live a life of dignity, responding to their basic needs. The government is not taking seriously the lived reality of people on Ontario Works and ODSP, and this bill demonstrates that. By playing games with the definition of affordability and refusing to take real action to address legislated poverty, it is clear that yet again this government is not concerned about putting people onto the streets. People living on social assistance cannot afford to rent in this province as it is. It would be a huge mistake to redefine affordability in a way that attaches it to market value rather than to what individuals can actually afford.

I also want to speak to the gutting of conservation authorities in this bill, Speaker. In Ottawa West–Nepean, we’ve had two once-in-a-century floods in the past three years. It has been devastating for many residents of Ottawa West–Nepean who have had to evacuate their homes, who have had to take measures to protect their homes, who have had to replace damage done to their homes. There is a reason why we need to have environmental protections, both to limit the damage of climate change so that we don’t continue to have these once-in-a century storms every three years, and also so that we’re not building homes of any kind, whether it’s for low-income people or wealthy residents, on wetlands that are most vulnerable to this kind of flooding when these kinds of storms and measures happen. We need to take conservation, we need to take climate change seriously so that we are actually protecting people’s homes and making sure that they can live safely, regardless of what happens.

Finally, I want to conclude by mentioning the need for consultation. We’ve already heard this afternoon about how limited the consultation has been on this bill. The government did not speak to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario before tabling this bill. They have not spoken to many stakeholders about this bill. We’ve seen from this government a repeated pattern of unwillingness to speak to the people who are most affected by their legislation. We’ve seen an unwillingness on the part of this government to speak to people who most need to be consulted on the impacts of legislation. I am concerned that this will happen again. I’ve already heard from ACORN Ottawa that they have serious concerns about the gutting of tenant protections and the definition of affordability. It is absolutely essential that when legislation affects such a fundamental human right as housing, the government is actually speaking to the people who are affected, is listening to their concerns, is integrating their concerns into the legislation so that at the end of the day, we have a strategy that actually respects the human rights of everyone in our province, and actually takes seriously the need to provide dignified and affordable housing to everyone in Ontario, regardless of their income level.

Thanks to the member for Spadina–Fort York for that great question.

It is absolutely true that this is a problem that is multi-faceted. In addition to the issues you listed, I would also add that it’s an income problem, and that the failure to address social assistance rates and the level of minimum wage means that a significant number of people in Ontario can’t afford housing. This is why we need a multi-faceted response. That’s why I was so proud to run on the NDP’s housing plan, which actually did address the need to build housing across the spectrum, to make it more affordable for people to buy homes, to make it more affordable for people to rent homes—investing in co-ops, not-for-profit and community and supportive housing, but also addressing the income supply of the problem, cracking down on speculation so that people weren’t getting filthy rich—

What I can say is that the outcomes of the government’s efforts speak for themselves. Average rent rose 14% over the past year in Ottawa. The vacancy rate for affordable housing is zero. We’ve got a wait-list of people waiting for community housing that is eight years long. We have 500 families with kids living in hotel rooms for multiple years. I think those efforts speak for themselves.

I absolutely see red flags. As someone who is keeping an eye on other tribunals, I would say that this is part of a pattern of concerning red flags with how the Conservative government approaches tribunals. So this is a part of the bill that definitely deserves very close scrutiny.