It’s a pleasure for me to join the debate on Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act.

Before I begin, though, I just want to say thank you to all the people who have reached out to the member from Hamilton Mountain. She’s suffered a sudden death in her family, and I know the government side and this side, including the independent members, have reached out to her, and I think that that is a hopeful moment for us.

I also wanted to talk about a theme that has emerged over the last four years and now continues into this term, around the legislation that the government brings forward, and it’s sort of the theme of what you see is not always what you get. On housing, though, every member of this Legislature is experiencing huge pressure in our communities to build affordable housing and to ensure that that housing is where people live and work. That’s one of the key pieces that I’m going to be focusing on as I comment on Bill 23.

I wanted to give some context for those comments, because in Waterloo region, with a population of some 600,000, the regional government has just sanctioned a tent city. It’s part of a broader plan, but people in Waterloo region have literally no place to live, and so they’ve taken matters into their own hands. These people are members of our community who have been displaced, who have suffered illness in their family, who have lost their jobs. Many of them were contributing to the local economy prior to the pandemic. Then there’s also the complications around mental health and addiction and the lack of resources.

So it’s really through a combination of circumstances—and in some instances, for some folks, truly a perfect storm—you have people and families who are living in tents in Waterloo region. As the winter approaches I hope that we can all express our collective concern that living in a tent in Canada is something that should fill all of us with a sense of responsibility to address this in a meaningful way and with urgency.

With Bill 23—in some respects there are parts of this legislation that are encouraging. Some of the intensification pieces are exactly some of the stuff that we have advocated for, for years. The fundamental difference, I think, in the way that we approach housing and the way that the government does is that we do see a role for government to play an active role in investing and directly building affordable housing. Prior to the 1990s, the government filled that gap, where the private sector was not building affordable housing. The private sector is not going to build affordable housing. They are not. There is no money in building affordable housing. So there is a role for government to directly play in direct development and funding of truly, deeply affordable housing.

Right now the not-for-profit sector—I’m thinking of an organization in Hamilton and now Waterloo region, Indwell—are filling that gap, but 30 units at a time, 40 units at a time. We know that for the 60 people who are living in tents in Waterloo region, that housing will not come online in time for them. So they are looking at a very cold winter.

It’s not that municipalities have not been trying, but they do have financial limitations to doing so. The mayor of Kitchener, who was just recently elected—congrats to him—said that this hybrid shelter outdoor model—that’s what we’re calling it—obviously it’s a transitional piece of housing programming, but it’s going to require wraparound services. This is a quote from him, that it will need investment from upper levels of government to ensure there will be wraparound supports.

So municipalities—all the hotels, all the motels, everything is booked, everything is full. There’s no other place, so this is where one of the most affluent communities in Ontario is really trying to formalize a tent city.

The region goes on to say that paying for such a plan wasn’t accounted for in the region of Waterloo 2022 budget, which is really interesting, when the Minister of Municipal Affairs says, “Oh, municipalities have all this money in reserve”—$8.2 billion, I think he said. When a municipality like Waterloo is factoring in $3.4 million just from September to December of this year and $10.2 million for 2023 to maintain and protect vulnerable citizens—in tents—I don’t think that the minister is factoring in these costs that municipalities have. One of the regional councillors said, “While the price tag is big, we can’t afford not to do it.”

I wanted the context for where the region of Waterloo is. They’re trying to find creative solutions. I don’t think any one of us ever thought that we would be sanctioning a tent city, though. It’s quite a statement.

I’m going to focus my comments today on schedule 1 and schedule 2, because this is a big piece of legislation. We saw it get walked in and the House leader sort of heckled that it’s an omnibus piece of legislation if it’s more than three pages. There’s a lot in this bill that needs our scrutiny, Madam Speaker.

Schedule 1, in particular, is of concern to us, because it will encourage the displacement of already existing rental units. I’m hoping that the government has a review of schedule 1.

But this is section 111, which the city of Toronto uses to require the replacement of affordable rentals that are demolished or converted during redevelopment. What our concern is, essentially, is that it is unclear what limits the government is seeking to impose. It has launched a consultation after the fact, which I have to say is not always the best way to consult, but this provision puts tenants at risk of being displaced from their neighbourhoods and threatens the inclusivity of growing cities. We’re already seeing this happening in our communities, but schedule 1 may accelerate this development.

In Waterloo region, we’re seeing renovictions, demovictions, and those units are being flipped over and they’re being turned into condos, essentially. In one instance, an entire building of seniors was displaced. Our office worked diligently to try to find them some options; many ended up living with family because they had no other choice and they had no other options. Then one group of ladies, who I like to call the golden girls, three of them who were displaced, found a one-bedroom together and are living together. I’m sure that this is not how they saw their retirement. I’m pretty sure that this is not how they saw themselves living out those last golden years: in a one-bedroom apartment with three senior ladies.

I do like to remind the government that we have a responsibility to seniors in the province of Ontario. Many of these seniors are women, they are on fixed incomes, and they really and truly have no option. When those rental protections are not there for them, they obviously have to find some creative options, but sometimes these moves put them at risk. Our colleague is trying to make some arrangements around regulations around group homes to ensure that when people move from an apartment, if they’re renovicted or demovicted, and they end up in one of these privately run homes in a room, that they’re protected and that they’re safe. Clearly that is not happening in Ontario right now.

Schedule 2: I have to say, I’m going to quote heavily from the Narwhal, because I’m a big fan of the work that they do. Fatima Syed and Emma McIntosh really did a deep dive on this piece of legislation, in addition to our excellent researchers with the NDP. These are the main concerns around the changes to the Conservation Authorities Act: instead of requiring approval of the minister before selling or disposing of land that was paid for by a provincial grant, the conservation authority need only give the minister notice of the sale of disposition; and the ERO notice indicates that the province intends to require, via regulation—so they’re following in the pattern of the Liberals of bumping everything down to the regs—that conservation authorities identify land suitable for housing development.

This is not the work of a conservation authority. This is not their mandate. Their mandate is to protect the land, to prevent flooding and to ensure that watersheds are protected.

There’s a long history of conservation authorities. We went through that last time the government had a go at conservation authorities, so we don’t need to go there again. But I have to say, when the Premier says to the Toronto Region Board of Trade, as he did on Tuesday, “We want to build the right type of housing in the right places,” I feel like the Premier doesn’t really understand the right type of housing that is needed, and has a very different definition of affordability, and also around the right places. We see the right places around the core infrastructure, where you have transit, where you have work and employment options, where there is green space and does not contribute to more sprawl, which actually adds to the tax base. Every new subdivision that is built, the next subdivision is paying for it from a taxation perspective. The costs that municipalities are incurring through this process can’t be downloaded anywhere except to the property tax base. This is something that I wanted to put on the Ford government’s radar.

At the time, though, there was no—when the Premier was at the Toronto board of trade, there was no mention, of course, that the plan depends, in part, on a massive gutting of conservation authorities, which oversee and protect vital and deteriorating watersheds.

So to understand the full scope, there was a briefing. Our critic has done a great job on this file; she did her one-hour lead yesterday. But there was also an internal government document which was shared with some stakeholders. In that document, which was actually later confirmed through the legislation, some of these changes are unprecedented around conservation authorities. The legislation will repeal 36 specific regulations that allow conservation authorities to directly oversee the development process. If passed, it would mean Ontario’s conservation authorities will no longer be able to consider pollution and conservation of land when weighing whether they will allow development.

There is a climate crisis. It’s pretty bad when the Insurance Bureau of Canada issued a response to this legislation and said, “Hey, listen, people. Climate change is real. There’s a cost to not planning for and being responsible for sustainable development, and this actually impacts the entire well-being of the province—not just our health, but also the economy of the province of Ontario.”

The government is also seeking to force the agencies to issue permits for projects that are subject to “a community infrastructure and housing accelerator.” So this is a new tool that allows the province to expedite zoning changes. The important part, on this piece, is that it will limit authorities’ ability to weigh in on developments to issues of natural hazards. Once again, this is the core business of conservation authorities. The changes are aimed at reducing the financial burden on developers and landowners making development-related applications and seeking permits from conservation authorities.

The Ford government repeatedly denied this Tuesday, and I’m probably going to hear this again today. Yet, under the new proposed rules, conservation authorities would also be compelled to identify and give up any land that they hold that could be “suitable for housing.” This is a major change. Conservation authorities have been looking around the crown property that they are duly responsible for, and saying, “Oh, I think some nice houses could go over there in that corner.” And our agriculture critic has already pointed out—how many acres of land are we losing?