Actually, I’m so glad that the member opposite agreed that there is a housing supply crisis. This legislation, at its core, is very simple. We need to support efficient, local decision-making to help cut through the red tape so that we can build more homes.

Madam Speaker, through you: Why does the member trust that he can represent Ontarians but he cannot trust Ontarians to choose their own efficient local leaders?

Interestingly enough, we went to a place where I wanted to ask the question—when power gets expanded in one area, it always comes at the expense of something else. In this case, it comes at the expense of councillors. People go to the polls to vote for mayors, generally, for a vision overall, but, ultimately, for councillors to make local decisions.

Can you expand again a little bit, briefly, on why it’s important that councillors have a say, are respected and have power to be able to make decisions?

Questions for the member for Niagara Centre?

I appreciated listening to the comments from the member from Niagara Centre, but I’m a little bit confused—because we know that we have seen more housing starts in the last year than in 35 years in the province of Ontario. The Associate Minister of Housing could correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve actually seen more rental housing starts in the last year than we have seen in decades and decades. So I’m left confused, because the evidence is clear: If you want to stop rental housing construction starts, put in rent control. But it seems to me that the only idea that we’ve had from the member from Niagara Centre is rent control, which is demonstrably an absolute failure.

I was wondering if he could explain to the House why we’ve seen more housing starts and more rental starts in the last year than in decades, if our plan hasn’t worked, if our policies don’t work.

Thank you to the member for the question. I will agree with the member that he is confused. That’s what I will agree to.

I realize that an hour is a long time to listen to a speech, but if he was listening at the part where I proposed solutions, I believe I rhymed off seven or eight things, which included inclusionary zoning, getting rid of exclusionary zoning, more social housing, more investment. There’s a long, long list of things, and we’ve talked about it ad nauseam in this place for years now.

I guess we’re confused as to why the government is not listening to us, because we propose real solutions. The folks we’ve spoken to at AMO and other cities have proposed solutions, but the government is just not coming forward with those.

The bill does nothing—it doesn’t even mention housing at all, much less affordable housing, and that’s one of the things that we’ve consistently brought up with the government. They talk about housing supply constantly, but the real problem is affordable housing for folks, especially now, when we see inflation up at 7%, 8%, and the government has actually lifted rent control, making life much more difficult for people.

The bill does nothing for housing in general and could make things even worse for people who are looking for affordable housing.

As a former councillor, I can tell you that the strongest councils are ones where the mayor and council work together, and they work to get to consensus. Where you can’t get to consensus, there is an element of democracy there that’s supported by professional staff who are hired in an independent, objective manner. That’s how good governance works—not by giving powers to one person to overturn the majority of people who were elected, and hiring their friends as CAOs and planners.

A lot of people fear that this legislation will actually make decisions less transparent and less democratic. As I just mentioned, a really good council is one where the mayor shows leadership, they communicate with their councillors, and they respect the will of the majority of their councillors and they bring them along.

I had a mayor who, if they had an idea, would call around to council between council meetings. That isn’t always the case. That process can actually help development decisions go through because, if you have a council that’s fractured, or you have a mayor who’s not respecting the will of a councillor who is representing their constituents, you don’t have that connection to the constituents and developers, and you’re not able to represent their concerns properly.

Thank you very much to the member for the question and for her participation in the committee and asking some really good questions to the delegations.

I think that the 1.5 million number is really a political number, obviously, that the government wants to throw around. We can come up with whatever number we want, but at the end of the day it’s what we’re willing to do to actually get meaningful results. And when we look at this bill, it’s not designed to get meaningful results, like some of the things that we have proposed and that the member has proposed, such as inclusionary zoning, such as targeting missing middle housing. There’s some effective ways we can do that through the planning process, but this legislation does none of it.

Look, the 1.5 million target and all of those targets that have to do with housing supply, they’re not focused on the supply that we actually need, which is affordable housing supply. You can build all kinds of—and in the election, we talked about building highways that no one needs leading to homes that no one can afford. That’s what I see as the policy of this government: a focus on homes that no one can afford.

I appreciate the opportunity to ask the question one more time briefly, because I’m still confused. We’ve seen more housing starts, more rental starts than in decades in the province of Ontario. If it’s not the More Homes, More Choice Act, if it’s not the More Homes for Everyone Act, I would ask the member to briefly explain what he thinks those new housing starts must be due to, if not from the policies of our government?

Further questions?

We’re going to continue with further debate.

Thank you to the member from Niagara Centre for your solid and factual information. I was not confused by your speech, unlike others here.

Do you believe there should be an actual tracking system for this lofty goal of 1.5 million homes to be built in the next 10 years, and if so, what would you propose for a regular transparent and regular report back? And what types of housing should actually be built to help solve this housing crisis?

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your new role.

I want to thank the member for providing so much information, specifically about his own neighbourhood. I respect and understand that, as we suffer with the same issues in my own area of Thornhill. We know that more and more experts agree—and this is solid information—that supply and demand go hand in hand. The major driver of a housing crisis—it’s pretty simple: When there’s not much going around, the price goes up. Can the member please share with us and the House how this critical policy that you talked about will affect not only Ottawa and Toronto, but future locations?

Questions for the member for Mississauga–Malton? I recognize the member for University–Rosedale.

Thank you, Speaker, and congratulations for your appointment as one of the Speakers in this House.

Thank you to the member for Mississauga–Malton for your presentation. I sat in committee and heard speakers come in and speak to this bill. I want to raise the commentary raised by Susan Wiggins. She’s the executive director of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute. Her organization represents planners who work in a non-partisan capacity in municipalities all across Ontario, and she had some concerns. She said there is a benefit between having a separation between the mayor and the head of a planning department, and that “OPPI is concerned that allowing a mayor to hire and fire the head of a planning department may actually be to the detriment of building more housing in the province. It may create more political pressure on the mayor from factions who may not support intensification where policies direct it.”

What’s your response to the OPPI association’s concerns that this could hurt supply?

Thank you to the member for that important question. We all need to make sure that we are going in the right direction. We want to build 1.5 million homes in 10 years. This is a requirement, that we need to have it, but at the same time, we want to make sure that we elect the right local leaders, and that is the reason I said that in my remarks as well. We have trust in the people of Ontario that they are going to elect the right people.

Having said that, Madam Speaker, I just want to say that it would not limit the powers of the members of the council. They will continue to play an important role, and along with that, every planning department would have a say in this process. What we are changing is that we are making sure that we are cutting the red tape and we are giving the right tools with the right powers to the mayors.

Going back to what the member said: Our priority is to address Ontario’s housing shortage, and as we committed in the last election, we promised 1.5 million homes built in 10 years, and we know this will only be possible if we work closely with our municipal partners. And that is exactly what this bill is doing. We’re making sure the mayors have the tools to make sure that they are able to help our provincial priorities.

Thank you, Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment as Deputy Speaker.

To the Conservative member: I worry about what happens if the strong mayor goes against the Premier’s provincial priorities. Many folks in St. Paul’s and across the province have been asking that very question: What is the consequence for the strong mayor if they go against the provincial priorities? We’ve seen with this government that, when they even go against themselves, their caucus members are punished. Their cellphones are locked up, their international travel is cancelled by their Premier and House leader—they get slapped on the wrist.

So folks want to know: Can we trust the government? Are they transparent? Are they really putting people first if what they’re doing is creating a strong mayor who’s pretty much a lapdog to the Premier?

Thank you very much to the member opposite for the presentation.

I have a question. It’s a bit of a hypothetical, because he wasn’t here during the previous government. But if he had been here during the previous government, and the previous government had introduced legislation that said, “We will give super powers to mayors so long as they follow our agenda,” do you believe that you and your colleagues would have supported that under the previous government?

I want to acknowledge that my colleague and member from—

You know, I said that earlier and I’m going to say it one more time: We are a House of responsibility. The power is with the people, and the people have exercised the power. You can actually see it around—how we started and where we are right now. So the people do exercise their power.

So what our government is doing, our government is making sure we’re putting the trust in those people, Ontarians, to elect the right local leaders. That’s why we are setting the bar higher for our mayors and making it easier to hold them accountable based on the decisions they make.

What are we doing through this bill? We are making sure that we are keeping the costs down and we are building 1.5 million homes to address the housing supply crisis, something—when we went door to door, we asked what they needed, and that’s what we heard. And that’s what we’re delivering today.

The question is: What do people need? As we all work together to make sure that Ontario is growing and growing and becoming an economic engine, people need shelter. People need houses, and that’s exactly what this bill is doing: making sure we are able to deliver those houses right here in Ontario.

I’m happy to have the opportunity to rise today to speak on Bill 3, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. The title is a real misnomer, Speaker, since the bill doesn’t actually do anything to support the building of new homes, particularly homes that people can afford. But I’m always happy to talk about the need for affordable housing and what the government can and should be doing to make sure that everyone can find an affordable, adequate, high-quality place to call home.

But let me come back to this point, because first I want to talk about what this bill does do, which is to undermine local democracy. This bill and the government’s failure to actually consult mayors and municipal governments clearly show what little respect this government has for democracy and accountable government in general.

Let’s take Ottawa, for example. Ottawa is one of the two municipalities targeted by this bill, but no one in Ottawa wants this bill, no one in Ottawa asked for this bill, no one in Ottawa needs this bill and no one in Ottawa was consulted on this bill. Just last Wednesday, every single city councillor in Ottawa, and the mayor, voted unanimously against this bill. The government can’t even get one single city councillor from Ottawa to support this bill—not even one—and it’s not easy to get unanimity from the Ottawa city council these days. The government has made it absolutely clear that they want to push this bill through with no consultation with affected city councils and communities, and no compromise—just like they did with Bill 7, just like they did with the budget. There is a clear pattern of behaviour from this government regarding unpopular, unnecessary legislation that we’ve seen time and time again. They come up with a piece of legislation that no one asks for, don’t consult the people it might actually affect and then push it through the chamber with as little possible debate as they can get away with.

In response to the perfectly valid and reasonable objections of city council, the government predictably says, “Well, of course, city councillors don’t want this bill. They get in the way of developers building housing. We’re giving the mayor the power to fix this. We’re doing this so the mayor can have almost total executive control, work around city council and get more housing built.” But guess what, Speaker? The mayor doesn’t want the bill either. The person they’re arguing needs these powers to be able to build more housing isn’t just opposed to the legislation, but he says it makes no sense at all.

The mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson himself, said, “It’s really a stretch to try to think you’re giving more powers to the mayor, it’s going to magically create more housing units in the City of Ottawa—it’s just a little of a bizarre situation.”

He added that he doesn’t feel it is right to give the mayor of a city “extraordinary powers” at the expense of all other members of council.

Watson has also called it “a solution looking for a problem.”

Catherine McKenney, candidate for mayor of Ottawa and a very strong supporter of more affordable housing, said of these powers, “I’ve never supported strong-mayor model. It’s undemocratic. It takes away the democratic rights of residents who elect both a mayor and the councillors.... To be able to overrule any decision by council with only 33% of the vote essentially and it’s not what we need to move forward to make our city more affordable for everyone.

“What we need really is a strong-city model where actual cities have more power. Very little has been denied. Applications come to us and most have been accepted. I find it hard to understand how this will allow developers to push projects through any quicker.”

It’s not just the mayor, mayoral candidates and city councillors who oppose this legislation. The head of a federation of 70 Ottawa community groups representing residents across Ottawa has called on the provincial government to scrap its proposed Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, calling the bill “unwarranted and undemocratic,” and noting that it will do nothing to build more affordable housing.

Robert Brinker, the president of the Ottawa Federation of Citizens’ Associations, wrote to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that the organization “opposes Bill 3 as unwarranted and injurious to our well-established democratic practices in Ottawa.” Brinker said, “While ‘building homes’ forms part of the bill’s title we see no provisions in this bill that would accomplish this.”

The Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods, which represents community associations across the province, said of this bill: “This legislation is unprecedented and marks a huge shift in governance of Ontario’s municipalities. Urban municipalities are governed by democratically elected city councils. The decisions of civic governments have been the collective responsibility of those elected city councils, not the singular responsibility of one member. While democracy isn’t always perfect, citizens of urban municipalities have generally been satisfied with their form of representative government.”

So there we have it, Speaker. City council doesn’t support this bill. The mayor doesn’t support it. Community associations don’t support it. It’s undemocratic, irrelevant to the needs of Ontarians. This bill does not build more housing.

But what’s not in dispute is the need for more affordable housing. What the mayor of Ottawa and city councillors and other stakeholders are pointing out is that the province already holds a lot of tools that they could use to expand affordable housing any time they want to. As Mayor Watson says, this government could provide more funding to support the development of housing and expand inclusionary zoning to cover the entire city. The government could be implementing real rent control and vacancy control to make sure that people aren’t squeezed out of the housing they already have.

But while the government could be doing all these things, they’re not. There’s nothing in this bill that actually expands the supply of affordable housing, nothing that takes steps to make sure people can afford the housing they’ve already got. Constituents in my riding are crying out for affordable housing, but this bill does nothing to help them.

I’d like to share a few stories with the government about what life is really like for my constituents when it comes to housing.

In June, two constituents in my riding of Ottawa West–Nepean reached out to my office pleading for help. For their safety, they wish to remain anonymous. While they were at work, their landlord changed the locks. Because they had no protection under the Residential Tenancies Act, as they were boarders, not renters, the police were of no help. These constituents, one a former military service member with 12 years of service, became homeless overnight.

They had no options for affordable housing, and the Ottawa Community Housing wait-list has people waiting an average of eight years. And that’s just the average; many wait much longer. The lack of affordable housing has pushed them into a precarious living situation, as it does with many people across Ontario. These constituents told my office that they don’t have any other options for housing, and, because the government is making life so difficult for them, they have decided to leave Ontario. They said, “Every system is broken, and we don’t have enough working years remaining to justify staying.”

Homeless veterans on the streets of Ontario. These aren’t just numbers on a page or statistics; these are real human beings experiencing the consequences of this government’s decisions.

Jocelyn, a resident of Ottawa West–Nepean, is living with a brain tumour. She is in constant pain, dealing with headaches and fatigue which does not allow her to work. She applied for ODSP but was told she was ineligible because she didn’t fit the criteria. With no other options, Jocelyn turned to Ontario Works and was approved, but this meant she could no longer keep up with her rent payments. She applied for Ottawa Community Housing and was approved for the urgency list, but with the urgency list averaging a two-year wait, she had to find another living situation immediately. The only affordable option for Jocelyn was to live in a shared space with a roommate.

Jocelyn’s living situation left her in turmoil because her new roommate was abusive. Her only saving grace was her small 14-year-old dog who had been with her for this entire journey. Jocelyn exhausted every effort to find another affordable living situation, but the only option left was to move into a women’s shelter until she could find affordable housing.

Today, Jocelyn is living in a women’s shelter in the east end of Ottawa, but she was forced to separate from her dog, which is causing her a lot of anxiety. She was just approved for ODSP, but it is still not enough to pay for first and last months’ rent on an apartment. Instead, she is forced to wait at least another year until an affordable unit becomes available.

Another constituent in my riding, Eloise, had reached out to me with fears that her landlord is trying to evict her from her unit. She has lived in the same unit for 44 years and is seeing similar units become vacant and get listed at almost double what she pays.

Over the past several years, as she has become aware of this issue, she has witnessed a number of older tenants coerced into moving out, only to see their units re-rented at much higher rates. She fears that she is her landlord’s next target.

Recently, the landlord has been visiting her unannounced, requesting entry and searching for ways to file claims with the LTB against her based on the arrangement and upkeep of her unit. She has complied with every demand and has ensured that her unit is safe, yet the visits continue. She is finding that this is having a huge impact on her physical and mental well-being. Her doctor has even noted a significant decline in her health since this began, because of anxiety associated with harassment from her landlord.

At 68 years old, on a fixed income, she knows that if she is evicted from this unit her housing options will be incredibly limited, and if she applies for affordable housing, she will be 76 before she gets into a unit. At her age, an eight-year wait is too long.

So how is this bill going to make life any easier for the people in my riding? How is this bill going to help the homeless veteran? How is it going to help Jocelyn and Eloise? How is it going to help the many, many residents of Ottawa West–Nepean who are struggling to find affordable housing or to cover the costs of the housing they are desperately trying to retain right now?

Speaker, the government is not fooling anyone. This bill does not do anything to make life more affordable. It doesn’t build affordable housing. It doesn’t make our local government more accountable to residents who are in desperate need of affordable housing. In fact, it makes local democracy less accountable.

The solutions we need to the housing crisis don’t require a bill to centralize power in the hands of one all-powerful figure. We need to build more affordable housing and more co-op housing. There’s a crisis with a lack of genuinely affordable housing in our cities, towns and rural communities, especially for low- and limited-income households, racialized and Indigenous households, newcomers, people with disabilities and other marginalized communities.

Ottawa has a particular lack of affordable housing that is getting worse. Most of the affordable housing supply in Ottawa is rent-geared-to-income units within not-for-profit developments that are specifically built and operated to support affordability. We continue to have a very low vacancy rate for market-rate housing in the city, and very high rent. There are 500 families in hotel and motel rooms around the city right now. Some of them have been there for two years—two years with kids—waiting for affordable housing.

There are around 10,000 households alone on the centralized wait-list for social housing in Ottawa, with wait times for social housing often as long as eight years or more because the demand is so much greater than the supply. We need to increase the supply, with a special focus on increasing non-profit housing and the funding that non-profit housing organizations receive, not a bill that turns our mayors into all-powerful CEO figures who will somehow magically create housing units out of thin air through sheer force of will.

And when we’re talking about affordable housing, we also have to look at the income side of the equation, because how are you going to pay for housing if you don’t have the money to pay for it to begin with? This government has already thrown Ontarians with disabilities under the bus by legislating a paltry 5% rise in ODSP payments. Inflation this year alone is 8%, and that doesn’t take into account the fact that ODSP has been frozen for the last four years.

A person on ODSP gets $1,227 a month. A person on Ontario Works gets only $733 a month. The average one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa costs $1,100 a month. That leaves a person on ODSP with only $127 after rent. A person on Ontario Works doesn’t even get enough income to cover rent. So how are folks on social assistance going to afford one of the Premier’s new McMansions if they can’t even afford rent, let alone enough money left over for basics like food and heat?

The government also cancelled the increase to the minimum wage when they took office, putting minimum-wage workers years behind where they should be. That move cost a full-time minimum wage worker more than $5,000. That’s a lot of money that could have helped with rent. And now, when we have a cost-of-living crisis, the Premier is only increasing the minimum wage by 50 cents. That’s a 3.3% increase when inflation is 8%, so you can do the math on how far ahead workers will be. The government could start helping low-income households by progressively raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour and put more money in working people’s pockets, but they’re not going to do that, because it cuts their buddies’ profit margins.

Then we have the CUPE education workers, who provide such dedicated and necessary support to our kids, but half of them have to work two jobs just to make ends meet. They’ve taken an 11% real wage cut over the past decade. The government is driving them into poverty. On $39,000 a year, these educational workers are struggling to afford housing when costs are escalating rapidly. But instead of negotiating with them, the government is attacking them. Instead of hiring more educational assistants to support our kids, the government is pumping money into private tutoring and services outside of the school system.

We’re also seeing in real time the dramatically negative effects of Bill 124 with our nurses and health care heroes, but it’s the whole public service that has been feeling the pinch: real wages down, resources down, more private outsourcing, more profits for middlemen, and a two-tier system for public services where if you’re rich and wealthy, you can buy high-quality health care or private education for your children. But it’s middle-class and working-class families that are paying the price. It’s seniors and marginalized citizens who are feeling the pinch as they can’t afford to go private. They can’t even pay their rent when they’re forced into legislated poverty.

This government’s new slogan, created by their spin doctors, is that they get it done. Well, they’ve gotten a lot done. They’ve driven our health care system to the brink of collapse. They got that done. They’ve legislated those on ODSP and Ontario Works into poverty, so got that done too. They’ve devalued, disrespected and underpaid our health care heroes, causing them to leave their profession in droves. Anyone that’s trying to get care for themselves or a loved one in our province can see just how clearly they’ve got that done. They’ve pushed through Bill 7 without any public consultation or hearings so that they can tear families apart and send seniors and persons with disabilities far away from their loved ones and their communities. Well, mission accomplished, Speaker. They certainly got that done. And now they’re going to do it to our municipal government, too.

No new measures to address affordable housing, but mayors who can veto the democratic will of the people’s representatives: That’s quite an accomplishment. I urge this government to drop Bill 3, stop legislating those on low incomes into poverty, and use the tools you have available to build affordable housing provincially, instead of vandalizing our local democracy.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment; you look great in the chair this afternoon.

Throughout this debate, the members opposite, including the member from Toronto–St. Paul’s, suggested that people who elect a mayor in Toronto and/or Ottawa are not somehow following a democratic process, that this isn’t democracy. Democracy only seems to flow in one direction, and that is if it follows the ideology of the opposition.

In fact, the member opposite just suggested that these mayors would be lapdogs, and my question to the member is: Is this a democratic process? When we allow residents, voters, to elect a mayor who then follows through on their platform, is that democratic? And by giving these mayors additional powers to cut through red tape and build more homes, can we address the housing shortage here in Ontario?

The member for Flamborough–Glanbrook.