Merci, madame la Présidente, et félicitations encore pour votre nouveau poste. I have to say, the chair looks good on you.

It’s a privilege to speak to Bill 3, Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, 2022, today. As we know, Ontario is facing a housing crisis, so when I first saw the name of this bill when it was finally introduced, I thought, “Wow, this government is finally going to do something about housing.” Boy, was I wrong. Don’t let the name fool you. This bill has absolutely nothing to do with housing. Sadly, despite its name, this bill won’t build a single new housing unit.

There are no measures in this bill that will directly lead to more housing. There are no measures in this bill that will address the affordability crisis facing Ontario families. This bill does nothing for people like my parents, who lived in the suburbs and raised their family there their whole life, then wanted to downsize their home but stay close enough to be close to their kids and the grandkids without gobbling up all of their equity. This bill doesn’t do anything for people like them. It does nothing for young professionals and young families who are having trouble buying an entry-level home in Orléans and other parts of Ontario. This bill does nothing to build or finance any housing whatsoever. It doesn’t address the life-cycle issues being faced by co-ops and other housing providers. It doesn’t address land availability, density or zoning.

Madam Speaker, quite simply put, this bill is not a housing bill; this bill is a municipal governance bill. That’s okay. You can have municipal governance bills. But call it what it is: a municipal governance bill.

As I’ve said before, it’s not even close to the most important municipal governance issue facing cities and towns in Ontario. We have councillors who are abusing their staff and their colleagues—not addressed in this bill. We have councils unable to meet because of lack of quorum, consistently—not addressed in this bill. We have councils firing their lawyer because they don’t like his advice, only to hire a new lawyer and then lose in court as a result—not addressed in this bill. There are real municipal governance issues that need to be addressed in our province, and unfortunately this bill doesn’t come close.

This bill seems to come from the point of view that councillors and senior city staff are the reason why housing isn’t being built or isn’t being built as fast as it’s needed in Ontario. This government talks about cutting red tape and accelerating approvals to bring housing to market faster. That sounds really good. However—since this bill is about Toronto and Ottawa, I’m going to talk about my hometown for a minute—in Ottawa, the biggest piece of red tape holding up housing isn’t in the mayor’s office; the biggest piece of red tape isn’t in the city manager’s office; and despite an anti-development NIMBY councillor running for mayor—a councillor supported by the NDP caucus, I might add—the biggest piece of red tape isn’t around the council table.

How can I say that? Let me give you a couple of numbers. The current administration at the city of Ottawa was largely elected in 2010. I was proud to be part of that class of change at city hall. As we started to implement our work, we started to measure the progress of our work. Measurement is an important part of implementing change. I firmly believe that. In 2012, the city of Ottawa issued building permits to build 6,522 new units of housing. After being in office for 10 or 11 years, in 2021, the city of Ottawa issued building permits for the construction of 10,016 new housing units. That’s a 54% increase in housing unit starts. It seems to me that Ottawa city council is doing quite a good job at accelerating housing construction in the city of Ottawa.

Ottawa has put in place the vision, the ambition and, in large part, the staff to increase housing construction. And while there are always improvements to the process that can be made, the city of Ottawa has demonstrated its commitment and drive to address the housing crisis.

The biggest piece of red tape with housing and development in the city of Ottawa isn’t the mayor, isn’t council, isn’t the CAO or the city manager. The biggest piece of red tape impacting housing in the city of Ottawa is this government. And why do I say that? This government is sitting on the city of Ottawa’s official plan.

Laughter.

We don’t have time for another set of questions and answers, so we’ll move to further debate.

I recognize the member for Orléans.

Members of this chamber might be forgiven—and their laughter demonstrates it—for not paying day-to-day attention to the planning decisions and debates at Ottawa city council; I can forgive you for not paying that close attention. So let’s make sure we know what we’re talking about.

Last fall, after literally years of work, after countless public delegations, negotiations with the home-building industry, consultations with community associations and other stakeholders, after extensive discussions and debates, Ottawa city council came to consensus—without a veto, without a carrot and a stick—and approved a new official plan. That was October 27, 2021, almost a year ago. Within this official plan, there are proposed plans for urban expansion to help create more neighbourhoods by partnering with the Algonquins of Ontario, an important part of Ottawa’s efforts towards reconciliation. In addition to adding these development lands, the official plan includes a direction to achieve the majority of growth through intensification and growing the city around rapid transit systems. It recognizes the city’s climate change master plan and seeks to reduce Ottawa’s greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by 2050. It includes higher density around higher-order public transit. The city, through the official plan, is embracing the idea of 15-minute neighbourhoods, not just in the downtown or inside the urban core, but in the suburbs as well. New communities in Orléans and Barrhaven and Kanata and Findlay Creek are now more dense than inner urban areas like the Glebe and Old Ottawa South.

Ottawa has the vision to address major issues facing us as a society. Creating livable communities with active transportation is a step towards dealing with Ontario’s affordability crisis. It’s a step towards the climate crisis. It’s a step towards addressing the physical fitness crisis. And it’s a step being held back by this government. The plan laid out in Ottawa’s official plan clearly provides the solution to tackling some of Ontario’s most serious social problems. It’s a plan that will spur growth and move housing forward—housing of all types—not just in Orléans, but across the city of Ottawa. And it’s stalled by this government. When council approved the plan last fall, the law said that the minister had 120 days to approve it. That would have left the decision until about March. Ottawa’s official plan continues to sit on the minister’s desk, collecting dust, waiting for approval. So, despite this minister and this government claiming that red tape is their enemy and that cutting it is imperative to solving the housing crisis, they’ve wrapped Ottawa’s aggressive housing goals in an enormous ball of red tape, and that ball of red tape is the minister’s signature.

If this government is serious about addressing Ontario’s and Ottawa’s housing crisis, the minister should first approve Ottawa’s official plan to get housing built, to bring in new lands for new communities, to address density and intensification around transit infrastructure.

As I’ve said, this is not a housing bill or a housing plan; this is a municipal governance bill.

I pointed out the important work that the city of Ottawa has done to measure its progress on so many critical elements of change.

I found it interesting that, in committee, an amendment to allow for the measurement of new housing built as a result of this bill was ruled out of order. It was ruled out of scope for the bill.

I would just like to ask the member—because I didn’t know that at committee any motion or amendment with regard to housing was ruled out of scope, that it didn’t actually apply to the bill, that the bill had nothing to do with housing. Can you explain to me why you think the government would put forward a bill that they claim is about housing, when it’s not?

It was ruled out of scope, not late. It was ruled out of scope, Madam Speaker, for the bill. So, if tracking the supposed results stemming from a piece of legislation is out of scope, then I don’t know what we’re doing. If we’re not going to track the results of what we do, what are we doing at all? It was ruled out of order because even the government knows that this is not a housing bill. It was ruled out of scope because it doesn’t address housing and the amendment was about housing. So even the government knows that this isn’t a housing bill. It’s a municipal governance bill, and one that doesn’t address the most important governance issues facing Ontario municipalities.

Given that this bill is about the city of Toronto and the city of Ottawa, the first thing they should do is to approve Ottawa’s official plan: to bring new lands into the urban boundary, to change policies around intensification and density around transit, to address the missing middle, and to help Ottawa build more and better 15-minute communities for all the residents of the nation’s capital.

I know that the mayor was caught off guard. We were at the Navan Fair a day later, and he told me that he had yet to be called about this bill.

Certainly, if you’re going to make change and work collaboratively with municipalities in Ontario, the easiest thing you can do is pick up the phone and have a chat before you go to a microphone.

Thank you to the member on the other side, and I want to thank him for his statement.

One of the things that is part and parcel to this new issue—obviously, it’s not a new issue; we’ve had 15 years of a previous government that did very little to deal with this issue. It’s not a new issue, but attainable homes is a massive problem, and Ontario is launching the housing supply action plan, along with this. This team will work to implement the recommendations that we’ve heard from the Housing Affordability Task Force.

Does the member on the other side have any comments with respect to this affordability issue and the task force? Does he not think that it would be important to have them at the table to help with this issue of affordability that has just been brought up?

We have time for questions.

Report continues in volume B.

It was five hours late.

Thank you for your presentation and concern about the Strong Mayors, More Homes Act. I also share the concerns that were raised—that this bill won’t necessarily build more homes, and it certainly passes the buck.

What are some measures that you think the provincial government, the Ontario government, should do to increase housing supply for Ontarians who intend to live in a home that is built?