Thank you very much, Speaker, and congratulations to you. It’s good to see you in that chair. I also want to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for sharing his time with me today and, of course, the amazing parliamentary assistant, who we’ll hear from later on.

It really is a pleasure to stand here in this House to talk about the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, an act designed to empower our municipal partners with the tools they need to get more homes built faster.

Ontario is in a housing crisis. Too many families are being priced out of the housing market, and too many Ontarians have given up on the dream of home ownership. Core to the Ontario dream is having the opportunity to work hard, build your career, and raise your family in the community of your choice. We must renew the promise of unbounded potential each person has in this province. We must ensure that Ontario remains a place of opportunity and prosperity, and to do that, we must ensure everyone has a place to call home.

The Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act is one of the many bold actions the government of Ontario is taking to address the housing supply crisis, and we’re not slowing down. There is no idea too ambitious, no solutions to the housing shortage too daring, because in Ontario, it is all hands on deck to get more homes built.

In May 2019, our government announced More Homes, More Choice, our first housing supply action plan. The plan included a full spectrum of legislative changes designed to increase the supply of housing: affordable housing, attainable housing and housing that provides buyers and renters with more meaningful choices on where to work, where to live and where they can raise their families. This plan cut red tape and made it easier to build the right types of homes in the right places.

The More Homes, More Choice Act was a far-reaching omnibus piece of legislation that changed the Conservation Authorities Act, the Development Charges Act, the Education Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Assessment Act, Environmental Protection Act, the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Ontario Heritage Act and the Planning Act. It took a multi-layered approach so we could help get much-needed homes built more quickly. From home ownership to rental housing, whether built by private developers or non-profits, our first action plan and its accompanying legislation helped to give people more choice. It aimed to make housing more affordable and helped taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.

Speaker, we reviewed every step of the development process, every policy and every regulation. We did that to eliminate any unnecessary steps, any duplication and any barriers. We cut red tape while at the same time delivering on our commitment to ensure the health and safety of Ontario. We stayed true to our commitment to protect the environment, we remained a steadfast guardian of Ontario’s agricultural lands and we continue to be the steward of the province’s rich natural heritage.

Our work is producing results. The province’s first-ever housing supply action plan has been an overwhelming success. In 2021, Ontario broke ground on a record number of new homes being built, with more than 100,000 new homes in only 12 months. That’s the highest level of new housing starts in a single year since 1987. And there’s more: Last year, Ontario reached a 30-year record for rental housing construction starts in the province—again, the most units being built in a single year since 1991.

We knew that addressing the housing crisis needs a long-term strategy; it needs a long-term commitment and collaboration at all levels of government. With that in mind, our government continued to take action. In December, our government created the Housing Affordability Task Force, which was made up of industry leaders and experts, to recommend additional measures to increase the supply of market housing. As the task force stated at the beginning of its report, “For many years, the province has not built enough housing to meet the needs of our growing population.” The task force noted that many “efforts to cool the housing market have only provided temporary relief to home buyers.” They said, “The long-term trend is clear: House prices are increasing much faster than Ontarians’ incomes.” They stated that “the time for action is now,” that there’s no time for delays and that the province simply cannot afford to get it wrong.

We firmly agree, which is why, at around the same time, we convened with our municipal partners at both the Ontario-Municipal Summit and at the rural housing round table to gather their expert advice. We listened to Ontarians through over 2,000 public consultation submissions. We knew that through collaborating with our partners and the housing sector, we’d be on track to get more homes built.

However, despite the gains that we have made over the past four years, we know that there’s still a shortage of housing. Rental housing and affordable home ownership are even further out of reach for hard-working Ontarians. Just to illustrate the problem, for every month that approvals are delayed, anywhere between $2,000 and $3,000 is added to the cost to build a single-family home or a condominium unit in the greater Toronto area. It became clear that without an increase in housing supply to match the rising demand, housing prices will keep going up and affordability will worsen.

We took all the information we gained from our many consultations and created our second housing supply action plan, called More Homes for Everyone, which was launched earlier this year, thanks to the great work of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. More Homes for Everyone outlines the next steps we’re taking to address Ontario’s housing crisis—steps such as accelerating approval timelines, reducing red tape and protecting homebuyers from unethical business practices. For example, we made changes to provide incentives for municipalities to make decisions in an expeditious manner on zoning and site plan applications. Effective January 1 of next year, if a municipality does not make a decision within the legislated timelines, the municipality will be required to gradually refund the application fee to the applicant.

We also made changes to the Development Charges Act and the Planning Act to increase the transparency and certainty of development-related costs. The changes we made to the Development Charges Act now require municipalities with a development charge bylaw to make their annual reporting on these charges available to the public on the municipality’s website. While many municipalities already make reporting publicly accessible, these changes will increase transparency across the municipal sector.

We also changed the Planning Act to require any municipality with a community benefits charge bylaw to publicly consult and complete a review of that bylaw at least once every five years. After the review, the municipality must pass a council resolution to indicate whether any changes are needed to that bylaw. If this is not done, the community benefit charge bylaw in that municipality expires.

We also took further steps to make it easier to build transit-oriented communities. As many members of this House will recall, transit-oriented communities are our government’s vision for higher-density, mixed-use developments that are next to, or within a short walk of, transit stations and stops.

We have set out and standardized, under the Planning Act, how much parkland, or cash in lieu of land, municipalities can collect for developments in transit-oriented communities. We see this change as balancing the priority for building new housing and transit-oriented communities quickly, while continuing to create more parks. Our government is moving quickly to take every step we can to help support the construction of more homes in the province for hard-working Ontarians.

Minister Clark has mentioned that there are regulations to help bring this piece of legislation into force. For example, while our proposed legislative changes to the City of Toronto Act would empower the mayor of Toronto, the changes to the Municipal Act would need to be supported by a regulation to also empower the mayor of Ottawa.

When our government looks at potential similar changes for other growing municipalities that are also shovel-ready, committed to growth and cutting red tape, we would also use this regulation to designate what municipalities these new mayoral powers would also apply to.

Minister Clark has spoken to how, if passed, these changes would allow mayors to create new committees and appoint the chairs and vice-chairs of identified committees and local boards. Based on the unique needs of individual municipalities, our government would again use these regulations to identify what committees and local boards these powers would pertain to.

We also plan on making accompanying regulations to set out current provincial priorities. These priorities would include our commitment to help build 1.5 million new homes in 10 years to address the housing supply crisis. But homes, as I’ve said many, many times, aren’t just four walls and a roof. They’re where we raise our families; they’re where we create our fondest memories. For that to happen, we need to build our homes in strong communities. That’s why another provincial priority will focus on the planning, approval, construction and maintenance of key infrastructure, infrastructure such as transit and roads so residents don’t have to wait in gridlock, and for utilities such as water and waste water—all to support both new and existing residential development.

I also want to note that if there is any perceived abuse of these new governance tools, the regulation-making authority could be used to impose limits and conditions on the use of the proposed mayoral powers to hold heads of council accountable.

We did not take the development of our strong-mayors proposal lightly. We did our homework; we studied best practices from around the world and ensured the legislation will meet the test of time. We have looked at other cities that provide mayors with executive powers. We looked at cities like New York, Chicago, London, Los Angeles and Paris where strong-mayor systems work and are successful. The mayors of these cities have strengthened roles and additional administrative and executive powers. They have extra powers in developing budgets, and some have the opportunity to veto certain items.

Let’s take a look at what some of these cities are doing. In New York City, the mayor acts as a chief executive officer and does not sit as a member of council. It’s important to note here that if our proposed legislation is passed, a mayor would still sit on council and every council member would still have one vote.

However, similar to what we are proposing, the mayor of New York City may appoint and remove heads of administrations, departments and commissioners and all other non-elected officers except as otherwise provided in law. Also, the mayor of New York City has the power to create or abolish departments or positions within the mayor’s office. The mayor of New York City develops the budget and any accompanying financial plans and submits them to council for consideration and approval. And the mayor of New York City can veto any council decision to add to, increase or place terms on budget items. There is, of course, the check and balance that council can override a mayoral veto related to the budget with a two-thirds majority vote.

Now let’s look at Chicago. Just like in New York City, the mayor of Chicago is the chief executive officer of the city and does not sit on the council. However, unlike New York City, the Chicago mayor must obtain council consent to appoint and remove heads of all city departments and officers of the municipality, all commissions, all boards and all agencies, except as otherwise provided in the law. As in New York City and as proposed by our bill, the mayor of Chicago directs the city’s budget process and submits the city’s annual budget to council for consideration and approval.

Now let’s go out west and look at Los Angeles. Again, the mayor of Los Angeles is the chief executive officer of the city and does not have a seat on council. The mayor of Los Angeles has the power to create or abolish bureaus, divisions or positions within the executive office of the mayor, including having the power to remove certain city officials. Just like in New York, just like in Chicago and just like in our proposed legislation, the mayor of Los Angeles directs the budget and sends it to council for approval. The mayor can veto any changes or additions council makes, and, in turn, council can override a mayoral veto with a two-thirds majority vote.

These strong-mayor systems support the needs of these growing communities, just as similar systems can support the needs of the growing communities in Toronto and in Ottawa.

We know that building more homes that people can afford is a priority for everyone right across the province. From the headlines of newspapers to the conversations we all hear at our hockey rinks, soccer fields or coffee shops, we know that Ontarians care about living in a province where they can find a place to live, where the dream of home ownership is alive and well for them and their children.

There is no doubt that housing affordability will be top of mind for voters in this fall’s municipal election. We have heard candidates underline what their municipality needs to do to increase housing supply. We have heard from voters, both with well-paying jobs and those who might be having difficulty making ends meet, talking about the fact that they are unable to find attainable housing. Whether they’re looking for a place to call home in urban city centres or in suburban communities across the province, we hear about the struggles families are facing.

This is all because of a lack of housing in the housing market. This has to change. With this piece of legislation, combined with all the other bold solutions our government is taking action on, we’re ensuring that it does.

Both the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and I have mentioned some of the other housing supply-related initiatives our government has put in place. From our action plans to convening experts to weigh in on the best ways to increase housing supply to engaging with both the public and municipalities on crucial matters, we stand before our honourable colleagues here today to share with you that the proposed Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act is one more step that our government is taking to help address the current housing shortfall.

As the minister has said before, solving the housing crisis is a long-term process that requires a long-term commitment and collaboration from all levels of government. It is a huge challenge that Ontario faces. It’s a defining issue of our time. I know that there is a challenge here, but I know that we can overcome this challenge by working with all our partners, because how we as elected officials choose to tackle the housing crisis will dictate whether an entire next generation can break into the housing market. Ontarians are counting on us to get this right, and failure is simply not an option. We will meet this challenge and get homes built, and we will do it by working together with our municipal partners.

The proposed Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act focuses on partnership. The proposed legislation is built on the fact that our government trusts Ontarians to elect the right local leaders. Strong-mayor systems are intended to empower municipal leaders to work more effectively with the province to reduce timelines for development, to standardize processes and address local barriers to increasing the housing supply. That’s why Ontario will continue to provide the tools so that municipalities can, in fact, increase the housing supply—the tools they need to break through the logjams that have historically slowed the speed of housing construction, the tools that would enhance authorities for the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa. We propose to give these mayors more responsibility to help deliver on our shared provincial-municipal priorities, including our commitment to build 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years.

The reality is that over one third of Ontario’s growth in the next decade is expected to take place in Toronto and in Ottawa. Queen’s Park cannot tackle the housing challenge on its own. It requires all our partners to pitch in and help us get the job done. We are counting on these mayors to cut red tape and get housing built faster so more families can realize the dream of attainable home ownership. That’s our mission. That’s our job. That’s why we’re here. We’re not going to leave anyone behind, Speaker. We’re going to make sure everyone has a place to call home. Ontarians, as I said before, are counting on us, and we won’t let them down.

I now hand the floor over to the parliamentary assistant of municipal affairs and housing, my honourable colleague from Thunder Bay–Atikokan, to further elaborate on this bill. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

I want to thank the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for sharing his time with me today. I would also like to thank the Associate Minister of Housing for his comments on this important legislation. When it comes to increasing the amount of housing in our province, our minister’s leadership has been unwavering. This leadership has set the standard for how we can work together to build more housing that suits the needs and budgets of hard-working Ontarians.

I want to take this opportunity to echo the minister’s point that this bill is both timely and necessary. Ontarians, young and old, need our support to get the right housing built for their families. The harsh reality is that housing construction has not kept up with our growing population. This has been the case for far too long. We know that more needs to be done. Most of this growth is happening in our big cities. In fact, as has been noted, over one third of Ontario’s growth over the next decade is expected to happen in Toronto and Ottawa. We need to take action to ensure that there is no political logjam hindering the potential that these cities offer. We need these mayors to cut red tape and get housing built faster so more families can realize the dream of attainable home ownership. Both current residents and those who are choosing to make Ontario home are counting on us. They want us to take bold action to increase the housing supply.

As you have heard, Speaker, our proposed changes to the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act and associated regulations would provide the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa with additional governance tools and increased powers to align municipal decision-making with provincial priorities. That is because, along with their projected population increases, Ottawa and Toronto are shovel-ready and committed to growth. We know that working together with municipalities on shared priorities will not only move things along faster but it will be tailored to the needs of local communities.

Municipalities are on the front lines of the housing crisis and they see the harmful impacts that a lack of homes has on their communities, from young professionals who can’t find housing close to where they work to parents who can’t afford a home for their growing families to seniors who can’t afford to downsize. That is why we believe this collaboration will help us to make the dream of home ownership attainable for Ontarians.

Of course, this is not the only time we have reached out to our municipal partners to help address housing supply. Speaker, let me take you back to earlier this year: We held our virtual Ontario-municipal housing summit in January so we could find ways to coordinate our efforts with big city mayors and regional chairs. We discussed the bold recommendations of the Housing Affordability Task Force, including proposals on planning approvals and removing the politics from local planning processes in order to make housing easier and less expensive to build.

We have also rolled out programs such as the Streamline Development Approval Fund, which is providing more than $45 million to help large municipalities streamline, digitize and modernize their approach to applications for residential developments.

We’re also engaging with all municipalities to discuss ways they can unlock housing. That’s why we also met with smaller, rural, northern and remote municipalities earlier this year at our rural housing round table. Understanding the full spectrum of experiences with the housing supply crisis, such as the cost of supplies, helps us to align housing and infrastructure needs based on the unique ways Ontario’s population continues to grow and change. Since then, we have kept the lines of communication with municipalities open.

Of course, just a few weeks ago, I was honoured to be one of the members of our government who met with municipal leaders at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference. It is a perfect forum to share new ideas and best practices as well as to promote discussion around policy recommendations that support increasing our housing supply. We’re happy to work with our municipal partners at conferences like this and also through proposed policy changes. That collaboration is what brings us here today.

If passed, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act would empower a mayor to build a team that would help to bring forward shared municipal and provincial priorities—that is, get shovels in the ground faster for more housing and for the infrastructure that supports residential development. I will go into a little more detail on both of these priorities shortly, but I want to first focus on the specifics of how the mayors of both Toronto and Ottawa would be able to do this.

Step 1 is forging the path to empower these mayors. This proposed legislation would make changes to the City of Toronto Act in order to empower the mayor of Toronto, and the proposed changes to the Municipal Act, along with supporting regulation, would empower the mayor of Ottawa.

Step 2 is outlining what tools these mayors could access to take decisive action on our shared priorities. As we heard from the minister, if passed, this legislation would give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the power to hire and fire the chief administrative officer of the municipality, as well as certain department heads. This would not include positions such as clerk, treasurer, integrity commissioner, chief of police, chief building official, medical officer of health and others.

The mayor would also have the power to create and reorganize departments to better address the needs of their communities. The mayor would also be able to appoint the chairs and vice-chairs of identified committees and local boards as well as establish identified committees.

They would have the power to direct matters that further provincial priorities to council for consideration, and they would be able to direct staff to prepare proposals to support these matters.

This bill would also give the mayor the ability to direct a municipality’s budget and table it for council to consider. The council would then be able to propose amendments to the budget. These amendments would then be subjected to a mayor’s veto.

Speaker, those critical of our legislation would have you believe that we are sidelining the city councillors of Ottawa and Toronto, but nothing could be further from the truth. The system of checks and balances that we have built into this bill would keep councillors engaged in the process of local government and provide an important restraint on mayors. Council would be able to override the mayor’s veto of council amendments to the budget with a two-thirds majority vote. They would also have a certain amount of time to do so. Once that period of time is up, the municipality would have adopted the resulting budget.

The bill proposes a similar veto-override system with regard to bylaws passed by council. A mayor could use their veto power if they are of the opinion that all or part of the bylaw passed by council could potentially interfere with a provincial priority as identified in regulation, like building more housing for Ontarians, or if it prevented related infrastructure from being built.

The council override process is a counterweight in this instance as well. Just like with budget amendments, council could override a mayoral veto of bylaws related to provincial priorities with a two-thirds majority vote. To be clear, the mayor’s new ability to veto bylaws could only apply to matters that the mayor believed to potentially interfere with identified provincial priorities.

We trust Ontarians to elect the leaders that best reflect the needs and values of their communities. By extension, we trust these leaders to use these powers fairly when it comes to driving forward our shared priorities. That is why we’re holding them accountable for their choices. As an extension of this, mayors would be required to provide written documentation when using any of these new powers, in accordance with any associated regulations.

We are also proposing changes to the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act that would require a mayor to declare any financial interests related to the use of their new powers. Speaker, they would not be able to use the new powers where any financial conflict exists. For example, if a mayor’s spouse applied to be the head of a certain department, the mayor would not be able to hire them as a department head because this would be a conflict of interest. It is also important to remember that council members, including the mayor, are already subject to legislated accountability and transparency rules.

Another point I want to raise is that because of this increased authority that we are proposing for mayors, we want to ensure that voters have their say if a mayor leaves office earlier than expected. That is why we propose requiring a by-election to replace a mayor with these increased powers if the office becomes vacant. That is distinct from the current practice, which is to give council the choice of either a by-election or an appointment by council.

The existing rules for how by-elections are run would still apply: for example, rules like how a municipality is not required to fill the position if a mayor’s seat becomes vacant within 90 days before voting day in the year of a regular election. And if a mayor’s seat becomes vacant after March 31 in the year of a regular municipal election, the municipality would be required to appoint a mayor, who would not have these new powers.

This would not impact the flexibility that these municipalities currently have in deciding how to fill other vacant council seats. They would have the choice to appoint someone or have a by-election in that case. I’d like to note that our proposed changes are intended to come into effect on November 15, 2022, in Toronto and Ottawa, right as the new term of council begins.

As I mentioned previously, some of these proposed changes to empower the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa pertain to matters of provincial priority. These provincial priorities would be laid out in a supporting regulation. I would like to highlight what these proposed provincial priorities could be in more detail.

Our government is committed to keeping costs down and building 1.5 million homes in 10 years to address the housing supply crisis. As the minister has mentioned on several occasions, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act is not the first step we’ve taken to support this province-wide initiative, and it will not be the last. We’re making good on our promise to increase the number of homes for all Ontarians since 2019, when we introduced our first housing supply action plan, More Homes, More Choice. That plan is producing results.

In 2021, Ontario broke ground on a record number of new homes being built, with more than 100,000 new homes in only 12 months. This is the highest level of new housing starts in a single year since 1987. Last year, Ontario reached a 30-year record for new rental housing construction, the most units built in a single year since 1991.

To build off this momentum, we introduced More Homes for Everyone this year. It focused on targeted policies for the immediate term that would make housing fairer for hard-working Ontarians and make it faster to build the homes that families need and deserve. But with our commitment to build 1.5 million homes in 10 years, we are thinking long-term. That is why we plan to develop a new housing supply action plan annually for the next four years.

When we build more homes, we also need to consider the infrastructure that will support it. Another provincial priority we could lay out in regulation would speed up the planning, approval, construction and maintenance of infrastructure to support new and existing residential development. This is the infrastructure that you use every day, the things we don’t often think about but that we require, like running water, the road you commute to work on, the electricity you use in your home. Actioning the expansion, construction and maintenance of these services is absolutely essential, and we need to work to eliminate any barriers on delays. This will help us lay the foundation for building homes now and into the future.

As is now abundantly clear, our government is steadfast in our commitment to build new housing. That is why we are moving forward with more collaborative efforts with a variety of housing experts. Our new housing supply action plan implementation team will provide advice on market housing initiatives, including building on the vision from the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force, More Homes for Everyone and other government consultations that the minister referenced.

We recently appointed Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens as the team’s chair and Mayor Cheryl Fort of the township of Hornepayne as its vice-chair. They will lead a diverse group of experts in finding additional ways to build more market housing. The team will also be supported by additional stakeholders and industry experts who, if needed, may provide technical advice on specific topics, and they will be hitting the ground running. The team’s first meeting is scheduled for early fall.

Speaker, our government is committed to supporting municipalities and remains focused on improving planning policies and cutting red tape to get more homes built faster. We need municipal leaders to work more effectively to help reduce timelines for development, standardize processes and address local barriers to increasing housing supply.

We have set out a clear goal of building 1.5 million homes in 10 years, and we are working tirelessly to meet it, but we cannot do this alone. We need the support of our local partners, and by empowering the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa to move forward on our shared priorities, we are doing just that. We are counting on these mayors to help get things done at a local level so more families can realize the dream of attainable home ownership.

It’s a pleasure to continue my speaking from this morning. I got about seven minutes into it, so I just had time to thank a bunch of people.

I want to start off, first of all, by mentioning my son, Jackson, who’s starting his first day of high school today. He’s a little bit nervous, as I’m sure a lot of kids across Ontario are, so I want to wish him and all the kids and parents and teachers a safe return to school today, and a great school year.

I had some time this morning to thank municipal candidates from across Ontario. I’m a former city councillor and budget chair myself, and also a mayoral candidate, so I understand how difficult it is to run for municipal office, to put your name forward. And I just want to congratulate all those people who have done that. It’s not an easy thing on your family—or on your finances, quite frankly, as many of us know. Municipally, it’s so important to be involved in your community. So congratulations to all those folks.

I named all the delegations that came for hearings last Monday—from municipal associations to groups of builders and developers. We appreciate everyone’s input, and it was great to join my colleagues from University–Rosedale and Ottawa Centre to talk with those delegations about their concerns with the bill.

I just want to give some general reflections on those comments from the delegations that appeared before I get into the actual bill. Everyone who appeared agreed that we need more homes, and I think everyone in this room, in this House, agrees that we need to build more homes. We also agreed that we need more affordable homes. Where things diverged is whether this bill will actually accomplish that. We’re suggesting that the government has really failed to show how stronger-mayors legislation will actually translate into more homes. Some of the delegations suggested and spoke about ways that it may actually slow down the ability to build more homes, and we’ll get into that shortly.

There’s also some debate about how a mayor will use those powers. No one could really answer the question, “How can you guarantee that a mayor will use the powers in the way that the province wants them to?” There’s no evidence to suggest there are more NIMBY mayors than non-NIMBY mayors. And if you have a strong NIMBY mayor, they can unilaterally hire a strong NIMBY CAO and a planner under this legislation. So the translation of how this bill will work in practice is something that the government has not fully explained—and whether those powers are appropriate and transparent. Many of the delegations raised points of view in terms of this making municipal government much less transparent, especially when it comes to the hiring practices, which I will talk about further in my presentation as well.

No one seems to understand what provincial priorities are specifically, and how they would be promoted by this strong-mayor scheme. Some real confusion on the government’s part, I feel, is in distinguishing between the Canadian and American municipal government systems, which are fundamentally different. A number of folks on the government side have talked about Chicago and other American cities, but in practice, one doesn’t translate into the other. City managers in the United States are not the same as CAOs in Canada. They’re fundamentally different systems, and to suggest that you can take an American model and put it here in Canadian cities is not practical—and many folks who have a lot of experience, such as the Ontario provincial planners and others who appeared as delegations, said as much in their presentations.

Another question is why the government has not taken action on things that will actually make a difference. Many folks have raised things like exclusionary and inclusionary zoning and the changes that need to happen there. The housing crisis has gotten worse, not better, under this government. I’ve noticed a lot of the language in the House recently—they talk about “the previous government” this and “the previous government” that, and I know that they’re referring to the Liberals, but I think they have to understand that they’re actually the previous government, and things have gotten worse, not better, especially with respect to affordable housing.

Finally, I’ve really been reflecting on what a lot of the big city mayors and other municipal associations have said in terms of needing that support, financial and otherwise, from the province.

I can remember, as a councillor, between 2006 and 2014—we went through the financial crisis in 2008, and there was a joint infrastructure spending plan that the Conservative federal government, actually, put forward. Many of you, especially if you were into municipal politics, will remember that. When the will was there and the financing was there, that infrastructure program moved forward with an incredible number of projects throughout the country.

Also, most recently, we had the Canada Summer Games in Niagara, and we appreciated the investment in our community and the great respect for the volunteers and the athletes. But, boy, was an awful lot of money ever spent on those games. A lot of my constituents said, “If we could show the same cross-party, cross-government commitment and funding to the affordable housing crisis as we do to those games, imagine what we could do for the affordable housing crisis.” I think those are legitimate questions to ask—why the government has come forward with this and not some more tangible and effective ways to deal with the affordable housing crisis.

I want to be clear about our position on the bill, which is that, once again, this Premier is demonstrating a disdain for local democracy by unilaterally interfering with municipal politics during a municipal election with absolutely no consultation. The Premier’s strong-mayor proposal has nothing to do with housing, as the Premier has already admitted; it’s about the Premier giving the mayors the power to help him bypass councils, override local bylaws and stifle consultation. The bill will make local government less transparent and less accountable while doing nothing at all to address the affordable housing crisis.

Many of the comments we’ve heard from right across the province have to do with the really incredible lack of consultation around this bill. Especially if you’re going to put a bill forward in the middle of a municipal election, you would think that you’d consult, even on short notice, with AMO and other municipal organizations. But we heard nothing about this bill or strong mayors for the entire last term of government. We heard nothing about strong mayors through two housing bills that this government brought forward in the last term. We heard absolutely nothing about it during the Housing Affordability Task Force and all of those recommendations that came forward. We heard nothing about it during the election. If this was planned to happen immediately after the election—bringing us back in the middle of summer, and an emergency session to pass legislation—you would have thought they’d be aware of that during the election and put that out there.

There was no consultation with the big city mayors, and there was no consultation with the mayor of Ottawa, which is one of the first two cities that this legislation is supposed to affect. As a matter of fact, the mayor of Ottawa said he found out about it in the media, which is incredible.

The bill is supposed to be about building homes. That’s what the government says. But apart from the bill’s title, there’s literally nothing in the bill that has to do with building homes. There’s nothing that implements, as I mentioned, even a single recommendation of the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force, such as ending exclusionary zoning and enabling more missing middle housing, both of which were debated during the election. My friend from University–Rosedale, as the housing critic, has been raising this endlessly for years, to no avail, with this government. There’s also nothing that establishes a public home builder or ensures the construction of new affordable or non-market homes. There’s nothing that ensures the construction of new basement apartments, laneway homes, granny flats—all the things that have been talked about for years and years. There’s nothing that expands inclusionary zoning, incredibly. That’s something that could happen.

And it’s not clear to many what problem the bill is trying to solve. For example, Toronto mayor John Tory has not lost a single significant vote at council, and there’s no evidence that a mayoral veto would have changed any of the significant council outcomes.

The minister has claimed that the bill is necessary because some municipalities are blocking progress on housing. We heard from the big city mayors chair, Cam Guthrie, about some of the big city mayors’ frustrations with being blamed for the housing crisis, which this government has done quite aggressively, both within its legislation and in its public comments—blaming the slow progress of housing, that it’s all the fault of municipalities. The minister has also failed to explain how giving more power to the mayor would address this issue.

The bill links veto powers to provincial priorities, and the minister has not explained why any mayor elected to serve municipal voters would willingly overturn a council vote to serve the Premier. The province already has perfectly legitimate ways of identifying provincial interests and requiring municipal consistency with provincial policies, especially with respect to housing and development. If the problem is that municipalities are not complying with provincial laws and policies, then how does a mayoral veto help? Why doesn’t the province just use its existing powers?

The bill gives the mayor control over both raising taxes and spending them through the new budget process. I’ll be mentioning that a little bit later on as well. Instead of being required to secure the support of the majority of council, the mayor requires only the approval of one third. There’s no requirement that the mayor receive recommendations from a budget committee or a public consultation process. The mayor could ask a lobbyist to write the budget behind closed doors if they wanted. I find that particularly troubling as a former budget chair who—I was the chair of the St. Catharines budget committee, which is a large urban municipality. I had a lot of respect for the process that that municipality used—having department heads, councillors who were elected from council, the mayor and the media sitting in the room as the budget process unfolded. It was a transparent process that I had a lot of respect for. It’s really shocking where this bill takes that process.

I’d like to talk briefly about what’s referred to as the weak-mayor system versus the strong-mayor system. I don’t like the term “weak-mayor system.” I don’t think the system we have produces weak mayors; if you think about people like Hazel McCallion and others who are held up as examples of a strong mayor, I think it clearly depends on the quality of the mayor who people elect.

While councils wield the powers of the municipality, the mayor’s statutory role includes providing leadership to council, representing the council at ceremonial functions and promoting the purposes of the city. Something we don’t discuss at great length in this House is the role that informal powers play in governance. I was fortunate enough to serve under a very strong mayor who did things by consensus, and we got an awful lot done in Niagara. The member from St. Catharines actually served on that council with me, and we’re very proud of the work we did—a mayor who led by consultation and character and strength.

A council may also delegate some of its formal authority to the mayor, and we saw that in Toronto when Toronto city council delegated to Mayor David Miller the power to appoint the executive committee and chairs of standing committees, which grants the mayor additional formal powers. Because executive committee roles are desirable by councillors, the power to appoint committee members tends to ensure that the mayor can usually count on close to a majority of council votes. We saw powers also taken away from a former mayor of Toronto as well, and many would argue that that’s a very important check and balance in the system.

With the strong-mayor system, we can ask why this is being brought forward now. We know that in 2011, over a decade ago, the Premier was quoted as saying, “I believe in a strong-mayor system, like they have in the States. The mayor should have veto power ... so he has enough power to stop council.... The mayor should be the mayor. At the end of the day ... the mayor’s responsible for everything.” That comment in that article gives us a lot of insight into the legislation that’s before us. The Premier—at the time, a councillor—outlined that it was a challenge to get legislation passed with 23 votes to woo on council.

We heard a lot about the mayoral system in Chicago in the Premier’s comments from 2011 and over the past few weeks. The government members like to bring up Chicago. But what’s interesting about Chicago, as I’ve raised in the past, is that it’s a charter city. An issue that we’ve tried to talk about in this House—and folks at Charter City Toronto and charter cities Ontario have approached both the government and the opposition with some pretty interesting and well-supported ideas. To complicate matters, Chicago, which the Premier touted as a great example of municipal governance, is actually a weak-mayor system under the charter. In practical terms, though, Chicago has an extremely powerful mayor, which shows how informal rules in practice are often vastly more relevant than the formal ones, and it really depends on the quality of the mayor and the quality of the council as well and their ability to work together.

I’ve raised the opinion of Ken Greenberg, the former director of urban design and architecture for the city of Toronto, who talked about the Premier’s record with development at the municipal level: “His previous government sliced the number of councillors in half just before the last municipal elections in 2018, and his cabinet has had a field day issuing ministerial zoning orders ... to let developers build sprawling projects slicing up Ontario’s ... greenbelt and unsustainable hyper-dense towers that don’t help with housing affordability” at all.

Mr. Greenberg said, “Critics also worry about what might happen if a strong mayor comes to power who is also a populist bent on crushing the careful official plans drawn up by cities for sustainable smart growth. When he was a Toronto city councillor,” the Premier “himself actually road-tested this scenario when he tried to strike a unilateral deal to undermine Waterfront Toronto and get hand-picked developers to build a luxury yacht club, megamall and Ferris wheel by the lake with little or no parkland” attached.

“An American mayor’s biggest rival for power is not the city council, it’s the city manager—an appointed bureaucrat who has vast power and can make elected councils weak or irrelevant.”

Mr. Greenberg also pointed out that “Canadian cities have chief administrative officers, but they’re not really the mayor’s rival; they’re professional civil servants who have only a fraction of the powers that many US city managers enjoy.”

Mr. Greenberg pointed out, “While it is true that a ‘good’ strong mayor may be able to accomplish more things more quickly, what happens when we elect a bad one who tries to run the city with hare-brained slogans and schemes,” as he calls it?

He said, “My concern is that under the guise of seeking to ‘get things done,’” the Premier’s “strong-mayor move to centralize power may undermine a critical virtue of Canadian cities: the need for consensual city building.

“Democracy, in cities and everywhere else, relies on hearing many voices—not just the strong one—and having a non-partisan group of civil servants who are loyal not just to a single politician, but to the city itself.”

I thought those were very wise words by Mr. Greenberg.

It’s not hard to imagine what could happen if powers were abused at the municipal level at the behest of the current Premier. The record is not good.

Shortly after the 2018 election, as I mentioned, the government tabled Bill 5, to cancel regional chair elections and cut the size of Toronto city council while the campaign was already under way and folks had already put their names forward and put money out there. When a lower court found Bill 5 to be unconstitutional and granted a stay, the government, again, passed Bill 31, which invoked the “notwithstanding” clause to bypass charter rights. After an appeal court overturned that, Bill 5 went ahead, and Bill 31 was left to die on the order paper. Bill 5 was still subject to a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court, which—you know this government, over the last number of years, has not been shy about spending taxpayer dollars on court cases to defend itself.

In 2020, the government tabled Bill 218, a COVID recovery bill that included a clause which repealed the legislation allowing municipalities to use ranked ballots in municipal elections, which many folks considered to be extremely intrusive and undemocratic.

I want to turn to some of the testimony that we heard last Monday from delegations, and in particular some exchanges—in our first delegation, we had Dr. Myer Siemiatycki, who showed up and gave what I thought was an excellent presentation about some of the concerns with Bill 3. He’s a professor of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. I’d like to read into the record part of his presentation because I thought it really highlighted the concerns that folks on this side of the House share.

“I’m generally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person. I like to accentuate the positive. Regrettably, I don’t have positives to say about Bill 3. That’s because I don’t think it fulfills its stated objectives—and will create a host of problems. I don’t think Bill 3 meaningfully strengthens city mayors; rather, I actually think it weakens them, and it creates new risks for their city government—nor do I think the bill’s measures will make a dent in our housing problems. The province already has more than enough powers to do that, and I wish Queen’s Park would exercise them.”

Those are comments we heard from municipal associations as well. Why is the government not exercising the powers that it already has?

He went on to say, “I’m certainly not alone in my skepticism over Bill 3. Toronto’s five living past mayors have all gone on record as opposed to this bill. Interestingly, these were mayors from all political stripes—a Conservative, an NDPer, a Liberal and, in fact, an independent.

“Bill 3 is not a partisan issue. It’s a question of good governance and solving real problems; I’m sorry that Bill 3 achieves neither. Instead, it will create a host of new problems for mayors and for municipalities while generally leaving our housing problems to fester....

“Bill 3 is another example of Ontario provincial governments misusing municipalities for their own interests. It turns our mayors from local chief magistrates into provincial enforcement officers at city hall. The veto power accorded to the mayor in this legislation applies only to council decisions that are counter to ‘prescribed provincial priorities.’ Mayors will now be expected, and perhaps even pressured, to overturn majority decisions of their democratically elected councils in order to comply with provincial policy. This doesn’t strengthen mayors or local government.

“Bill 3 further mistakenly assumes that mayoral authority in Ontario is handcuffed by the other elected members of council. Mayors in Ontario have more than enough authority and soft powers to lead their council. No one ever accused Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion of being a weak mayor. And Toronto mayor John Tory ... has not lost a single significant vote on council during his eight years in office. What really weakens mayors are the limited financial resources and statutory powers that cities receive from the province”—and we heard that over and over again, Speaker. “Instead of addressing this, Bill 3 sets its sights on weakening the role of municipal councillors.

“The bill gives the mayor sole authority to hire and fire senior city staff. This is dangerous. It will turn a professional, neutral, high-quality senior staff into personal selections of the mayor and no one else. In such a system, senior staff will recommend and deliver what the mayor wants, regardless of council and city residents’ preferences. That’s not a public administration model designed for excellent government.”

We heard those concerns from the professional planners as well.

“Additionally, Bill 3 will give mayors super powers over the municipal budget. Not long ago, Toronto experienced a successful public and city council revolt against a previous mayor who promoted a budget making deep cuts to municipal services. Do we really want to further centralize budget powers in the mayor’s hands rather than in a majority of council backed by public input? I don’t think so.

“In considering your stance on Bill 3, I would ask committee members and all members of the Legislature to consider this”—and this is a very important question: “Are municipalities a legitimate democratic form of government? If so, is there any red line a province should not cross in imposing its will on municipalities, and is Bill 3 that red line?

“Furthermore, I would ask the members of this committee from the governing party to consider this: The day will inevitably come when another party forms government at Queen’s Park. How will you feel back in your hometowns if the next provincial government tells mayors to align your local government’s decisions with its prescribed provincial priorities? I imagine you may well be back before this committee yourselves complaining about the loss of local democracy....

“For almost 200 years, Ontario municipalities have been well served by a governance model based on mayoral-led, collegial, collaborative governance rooted in strong ties to their residents. That needs to continue.”

I think that those comments very accurately reflect what a lot of us on this side of the House feel about these changes.

Later on—it was interesting—my colleague from University–Rosedale asked a question. She said, “One of the issues that I’ve heard from constituents” in her riding “is how putting more power into the mayor’s office will limit the authority that individual councillors have in Toronto. Councillors in Toronto have upwards of 100,000 people voting for them, and there is real value in ensuring councillors have the power over the budgetary process and the power they need to represent their constituents well.” The member from University–Rosedale asked the presenter to speak on how democracy and civic engagement are limited by concentrating power in the mayor’s office.

The answer was interesting. He said, “There’s no question that if this legislation goes through, it will marginalize the input and the voice of city councillors. By doing that, who it’s really harming are local residents. Currently, the councillors have a single vote on all municipal issues. They also collectively appoint the senior staff of the city. It is currently not a unilateral decision of the head of council, the mayor. So, if we go down the path of this legislation, ward councillors will effectively be sidelined in the major decisions that a city government is making. The senior staff will see their careers as totally dependent on approval from the mayor. That means that the kind of advice that will come to city council and the recommendations that will come to city council from senior staff will, out of their own self-protectiveness, be framed by what they perceive the mayor to want, and what councillors connected to local residents advocate will be inconsequential.”

So that flags a really important issue that we heard a number of times throughout the presentations.

At one point, I asked one of the groups of builders—because we kept hearing this line, which obviously comes from the government, about taking politics out of the planning process; that somehow this bill will take the politics out of the planning process, which I find extremely puzzling. How a bill that will possibly cause mayors to be vetoing their own council and then council to be vetoing the mayor—it seems to me it injects a whole lot of politics into the process. With the budget process, the legislation actually allows the mayor to hire a CAO without going through any of the budget processes and to come up with a budget all on their own. So I don’t think anyone really thinks this is going to take the politics out of the planning process.

As a matter of fact, in my experience—and we heard this from some of the other presenters—we had a lot of difficult planning decisions that I dealt with as a councillor. Whether you’re in Toronto or a small town or a medium-sized municipality, those are issues that you deal with. And you deal with residents who are upset about developments in their neighbourhood—some of them for good reason, and some of them what we would call NIMBY, not in my backyard. It’s often the planner who actually is the voice of reason—a planner who is independent, who has been hired through a proper hiring process, and who is part of their professional association. I can remember many times the planner promoting a development that conforms to the official plan, even though the mayor and council may be leaning a different way out of political pressure, because they’re often the voice of reason. The planning department is often the objective voice, and they’re often the ones saying, “This doesn’t go against the official plan. There’s no reason for this development not to go forward.” And sometimes they actually get council off the hook, because council can then say, “We’re following the professional advice of our planner.”

So I think that people who are more experienced with the process will understand that this idea of the mayor actually hiring a planner is not such a good one.

Just on the budget process again, it is our understanding that under the new legislation, the mayor can draft a budget and present it to council, which we see as a very dangerous thing to allow a mayor to do unilaterally, without going through a public and transparent process. Council may pass amendments, but these amendments can be vetoed by the mayor.

Toronto currently has an executive committee which oversees setting strategic priorities and fiscal policy. The process of a budget committee is allowed under the bill, but it’s not required. So there’s no question that under this bill, the mayor could unilaterally put a budget together, and if they had more than a third—not a majority, but a third of council—they could pass that budget and do it in a way that’s not in any way or in any sense transparent.

With respect to the hiring of a CAO: I’ve talked at length about this in the past, from experience. As you may recall, in Niagara we had a situation where—the power to hire and fire may seem innocuous, but we had a CAO who was hired, actually, by the chair and was investigated by the Ombudsman of Ontario, Paul Dubé, who came to a number of conclusions about why a mayor or a chair should not be able to unilaterally hire a head executive officer.

When I was first elected in 2018, a tremendous amount of scrutiny was being placed on the regional chair in Niagara, and particularly on the CAO as well.

The former MPP for my riding worked for many years to bring accountability to the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, where the chief officer was hired into the region. It was done in a way where they received the résumés and information on other candidates, and the CAO was hired into an office and given a severance package—which was not transparent and was not even done with the permission of council—of several years that amounted to millions of dollars. This was written about extensively in the media. It was called an inside job. The Ombudsman came out with some recommendations that I think are instructive in this debate: first of all, ensuring that staff in the chair’s office do not usurp or undermine the role of professional staff, especially when those roles have been set by council or a committee; and adopting a policy setting out the process for hiring a chief administrative officer, including the appropriate roles of staff and their accountability to council or a committee of council charged with the hiring.

He recommended adopting a bylaw setting the parameters of the relationship between council and the CAO—this is something that the professional association has asked for at our delegations—including the role of council with respect to amending the CAO’s contract and salary and ensuring that staff and officials act in accordance with the direction of council and committees of council.

A CAO has incredible powers, particularly in larger municipalities, and I think it’s important that this House is thoughtful about the implications of this legislation.

As I mentioned, we talked to Susan Wiggins from the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, who gave some really serious concerns about the hiring of a CAO. She said, “Currently there is a separation between the mayor and the head of the planning department. There’s often a chief administrative officer or a city manager who reports to council and is responsible for selecting senior management, including a chief planner. This layer of separation avoids a sense of obligation and allows the chief planner to provide his or her independent advice on the planning matter of the day. This independence often serves to benefit more housing supply in certain communities. It allows elected officials,” as I mentioned, “including mayors, to defend politically challenging projects by saying, ‘The chief planner has deemed the project to align with all of our policies and plans.’” I saw this happen many times, as a city councillor. “That opinion of the chief planner is a professional opinion from highly trained professional planners and is based on data-gathering and research, as cited in the legislation.

“The heads of planning in both Ottawa and Toronto are registered professional planners ... and as such are bound by a professional code of conduct that requires recommendations in the public interest. If a mayor is seen to have direct control over the hiring and firing of the chief planner, it would remove the important separation between these two roles.

“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. We therefore recommend that the chief planner be” exempt under the exempt persons in the act.

That comes from the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, which is a group that sets the standards for planners, suggesting that the head of the planning—that it may result in less homes being built, not more.

Getting to some of the reaction of mayors across Ontario: I was interested to see an article in the Hamilton Spectator from the mayor of the city of St. Catharines, where I served as a councillor. In Niagara, as I’ve mentioned in the past, all of the mayors of the three larger municipalities were pretty quick in coming out and saying they were not in support of this legislation, and they had some serious concerns about it. I thought that Mayor Sendzik from St. Catharines wrote some really interesting comments, especially about the official planning process: “The idea that giving more powers to mayors will magically lead to more housing is too simplistic. If this is all it takes to address the housing crisis, why not give more powers to end homelessness and tackle mental health issues and addictions? Add in more powers to end climate change and mayors will become superheroes”—he said sarcastically.

“But that is what Premier Ontario Doug Ford is attempting to do as a means to solve the housing crisis through his government’s new sweeping legislation.... In essence, it follows this line of thinking: We have a housing crisis; therefore if mayors had more powers, the housing crisis would be solved. The press release announcing the legislation even proclaimed it as ‘empowering mayors to build housing faster.’

“The sweeping set of new powers for mayors includes the ability to hire ... chief administrative officers and senior staff positions.” It goes on to say—to the point that I’ve already raised—about the ability, if a NIMBY mayor is elected, to hire people who support that position.

He said, “After eight years as mayor of St. Catharines, I can confidently state I didn’t need special powers to build more housing. In St. Catharines we have approved more housing developments, of all types, over the last eight years than any time in the last 30 years.” And this is the important part: “We achieved this because of a progressive city official plan, approved in 2012.”

This is where this mayor gets into what we’ve heard from many municipalities in their complaints about the Ontario Land Tribunal and actual constructive suggestions that this government could adopt to make the planning process more streamlined. He said, “Official plans are a tool developed by municipal staff who are experts in municipal land use planning. It conforms with provincial planning regulations that take into account future population growth, transportation expansion, protection of farmland, sustainability, heritage protection and other aspects that guide growth. Official plans are future forward land use planning regulations that shape communities for tomorrow and support growth to create complete communities. It’s all prescribed under the Ontario Planning Act”—it’s already there.

“If a developer proposes a housing project that meets the requirements of the city’s official plan, it should be approved by staff and council. But under the Planning Act, there is a process that provides the public with opportunities to comment on proposals in their neighbourhood and this is the part where projects become contentious, often leading to appeals to try and stop development.

“And this is where the province needs to step in.”

I’ve talked to developers I got to know as a city councillor. I represented a ward of the city that was a former industrial area, and there was all kinds of brownfield development happening. I had to work very, very closely with developers, and I’ve maintained a lot of those relationships. Whether you talk to community groups or developers, many of them will talk about how the official plan should be respected and that what needs to be cut down on is the number of appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal. There’s quite a campaign being led across Ontario, adopted by many mayors, to actually abolish the Ontario Land Tribunal. Whether you agree with that or not, we can certainly agree, almost universally, that some major reforms need to happen. That’s something practical that this government could do in listening to municipalities and respecting official plans.

Mr. Sendzik continued: “The province doesn’t need to give mayors special powers. It needs to reduce appeals by the public to projects they think ‘don’t fit’ in their neighbourhood. If a development conforms with the official plan—a public process reviewed every five years and updated every 10 years—staff recommend approval and a simple majority of council support it, there should be no appeal process.”

So that puts the planning emphasis on the front end, on the official plan, and cuts down on the appeals—and not just by neighbourhood groups. In Niagara, there were developments held up for an extended period of time by a developer who appealed a council decision—which conformed to the official plan—to the OLT, and that held up all developments around the city of St. Catharines for quite some time. So it happens due to developers as well.

He said, “Adding more powers to the office of the mayor will only weaken the functionality of cities. It won’t accelerate building of housing, as the roadblocks that exist due to appeals will not be curtailed by the proposed legislation.”

So what does the bill do for housing? I’ve stood up in the House many times to speak to the housing legislation, as my friend here from University–Rosedale has done. The bills have arguably made the situation worse because, as we have argued many times, they actually exacerbate the kind of speculation that’s happening in the province rather than doing anything at all to fix the affordability problem. As we’ve mentioned, all of the recommendations of the Housing Affordability Task Force, which this government talked about endlessly, are being ignored in favour of a bill that does nothing to promote more housing.

So if the minister is serious about housing, we have suggested many things, as have big city mayors, AMO, many other folks. We could be talking about ending exclusionary zoning. We could be talking about allowing municipalities to build missing middle homes. This legislation does nothing about that. We could open up public land for affordable housing. We could put in real rent control, something that would be really helpful here in Toronto. Clamp down on speculation—my friend, this morning, asked a question about a vacancy and speculation tax. We could fund community housing. That’s one of the big failures, both of provincial and federal government—not putting money into social housing, where the real need is. And we could expand inclusionary zoning. Instead, we have a bill that—the government cannot demonstrate that it, in any meaningful way, supports the building of homes, or especially of affordable housing.

In my area of Niagara, one city, Niagara Falls, which is the worst example—a waiting list of 18 years to get into affordable housing, through the Niagara housing board.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention AMO, who presented last Monday. AMO is careful—they have a number of members, and not everyone is opposed or in favour; they have a variety of opinions. But they did come out with three concerns that we should mention briefly:

First, they asked, “As the government considers how it may expand the new provisions in the Municipal Act to include additional municipalities, it must engage in broad consultation with the public and with both professional and political municipal organizations, including AMO.” There’s obviously frustration there that there was not appropriate consultation. And they certainly hope that if the bill moves forward—the government has a majority, so, obviously, it will—when the decision is made to expand into other municipalities, if it is, that the appropriate consultation that didn’t happen this time will happen in the future with those municipalities and with those organizations.

Secondly, they said, “The AMO board has taken note of the strong concerns expressed by municipal public administrators regarding the proposed provisions of the Municipal Act that would allow a mayor to unilaterally hire and fire a chief administrative officer, and it urges this committee to give careful consideration to those concerns as it proceeds.” They’re asking us to listen to the administrators and the professional planners who have come forward and said, “There’s a red flag here. You need to really think before you make a mistake here.”

And third, “The AMO board finds that the proposed changes to the Municipal Act which would allow a mayor to unilaterally hire and fire department heads and to reorganize a municipality’s public administration are at odds with established good practices of both private and public sector governance and administration, and should be removed from the bill.” That’s some pretty strong language about the government’s plans in that regard.

So there are some pretty strong concerns from people who have come forward—concerns that the government would have heard if they had consulted properly or at all. I want to say it’s rare, and it hasn’t been so rare for this government—but to come forward with a bill that has never been mentioned in provincial government circles for the last five years, even through an election, during a municipal election, raises some real red flags and some real concerns.

My time is almost at an end, and I want to conclude by saying that we see nothing in this bill that will achieve the minister’s stated priorities. I don’t think this government has been able to demonstrate clearly how strong-mayor powers will create housing or make it more affordable. Once again, this government has shown that in a time of a crisis, they cannot offer solutions. Municipalities have routinely articulated to the province that the housing crisis does not solely fall on their shoulders and what they need to address it is support and financial assistance. Over and over again, as I mentioned, this government has blamed municipalities for the entire housing situation.

Instead, what this government offers is sweeping new powers encouraging mayors to veto council priorities, hire and fire senior staff, and unilaterally create budgets.

This bill does not create housing or strengthen democracy. It weakens councils and entrenches the notion that mayors should be sledgehammers for provincial priorities. While we do not yet know the full detail, we know that this bill has the capacity to make municipal decision-making less transparent and less accountable.

If this government was really interested in creating housing, not just enriching their friends with high-priced development and MZOs, they would listen to and work in partnership with municipal councils and give them the legislative and financial support that they need to move forward.

With that, I would once again like to thank all of the delegations who came forward last Monday. I thought they did an excellent job on very, very short notice. I hope that the government will give some real consideration to the concerns that were raised with respect to creating a situation in councils that is less transparent and less accountable—problems, potentially, with budget processes, where a mayor can unilaterally bring a budget forward without any kind of democracy on the council—serious concerns that have been brought forward by professionals about turning objective, professional positions into hiring by friends of the mayor, and the serious situations that could result from that in planning decisions.

The housing crisis has gotten worse under this government, and it’s time that they came forward with real solutions that will bring real results.

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.