I want to thank the member for her submission today. I want to draw a parallel to what this bill would be like if this was the province. I would like all people to consider this fact: The Premier of Ontario, arguably the most powerful person in Ontario, has one vote in this chamber—a single vote, no veto power—and yet despite this, through appointments and through the power that he has over his own government, he’s able to win every single vote in this chamber. He doesn’t require these other additions to his power; he’s able to do it in all the same ways that mayors do it to win all their votes in their own municipalities. Now, super powers are being given to mayors only if they fall in line with what the Premier of this province wants, who already gets everything he wants.

Do you see any concerns, given the priorities this government has shown to give these powers to mayors who are not even asking for it?

Last week, the Toronto Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn wrote in support of Bill 3. He wrote that the Premier “got it right with” our stronger mayors plan:

“A weak mayor system keeps Toronto weak..... municipal amalgamation, paired with mayoral emasculation, equals political gridlock.

“By restoring balance to the equation, Ontario can help Toronto balance its budgets, sparing us the” usual fiscal crisis on council.

I want to give the member an opportunity to comment on the article that Martin Regg Cohn wrote.

It should have been health care.

It is really an honour to rise to speak on second reading of Bill 3, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, 2022. This legislation will provide the city of Toronto and my beautiful city of Ottawa with the additional tools needed to advance provincial priorities. We’ve heard many of those issues over the last few days of discussions at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and I believe if we were listening, as my side of the House was, that we understand those problems that were brought to us.

One of the provincial priorities is to create more housing in this great province of Ontario. During the election campaign, it was loud and clear that we need to address the housing shortage Ontario currently faces. We heard that message and that’s why our government has a plan to deliver more housing, and the legislation will help us reduce red tape and allow municipalities to remove barriers to creating homes. We know that too many families are frozen out of the housing market, particularly younger families, and we believe that everyone deserves a safe place to call home.

Under the leadership of the Premier and my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, our government passed the More Homes, More Choice Act and More Homes for Everyone Act in the last Parliament. Our government has an ambitious goal of increasing the housing supply in Ontario by 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. The most populous province in Canada will continue to grow, and our government needs to ensure that new housing is created to meet that growth. It is expected that one third of this population growth will take place in the city of Toronto and the city of Ottawa.

For example, my riding, Kanata–Carleton, is home to approximately 110,000 people. We’ve grown by 10% between 2011 and 2016, according to the Canadian census, and neighbourhoods continue to grow. At 10%, our growth is above the average provincial growth of 4.6%. If passed, this legislation will give the city of Ottawa’s mayor the strong powers they need to ensure that housing demands are met.

I have to emphasize that this is a tool that mayors have the choice to use or not. It is a tool in their tool box; it is not a super power. This tool will provide an additional array of supports in terms of the creation of housing that can be developed more quickly and deliver on the shared municipal and provincial goal to increase the supply of housing. We will empower the newly elected Ottawa mayor and city council to work more effectively with the provincial government to reduce timelines for development, standardize processes and address local barriers to increasing the housing supply.

Mr. Speaker, speed matters. To this effect, implementing the strong-mayor system in Ottawa will allow the mayor some level of autonomy and, if needed, to veto bylaws that would obstruct broader priorities, like the creation of new housing, to take one example. Again, I want to emphasize the importance of a home being foundational for a stable society and for stable families and individuals. And again, I’m going to point out that mayors do not have to use this tool. It is a tool in their tool box. Our hope remains that mayors and councils work together to proactively enable the conditions to increase the housing supply which we so badly need. Bill 3 is intended to support the mayors of Ottawa and Toronto to get it done for their communities.

Mr. Speaker, we’re elected here as voices for our communities. People are depending on us to do what is necessary, to take sometimes difficult decisions, to address some very complicated issues of our society, and to continually work to make progress. That’s what we’re doing. Bill 3 is also intended to give mayors the flexibility to fix things faster, to achieve better outcomes in the housing crisis. We’ve seen the impact of COVID on the supply chain and the impact that it has on prices. We know that every day, every month, every year that goes by that a house does not get built, it will cost more in the future—when the demand is now.

If they choose to, mayors would be able to create and reorganize departments, as well as appoint chairs and vice-chairs of committees and local boards, if any are identified by regulation, and establish committees. Our democracy is built on checks and balances, and that’s what this is. We’re creating a bill in an effort to create a supply of housing that is going to help people in our society across the board.

Additionally, the mayor could bring matters before council consideration related to provincial priorities. Implementing strong-mayor powers in Ottawa and Toronto would provide the tools these two communities may need to break the barriers that have historically slowed down progress—and I’m going to say it again: Speed matters. A house not built this year is going to cost us more. It’s going to be harder for young families to afford a place to live, and a place to live is a foundation for a stable society.

If passed, the proposed changes will come into effect on November 15, 2022, so that the new mayor and city council can utilize these powers accordingly.

By increasing the housing supply with the support of our municipal partners—and it is a true partnership—we will ensure that there is a good mix of housing available for all Ontarians. This must be the goal. This must be what we are dedicated to achieving. And we must create the environment in which that can be achieved.

Speaker, we must acknowledge that our communities are growing, and we must acknowledge that growing communities need places to grow. Many young people are choosing to move to Ottawa, as they know our community is an incredible place to live, work and play. There is opportunity here, and people see Ottawa as an ideal place to have families, with access to good schools, great jobs and strong essential services and, more than that, to have a community they can call home.

There are other people who are looking to downsize, like seniors or soon-to-be empty nesters who want a home that meets their needs without the need to move far away from the people, the communities and the places they cherish.

Many residents, young and old, have chosen to live, work and raise families in Ottawa because it is a beautiful place to live and a great place to work that is a hub for innovation. We have many great neighbourhoods like my community of Beaverbrook where I grew up, Glen Cairn, Bridlewood, Emerald Meadows, Katimavik-Hazeldean, West Carleton, and that diversity is appreciated.

Kanata–Carleton is home to Silicon Valley North, home to Canada’s largest tech park, and this requires talent. It requires people. It requires skills that need to be brought to the community by our talented workforce, and they need places to live.

With that said, Speaker, I’d like to focus the remaining remarks on people who choose to rent, and not everyone is able to afford a home or wants a home. For some people the maintenance of a home is too much. They want the benefits of renting, and our government has been steadfast in supporting people with a choice.

Renters make up 34.3% of residents in the nation’s capital. They’re finding it increasingly difficult to secure housing as prices soar to record-breaking heights while the number of listings available to rent continues to drop. Currently, the average monthly price for a two-bedroom apartment, condo, townhouse, duplex or house in the city of Ottawa is approximately $2,100 per month. Rental listings for two-bedroom units have half the supply they did just a year ago with 130 listings compared to 310. Last October, the vacancy rate of Kanata–Carleton for a two-bedroom rental unit was 2.2%. All of this is without even touching on the supply of affordable housing.

Meg McCallum, the interim executive director at the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa said fewer than half of those rental units are affordable: “There’s not enough rental stock to begin with. And when people are looking for affordable homes, there’s so much competition.”

With increased housing supply, the cost of home ownership and renting will decrease, giving more opportunities for the people in our community to call home. Giving strong-mayor powers to Ottawa and Toronto will ensure housing will be created in a timely manner. Mayors can choose to use it or not.

Speaker, I am supporting this legislation and ask all members of this House to pass Bill 3. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as someone who came to this country as an international student, I can tell you from experience how difficult and challenging it is to buy a house in the province of Ontario because of the inaction of the previous government, because they didn’t do anything to fix this crisis. We are the government that believes in action and that is why, this past election, we made a commitment to the people of Ontario that we would keep costs down and build 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years, so that more people can afford to buy a house in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t understand why the opposition continues to say no and oppose giving the tools to our local leaders to get things done. Why?

One of the things that I’ve definitely been talking to constituents in my riding about—because I border onto Mohawk College and McMaster is right there, and we have a lot of international students who are paying the highest tuition rates in the country right here, and this government has done nothing to support that. They also have to be able to afford to pay the rent. There is nothing in this legislation to support that. They’re barely able to keep up with meals and food. There are food fridges on campus, there are food banks being put up on a regular basis to help support these same students.

Why is the member supporting legislation that’s going to do absolutely nothing to address the concerns that he knows that he himself, his constituents and other international students who come to our country are also facing?

The member for Brampton West.

Thank you to the member opposite for the question. As I said in my remarks, a home is foundational for a stable society, and if I look at, really, the time under the previous government, and supported by the NDP, there was no emphasis on building homes in general. There was no emphasis on building hospitals. There was no emphasis on building long-term care. There was no emphasis on building the skilled trades workforce that we needed to address this very, very necessary endeavour of creating more homes for people. In fact, I really don’t know exactly what we have to show for all the billions of dollars that were spent.

Look at the situation that we’re in with the homeless. Again, we look at families to try and make things affordable for them. So we’re building the skilled workforce. We’re building the homes. We’re building the hospitals. We’re building the long-term-care homes. I think about ODSP and I say, we’re creating historic amounts for ODSP. It’s the largest increase in decades.

I am very proud of the effort that we have made as a government acknowledging that Indigenous communities may have different needs. Our government’s policies have delivered historic results, getting more housing built faster, and complement our more than $4.3-billion investments over three years to grow and enhance community and supportive housing for vulnerable Ontarians and Indigenous people and address homelessness.

So this is something that everyone deserves: a place to call home. Everyone deserves to live in dignity and respect, and we must continue as a society to work towards that. I’m very proud of our government’s efforts in that regard.

Questions and answers?

I listened with great interest to the minister’s debate. She touched on some figures, and I think that was very important. She talked about some of the supply and how that affects the values of rent in Ottawa.

Rent is an important discussion. We don’t need to think back very far to actually think about how numbers affect that rental market. Think back to the spring of 2020 and all the way through to the following year in the spring of 2021. We weren’t talking about rent prices in this Legislature. Now, why was that, Speaker? Because the demand cratered, and that supply-demand imbalance corrected it, albeit temporarily. But the point is, supply and demand is the fundamental part of this equation that is leading to the high rent prices that we see. There’s no doubt supply is important on the rental side.

Two million more people are coming to this province in less than a decade. If status quo was working, we wouldn’t need changes. Can the minister talk about some of the urgency required in correcting this imbalance in supply and demand?

I’d like to thank the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services for your remarks. The minister noted that we have a housing crisis in Ottawa, and we certainly do. I’ve heard from many constituents over the course of the last year of the challenges they face in obtaining affordable housing, particularly rental housing.

The people I heard these remarks from the most are people who are receiving Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program payments. A person on ODSP gets only $1,169 per month. The person on Ontario Works gets only $733, when the cost of an average one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa is now $1,100. So someone on ODSP has only $69 left after acquiring housing. A person on OW doesn’t even get an income the level of rent in Ottawa.

We’ve already heard this afternoon that mayors across Ontario are saying they didn’t want this legislation. They didn’t ask for this legislation. They don’t need this legislation. It won’t make a difference for housing.

Doesn’t the minister agree that it would be better to double social assistance rates in order to actually increase the supply of affordable housing rather than legislation nobody is asking for?

Zero.

Interjection: Zero to 40.

I’m happy that I have the opportunity to ask the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services why she thinks this bill will actually help the people she has sworn to serve. She is responsible for ODSP. She’s responsible for Ontario Works, and those folks cannot afford a single apartment. They can’t afford the rent currently. What is it in this legislation that is going to help people on ODSP, people on Ontario Works, to be able to have safe, affordable housing?

We’ve heard about housing. We’ve heard about market rent. We’ve heard about everything. We have not heard the words “affordable housing” out of this government’s mouths. Could the minister please tell me what in this legislation is going to create affordable housing?

I listened to the minister’s speech intently. I want to thank the minister for sharing her thoughts. My question to the minister—who also happens to be a neighbour of mine in the great city of Ottawa—this past election, we made a clear commitment to the people of Ontario that we would keep costs down and build 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years so that more people can afford to buy a home. So how would the proposed changes in this legislation lead to more shovels in the ground?

When we look at the legislation, you understand that our checks and balances are very important for our democratic system, but the complexity of problems has increased. I think if we look back to 100 years ago, the issues surrounding those people and those who came before us would seem complicated as well, but the level of complexity that we’re dealing with nowadays is increasing, and so time matters. I said that before. By streamlining this process and making sure that the checks and balances are there with the mayor and the council, we can get more shovels into the ground.

I just want to comment because it’s been a bit misleading. It’s making it sound like the councillors have no control in this at all, and that just isn’t the case. This includes robust safeguards and an important role for municipal councillors. We know councillors have a critical job representing the interests of their constituents, which is why this legislation gives council the ability to override vetoes with the support of two thirds of council members. This is an important check and balance.

In any case, if you understand supply and demand, these are basic economic principles, and as my colleague on this side mentioned, it is supply and demand, and if we cannot create an environment where homes are affordable because the supply exists, it won’t matter how much we give people; the supply still won’t be there.

The supply must be created. Time matters. That’s why the process that we go through at the municipal level to approve developments, to get shovels in the ground—as my colleague across the hall just mentioned, it is absolutely critical that the supply be there, that we’re training people to be—

It’s my first opportunity to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the good people of Algoma–Manitoulin, and I wanted to go through a process that I go through every single time when a new bill is introduced here in the House. I have to thank the previous member, Gilles Bisson from Timmins, who actually guided me in doing this exercise because it sets the tone for the legislation that we’re going to be discussing.

The bill we’re talking about today is Bill 3, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to special powers and duties of heads of council. It’s introduced by the honourable Minister Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Okay? I want to go through this, and I’ll ask, Speaker, for a little bit of leniency here. I want to read it.

Schedule 1 says the “City of Toronto Act.” It says:

“The schedule amends the City of Toronto Act, 2006 by adding a new part V1.1 which sets out the special powers and duties of the head of council. The following powers and duties are assigned to the head of council under this part:

“1. Powers respecting the chief administrative officer, as described in section 226.3.

“2. Powers respecting the organizational structure of the city and employment matters, as described in section 226.4.

“3. Powers respecting local boards, as described in section 226.5.

“4. Powers respecting committees, as described in section 226.6.

“5. Powers respecting meetings, as described in section 226.8.

“6. Veto powers, as described in section 226.9.

“7. Duties and powers respecting budgets, as described in section 226.14.

“The new part contains various other related provisions, including rules respecting delegation, immunity and transition. Authority is provided to the Lieutenant Governor in Council to prescribe provincial priorities and to the minister to make other regulations.”

That’s schedule 1.

“Schedule 2

“Municipal Act, 2001

“The schedule amends the Municipal Act, 2001 by adding a new part ... which sets out the special powers and duties of the head of council in designated municipalities. In those designated municipalities, the following powers and duties are assigned to the head of council:

“1. Powers respecting the chief administrative officer, as described in section 284.5.

“2. Powers respecting the organizational structure of the municipality and employment matters, as described in section 284.6.

“3. Powers respecting local boards, as described in section 284.7.

“4. Powers respecting committees, as described in section 284.8.

“5. Powers respecting meetings, as described in section 284.10.

“6. Veto powers, as described in section 284.11.

“7. Duties and powers respecting budgets, as described in section 284.16.

“The new part contains various other related provisions, including rules respecting delegation, immunity and transition. Authority is provided to the Lieutenant Governor in Council to prescribe provincial priorities and to the minister to make other regulations.”

That’s schedule 2.

“Schedule 3.... The schedule amends the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. New section 5.3 sets out the duties of the head of council when they have a pecuniary interest in a matter and a power or duty under Part VI.1 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006 or Part VI.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001 respecting that matter. Various other consequential amendments are made.”

All right, we’ve gone through that exercise. I’m going to ask everyone here in this House if you can tell me how many times that I said “housing,” outside of identifying the role of the minister and his ministry, versus “powers”?

Speaker, you have a guess? Give me a guess.

This bill is about powers. That’s what it’s about, and it certainly is scary. Again, I have always committed to bringing a different lens to the floor of this Legislature and I always want to bring a lens from northern Ontario and how this is potentially going to impact mayors across northern Ontario, because they have not been consulted. They don’t know exactly what this means. And they are quite concerned in regard to, when you see language contained within this that says—excuse me, where’s my notes? I had notes. I have my notes. My notes are somewhere around here.

Anyway, in no uncertain terms, it’s going to be up to the government to designate—they’re designating Toronto. They’ve already identified that they’re going to be designating Ottawa. And then it’s pretty much in their decision-making as to who else is going to be designated.

What does that mean? Because there are a lot of them, particularly in my riding, saying we need housing. We want to move ahead with housing. However, we’ve got some huge concerns. How do we proceed if we want to do this? How do we attract those developers to coming into our community? Because our communities are growing, as well, maybe not to the tune of—and I’ll use an example. I had a discussion with one of my colleagues a little bit earlier. If you are looking at a housing development project—in one that I’m actually working on right now, we’re looking at about 25 to 40 houses in Espanola. Well, for many of you in the larger centres, my goodness, that’s like a blink of an eye. But for me, that’s huge.

What does this mean for them? How is this potentially going to impact their ability, and are they going to be the one that is going to be designated? How would they find out? This is one of the questions that keeps coming up from people.

Why wasn’t this part of your campaign? Why is this coming up now? Why is this a priority of this government?

I’ve always said that I want to bring the voices of individuals from Algoma–Manitoulin to the floor of the Legislature. I just got this email from Marlene. I won’t give you her last name. Marlene is at every one of my constituency clinics that I have in a particular community in my riding. This is her message she just sent to me this morning. She said, “So pleased to hear you are not letting up on the crisis with health care with the Ford government. Dissappointed”—oh, by the way, she is a card-carrying Conservative; I just wanted to let you know that. But I just love this lady. Anyway, she’s “disappointed, like so many others, that he is not overly concerned by his financing. And now the Minister of Health talking about possible more privatization? No thank you. We should know by now that doesn’t work except for the profiteers. I believe that is what is wrong with the PSW program. ParaMed and others being paid should be local hospitals, especially smaller places here in”—I’m not going to tell you. “PSWs need a living wage rather than monies going to ParaMed, and it would help the hospital finances as well, as they know local problems and caregivers. Why is Premier Ford using a personal agenda to increase mayors of larger centres’ control? Get on with health care, not your previous Toronto council concerns. It’s ridiculous.”

Thank you, Marlene.

It’s right on point, as far as what we have been raising in this House. Yes, housing is important. But housing is important to everybody in Ontario, not just in two communities. We need to do it in a way that does not infringe on the democratic process that we have by granting immunity—or what was the word that was used in here? Yes, “immunity” and “veto powers.”

We can do a lot better than this, and we need to do a lot more work as far as consulting with people here across this province. Our mayors are asking for it. Our councillors are asking for it. Our communities are asking for it. Ontarians are asking for it.

The member for Hamilton Mountain.

Questions and answers?

Thank you to the member from Algoma–Manitoulin for your presentation.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say one thing that I heard from my son all week. He just graduated. He’s an automotive engineer, born in Markham, raised in Markham. He asked me: “Daddy, I don’t want to leave Markham. I don’t want to alienate from Markham. I want a roof over my head. Can I get my condominium?” It’s just a small condominium.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that this dream of owning a house is going far away for the younger generation, especially the next generation of Canadians.

I asked the member—we are in a housing crisis. I’ve seen so many—