I withdraw.

What I find most interesting about it is, every single person who is standing up and saying, “We should not be building more houses, we should not be building more apartments, we should not be building more condos,” lives in a house, apartment or condo. Why do they not want others to have that?

We’ve got OREA who has come forward, and they’ve talked for a few years now about the dream of home ownership. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people who live in this province aspire to own their own home. I firmly believe that. And why would we not be doing things, then, that make it easier for those individuals to purchase their first home, to move from that two-bedroom home, when they have three, four or five children, to a home that suits them? Why are we not doing things so that those individuals, those seniors, who raised their family and they’re now ready to downsize, and they want to sell that four-bedroom or five-bedroom home and go to a two-bedroom condo some place, or move into a nice apartment building someplace, or move out of the city to some place like Peterborough—or God’s country—where you have an opportunity to have a beautiful one- or two-bedroom home by the lake, by the river or out in the county—why are we obstructing that?

The reality is we have a number of councils across all of Ontario that are saying things like, “It’s just this one. There’s a sentiment in the community, there’s a loud group right around this area, who don’t want it. I’m going to have to go with them because they vote for this ward.”

The entire city votes for the mayor, though. Giving the mayor in cities like Ottawa and Toronto, where we know more than a third of those 2.5 million people are going to be moving in in the next 10 years, the ability to advance homes, to advance home ownership, to make more affordable units to live in—giving them that ability is something that is good.

You want to make sure that there are checks and balances in place, though, so the mayor cannot just unilaterally do something, the mayor cannot just unilaterally declare that this is going to happen. There is that check and balance in place where council, with a two-thirds vote, would have the opportunity to veto the mayor’s veto on that. That check and balance is in place.

You can still advocate, as a councillor, for the community that you represent, that small group in the large city that you represent, but the rest of council and the mayor have the opportunity then to look at, what are the needs of the entire city?

There was an expression that was used when I was on the election trail the first time, in 2018. We’ve all heard of NIMBYism: “Not in my backyard.” There was another expression that was given to me and I absolutely love it because I think it’s so very true. It’s called the BANANA group: “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.” It seems to be that that’s what’s been happening.

What this legislation does is it gives a tool, then, for those large municipalities of Ottawa and Toronto to advance housing, to advance the provincial priority of making sure that people have an opportunity to buy a home, to rent a home, to rent an apartment, to move into a condo, to get appropriately sized living space.

When I go back to Peterborough again, and using that as the example—$314,000 to $760,000 over the course of four years because there wasn’t enough inventory. The council in Peterborough, many of them were elected on building upward, not building outward. They didn’t want to have urban sprawl. But when those projects came forward to build up, they said no to it because there was pushback on it. We see that in larger cities as well. We see that in Ottawa; we see that in Toronto.

If you don’t have the full suite, if you don’t build everything in each of the different categories that are needed, you put pressures on so many other things. Why would a developer who is going to take 12 years to develop a piece of property—why would they build something that they’re not going to get their money back on? We have to change those timelines.

Again, coming back to Peterborough, there’s a prime example. We had a subdivision that was being built. It took eight years to get the approvals to build that subdivision. They wanted to put in some townhouses in one section of the subdivision. It took an additional five years to get the approvals for that. And by the time they got those approvals, the added costs that were put on by carrying it for five more years before they could actually develop and sell increased the price. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if you can get to market in a shorter period of time, your carrying costs are lower. If we’re talking 12 years to get something shovel-ready, there are added costs that are put onto it.

The task force that Minister Clark commissioned to find out about affordable housing, one of the things that they had said was that those additional costs add 22% to the cost of housing. If your base price is $760,000, that’s $165,000 in wasted costs. You gained nothing for it, the builder gains nothing for it, the municipality gains nothing for it and the consumer gains nothing for it. Finding a way to eliminate those additional costs, those unnecessary costs, to stop the weaponization so that the BANANA group has the ability to delay, delay, delay, means it’s going to be better for the people of Ontario.

And I cannot emphasize this enough: 2.5 million people coming into Ontario over the next 10 years. We built 100,000. We had 100,000 new starts last year during COVID, which is fantastic. That will not get us to what we need over the next 10 years—and it was a banner year. It had been more than 30 years since we had done that.

We have to find ways to speed up development where people want to move. We want to make sure that it’s still safe. We want to make sure that every check and balance is put in place, but we have to find ways to accelerate it so that those who dream of home ownership have the opportunity for home ownership.

Thank you to the member, the Conservative member, for talking about the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act. The member spent all of their time talking about building homes, yet the bill does not include anything on housing. In a riding like mine, Toronto–St. Paul’s, where we have 60% or so renters, the government can talk about owning a $750,000 home, but many in St. Paul’s can’t afford that. Many can’t even afford their rent. So I’m wondering, if this bill is really about housing, why is there no mention of ending exclusionary zoning, why is there no mention of real rent control, why is there no mention of banning above-guideline rent increases? Furthermore, why don’t you talk about what the bill is really about, and that is creating strong mayors that this province and this Premier can control?

I listened intently to the member from Peterborough, who spoke completely about housing and the housing crisis that we’re all seeing. But the bill itself, the strong-mayors bill, talks nothing about housing. It’s in the title, but as we’ve seen in previous Conservative bills, titles don’t necessarily mean what is actually the purpose. What the bill actually does is empower the mayor with a whole bunch of powers that will probably create more chaos than we’re seeing currently.

The member talked about his community. He talked about the land tribunal, how it went through the process and actually fixed the community’s needs in favour of the developers that he was talking about. Why does he not believe in the process that’s already in front of them, instead of giving mayors powers that are unnecessary?

I had the pleasure of meeting the hard-working staff and board members at Street Haven at their Roxborough site this summer. Street Haven is one of Canada’s oldest women’s shelters. The shelter provides temporary housing, food and treatment for mental health and addiction to about 1,500 women a year.

These are high-risk people, people who are homeless, people who’ve just been released from prison or hospital, people who are deeply traumatized. They need help. And it’s the staff at Street Haven that step up to help them each and every day.

But here’s the problem: Street Haven also needs our help, because they’re seeing a big increase in the need for their services. And there has been a big rise in homelessness, in addiction and in people facing very complex issues and very tough life circumstances.

Yet government funding for Street Haven’s work is being cut by this government. Funding to help people manage their addictions is being cut, and funding to manage the home and provide housing to people in need is also being cut. Street Haven is operating at a deficit. Their hard-working staff—when I met them—are exhausted and underpaid, and the need just keeps growing.

I am asking this government—the Minister of Health, the Solicitor General and the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions—to meet with Street Haven and understand what they do, and commit to providing support to them and other vitally important supportive housing services and treatment programs so Ontarians can get the help they need.

Yesterday was my first stop on our ice cream tour across Toronto–St. Paul’s. We hung out in one of my favourite neighbourhoods, the Winona and Vaughan neighbourhood. We went to Cy Townsend Park. Today, we’re going to be at Marian Engel Park, in our Melita Avenue neighbourhood.

It was all fun with the kids. The kids—of course you’ve got to love the innocence of children; they were not bothered. But I tell you, the adults at the park hanging out with me, the parents, the post-secondary age young adults, their concern was all about affordability. I spoke to a 23-year-old university student literally with tears in her eyes. She feels that there is no moral value, no character left in the province, in this House, because she feels that the government is not listening to her—and many people’s—concerns around affordable housing. She, like many of the parents, simply wants to be able to make ends meet, wants to be able to have a better future and wants to be able to live in St. Paul’s and stay a while.

What’s happening now is we’re being besieged by demovictions, by renovictions, by skyrocketing rent increases that folks just simply cannot afford. Even No Frills, on Alberta, where I go grocery shopping as well, too, is becoming more expensive for too many of us. So we really want the government to hear from St. Paul’s.

Affordability is a crisis, and you’ve got to—

Priorities—that’s what this bill is about. But that’s not necessarily housing, either. That’s not necessarily housing, because the bill does not focus on housing. The speeches do, no doubt—absolutely no doubt. Every speech, the focus is on housing. But the bill, except for the “building homes” in the short title, those two words, doesn’t focus on housing at all.

And something for members who haven’t been here very long: What you have to look at in legislation—look at the legislation itself, not just the talking points that your party gives you. Look at what could happen to that legislation over the years, because we’re making legislation not for the next two weeks. What your government is doing isn’t just for the next four years. That legislation also impacts—

Interjections.

But what you always have to look at with legislation is look at the legislation, not at the talking points. And the legislation itself—very well, I am not disparaging the government. I’m saying that the focus might be housing. I have no way of knowing that. But the speeches do not equal what the bill says, and that’s the biggest problem with this. Changing the mayoral—

I’d like to thank the member from Ottawa West–Nepean for the question. Congratulations on getting elected. I look forward to working with you to serve the people of Ottawa in the next four years.

With respect to your question, the reason that we’re putting this bill forward is because this is literally what we campaigned upon. This bill is one of the reasons that we got a super majority, with a historic 83 seats in the Legislature, and one of the reasons I’m sitting on this side of the House, because there’s not enough space on that side for the entire government majority.

Mr. Speaker, further in response, as Ontarians are facing the rising cost of living and a shortage of homes, our government was re-elected with a strong mandate to help more Ontarians find a home that meets their needs and their budget. What we have done so far is producing results. In 2021, we broke ground on a record number of new homes, with more than 100,000 new homes in only 12 months—the highest level of new housing starts in a single year since 1987. We also reached a 30-year record last year for new rental housing construction, with the most units built in a year since 1991.

Mr. Speaker, actions speak louder than words. In the past four years, we acted, and the people of Ontario saw that. That’s why we’re here today, and that’s why I’m proudly supporting this bill.

I want to thank the member for Carleton for her speech today. I listened to hers and I listened to speeches earlier today as well, and I just find that the NDP over there are tripping over one another to try to condemn and demonize all developers—“The developers are all going to hell.” But the homes that we need in this province will not be built by the three little pigs. They’re going to have to be built by people who actually build homes. So we need to work together with our municipal councils, with our municipal partners, with developers and home builders all across the province. If an opposition continues to demonize the very people—they’re talking about how we need more rental properties. They have to be built, too. And they stand in the way every time we do something to try to increase the housing supply.

I ask the member for Carleton, how can we build 1.5 million homes in this province in the next 10 years if we don’t have the co-operation of the obstreperous opposition?

I’m a little bit confused by this. The opposition, in their election platform, said that they wanted to build 1.5 million houses—as well as what we have said, that we want to build 1.5 million houses over the next 10 years.

In your speech, you said that we had a record number of housing starts, around 100,000 last year, and that was a record from 1987 or 1991—I can’t recall which it was. There was also a record number of apartment starts from either 1987 or 1991.

Over the next 10 years, how do we get to 1.5 million if what we have always been doing is not going to get enough for us? Should we be doing something different, and does this bill allow Ontario to do something differently than we have been doing that obviously hasn’t been working?

I’d like to thank the member for his question. I agree with the member. At the end of the day, I find it very confusing that the NDP and even the Liberals find that building homes is a partisan issue. To me, building homes shouldn’t be partisan. Every Ontarian deserves to be able to afford a home and to buy a home or to afford to rent a house. Basic economics says that there’s a supply and demand issue. If there’s huge demand with not enough supply, prices go up. It’s economics 101, and I’m glad that we’re teaching that in our curriculum now because I think financial literacy is very, very important as well.

So to answer your question, the reason that we are doing this is because Ontarians deserve to have homes. We need to get through the red tape, we need to get through the administrative delays, and we need to make sure that we can get homes built quicker.

I hope that the members of the opposition support this bill and support Ontarians so that Ontarians can actually buy—

Mr. Speaker, as outlined in our government’s More Homes for Everyone plan, we’re establishing a Housing Supply Action Plan Implementation Team to provide advice on market housing initiatives. At the beginning of this year, our government did extensive consultations with municipalities, with experts, with stakeholders and with people across Ontario. The Premier and Minister Clark hosted the first-ever provincial municipal housing summit. The government also held a rural housing round table with smaller rural and northern municipalities. We held public consultations which received thousands of submissions from people across the province.

To answer the member’s question, we have already done the work to make sure the voices of everyone across Ontario are being heard, and that is why we’ve brought this legislation forward. It is based upon the input we have received from the people of Ontario.

I would hope that the opposition supports the voices of the people of Ontario.

That’s an excellent question.

I’d like to think that imitation is the best form of flattery. When I first read that the official opposition was also promising 1.5 million homes, after we had already announced it, it came as a bit of a surprise to me. I had to go back and read it, and I thought, “Oh, I guess they like our idea. I guess they like our plan.” And yet here they are today, opposing it. Mr. Speaker, it doesn’t make any sense to me, because at the end of the day Ontarians face the rising cost of living and a shortage of homes. We committed to helping more Ontarians find a home that meets their needs and budgets.

This problem didn’t happen overnight. This problem happened because of 15 years of neglect from the Liberal government, supported by the NDP. They ignored this problem. The people of Ontario elected us to fix this problem, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re looking at the system. We’re figuring out what works, what doesn’t, and we’re moving forward because, ultimately, we are here to support the people of Ontario.

[Inaudible] a single vote that the mayor of Toronto has not won, not a single vote. Mayors I have read out from the city of Toronto, who represent half of the last 50 years, have spoken against it, and here you are citing the board of trade. The mayor already has the control to be able to do what it needs to do. The city of Toronto has 43% of all cranes in North America and approves, year after year, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of new housing units that they carefully consider with all parameters.

We have already demonstrated that this, other than the title, has nothing to do with housing. It is about giving more power to already powerful mayors. I have noted in the speeches made by government members that they tend not to group the words “affordable” and “housing” together. What they have said a lot of is “market housing,” and we are facing an affordable housing situation. Governments have the ability to create non-profit housing, co-operative housing—there are many solutions to this, like implementing rent control. They are not interested in any of those. Not at all. Not one.

What I’m going to say—and I’m going to say it again: This is a government obsessed with control, not just of its own members, not just of everything that happens here, obviously, in the province of Ontario or here in this House; this is a government of control that extends all the way down to municipalities. They are tabling legislation where—we already have mayors who have power through appointments and other ways. We have a mayor in the city of Toronto who has not lost a single important vote. These mayors have not asked for this legislation whatsoever.

We’ve reviewed the legislation, and it shows nothing to do with building new homes. I’ve shown that the city of Toronto builds thousands of new homes. We have 43% of all the cranes in North America here.

What exactly is this legislation about if it is not rewarding mayors who listen to your bidding?

There is no interest by this government to give any sort of power to those who dissent from them. They’re not interested in consultation. They’re interested in affirmation of everything they do. That is the interest of this government. We saw it for the last four years, and at some point it has got to stop.

Last session, we saw member after member leave this government. We had probably one of the largest groups of independents because they could not take the amount of control imposed even internally on them. And they’re now trying to control all the municipalities in Ontario. It has to stop.

The mayor of Toronto has lots of power and has won every single vote. That’s just simply the facts. Don’t take it from me; take it from the many mayors I read in my submission today.

Well, I’m quite happy that you ended talking about housing. We all agree that it doesn’t matter where you live in Ontario; there are many, many people facing difficulty finding housing. One part of this would be to have more affordable housing projects going up throughout Ontario, including in my own riding.

Could you tell me, after having read Bill 3, Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, how many times do they talk about homes in the act? Do they specifically talk about affordable housing in the act, and how we will make sure that the people who actually need housing get housing through this act? I haven’t been able to find it, but you usually read those things better than I do.

The member from Humber River–Black Creek offered a quotation. I’d like to offer this chamber a quotation from the Toronto regional board of trade—the type of people who actually build houses, the type of people who actually build rentals. They say, “Toronto faces numerous city-wide challenges, from housing, land use, transit, transportation, budget, economic development and climate. Effective, timely solutions require a chief executive with clear authority to set an agenda, appoint senior city staff, and bring forward policy solutions to council with greater influence over outcomes....

“The board has advocated stronger powers for Toronto’s mayor for nearly two decades. Now is the time to act.”

That, Mr. Speaker, is what the Toronto regional board of trade says.

My question is as follows: While we are in a housing supply crisis, why does the member opposite oppose the Toronto regional board of trade and why does the member not believe that now is the time to act?

It’s certainly my pleasure to rise on this beautiful summer day to speak on Bill 3, the Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act, as introduced by our Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

As the Premier stated in his remarks this week at the AMO conference, Ontario unfortunately is in a housing crisis, full stop. I agree with the Premier, and the real answer to a housing crisis, to the problem we have, is really more supply. I think there’s a consensus on that. Ontario must build homes. We must build them faster than we have been building them. We need to do something different, and we need to keep the housing costs down when we’re doing the building so that people can afford those homes.

Mr. Speaker, I will speak plainly: Housing is an issue impacting all Ontarians, and the best way to solve it is to build. We will build Ontario, so all Ontarians have a place to call home. This was our commitment to the people of Ontario in the last election, and we’re going to get it done. With renewed vigour and an enhanced mandate, we’re using time in this chamber to put in place measures to fulfill our promise, and this government will ensure that housing gets built across the province of Ontario.

Attainable housing is important for everyone—seniors who are looking to downsize but cannot find a suitable home; a young Ontarian unable to step onto that first rung of the housing ladder; new immigrants looking for a place to start their life here; and families who cannot move up to a larger home to accommodate and raise their children. These are real people with real problems, housing problems, and they need real solutions. The homes they need will not all be the same, but we know they need more homes, and when the demand is so great, the solution has to include more supply.

Bill 3 introduces concrete measures to address these problems. The government’s housing task force made five key suggestions, and this bill focuses on two of them. The task force recommended ending exclusionary municipal rules that block or delay new housing, often adding significantly to its cost, and depoliticizing, as well, the housing approvals process. Simply put, there is too much politics in housing. I know it’s funny for a politician to say there’s too much politics, but there is too much politics in housing, and as a result of politics, entire projects are abandoned or diminished, as often happens. It certainly happens a lot in my city, the city of Toronto.

We cannot have desperately needed housing projects being stopped due to political considerations. The needs of a local candidate for city council or a local councillor should not be prioritized over the needs of the community they are meant to serve—the seniors, those young people, those new immigrants, those growing families I just mentioned. Simply put, when councillors prioritize saving parking lots over building homes, things need to change—and that is an example that happened in my riding recently.

Our housing crisis has real costs. In my home, in Toronto, the C.D. Howe Institute has calculated that delays for housing approvals add $168,000 to the cost of every single new detached home which is built—$168,000. It wasn’t that long ago—I’m not that old, I don’t think—when that amount could have paid for the cost of an entire home, and that’s just the cost of the delay. In Toronto, the median household income is about $85,000—or at least it was in 2020. So we can all do the math. The delay means that the average family will have to save all of their income for two full years to cover the cost of the delay. Well, that’s prohibitive and requires families to save for years and years on top of that to cover the cost of the actual home. This is ridiculous. These delays cost families significant, significant money, which adds unnecessary stress to their daily lives and prevents them from being able to do what they do, to live where they want to live, and to raise their families in the way that they would like.

When young Ontarians look at the price of homes, many give up on their dreams of home ownership. Some even look to move to jurisdictions where housing is more affordable, thereby depriving Ontario of their much-needed contributions to this economy. Remember, we have 375,000 jobs looking for people to fill them. So expediting and removing the political logjam adding so much to the price premiums on housing is a good first step in getting this housing crisis under control.

As I said, this is an issue that affects all Ontarians. It is also an issue that can be exacerbated at the local level. We were elected to solve this problem, and I am happy to speak in support of solutions to these important problems. Our government, of course, trusts Ontarians to elect the right local leaders. At the end of the day, it is a local issue as well as a provincial one. Unlike the suggestions from the members opposite, we do trust Ontarians to elect the right local leaders. The province sets the standards, but municipalities, especially in our largest cities, where most of the population is, have to act.

That’s why we’re setting the bar higher for mayors and making it easier to hold them accountable based on the decisions they make. After all, as the Premier has said, mayors are “accountable for everything. But they have the same single vote as a single councillor.” So how can they achieve their agenda? They’re one vote. They can try to be persuasive, but they don’t have a lot of power to make sure that they can achieve the agenda that they ran on, and that is an agenda that the people of Ontario—the people of Toronto, in this case—would like to hold them accountable for achieving.

If passed, Bill 3 would give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the tools they need to move forward on provincial priorities. It would give the mayors the tools they need to take action on behalf of their constituents to achieve the agenda that they ran on. People expect their leaders to take this crisis seriously. However, our current system often stymies implementation of the solutions Ontarians expect.

Ontario residents, our constituents, expect their leadership to get things done. They expect mayors to get things done. However, on this issue, without any reforms, progress has been entirely too slow. This is why our government is empowering mayors so they can do what their and our constituents expect and work on building more attainable housing.

Another tool that Bill 3 offers is that it will also allow mayors to select municipal department heads and deliver budgets. These new powers would help our municipal partners deliver on priorities the province shares with them, such as housing. Strong-mayor systems will empower municipal leaders to work more effectively with the province to reduce timelines for development, standardize processes and address local barriers to increasing the housing supply. These new powers will be especially relevant as the province works with its municipal partners to expand the footprint of our transit-oriented communities so that more people can live, work and play near the convenience of public transit. This is critical to build the kind of sustainable communities that I think we all want. This is why Toronto and Ottawa must go first. Over a third of all of the anticipated growth will happen in Toronto and Ottawa. With Toronto and Ottawa leading the way in growth, Toronto and Ottawa also need to lead the way in housing development and process reform.

Furthermore, the leadership in these cities has already shown a commitment to building sustainable communities, building transit, building amenities and, importantly, building homes. The province needs empowered partners. As the Premier likes to say, this crisis requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. That’s why it’s so heartening to know that the leadership of Toronto and Ottawa is willing to work with the province and this government to get shovels in the ground and get people into homes.

Our government is keeping costs down. It’s building 1.5 million homes over 10 years to help address the housing supply crisis. This crisis is locking generations of Ontario residents out of the housing market and locking others into housing that does not meet their current needs. Our government understands that we can only succeed in this by working with our partners. We know that empowered mayors will be better placed to collaborate with the province on housing and other initiatives that are critical to their communities. Our government trusts Ontarians to elect the right local leaders to prioritize their needs, like housing. As the population of Ontario grows, housing needs to keep up, and we need our municipal partners to help us make that happen. The government looks forward to working with our municipal partners as we tackle this crisis. People expect action on their priorities, and with this legislation, we are giving our municipal partners, the mayors, the opportunity to address the priorities.

The time for action on housing is now. It’s time to build Ontario, and the province and our municipal partners, Toronto and Ottawa, need to all work together to ensure housing is more attainable for all people.

Thank you to the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North for your question.

Obviously, our plan is to build more housing, as we’ve said—1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. Part of that will be rental housing. I think we’ve already made clear that some of our plans from earlier, our More Homes for Everyone Act and our housing supply action plan etc., have resulted in historic numbers of housing being built—the most in 30 years, both rental starts and housing starts. We believe that if we have more supply, the price of housing will come down and that there will be more available for more people. That’s why we’re looking at attainable housing. We think this is really important. It is the way that Japan, for example—Tokyo was able to address their expensive housing crisis and get prices to a more manageable level for their population.

And honestly, the other solutions that we’ve had in place over the last 30 years have not resulted in more housing for anyone, and it has become more expensive.

I do think that we have to look at history and what has happened. The policies that we’ve had over the last 30 years have resulted in housing prices going up and us not having a supply of available housing for anybody. We can see that this is what happens with those same policies in many other jurisdictions. In New York, for example, it’s the same result, but apparently—I have to agree with my friend—the opposition don’t seem to realize that. They don’t seem to like to look at the facts to find out. What I’m concerned about a lot is young people who just cannot find an affordable place to live, anywhere. We need to address this situation.

We’re giving the mayors tools. They don’t have to use them. They can choose not to use them. But they have tools. So it isn’t an assault on democracy. It’s an opportunity to make our municipal departments work better to build more housing, which people need.

As Ontarians face the rising cost of living and a shortage of homes, our government was re-elected with a strong mandate to help more Ontarians find a home that meets their needs and budget. That, of course, includes Indigenous Ontarians.

Our policies have delivered historic results in getting more housing built faster, and complement, really, our more than $4.3-billion investment over the past three years to grow and enhance community and supportive housing for vulnerable Ontarians and for Indigenous people. We’re working hard to make the housing available, in all the types of housing needed.

I was just speaking with the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services about the need for more supportive housing. It’s an important priority for a lot of people in our government.

We’re going to make sure that we build all kinds of housing for all the people who need it in Ontario.

The way that the bill helps improve supply is, it gives the mayor an opportunity to drive policy forward. Mayors—and I think Mayor Tory would agree—know that we need more housing in this city. But the mayor has one vote. He’s one vote amongst all of the city councillors, even though, if you think about it, about 500,000 people, as I indicated earlier, voted for the mayor, and only around 10,000 vote for most of the councillors—for some, as many as 30,000. We have 25 city councillors. So it’s very hard for the mayor to be able to get the agenda through. But I think it will help.

This is what I would like to say: The mayor takes the broader picture for the whole city. Who speaks for the city, when each individual councillor, of course, is speaking for their own area? I think it’s important to have that broader perspective for the city, to say, “These are the things that matter to our city. Let’s improve the city as a whole. Let’s look beyond our own little corner of the city and think broadly about what’s good for the city as a whole.”

The housing crisis is a mental health crisis. The housing crisis is a suicide crisis.

I know the government talks about “all Ontarians,” and I know that sometimes we are left out—as First Nations, as Indigenous people—in the policy approaches of this government. They talk about real people.

If you’re not going to invest in Indigenous, First Nations housing, what is your plan, on-reserve, to address the housing crisis in our communities?

I want to thank the member for Eglinton–Lawrence for her address today.

The opposition always talks about how we need to make it more affordable—that it’s too expensive, that people can’t afford it—yet they always support the things that lead to a $168,000 increase in the cost of building a home. It only stands to reason that some portion of that will fall to any rental property that is built in a building that is purposely built for rental—and particularly those at lower incomes. So they continue to do the things that actually add to the cost of building housing, whether it’s rental, whether it’s high-rise rental units or individual homes, and then they complain that people can’t afford to rent them.

I ask the member, when will the NDP and the Liberal opposition understand that all they continue to do is to add to the cost of a home? Be it free-standing, be it rental—it doesn’t matter what it is—them always standing in the way of trying to get the homes built only does one thing: It makes them more expensive—which is completely, again, what they claim to believe in.

Thank you, my colleague from Eglinton–Lawrence, for your presentation on giving more powers to the mayors.

Sometimes the mayor and council can’t even make a decision on a zoning application or building application, and sometimes they have to fight with the bureaucracy and red-tapeism at city hall. This legislation will give a little bit of power to the mayor to move a little bit more projects—small developments in terms of zoning applications, building permits, not only the official plan amendment. They had to go through too much red tape.

My question to the member: How would these proposed changes affect our housing supply? We talk about supply and demand based on the market economy. How will this proposed legislation at least help to increase the supply?

This is the first time I’ve had had the opportunity to stand and speak freely since my re-election, so I’d like to take the time to thank the constituents of Hamilton Mountain for giving me the opportunity to, once again, serve your interests here in the people’s House, the Ontario Legislature, and the many people who helped on my campaign, ensuring my re-election. I’m eternally grateful to all of those people who truly put their sweat, blood and tears on the line, talking to the people of Hamilton Mountain, and making sure that I had the ability to stand here and to represent them. Thank you.

Speaker, speaking of being out and knocking on doors and talking to constituents, the number one issue that I heard, for sure, was affordability; it was the cost of housing. It was, “Where are my kids going to live? Where are my grandchildren going to live?”

Young people not being able to afford to buy a home, people not being able to afford to pay the rent in places that they were staying, renovictions happening on a regular basis so that landlords could bump up the rent—those are the types of things that we can control.

Good legislation could be brought forward to this House to help those matters, to stop the renovictions, to make sure that there is real rent control in place so that they cannot flip a home or an apartment into the hundreds of dollars, pushing people onto the streets, pushing people into the unscrupulous, awful conditions that we’re hearing on a regular basis.

There was an article in the Spectator, I believe it was two days ago, talking about McMaster students not being able to afford to eat. They were struggling just to be able to find a place to live. One quote from a young person talked about having a room the size of a closet that was just big enough for a single bed, at an enormous cost to that young person, and the maybe $50 a week that they were going to have to be able to eat for that week. I’m quite sure that when we’re sending our young people to university, and we’re looking at them to be the next leaders in our communities, to be the next doctors, to be the next lawyers, to be the next engineers—why are we doing that to them, with such a struggle? They can’t afford the housing, they can’t afford to eat, they’re barely getting by, and we’re expecting them to be the next leaders of our communities.

When we talk about housing, we should be talking about the issues that actually could be addressed. This bill that has been put forward, Bill 3, which was an absolute priority for this government—we have a major health care crisis happening in our province, and the number one bill that this government brings forward is powers to give the strong-mayors powers. The title says “Strong Mayors, Building Homes Act,” but if you look through this bill, which I just did as we were sitting here talking—I’ve looked through it and cannot find the word “housing” at all, except in the title. That is not how we address the housing crisis in this province. This should not be the priority for this government coming back into the 43rd Parliament. This is not the message that I know the members across heard while they were knocking on doors—if they knocked on doors, if they talked to their constituents. This is not the message that was sent back to this Legislature. We’re not even quite sure why this is the first bill being brought back.

My colleagues who have spent time at AMO the last few days come back with the messages that the mayors they talked to—nobody wants this. Nobody wants these super powers.

Quite frankly, as I read through it and try to understand what this bill is doing, it seems quite dangerous. It seems so dangerous to give one person the power of hiring and firing the executive people like the city managers, the directors of departments. Who are those people going to be beholden to? What kind of answers and solutions do you expect out of those people if they’re beholden to a single mayor? To me, that does not make any sense whatsoever. And then to put it under the cloud of affordable housing, of ensuring that you’re fixing a housing crisis, something that people are so desperate for—they’re so desperate for help in housing, and you provide a bill that gives one person super powers.

How is it that this is the first act of business from this government in the 43rd Parliament? Is it coincidental that one of the first acts of this same Premier in 2018 was to change the Municipal Elections Act then, in the middle of an election? What is it that this Premier—what’s it going to take for him to give up on the past, on his past life at the city of Toronto and all of his hurt feelings for himself and his family during that time? What’s it going to take for him to stop imposing his power over our Municipal Elections Act during an election? That’s the question. That’s the question that people of this province want to know. They want to know why this is a priority when we have a health care crisis. They want to know why this government is talking about housing, when that’s a pure crisis, but the only thing that they’re doing is talking about it. They’re putting nothing in legislation to actually correct the issue of housing. Nothing. Do builders have issues? Are there problems with the Planning Act? Absolutely. There is no denying that. But giving mayors powers of hiring and firing over their executives—that doesn’t fix the Planning Act. Nothing in there fixes the Planning Act.

Is there stuff in here that helps encourage council to do better by the Planning Act, to do better by ensuring that we have multi-residential homes, that we have rent control? Is there anything to support a council to do those things? No, there is not. What this bill actually does is take power away from councillors, who know their area the best and who were elected by their communities, to the beholding of one person who has all the power. That’s not how we fix the housing crisis in this province—and I’m sure all of you know that, but that seems to be the case anyway.

I want to share—one of my constituents sent a voice mail, and my office transcribed it. He says, “This is horrible and forgoes democratic principles. It is terrible. It should be illegal.” He doesn’t know what I can do but “hopes that the opposition is strongly against this.”

He goes on to say, “We should not even elect a city council if the mayor has so much power.” This is what’s coming back from our average constituents. I have no idea who this gentleman is, but he felt empowered enough to make sure that I understood that his feeling on this was that it’s wrong.

People’s priorities in our communities, as you all know, if you knocked on a door, are health care and affordability. It wasn’t about mayors’ powers. There was nothing talked about that included the mayors’ powers. And quite frankly, none of you talked about the mayors’ powers either during the campaign, nor did the Premier while he was running. Nobody talked about this. This was a surprise legislation after the campaign. Nowhere during the campaign did it talk about the strong-mayor powers to ensure that this would be the number one issue coming back to the Legislature in the 43rd Parliament.

I’d like to thank the member from Hamilton Mountain for her comments. Like the member from Hamilton Mountain, I heard a lot on the doorsteps about the need for affordable housing. I heard it from families of all types and sizes, whether they owned their own home or they were renting. Another thing I’ve heard a lot about was tenants who risked being evicted from the housing that they had, because their landlord was trying to push them out, knowing that the landlord could jack up the rent to whatever they wanted for the next tenant.

What I did not hear anything about from any of my constituents—I did not hear it from my Conservative opponent, either—was a demand for any additional powers for the mayor. Even the mayor of Ottawa said he’s not interested in additional powers. So I’m wondering if the member can comment on whether it would have been a better option for the government to in fact introduce real rent control and vacancy control to address the housing crisis, rather than giving mayoral powers nobody is asking for.