I will say that I’m proud to be a Conservative here in the Ontario Legislature, because we’re actually getting things done for the people of Ontario. We’re building more homes. We’re building more purpose-built rentals. Maybe we’ll give the member for Peterborough–Kawartha an opportunity to talk a little about the purpose-built rentals that are being built here in the province of Ontario. It’s been over 1,000 over the last year that have been built in Toronto alone. It’s more than we’ve seen, I think, over the last 20 years, the last two decades. So I’ll give the member an opportunity to speak a little bit more about that.

Wayne Gretzky.

When you want to have a subdivision put in, you go through all of the appropriate processes on it. One of the things that happens, though, is there’s opportunities for individuals, for different groups, to object in different ways. We’re streamlining all of that. Instead of it being a waterfall approach where it was, you can object on this; and then once something comes in from that, you object under this; and then once that comes in, you can object under a third—if you think of it from a project management standpoint, it’s more of a scrum or an agile approach. So we’re looking at the critical path instead.

This is a way that we can make things better for people in Ontario. This is a way that we can streamline this. By empowering the mayors in the two cities that we have, they can look at what’s in the best interests of the entire community instead of just that small group.

If you don’t like the price of rent, the problem is that we don’t have enough rentals. If you don’t like the price of a home, the problem is that we don’t have enough homes. This is something that is going to speed that process up, which lowers the cost and makes it easier for people to have home ownership.

If we speed up development, if we make it easier to build a purpose-built apartment building, it lowers the cost of the build. It lowers the cost of the rent, which means that that individual who is looking for a place to rent can move into a place that is going to be at their price point and more suitable for them.

If we obstruct—which is what has happened over the last two decades—prices rise and people get priced out of a home. We want to reverse that trend.

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.

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.