SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
September 26, 2023 10:15AM
  • Sep/26/23 11:30:00 a.m.

We saw this yesterday—it’s the next shoe for the opposition. It’s never about building homes. You can never get a question—“How can we help you build more homes for the people of the province of Ontario?” You’ll never get that from them.

No, we’re not going to continue to put obstacles in the way of building homes. Let me be very clear: As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, I’m going to remove obstacles. Do you know why? Because it is our job to ensure that the next generation has all of the same advantages that we have.

We have one job as parliamentarians: to leave the province in better shape than we found it in. Under the Liberal and NDP coalition, what did you do? You brought the province to its knees.

So, no, I will not put new obstacles in the way of building homes.

And to our partners who have said clearly that you have enough land to build in your areas—we’re going to make sure that you come on board and that we build those homes in those areas.

We have been talking about removing taxes from building purpose-built rentals. We talked about this. Finally, the federal Liberals agree with us—they recognized—that when you put a tax, it drives the economy down. They have finally agreed with us, and they’ve agreed to remove the tax on purpose-built rentals—something that we put in the budget. Colleagues, you’ll remember, we put this in the budget. The finance minister put this in the budget. We’re seeing purpose-built rentals at the highest level in over 15 years. We put it in the budget. The member talks about it. How did she vote? She voted against it. The member talks about transit and building in communities, but when we talk about densifying around community infrastructure like GO trains and subway stations—how did she and her party vote? They voted against it.

Don’t worry. We’ll get the job done for your com-munity as well.

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