Thanks to the member from Essex for a very creative presentation—I mean, I like Stuart McLean from The Vinyl Cafe as much as anybody does.

You were talking at length about the colour of yellow and yellow being a colour of hope—and I was thinking of another colour; it was more in the brown category. But I do want to say, the yellow, the colour of hope, actually—I took a little bit from that presentation.

I see that the Minister of Long-Term Care is here. He’s the new minister. Congratulations. I have hope that the minister is going to call Bill 21, the Till Death Do Us Part bill, at social policy committee so that seniors in the province of Ontario also have hope to be reunified as they age—

This government is sitting on $22 billion. It’s giving money to wealthy people by allowing them to be exempted from development charges. They’re sitting on this additional money. And who’s going to pick up the tab? Municipalities in rural Ontario are going to pick up the tab.

Earlier, from the official opposition, we heard from our wonderful critic for municipal affairs and housing, who talked about all of the smaller municipalities that were going to be hit by these disastrous increases to tax. I believe it was the city of Pickering—they had to raise taxes by 2.44%; the region of Durham, 2.87%. Let me see—Pickering taxpayers have to pay 5.31%, and it goes on and on.

So much of this government’s actions have actually really hurt rural Ontario. They’ve neglected rural Ontario. They’ve taken rural Ontario for granted. They thought they could pave over farmland; they thought they could gift it to wealthy developers and wealthy speculators, allow them to flip it for a profit. It is a slap in the face to the people who feed Ontario.

In the municipality of North Huron, there are about 5,000 residents. They were talking about an additional municipal tax increase of 20.65%. There’s this government making the people of rural communities pay for their grift. In Kincardine, they’re looking at an 11.15% tax increase; Stratford, a 7.5% tax increase; Huron county—

I do get passionate about these things. It makes me very upset when people who can’t afford to have money taken from them have it taken from them, and when the government could do more to make sure that they’re making their lives easier.

Let me continue. In Bruce county, we’re talking about a 7.9% increase—I could go on and on. The city of Peterborough has a $7-million-to-$12-million gap over five years—I believe there’s also an additional $9 million because of the removal of development charges. Northumberland county—boy, oh, boy, it is shocking how many places in rural Ontario have been let down by this government while they tried to reward wealthy speculators.

What this government could do in terms of actually addressing the affordability of housing—they don’t have to give away these incentives to rich developers. Instead, what they could do is, they could actually incentivize the creation of municipal properties, non-profit properties. Why are they not making sure that these incentives that they’re providing are for those people who don’t have that profit motive, who are going to make sure they deliver the most amount of value to the people who need it the most?

If projects are exempted from development charges because they’re building affordable housing—but when you combine that with the fact that there’s no rent control for buildings that were first occupied after November 2018, how does this government make sure that things are even going to remain affordable? There are really no protections.

We have NDP legislation on the table right now that could be passed if this government truly cared about renters, if this government truly cared about affordability. Some of those include legislation that I have been proud to co-sponsor—the Rent Stabilization Act. There are also other wonderful pieces of legislation that the government could pass—there is Bill 48, Rent Control for All Tenants Act; as I said, Bill 25, the Rent Stabilization Act.

In my city of London, we’ve seen horrible situations where seniors who’ve lived for decades in rental units—they built a home there, they’ve raised families there. They’re in their retirement now. They’re enjoying their life, but unfortunately that building gets sold to a new person.

See, the Liberals in, I believe, 1997, opened up an adjustment to the Residential Tenancies Act that allowed vacancy decontrol. It allowed unethical landlords to kick good people out so that they could jack up the rent to whatever the market could withstand. It’s a gigantic loophole where people are losing their housing—people who have raised our families, built our communities.

I speak with folks all the time and they say to me, “What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to live in my car?” Those seniors have effectively paid for the buildings in which they reside. They deserve our respect. They deserve our protections. This government is seeing fit to remove protections to allow even more unethical people into the playing field. I could go on. I’ve barely even touched all of the issues that happened within the greenbelt.

Everything that’s happened within this sphere, within housing, that we’ve seen over the past number of years have done next to nothing to solve the unaffordability crisis. There are many options which have been presented, which we are happy to work with you on, but I can tell you when the government is only looking at the top tier of the people who have the most money expecting that money to trickle down expecting that affordability to trickle down—that simply isn’t going to happen. We have to prepare for years and decades down the line. We have to make sure that our policy is sound, that our policy is thoughtful that unintended consequences aren’t going to get in the way.

I also want to ask: Will this definition that they’ve provided of affordable housing be extended to areas other than exempting development charges, such as social assistance recipients or RGI funding calculations? I too also wonder is this going to be a loophole for this government’s developer buddies. We see that they’re focused on speculators. They’re just focused on their insiders. Is that allowing them to make their billions back after the greenbelt scam was discovered? It’s a question that is on the top of mind of all the folks I speak with in my riding.

People saw what this government did, despite all the distraction, despite trying to shield themselves, pretending it was about housing. Everybody knows this was never about housing. This was about the shifting of public money into a few peoples’ hands. This was about corruption at the highest levels—

One second. I recognize the member for Kitchener−Conestoga.

Yes.

Point of order.

Point of order.

So I’m going to ask again the same question: What new taxes or what taxes would you raise to be able to pay for this? Because every time, an NDP government—and I’ll say, it’s only been once, actually, in the history of Ontario—has bankrupted this province, and a Conservative government has had to come and clean up the mess.

I am also glad to be able to ask a question of the member for London North Centre. I appreciated his thoughtful comments, especially because it’s so connected to community, which we miss a lot in this space opposite this government.

One of the comments that the member mentioned was about how, in the midst of a housing crisis, this is a government that would allow folks to lose their homes. He spoke about rent control, the need for rent control and about some NDP private members’ bills that are in the hopper now about rent stabilization, rent control. I’d like for him to delve a little bit more into that because I want the people who are watching at home to know that there is a better way and different way, and that this government is not open to those things, because there are already solutions on the table and yet we don’t see it in this piece of legislation.

I want to congratulate my colleague the member for London North Centre on his remarks. The member and I were both very proud to be part of the city of London when AMO was hosted there in the summer, and one of the things we heard repeatedly from municipal representatives was the financial hit that they were facing because of Bill 23 and the loss of development charges. In the city of London, it’s going to cost $97 million.

Now, this bill will further decrease the amount of revenues that municipalities will be able to collect based on development charges because we want to spur the building of affordable housing. But what does the member think about cash-strapped municipalities like London, which is already dealing with an almost $100-million revenue hole, having to further absorb the cost of these development charge exemptions?

Madam Speaker, the member who just spoke comes from London North Centre and that riding is a mere 20-to-30 minutes away from the fantastic $7-billion investment that Volkswagen is making in the province of Ontario at St. Thomas. That riding, London North Centre, is going to benefit immensely from the incredible investments being made in this province as a result of the efforts of the Minister of Economic Development and the Premier. Thousands of people in London North Centre are going to have jobs and hopes and a bright future, because they’re going to get great jobs, at a great pay with pensions and benefits at Volkswagen.

I’m really excited for the people in London North Centre, because they are going to benefit immensely. You can tell the excitement I have for London North Centre. I want to know if the member from London North Centre is as excited for his taxpayers as I am.

Point of order.

I apologize. I have a bad habit of calling a spade, “a spade,” but I do withdraw.

I want to thank everyone for their kind attention. I want to thank the government for not interrupting me during my speech too much.

I’m kind of surprised by the member from Essex’s comments, because I don’t think that he has paid attention to his federal leader. Here on the NDP side of the House, we very much believe in workers. We believe in unions. We believe in collective agreements.

But what’s funny is that the federal Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, is really attacking this. He says, “How much of Canadians’ money is he giving to this foreign corporation? How many jobs? How much is the cost per job?” Pierre Poilievre has gone after that.

I wonder why the provincial Conservatives have a different tune than the federal Conservatives. It’s very confusing.

The member is absolutely right. We see municipalities that are going to be cash-strapped as a result of this government doing this sort of anti-Robin Hood thing, taking money from people who can’t afford it and giving it to wealthy folks in the form of removal of development charges.

This government really should be treating municipalities as partners, especially for the provision of affordable housing and supportive housing. We’ve seen that the province has neglected their historic responsibility, which was to create and build and maintain that housing. Instead, they’ve kicked it down to the municipal partners, not provided the funding and not provided the care or really abided by their responsibility.

Really, all the member needs to do is look into their slush fund, their contingency fund, where they have hoarded $22 billion. There’s plenty of money for the provision of public services there. Or maybe they should look at the $8.3 billion—2016 numbers—that they have tried to gift to their insider friends. There’s plenty of money. It comes down to political will. On this side of the House, we will look after the people who need it the most.

Further questions?

Interjections.

Where were we? Okay, we’ll move on to further debate. Further debate? Further debate?

Mr. Calandra has moved second reading of Bill 134, An Act to amend the Development Charges Act, 1997 and the St. Thomas-Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act, 2023. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Second reading agreed to.

Report continues in volume B.

I’d like to thank the member from Oshawa for that excellent question, and she’s absolutely right. There are folks who are renting who simply are at a loss. They’re working paycheque to paycheque. They’re unable to afford that most basic necessity of housing because we’ve had governments that have allowed the market to get out of control. We’ve allowed governments to have these corporate landlords basically set the rules. We see things like renovictions, where a landlord will claim that they’re going to come in, they’re going to change over a unit. There are laws in place that allow renters to have the right of first refusal, but too often they do not get in. The Landlord and Tenant Board, which is moribund—it is absolutely not working—often works in the interests of landlords, but still, it’s not working for anyone.

We also see landlords who will try to pretend they’re moving in their family. We need further protections so everyone, whether it’s landlord or tenant, achieves justice and has a safe place to call home.

Interjections.

Point of order.

Madam Speaker, the member from London centre was right: I did need to break out the calculator. Actually, I forgot two zeros. It’s actually $125 billion, which I think, colleagues, if I’m not mistaken—the member from Essex, that’s what? About 60-some-odd per cent of the provincial budget?

I’ll ask him the question again. What new taxes would the NDP install to pay for these 500,000 homes?

Speaker, we’ll actually refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy.