Pembroke.

Through you, Madam Speaker, my question to the member opposite—okay, so first of all, he talked about specifically affordability and that everything has become more expensive to buy a home under this government. As the great member from Renfrew–Nipissing—

My question to the member from New Orleans—

The member from Orléans and I are in a similar position in the province right now because the government has overridden our urban boundaries, local democracies, citizen input. And yet, in the briefing note that was leaked to us—to the Premier, by the way—it goes on to say that there were some protests. People have a right to protest in the province of Ontario if they don’t like what the government of the day is, and there’s been lots of protests here and on the front lawn of Queen’s Park.

But it goes on to say that a number of elected officials attended the rally, so they’re keeping track of MPPs and activists and citizens who are standing up for their rights to actually participate in their democracy.

Do you think that this is a huge distraction for the government away from the housing crisis in the province of Ontario?

I want to ask a question about the fantastic development of automotive jobs and industrial might in southwestern Ontario, and that is partially dealt with in part two of this particular bill, which authorizes the city of St. Thomas to offer certain, let’s say, incentives to encourage the $7-billion investment by Volkswagen in the city of St. Thomas. And I’m lucky to have the associate minister here very close to me who helped land this spectacular deal for southwestern Ontario. Even though it’s not in my riding, I’m excited about it because I know people in my riding are going to benefit from it.

My question to the member who just spoke is, even though this fantastic $7-billion investment in St. Thomas is not in my riding, I’m excited about it because I know my people are going to benefit from it. How does he feel about it?

New Orleans is in Louisiana, which is in the southern United States. Orléans is a suburb of Ottawa—the eastern suburb of Ottawa, where the sun rises on our nation’s capital, just to correct the record.

In terms of affordability, when this government was elected in 2018, the average cost to buy a home in the greater Toronto area was $787,000. In Ottawa, it was $449,000. This isn’t about interest rates. It’s about the price of buying a home, which the Minister of Labour should understand.

The current average in the GTA exceeds a million dollars and, in Ottawa, it’s above $750,000. The price of homes is demonstrably higher five years after this government took power.

So, first of all, the government needs to decide how they’re going to track new housing, which metric they’re going to use, and then they need to be reporting on it, every year, to the public. As far as I can see, that’s not happening.

I will start by thanking my colleague from Orléans for some really valid and good points that he’s made in his debate, and I hope that there will be notes taken.

This government has been making decisions that are threatening our environment, our farmlands, putting at risk the way we’ll be able to feed our family. Now, you’ve mentioned a few times that the government is nowhere near attaining its stated objective of building 1.5 million homes. Can you elaborate and give some indication that the government is nowhere near attaining that objective, even though that’s the guise under which they are presenting this new bill that attains very little in the end?

Question?

Response?

Ce soir, nous traitons du sujet du projet de loi 134, Loi de 2023 pour des logements abordables et de bons emplois. Ce projet de loi comporte deux parties : la première partie qui parle de la définition du mot « abordable » et, deuxièmement, une partie qui traite du sujet des pouvoirs de la cité de St. Thomas. Mes commentaires ce soir vont porter sur la deuxième partie, la partie qui traite de la question de l’augmentation des pouvoirs de la cité de St. Thomas.

Il me sera utile de donner à cette Assemblée une petite description de ma région—c’est le comté d’Essex—et après ça, je donnerai également un bref aperçu du bilan désastreux du gouvernement précédent libéral en matière de fabrication automobile en Ontario. Puis, après ça, je soulignerai le bilan fantastique du gouvernement actuel en matière de fabrication en Ontario, et aussi le bilan incroyable de ce gouvernement en matière de création d’emplois.

Et maintenant, je commence avec une description de ma région, qui est le comté d’Essex, qui compte de nombreuses industries formidables.

Nous avons, par exemple, d’énormes producteurs de céréales. Je parle particulièrement de la famille Wismer.

Nous avons, bien sûr, une industrie productive des légumes de serre. Nos légumes de serre que nous cultivons dans le comté d’Essex sont vendus partout en Amérique du Nord et sont commercialisés dans le monde entier et peuvent être trouvés dans bien de supermarchés américains.

Nous avons même une industrie du vin et des spiritueux. Ma circonscription ne compte pas moins de 20 vignobles différents. Nous avons une distillerie et au moins quatre sociétés de bières artisanales différentes.

Et nous avons des élevages. Nous avons des élevages de poulet, de dinde, et nous avons même un élevage d’alpagas.

Mais l’industrie de base de ma région reste l’industrie manufacturière, et notamment la fabrication des automobiles. Nous avions ce que nous appelions « the Big Three ». Il s’agissait de GM, Ford et Chrysler, et moi j’emploie toujours les mots « the Big Three », même si beaucoup de choses ont changé. GM ne fabrique plus dans ma région, Chrysler a changé son nom à FCA et puis l’a changé de nouveau à Stellantis. Ford reste toujours Ford—peut-être que ce sera toujours Ford. Mais une chose qui n’a pas changé dans ma région est la suivante : l’économie du comté d’Essex compte fortement sur l’industrie automobile.

Sous le gouvernement libéral précédent, nous avons perdu des milliers et des milliers d’emplois. Bon nombre de ces emplois se trouvaient dans notre industrie de fabrication et dans le secteur manufacturier. Des analystes estiment que nous avons perdu environ 20°000 emplois dans le secteur et dans la région du comté d’Essex. Nous avons perdu, par estimation, 300°000 emplois dans tout l’Ontario pendant le gouvernement libéral.

Le bilan du gouvernement libéral précédent en matière de création d’emplois était mauvais, et en effet il n’avait pas de stratégie de création d’emplois. On pourrait dire, quand même, qu’il y avait une stratégie de destruction d’emplois. Mais tout cela a changé sous le gouvernement du présent premier ministre.

La création des emplois sous notre gouvernement a explosé. Depuis que nous avons formé le gouvernement en 2018, le gouvernement du premier ministre actuel a créé plus de 700°000 emplois partout en Ontario. Ce sont des emplois, en majorité, à temps plein et bien rémunérés. Beaucoup de ces emplois se trouvent dans le secteur de la fabrication.

Sous le gouvernement libéral, la fabrication des automobiles était presque morte en Ontario. Les analystes de l’industrie prévoyaient que l’Ontario ne recevrait aucun pourcentage de nouveaux investissements dans le secteur automobile. Mais, tout cela a changé sous notre mandat. Notre premier ministre a mis au travail son ministre du Développement économique, de la Création d’emplois et du Commerce. J’appelle cet homme « l’homme à la cravate jaune ».

I just talked about the man I called “the man with the yellow tie.” He is our Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, and at this point, I would like to tell a very important story. As with all my stories, they are directly related to the topic of debate, but of course you have to be patient because the full importance of the story might not reveal itself until the very end of my statements.

So, of course, all of my stories start in Anderdon township; that’s where I grew up. I went to Anderdon Public School. Anderdon Public School has the most wonderful library in Essex county. When you go into the library, there’s a balcony that wraps around the second level, because it’s a two-level library, and all the books are around the balcony level.

When I was in school, we used to go to the library approximately once a week, and we would line up in two lines. The boys would line up in one line and the girls would line up in another line, and we would proceed to the library, and we would walk in parallel lines. We were not allowed to run; we were instructed to walk. Let me tell you, we were very tempted to run because we wanted to get to the library. We wanted to get to the library before anybody else got there because we wanted to make sure we got the books we wanted and nobody else took the books we wanted.

So we were terribly tempted to run and, sometimes, we gave into that temptation and we would run to the library. If you got caught running, the librarian would scold you. We had a wonderful librarian; her name was Mrs. Klein-Lebbink, and she was a marvellous librarian. If she caught you running, she would scold you in a high-pitched voice, just like a librarian should. She had a pair of glasses which she hung around her neck on a chain, just like the quintessential librarian.

Mrs. Klein-Lebbink’s office was located on the lower level of the library, and you could take the stairs down to the lower level and there was an open area where Mrs. Klein-Lebbink would read us stories. She read us wonderful stories—wonderful stories.

For example, she read us the story The Cat in the Hat about a marvellous cat with a big, tall hat who had wonderful machines that would do marvellous things. And she read us another incredible story, Mrs. Klein-Lebbink did. She read us a story called Horton Hears a Who! and it was about an elephant who discovered an entire civilization on a tiny speck. And then, the elephant undertook to protect that civilization by placing it on a flower. That story told us a very important lesson, and the lesson was this: A person is a person, no matter how small.

And Mrs. Klein-Lebbink, she read us a story about Curious George, a little monkey. Curious George was a monkey who always got into trouble. Now, I had a little bit of difficulty understanding the story of Curious George because I wanted a pet too. I wanted to have a dog or a cat. I couldn’t understand how this particular gentleman, the man with the big yellow hat, had a pet monkey—my mother said we couldn’t have a cat or a dog because we’d have to clean up after it. I couldn’t understand how a man could have a monkey as a pet—

Thank you to the member from Orléans for his comment.

We had 15 years of Liberal government, and for the last several years—from 2011 on, when the member from Niagara Centre said prices really started to skyrocket—we had the NDP supporting that Liberal government, and we watched as housing prices skyrocketed. And this did not happen in a short period of time. This happened over decades before that, building up to eventually skyrocketing from 2011 on. It is this government that is now taking steps to address it with 16 pieces of legislation for housing supply action plans. The previous Liberal government did nothing—stood by while prices went up, did nothing to address the housing supply crisis—and even now are raising issues to try to stop the kind of moves we’re trying to make to make sure we have more housing.

Will the member from Orléans get with the program, join us and support these housing initiatives?

Further questions?

Point of order.

The member’s timing is impeccable, because I am now getting to the most salient part of this story. You see, it was about the Man with the Yellow Hat who was Curious George’s caretaker. You never learned his name because the stories never told you his name, but you did know he wore yellow, and yellow, of course—I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now—is the symbolic colour of hope. It’s the colour of hope. That’s why, when I see the man with the yellow tie, it reminds me of hope, because he brings hope. He brings hope to the province of Ontario, which is what this bill does, Bill 134. And now you see, in the fullness of time, we’ve come full circle back to the import of the story.

Let me tell you a few examples about how the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, together with the Premier, has brought hope to the province of Ontario—hope which is symbolized by the colour yellow. Here are some examples: Magna investing $471 million to manufacture EV batteries in Brampton; Honda investing $1.4 billion to manufacture hybrids in Alliston; Ford investing $1.8 billion to manufacture EV models in Oakville; General Motors investing $2 billion to manufacture commercial EVs in Oshawa; Stellantis investing $3.6 billion to modernize its Windsor and Brampton plants; Stellantis, again, and LG investing $5 billion to build an EV battery plant in Windsor; and Volkswagen investing $7 billion to build a new EV battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario—which, of course, is the subject of this specific bill.

So you see, if you had been patient, we would have brought ourselves right back to the bill again. What a remarkable record of achievement and hope—over $25 billion in automotive investment in the province of Ontario in just three years. Thank you, man with the yellow tie. Thank you.

Now, here’s what Lana Payne, the national president of Unifor, has to say about all of these remarkable multi-billion-dollar investments. Unifor, of course, is Canada’s largest private sector union. It has over 300,000 members. Here is what Lana Payne has to say:

“In less than three years, Canada’s auto industry has gone from an apparent ... ‘has been’ to ‘has it all.’ ...

“Let’s be ... clear that what’s happening in the auto sector isn’t happening by accident....

“The fact is this industrial renaissance is happening because governments” of today “are investing in making it happen.”

Thank you again, man with the yellow tie.

The Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade is making it happen in all of those communities that I just mentioned, right across the southern half of Ontario, and in particular in my region, southwestern Ontario. I can tell you that people in Essex county are hugely excited about these investments.

C’est pourquoi nous avons eu la Loi de 2023 sur la modification des limites territoriales entre St. Thomas et Central Elgin. Par ailleurs, le titre de la loi est modifié et la loi s’intitule désormais la Loi de 2023 sur le soutien au secteur manufacturier de St. Thomas.

La nouvelle loi est modifiée pour permettre à la cité de St. Thomas d’accorder une aide à une personne morale précisée pendant une période de temps précisée. La nouvelle loi fixe le montant total de certains types d’aide qui peuvent être accordés et permet au ministre de prendre des règlements, notamment des règlements qui imposent des restrictions, des limites et des conditions au pouvoir que la loi confère à la cité de St. Thomas.

Si le projet de loi est adopté, la cité de St. Thomas peut accorder de l’aide directement ou indirectement à une personne morale.

Le montant total d’aide, telle qu’elle est définie par la loi, qui est accordée en vertu de la loi ne doit pas dépasser le montant total que devrait normalement payer la société avant l’octroi de l’aide, au titre de ce qui suit :

—premièrement, les impôts prélevés aux fins municipales par la cité en vertu de la Loi de 2001 sur les municipalités sur des biens réels pendant la période d’aide; et

—deuxièmement, les droits et les redevances fixés par la cité de St. Thomas en vertu de la loi pendant la période d’aide.

Aux fins de la loi en question, le mot « aide » s’entend de :

—une subvention, autre que la vente ou la location à bail à un prix inférieur à la juste valeur marchande, ou encore la concession de bien-fonds; ou

—une exonération totale ou partielle d’impôts, de redevances ou de droits imposés pendant la période d’aide.

L’aide accordée en vertu de la loi peut s’appliquer à tout secteur de la cité de St. Thomas.

Le ministère des Affaires municipales et du Logement peut, par règlement, imposer des restrictions, des limites et des conditions au pouvoir que la loi confère à la cité, y compris prévoir que l’aide ou certains types d’aide ne peuvent s’appliquer qu’à des secteurs précisés.

À mon avis, pour la ville de St. Thomas et pour tout le sud de l’Ontario, y compris le comté d’Essex et tout le sud-ouest—comme j’ai dit, notre région dépend de l’industrie manufacturière. Notre région dépend de la fabrication des automobiles pour une bonne économie, pour des emplois à temps plein, pour des emplois bien rémunérés, pour un avenir pour nos enfants, qui est un avenir qui, tout le monde le sait, est un avenir avec beaucoup d’opportunités et d’emplois. C’est un avenir pour que tout le monde aime travailler.

Pour toutes ces raisons, et bien d’autres encore, j’appuie le projet de loi proposé ce soir, et j’encourage les membres de cette Assemblée à voter en sa faveur.

Point of order, the member from Oshawa.

This is one piece, along with all of the other measures that this government is taking in order to build more homes, because the only way you’re going to make it possible for people to get homes is to increase the supply. That’s the way we’re going to do it.

By the way, the member from Brampton who just spoke must have a lot of hope, because Brampton is receiving millions and perhaps even billions of dollars of automotive investment brought here because the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and the Premier have worked so hard to land these remarkable investments after this this industry, the automobile manufacturing industry, was decimated by the previous Liberal government.

Finally, we have hope brought to this province by the Premier and the Minister of Economic Development, whom I call the “man with the yellow tie”—the colour of hope, bringing hope to places to like Brampton, Essex county, Windsor and Alliston and all places from Oakville and in between. Jobs, hopes, progress: That’s what we want.

The member talked about the importance of having both government and private sector involved in the building of homes. Of course, the member’s own plan, which is delineated in that member’s policy, says that the government, the way she wants to do it or the way that party wants to do it, is going to finance—finance—250,000 homes, which, by my calculation, would cost the government $125 billion. I challenge the member from Oshawa to tell me how many taxes—

He asks how we are going to move forward. Well, we’re going to move forward by building more supply. We’ve got to get more supply, and we’re going to have the Minister of Labour, who’s moving mountains and moving so hard to get more people into the skilled trades, because we’re going to need those skilled trades people to build all the houses we need.

Skilled trades registrations are up approximately 22% to 24% over the last year. That’s a great accomplishment. I can tell you, we’re going to need more and more and more skilled trades people, so an increase of 22% to 24% in one year alone is fantastic. That’s one of the ways we’re going to get to the goals we want to meet, which were outlined by the member from Markham–Thornhill. We need more skilled trades people, and that’s what the Minister of Labour is going to—

I’m pleased to ask the member a question. In today’s Toronto Star, there was an article called, “Canada Is Building Fewer Homes Today than During the 2020 Lockdowns—and ‘The Worst Is Yet to Come.’” One of their comments in here was, “(Developers are) are no longer seeing that these projects will be a good investment for them, especially with the additional high cost of materials and labour.” It goes on to say, “That’s why we need less reliance from the private sector.”

My question to this member who just spoke about the supply and the challenges: When are we going to see from this government a shift away from that super reliance on their super donor developer friends and recognize that the public sector and government leadership have a place in building homes for people that they can afford?

En réponse, beaucoup plus de personnes qu’ont été aidées par le gouvernement précédent libéral—qui ont perdu leurs emplois et qui ont dû déménager à l’extérieur de l’Ontario pour se chercher des emplois.

Pour ça, il faut voter pour ce projet de loi, parce que ce projet de loi est un projet de loi qui donne de l’espoir à tout le monde en Ontario qui veut travailler en Ontario, qui cherche une maison en Ontario : une maison qui peut être abordable, une maison pour sa famille.

Questions?

Further questions?

Thank you to my friend from Essex for the wonderful speech.

Madam Speaker, I really enjoyed that story. He highlighted that yellow is the colour of hope, and I don’t see any yellow on the other side, because people do not have any hope from the opposition. People have hope from the government side, because they know that only this government can address the crisis.

Experts continue to say that this crisis is decades in the making. The NDP and Liberal governments had their chance, but they failed to act. This government will act and bring the province out of this housing crisis.

Can the member please explain to the House how this legislation will address the housing crisis?

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you—il a parlé un petit peu français. C’était très bien, très bien travaillé. Merci.

Thank you for your wonderful presentation. The member from Essex is a wonderful colleague and also a great representative not only for the Essex riding but also across Ontario. Thank you for passionately talking this bill.

Madam Speaker, the housing crisis is growing beyond the boundary, and I’m very pleased to see our government continue to take the housing supply crisis very seriously. I know there are too many families in my riding of Markham—not only the Markham–Thornhill riding but across Markham—finding a house, especially finding houses for the younger generation—their dreams are really going beyond out of reach. Can the member elaborate why the government is moving on the Ontario housing supply crisis so quickly, introducing yet another piece of legislation—so very, very important? Could he elaborate on that, please?