Redesignating land to enrich your friends isn’t a plan to build homes; it’s a scheme.

A plan to build homes would be helping municipalities get through permits faster. A plan to build homes would be addressing the affordability issues that residents of Ontario are facing each and every day. If residents are spending money, paying to access a front-line health clinic—which is happening in Ottawa today—then they don’t have that money to pay rent or to pay the mortgage or to buy groceries. That is at the root of the affordability crisis we’re facing.

The government has had five years. House prices are up. Everything is up. No plan—just schemes.

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.

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?

J’aimerais demander au membre : le projet de loi a des dispositions qui exemptent les unités d’habitation abordables des frais de redevances d’aménagement. Vraiment, c’est tout ce que ça fait pour les loyers. Combien de personnes sur les 1,5 million d’habitations dont on a besoin vont être aidées par ce projet de loi?

Well, I’ll tell you, if you’re an elderly person and you’re looking for hope, you need no longer look any further than Belle River, Ontario. What happened in Belle River, Ontario, was that the Ministry of Long-Term Care issued a licence to allow the operator to build a brand new, state-of-the-art facility for retired elderly people in Belle River, Ontario. It’s a state-of-the-art facility—160 units—that’s going to replace the old facility, which was only 80 units and very outdated. It’s a brand new facility—state-of-the-art, 160 units—which, I might add, was opposed by the NDP. Luckily, the Ministry of Long-Term-Care, notwithstanding the objections of the NDP—

Interjections.

Thank you.

Further questions?

The member from London North Centre.

It’s my great honour to rise today to add the voices of the wonderful people of London North Centre on what is possibly one of the most important topics of our time, which is housing.

Today, we are discussing and debating Bill 134, An Act to amend the Development Charges Act, 1997 and the St. Thomas-Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act, 2023. This bill is very light on details. Just to take a look at the two schedules that comprise this bill, they talk about the definitions of affordable or attainable homes, and they also talk about the adjustments to the St. Thomas-Central Elgin boundary adjustment—an adjustment, I might add, was one that the NDP was proud to support. We helped expedite that adjustment to make sure that we were able to land the historic investment of the Volkswagen plant in St. Thomas.

Housing is something that every single constituent of mine discusses with me at every event I go to. I speak with seniors who are looking to downsize, who are concerned because they simply can’t maintain that bigger home. There are also people in the mid-ranges who have adult children who can’t move out or may never realize the dream of home ownership.

It’s really shocking when we see the policy changes that have been enacted by this government and governments previous which have resulted in this unaffordability crisis. You see, housing is foundational. Housing is fundamental. Housing is health care, when you look at it in a more broad sense. Unfortunately, because of policy changes over the last 30 years, we’ve seen that housing has become more of a commodity rather than what it is, which is a human good, a necessity.

If you take a look at both Liberal and Conservative housing policies, they centre around developers. They have this focus on this trickle-down economic situation, where they expect that if they create a policy environment to enable the creation of housing, somehow that will result in affordability. But 30 years after those policies have been enacted, we see that they are utterly wrong.

This bill is an opportunity, and I would say that, though the NDP, the official opposition, will be supporting this bill, it unfortunately misses the moment. I have to wonder, with a bill that is comprised of two very brief schedules, if this legislation actually serves the purpose of the magician trying to distract the people of Ontario. What is happening in both hands? You see, we have the greenbelt grift. We have this handout to land speculators. We’ve seen so much corruption and scandal embroiling this government that this legislation seems to be something where they’re trying to put out a good news story and distract from what is actually going on.

It’s no wonder, Speaker, that they will interrupt all the members on the official opposition side when we dare talk about the greenbelt in relation to this legislation, because they don’t want anyone to know. They don’t want anyone to pay attention. They certainly don’t want anyone to investigate, otherwise they would obviously have co-operated more fully with the Integrity Commissioner. We would have ministers that actually told the legitimate and honest truth, and we would see a government that actually would pass the official opposition’s motion to strike a special committee—

Interjection: Select.

The NDP, the official opposition, has always been and will always be the party of housing. Back during the 1990s, the NDP government built the most significant amount of affordable housing, supportive housing, co-op housing of any government of its kind, and much of that still exists to this day, despite the reckless and destructive cuts of the government that came after them with the Mike Harris government. They cancelled so many projects, so many co-op housing projects, in the tens of thousands. But this government, unfortunately, isn’t really looking after people; they’re looking after developers.

It’s also unfortunate because I think this results in the weakening of peoples’ faith in our elected representatives, because this government has tried to cloak their greenbelt grift with the shield of housing. They’ve tried to hide behind this defence, pretending as though this unbridled corruption crisis was something other than what it was, which was about rewarding insiders. It was about making sure that a few people were turned from millionaires into billionaires, but instead, this government would pretend that it was about housing.

I wanted to first look at an analysis of this government’s cousin, their federal leader, Pierre Poilievre, and his discussion of housing, because I think we see resonance with this government and their principles. This was posted; it says how Poilievre blames city regulations and red tape that are causing the housing crisis. He said that these inflate the cost of housing, and his entire plan is to force or encourage cities to remove them. We see much resonance with that and this government stepping all over municipal partners, overriding their authority, really insulting them, pretending as though they’re sitting on all of this unspent money when it’s this government that has a $22-billion slush fund that they’re sitting on. However, they would like to point the finger at somebody else—again, changing the channel and trying to distract.

This analysis goes on to say that the red tape is “a way of speaking to the needs of ‘ordinary’ Canadians, while advancing the interest of the party’s corporate backers. The existing capitalist provision of housing in Canada need not be changed in any way. We just need to cut government waste.”

So it’s interesting when you take a look at this government and their discussion of housing because we always see such focus on red tape. It’s like they’re trying to change the target. They’re trying to change the channel. They don’t want people paying attention to what they’re actually doing; they would rather point the finger at somebody else.

If we look at the historical provision or the responsibility for housing, back in 1995, the Conservatives cut the provincial housing program and the Liberals cut the National Housing Strategy. As a result, we have a crisis that has been created by government cuts, by government neglect, by governments not doing and not abiding by their historic responsibilities.

You see, back in the 1990s, governments began to rely on the for-profit model and our for-profit market to deliver housing and, unfortunately, that has been something that has not provided what Ontarians need. We also see that pension funds, REITs and so many more have realized that they can commodify or reap enormous profits off housing, and this government has done nothing to stop them. We’ve seen some tinkering around the edges. We’ve seen increases on the non-resident speculation tax, but there are giant loopholes you could drive a truck through with those.

It’s also really interesting, when you take a look at recent history, because this government has had a flurry of bills, they’ve had a ministerial shuffle, they have really tried to distract from what is actually going on here, which has been a corruption crisis, despite them masking it with housing. We have to ask the question: Which is more important: people or profit? Clearly, there’s a division down the middle of this chamber, because on this side of the chamber, we believe that people are more important than profit. Yet, with this government, we see them rewarding millionaire friends, turning them into billionaires. We see corporate tax cuts. We see all of these incentives that are given to people who don’t need our assistance.

I have to think about a really interesting quotation I read just recently. This individual said that, really, if you are a person of faith, if you believe in some sort of “Almighty,” that our responsibility here is to look after the little people and make sure they’re being protected from the big people. But we see a reverse of that with this government—entirely, entirely opposite.

As we look at this legislation in question, there are some interesting points to it. There is the definition of affordability based on income instead of the market. It’s an incremental improvement; it’s not perfect. It’s somewhat better than the status quo, but there’s still so much more this government could do to actually create that housing. This government talks a lot about creating housing, but they are actually taking a back seat. They are really not taking responsibility; they’re leaving that up to other people. They really don’t want to be in the driver’s seat. I don’t know—maybe they don’t want to be responsible, maybe they’re afraid, maybe they’re just afraid to get their hands dirty. I’m not sure what it is, but they’re not building the housing.

Now, we also, on this side of the House, want to look at the housing crisis from every angle. There is not one silver bullet to tackle the housing affordability crisis, so we also need to look at people on all parts of the spectrum of housing. That would include real rent control. It’s shocking to think that, this government, during the throes of a housing affordability crisis, that the Premier and this government in 2018 would remove rent control from all new buildings. They will pat themselves on the back, Speaker. They will tell themselves, “Look at all the new housing starts.” But what they don’t admit is that none of these are affordable, and that they’ve created a system of exploitation whereby people are stuck.

People have finished year-long leases—I’ve talked with so many folks who were not informed that the government did not have their back. They were not informed that the government did not care about their safety. They were not informed that the government didn’t want to provide them with protections, so after that year-long lease, their rent skyrocketed. It’s unconscionable that, in the midst of a housing crisis, this government would take away things away from people.

Now, we take a look at some of the other distractions in terms of housing that this government has created. We have Bill 23, and Bill 23 was a direct attack on municipalities removing development charges, again, rewarding the people who didn’t need further reward—those developers, those speculators, those people who are already wealthy—while removing protections from people who were hardly protected in the first place. I believe the Association of Municipalities of Ontario have estimated that with Bill 23 the impact will be in the neighbourhood of—what is it, $5 billion?

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.