Point of order, Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 25(b)(i), I ask, through you, Speaker, that the member from Orléans return to the subject matter of the bill. The member’s remarks are not germane to the item currently being debated in this House.

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?

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?

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?