Speaker, over the summer months, I attended many events, meetings and round tables in my riding of Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, connecting with residents and organizations and hearing what is most important to them. Health care and housing continue to be top of mind, and this government is listening, with just over $5.8 million in funding for upgrades and repairs to hospitals in my riding—including Perth and Smiths Falls as well as Carleton Place and Almonte—plus an additional $820,000 to address emergency department pressures.

Last month, I was pleased to join Minister Calandra for the groundbreaking ceremony of the brand new, 128-bed Broadview nursing home in my hometown of Smiths Falls. This is part of this government’s $6.4-billion commitment to build more than 58,000 new and reconditioned beds in this province.

In July, I was honoured to be part of the opening of Lanark county’s newest five-unit community housing building.

And I look forward to the spring of 2024, when Carebridge Community Support is scheduled to open another affordable housing project within my riding.

Mr. Speaker, my sincere thanks to Minister Parsa and Minister Calandra for joining me this summer for round-table discussions—real conversations about how we can remove barriers and improve access to services.

I look forward to welcoming Minister Gill next week to discuss streamlining productivity and efficiencies with stakeholders and businesses in Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston.

It was a productive summer.

Speaker, through you to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing: Early last year, the government’s Housing Affordability Task Force made 55 recommendations to speed up housing. The government ignored the vast majority of those and wasted a year enriching greenbelt speculators, who made $8.3 billion in profit without building a single home.

Now the minister has sent a threatening letter to mayors across Ontario demanding their feedback on each of the task force recommendations. The minister said they will lose funding if the mayors don’t respond within one month.

Why is the minister threatening municipalities when it was his government’s choice to ignore its own task force recommendations?

Everyone knows that the Premier’s so-called housing policies have nothing to do with housing. The Premier ignored his own housing task force and focused instead on enriching his speculator friends, who made huge profits from zoning changes without building a single home.

I’ll let the minister know that in Hamilton we are exceeding our housing targets, and we’re doing it within our previous boundaries. This means, for Hamilton, complete, sustainable communities. This means lower infrastructure costs. This means more affordable housing options.

Will the Premier stop making it harder to build homes in Hamilton, stop trying to enrich his speculator friends, and reverse his forced and harmful expansions of Hamilton’s urban boundaries?

Interjections.