Speaker, this government’s greenbelt grab, their MZOs, their urban boundary changes: They’re not about building housing at all. One of the task force’s recommendations was to allow four-storey multiplex housing in every neighbourhood. The NDP tried to add this into the government’s most recent housing bill and the government said no. In fact, the member for Perth–Wellington said the government was doing just enough—enough. Doing enough to address the housing crisis? Doing enough while housing starts across the province are going down and not up?

Back to the Premier: When will he start putting people’s needs ahead of his own backroom deals?

The Premier has wasted over a year enriching his friends, throwing the planning system into chaos and making it harder to build the homes that Ontarians actually need, in the neighbourhoods where they want to live. Back to the Premier: How many homes would have been built by now if he hadn’t put shady backroom deals first?

Speaker, expert after expert has shown that we need to build at least 1.5 million new homes. The Ontario NDP supports this goal, but so far the government has relied entirely on half measures. Their whole housing plan is predicated on backroom deals, and now they’re under an RCMP criminal investigation. According to the government’s own figures, housing starts in Ontario—as I said—are projected to go down, not up. Clearly this government’s plan is not working, so back to the Premier: Will he get his government out of the backrooms and off the massage tables and start building the homes our province actually needs?

So back to the Premier: Will he support the NDP’s solution to build the non-market housing that our province so desperately needs?

Interjections.

Interjections.

Housing is a human right, just like health care and education and retirement security. If the private sector won’t build enough homes that are affordable for everyone who needs one, then the public sector must step up. It is clear this government’s plan isn’t working, Speaker. Those of us on this side of the House, we want to make sure every Ontarian has a good home they can actually afford.

Interjections.

Interjections.

The Leader of the Opposition has voted against every initiative we’ve done to speed up housing. They’ve voted against building 1.5 million homes, even though we set a record on building homes: The 30-year record in 2021 is 99,000 homes we put forward and they’re building; 2022, 96,000 homes that we’re building; and since the start of this year there have been 57,000 housing starts.

But, Mr. Speaker, they’re against building. They’re against building purpose-built rentals—

Interjection.

They say one thing in front of the media, and then when they’re in here, they vote against everything, especially—

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. Speaker, 30 years ago, the Harris government got us out of the business of building housing. If governments had continued to build at that rate, we would have built 1.2 million homes since then. Instead, Ontario needs to build 1.5 million homes to meet the current need.

Why doesn’t this government think it has a responsibility for building truly affordable homes?

This government has routinely given laundry lists of projects that did not work. Now is the time to think big. Private developers have said they can’t solve this crisis alone. The Canadian Housing Statistics Program recently revealed that housing supply slowed last year—slowed under this government.

Why won’t this government join us and get Ontarians back to work in good jobs, building the truly affordable housing that Ontarians need?

This is really rich, Mr. Speaker. You know something? We’ve implemented 21 of the housing affordability task force recommendations as we’re moving forward. We led the country in getting the federal government to knock off the HST. We’re knocking off the PST for purpose-built rentals. We have eliminated skyrocketing municipal fees on affordable and non-profit housing—and, by the way, they voted against that. They voted against the previous. We introduced a Building Faster Fund: $1.2 billion in new funding for municipalities, large municipalities, and another $500 million—and guess what, Mr. Speaker? They voted against that. All the parties voted against it, by the way. They’re anti-development; they’re anti-housing, anti-infrastructure, anti-everything.

If they were in charge, this province would be a disaster, like they were for 15 years, Mr. Speaker.

And I am proud to say my father was part of that government. They created 700,000 jobs when they were in power. I know Mike Harris Jr. is proud of what his dad did too. They’re the ones who accelerated the economy, accelerated the boom on housing. I’ll go to toe any day about Bob Rae versus Mike Harris. The Bob Rae days—don’t forget the Bob Rae days.

Interjections.

I wrote a letter to the Governor of the Bank of Canada insisting that he does not raise interest rates. Do you know what the difference is? The Governor of the Bank of Canada is sitting in his ivory tower not talking to the common folks.

I took a call this morning about a married couple with kids that are going to have to sell their home. They’re going to have to sell their home because their mortgage has tripled. It has absolutely tripled and went up thousands of dollars. They won’t be able to afford it.

See, the Bank of Canada is way out to lunch, in my opinion, Mr. Speaker, way out to lunch. They’re creating inflation. They’re creating inflation on groceries. Then we have the carbon tax that the federal government implemented; it created inflation on building homes. They’re doing nothing but creating inflation. They’re living back in the 1970s. They need to get their act together. If anything—

What we’re all against is making sure we get rid of the carbon tax. Folks, let me tell you what we have done. We’ve cut the gas tax by 10.7 cents per litre. We scrapped the licence plate stickers for eight million people. We cut the tolls for 412 and 418. We increased ODSP by 5% tied to inflation. We cut income tax to 1.1 million low-income workers. We increased minimum wage. We extended the 10% tuition fees to take the burden off the students going to colleges and universities. We’re doubling the payments for low-income seniors, which will provide a maximum increase of almost $1,000. And what we’re asking the federal government: Knock off the 14.5 cents of carbon tax.