Government House leader and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Supplementary question?

The Premier.

Interjections.

The final supplementary.

Speaker, through you to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing: This government’s greenbelt grab exposed a deeply troubling pattern of shady deals and preferential treatment for well-connected land speculators. Now we see evidence of the same activity around urban boundaries and MZO land deals.

Just last week, the Auditor General confirmed an investigation into this government’s questionable use of MZOs. Yesterday, after the flip-flop announcement on urban boundary expansions, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing said he was still reviewing previous MZOs and emphasized, “The vast majority ... I am not concerned with.”

My question, Speaker: Which ones is he concerned about?

A very good question from the member opposite. What I’m concerned with are those MZOs that have led to no action being taken. The MZOs that I’m pleased with, of course, are the ones that the Minister of Long-Term Care has asked for, the ones that the Minister of Education has asked for, the ones that the Minister of Health has asked for. Across the province of Ontario, we have received requests from municipal leaders, but there are a couple of MZOs where they were issued and no work has been done to advance the goal of building homes or building long-term care or building hospitals. So I’m reviewing those, and if we’re not seeing the action to do what the MZO was issued for, I’ll revoke them.

But let’s look at some of the things that we’ve done. Social housing in the city of Toronto: 44 additional social housing units in the city of Toronto; hospital expansions; in Ajax, a 320-bed long-term-care home; a long-term-care home in Oakville; a long-term-care home in Toronto; a medical park in Oro-Medonte. Do you want me to go on? I can go on if you like—modular housing; 252 supportive housing units in Toronto. The Leader of the Opposition doesn’t want that, right? I can go on, Mr. Speaker. If you give me extra time, I’ll go on.

At the same time, as I have been saying constantly and as this government has been showing, we will not stray from our desire to build 1.5 million homes for the people of the province of Ontario. That is our goal. It is the overriding goal of everything that we’ve been doing since 2018. It includes why—the reason why we’re building transit across the province of Ontario. It’s to support the over 700,000 jobs that have been created in the province of Ontario, not by government, but by the private sector. They’re coming back to Ontario, and the province is booming as a result. We want to build more homes, so we will not stray from that.

I know they’re going to try to put obstacle after obstacle after obstacle in the way. They’re good at that. We’ll untangle the mess that they left behind, and we’ll get the job done.

It really is an awkward question, coming from the member opposite. What it is an attempt to distract from the challenges that the opposition has. They’re offside with the people of the province of Ontario. They support a carbon tax; nobody else in the country does. They hold the balance of power in Ottawa. Tomorrow, they could have their federal leader insist that the carbon tax be removed and millions of dollars be put back into the pockets of the people of Ontario. Will they do it? No.

But what we will continue to do is focus on the priorities of the people of the province of Ontario, building strong communities, building the environment where we can continue to create jobs. We’re seeing jobs come back, housing starts are at their highest level—

My question is for the Premier. The RCMP has announced a criminal investigation into the $8.3-billion greenbelt land giveaway. Yesterday, the Minister of Municipal Affairs announced he would reverse the controversial changes to urban boundaries that were imposed by his predecessor. The minister admitted that there was too much involvement from the previous minister’s office in these decisions and that they failed to meet the standard of public trust.

Mr. Speaker, given the criminal investigation into the greenbelt and the similarities with the decisions on the urban boundary expansions, will the Premier take responsibility for leading the government under a shroud of secrecy, leading to criminal investigations, or will he continue to throw his ministers under the bus and back it up again?

The government delayed the approval of Ottawa’s official plan by a year, dragging it out throughout the election, and it seems that they spent that time fundraising on changes, or potential changes, to the plan that could be seen if they won re-election. Not only did they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar; they took a giant bite out of the cookie and are trying to put it back in without anyone noticing.

Mr. Speaker, given the criminal investigation into the greenbelt and the similarities with the decisions on the urban boundaries, will the Premier invite the RCMP to expand their investigation to include these urban boundary decisions as well?

Thank you, Speaker, for the opportunity to address the member from Guelph’s concerns on municipal funding. Let’s talk about development charges. Let’s talk about how, before a single shovel hits the ground, the average homebuyer already faces an average of $116,900 in municipal development charges and fees. That $116,900 is more than the cost of a down payment for many homes. Let’s talk about how, over the course of a 20-year mortgage, this could add more than $800 to a new homebuyer’s monthly payment. I want you to keep this in mind as I talk about who is actually affected by the changes our province made to development charges.

As the member should well know, the changes made to development charges are for non-profit and affordable homes. We’ve been clear—and maybe the member from Guelph disagrees—that the last thing our non-profit and affordable home providers need when they’re looking to build homes for vulnerable Ontarians in our communities is excessive fees and bureaucratic roadblocks preventing them from getting shovels in the ground. Municipalities can still get development charges from most market housing.

So I just want to be clear here: That’s what the member is arguing for. He wants out-of-control fees, which in the case of Guelph add $44,000 to the cost of building the average home, imposed on the non-profit and affordable homes his community critically needs.

Well, Speaker, our government disagrees, and thanks to our changes, we’re already hearing about projects this province finally is moving forward. That means shovels getting in the ground on more affordable homes, more non-profit homes, thanks to us cutting these excessive fees. And that means, across the province, more hard-working Ontarians, more young families, more seniors, newcomers and more vulnerable people will have access to a home that they can actually afford in their own community.

Speaker, I’m also glad that the member opposite gave me the opportunity to talk about what this government is doing to support our municipal partners, because we’re counting on them to do their share in helping us meet our mutual goal of building at least 1.5 million homes by 2031, and we’re committed to providing every tool at our disposal to empower municipalities that are shovel-ready and committed to growth.

Guelph specifically has pledged to build 18,000 homes, and maybe the member would be better directed toward advocating that they catch up on their new home starts. To help achieve these goals, the province has also recently introduced the Building Faster Fund, a $1.2-billion, three-year program to support municipalities in achieving housing targets. Each year, up to $400 million will aid eligible municipalities based on their performance towards helping Ontario build at least 1.5 million new homes by 2031. Additionally, 10% of this funding, $400 million per year, is reserved for municipalities that have not received a housing pledge, including small, rural and northern communities, to address their unique needs.

The fund will help municipalities that have made a pledge to meet their housing targets pay for critical housing, enabling infrastructure needed to accommodate growth, such as site servicing and new roads.

Our government will continue to build homes and make the dream of home ownership attainable for more Ontarians. I hope the member opposite can put partnership over partisanship and support real solutions as we continue to get it done as a government.