SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
October 31, 2023 09:00AM

I appreciate the question from the member. And it’s true, Madam Speaker: We’re going to have to find another place to put those 50,000 homes that were going to go into the greenbelt now. I think that’s a reality that we all have to face and our communities all have to face too. Sometimes I wonder about this megacity that we will be constructing around the GTHA and how that will connect through the greenbelt lands that will be protected, but we are absolutely committed, both to environmental protection and to building homes for everyone.

We’ve heard suggestions about how government should just build everything. There was a Conservative Premier who tried that once, and I think that proved the fact, when Bill Davis tried that experiment, that government-built social housing just doesn’t work.

And I heard the mayor of Toronto asking for $550,000 per dwelling unit in order to build social housing in Toronto when I have people who could do that for $250,000 locally in the private sector.

And what’s interesting—and I’m sure the members in the opposition can check their own email inboxes, but I can tell you that no one in Brantford and Brant is talking about the greenbelt. What they’re talking about is affordability. What they’re talking about is getting rid of the carbon tax. What they’re talking about is decreasing interest rates on their homes so that they can afford to stay in our community. They want to be able to buy cheaper food. I know the NDP doesn’t understand any of those things, because they think that the government should take care of you from the cradle to the grave, but the people in my riding want the opposition to speak to Jagmeet Singh and ask him to remove HST.

Interjection.

314 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border