I’m pleased to rise to speak about Bill 136, the proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023. And I would like to say here that I would like to share my time with the member from Flamborough–Glanbrook.

As stated by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, we are following through on our commitment to fully restore these lands and provide enhanced protections to the greenbelt moving forward. In order to achieve this, the government of Ontario is introducing legislation that would, if passed, restore all properties that were redesignated or removed within the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges moraine areas in late 2022. That being said, we have not wavered in our commitment to build more homes for Ontarians.

Ontario’s housing affordability crisis, mired in the current federal government’s National Housing Strategy underfunding the province of Ontario by roughly $480 million, is taking a very heavy toll on all Ontarians. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Ontarians to live happy and healthy lives due to decades of inaction, and it is our duty to fix this crisis. That is why our government refuses to leave Ontarians out in the cold and why we continue to fight for Ontarians trying to achieve the dream of home ownership.

It would indeed be a disservice to our children if they are forced to move out of this beautiful province simply because they cannot afford a home. We need to foster the growth of future Ontarians, and the first step is to allow them to remain in Ontario. That is why I am proud to represent a government that stands firmly behind its promise to build one and a half million homes by 2031.

It is also our goal to work with all of our partners to help municipalities build new homes as soon and as efficiently as possible. Municipal governments across Ontario want to build homes for their people, but countless layers of red tape are making this impossible. We have embarked on an ambitious mission, and we will confront the housing crisis head-on. Our commitment is unwavering, and our goal is clear: to build at least one and a half million new homes by 2031. This is not just an arbitrary number; it is a promise to the people of Ontario that affordable housing is our priority. It is a staunch commitment to ensure that everyone living in Ontario has access to safe, affordable and comfortable housing. It is my belief that with the legislation currently being proposed by our government, including Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, and Bill 134, the Affordable Homes and Good Jobs Act, we can create a province where home ownership is a realistic and achievable goal for all Ontarians, and anyone will be able to find a place to call a home.

On our path to achieve this goal, we are proposing to keep the 9,400 acres that our government added to the greenbelt in 2022 under greenbelt protection. These include lands in Paris-Galt moraine and in urban river valley areas. This proposed legislation also reinstates the protections provided for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve easements and covenants, thereby recognizing the importance of this agricultural land and ensuring its sustainable use for the present and for the future generations that will occupy the new homes our government promises to build. Returning these lands to the greenbelt is a pledge to our children and to our grandchildren that our government will protect the natural beauty of Ontario, its fertile soil and the diverse ecosystems that call it home. We are preserving the very essence of what makes our province such a desirable place for people to live.

Speaker, I want to be clear: If this proposed legislation is passed, our government will be responsible for making the greenbelt the largest that it has ever been, securing sustainable agricultural land to enrich the lives of present and future Ontarians.

Restoring the protections and policies of the Greenbelt Act in its entirety includes the need for a review every 10 years, as was mandated by the previous government when the legislation was originally introduced and passed. In our commitment to restoring the protections and policies of the Greenbelt Act in its entirety, we must not forget the importance of periodic review. Decennial reviews of the greenbelt lands will act as insurance to the people of Ontario moving forward that their voices will be heard and policies surrounding the greenbelt-protected territories will be refined to serve the evolving needs of our society.

Speaker, I would also like to make it clear that in order to effectively preserve the greenbelt lands, our government will be in direct contact and in constant engagement with Indigenous communities and municipalities situated in and around the affected areas.

Moving forward, we will ensure that this review is conducted with the utmost integrity and impartiality. It will be led by a panel of non-partisan experts, individuals who have dedicated their lives to the field of conservation, agriculture and environmental protection. These experts will have Ontario’s best interests at heart and will carry out their duties with the utmost diligence, with a singular focus on the betterment of our province through agricultural preservation and the sustaining surrounding regions.

To close, the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, is a testament to the enduring commitments of our government. It will ensure that greenbelt lands are protected and secured in the most robust fashion they have ever seen, allowing the Ontarians who will eventually occupy the 1.5 million homes this government will get built to be fulfilled by the natural beauty of Ontario: its fertile soil and its diverse and wonderful ecosystems. Additionally, the agricultural utility afforded by the reinstatement of the protections provided for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve easements and covenants will be appreciated by present and future Ontarians who will have the pleasure of enjoying homegrown foods grown in prime Ontario farmland.

Our government remains steadfast in providing the tools required by municipalities to build more homes in our ever-growing province. And with this legislation, if passed, they will be able to do so, all while respecting Ontario’s historic green space.

Finally, our government remains open to further feedback on the proposed amendments, as evidenced by our postings on the Environmental Registry of Ontario and the Regulatory Registry.

The Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, is another step in allowing us to continue to build a more affordable and sustainable Ontario.

Speaker, I’ve been working with the Premier now for five years, and once in a while, the Premier is not afraid to take a step back, to change direction and even to apologize when we make a mistake. I think that’s one of the most gratifying things about having the opportunity to work with this government. Yet so often, you will see governments and even Prime Ministers change direction, but they don’t apologize.

I remember looking at my wife once and saying, “Why do you put up with me?” Please, no one say anything—and she said, “Because when you apologize, I can tell that you mean it.” And I think that’s also true of our Premier: He can look into the eyes of the camera, into the eyes of 15 million Ontarians, apologize and mean it, change direction and do what’s right for the people of Ontario.

And with those remarks, I will close.

Thank you, and good afternoon, Madam Speaker. I’m proud to rise for the second reading of our government’s proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023.

Thank you to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Associate Minister of Housing, and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing for all your hard work on this legislation.

As stated by my colleagues, our government is introducing legislation to restore all 15 areas of land that were removed or redesignated from the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges moraine at the end of last year. The restoration of these 15 parcels of land is important to constituents across the 10 local municipalities of Vaughan, King, Richmond Hill, Whitchurch-Stouffville, Markham, Pickering, Ajax, Clarington, Grimsby and my hometown of Hamilton.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to reiterate the important pieces of this proposed legislation that would, if passed, benefit all Ontarians. Not only would this legislation keep the 9,400 acres that were added to the greenbelt in 2022, but the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, would enhance existing protections to greenbelt land. These protections would ensure that any future changes to the boundaries of the greenbelt can only be made through an open, public and transparent process that would require approval from this House.

The requirement of a review every 10 years, along with an enhanced review process, will result in any changes to the greenbelt to be based on the decisions of the people of Ontario. The review will be led by impartial, non-partisan experts in conservation, agriculture and environmentalism and will also include engagement with Indigenous communities and municipalities. Once final, these experts’ recommendations will be provided to the Auditor General and the Commissioner of the Environment for consultation to ensure the process was indeed fair.

If this legislation is passed, the greenbelt will be larger and better-protected than it has ever been. The act would restore protections previously provided by the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2005, recognizing the importance of this agricultural land and ensuring its sustainable use for generations to come.

Madam Speaker, this Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act follows through on our government’s commitment to fully restore these lands and to provide enhanced protections to the greenbelt moving forward. Our government is following through on ensuring that any future changes to the greenbelt boundaries can be made only through the open, public and transparent legislative progress. Our government also remains focused on following through with confronting the housing crisis by building at least 1.5 million new homes by 2031.

Relating to the proposals that I’ve already outlined, the legislation would also include measures to strengthen the province’s immunity from landowners attempting to seek damages based on government actions related to the greenbelt. The intent of these measures is there should be absolutely no impact to taxpayers for restoring these parcels of land to the greenbelt, regardless of what has been said or what has been done by government officials.

Madam Speaker, in the past 10 years, house prices in Ontario have almost tripled. Home ownership has become beyond reach for many first-time buyers. Recognizing this crisis, our government has adopted one of our clear mandates as building more homes for the province. As the member for Perth–Wellington stated, our government developed a Housing Affordability Task Force compromised of industry leaders and experts. The task force consulted with municipalities, with industry and with the public to identify measures to address the housing supply crisis and to get homes built faster.

The Housing Affordability Task Force published its report in February 2022. Overall, the report sets out 74 recommendations. Madam Speaker, of this number, 23 are fully implemented, 14 are in progress and the remaining 37 are under review. The first recommendation, to set a goal of building at least 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years, has been adopted by our government as the core of our housing strategy. All of our housing initiatives, Madam Speaker, such as introducing legislation and re-examining processes, are focused around this goal of 1.5 million new homes.

Since we were elected in 2018, our government has made this mandate of building more homes a top priority and put forward numerous measures to increase the housing supply, as my colleague the member for Elgin–Middlesex–London discussed earlier. Madam Speaker, we have encouraged increased density through Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act. We introduced measures that encourage the creation of up to three units on most urban residential lots, enabling additional housing options on lots where neighbourhoods already exist without lengthy planning approvals and development charges. We have worked with municipalities to remove red tape and to speed up the process. This is reflected in 2021 and 2022, as those years saw the most housing starts in over 30 years, with close to 100,000 homes built each and every year. We have announced the expansion of strong-mayor powers to heads of council who have committed to housing targets provided by the province.

We are also proposing to revise the definition of “affordable residential units” through Bill 134, the Affordable Homes and Good Jobs Act, to reduce the cost of building much-needed affordable units. The proposed changes would affect the collection of municipal development-related charges related to affordable housing. Madam Speaker, a revised definition of “affordable residential units,” taking into account local incomes and local market factors, would determine which residential units should be eligible for municipal development-related charge discounts and exemptions. Both rental and ownership properties that meet this new “affordable residential unit” definition would be eligible for discounts and exemptions from municipal development-related fees

We are also further incentivizing municipalities to build more housing through our housing targets and the new Building Faster Fund. This three-year, $1.2-billion fund will provide up to $400 million per year to municipalities that meet or exceed their annual housing targets. The fund can be accessed by the 50 municipalities who have been assigned a housing target, and a portion of the funding will also be reserved for small, rural and northern communities not yet assigned a target.

Madam Speaker, this legislation, if passed, would help combat the current housing crisis by allowing and encouraging more homes to be built right across the province. We are following through on our commitment to build 1.5 million new homes through increased density on urban residential lots, the removal of red tape throughout the building process, revising the definition of “affordable homes” and providing discounts and exemptions to homes that meet this new definition. This legislation would also restore and provide enhanced protections to the 9,400 acres of greenbelt land moving forward.

Madam Speaker, we’re following through on our commitment that any future changes to the boundaries can only be made through an open, public and transparent process. Our government remains steadfast in reaching our goal of 1.5 million new homes by 2031. We cannot ignore that we are in the middle of a housing supply crisis. Decades of inaction, burdensome red tape and NIMBYism created Ontario’s housing supply crisis, and we are seeing its effects. Too many people in Ontario are struggling to find an affordable home. Too many Ontarians have been priced out of the housing market, through no fault of their own. Our government is fighting back, and we will continue to fight for Ontarians. We’re going to do that by working together under Premier Ford’s leadership, by working together with municipalities and by updating processes that get housing built faster.

Since the beginning of our mandate, we have put forward numerous measures that help increase the supply of housing. We’ve done this by:

—encouraging increased density through Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act;

—working with municipalities to remove red tape and to eliminate duplication in the planning process;

—announcing the expansion of strong mayor’s powers to heads of council who have committed to the housing targets provided by the province;

—proposing to revise the definition of “affordable residential units”; and

—further incentivizing municipalities to build more housing with housing targets and the new Building Faster Fund.

These are just a few of the many measures we have taken to build new homes and to prepare for the growth that we know is coming.

It’s a real honour to participate in the debate on Bill 136, the protect the greenbelt from the Premier act—oh, I mean, the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, or, as the previous member said, the protect the greenbelt from the Progressive Conservative Party act.

I think there are many ways we could name this bill, but the one thing that is clear is the people of Ontario are outraged. They are outraged and in the midst of a housing crisis. Instead of having a government focused on building homes that ordinary people can afford in the communities they want to live in and on the land already approved for development, the government prioritized land grabs so a handful of wealthy well-connected government insiders could cash in at a minimum $8.3 billion in windfall profits.

I just want to say to the people of Ontario, thank you for saying no. Thank you for standing up, farmers, citizens, community organizations, environmental groups, local city councillors—standing up and saying no to opening the greenbelt for development. This is what people power looks like, Speaker.

I want to say thank you to the journalists who investigated, investigated, investigated and learned about the massages in Vegas and all the other shady practices that were happening around this. By the way, I said earlier today at a protest on Ontario Place that if the Premier wants a fancy massage, he shouldn’t go to Ontario Place; he should go to Vegas—because we should be protecting Ontario Place too.

I also want to say thank you to the officers of the Legislature—the Integrity Commissioner, the Auditor General—who provided the guardrails of democracy to protect from the corrupt process that led to this decision.

And thank you to the RCMP for agreeing to investigate this, because the people of Ontario deserve honest answers to how a government could waste so much time, money and effort not building homes but creating a process that led to $8.3 billion in windfall profits for wealthy well-connected elites.

The Premier said he was sorry for breaking his promise, and that’s what has brought us Bill 136. But I ask, is he sorry that he got caught breaking his promise? Is he sorry that the well-connected wealthy insiders who are his friends are not going to be able to cash in $8.3 billion now? Is he sorry that he broke his promise? Or is he sorry that the government has failed to actually focus on building houses?

I can tell you that in the months leading up to Bill 136, the Premier compared the greenbelt to Communist China and North Korea. He repeatedly, over and over again, attacked the integrity of the greenbelt. He said it was drawn up with crayons. He called it a scam. So Speaker, does he really want to protect the greenbelt? Because I can tell you, the only scam was the suggestion that the greenbelt lands were needed to address the housing affordability crisis.

We’ve had the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force, we’ve had planners, we’ve had professional planners, we’ve had the Auditor General all say that we already have enough land approved for development in Ontario to not only build the 1.5 million homes we all want to build, but to build two million homes. So why aren’t we focused on actually building those homes?

While we’re looking at Bill 136, let’s take a moment to think about why these greenbelt lands are so important, because I think in the course of the debate around the corrupt process that led to this decision, we’ve actually forgotten why these lands were so important. First of all, the greenbelt was designed through a collaborative process led by experts, professional planners, hydrogeologists, farmers, scientists, academics and community leaders. A whole host of folks looked at how we can protect the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO heritage site; the Oak Ridges moraine, which is critically important to filtering the drinking water for the entire greater Toronto area; and some of the best farmland in all of North America, particularly the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve.

The forests and wetlands of the greenbelt are vital to protecting us from the climate-fuelled extreme weather events we’re facing right now. As a matter of fact, it provides billions of dollars of ecosystem services free of charge each and every year. It provides employment for economic activity of well over $3 billion each and every year. The extreme weather events it protects us from are things like the $3.1 billion of insured damages that Canadians faced last year because of the climate crisis, and according to the IBC, that’s likely three times as much when you look at uninsured assets. They protect us from the $26.2 billion that the Financial Accountability Officer has said we’re going to have to pay to protect public infrastructure in the next seven years this decade alone because of the climate crisis.

They also protect, particularly in the DRAP, some of the best farmland in all of North America. That farmland is vital to our food security at a time when global events, conflict, supply chain disruptions and climate-fuelled weather are creating spikes in food prices around the world. If there was ever a time that we needed to protect our local food supply, our local food supply chains and our farmland, now is that time—the very farmland that is the asset base that contributes $50 billion to Ontario’s food and farming economy, employing over 800,000 people in this province.

That’s what people are wanting protected. That’s why these greenbelt lands are so valuable, and it’s why it’s so valuable that we also push back against greenbelt 2.0—the abuse and misuse of ministerial zoning orders, the enforced boundary expansions—because we simply cannot continue to lose 319 acres of farmland each and every day. That threatens our food security and it threatens our food and farming economy.

This sprawl agenda that led to the desire to open the greenbelt for development and require municipalities to increase their boundaries also makes the housing crisis worse. We have great, good documentation showing that the cost of sprawl development is 2.5 times higher than actually building homes within existing urban boundaries. Why, Speaker? The cost of water lines, sewer lines, hydro lines, transit lines, roads, libraries, parks, schools—all of that is incredibly expensive.

As a matter of fact, the city of Ottawa conducted a study that showed that when you build through sprawl, it costs each taxpayer in the city an additional $465 per person per year, but when you build within existing urban boundaries, gentle density, missing middle, you save $606 per person per house per year. That’s $1,000-per-person-per-year difference. We simply cannot, on a financial and economic basis, afford the government’s sprawl agenda.

That’s exactly why we not only need to protect the greenbelt, but we need to be looking at things like creating a food belt to protect prime farmland, and it’s also why we need housing policy that’s going to build homes within existing urban boundaries. That’s exactly why I’ve put forward bills like Bill 44 and Bill 45 that would make it legal to build multiplexes and four-storey walk-up apartments; that would make it legal—remove all the red tape—to build six-to-11-storey apartment buildings along major transportation corridors, so we can increase housing supply in the most affordable way, that protects our farmland, protects our wetlands, protects our green spaces.

It’s also why I’ve put forward bills that truly protect the greenbelt, that close some of the loopholes that the previous Liberal government left in the greenbelt, like my Bill 111, No More Pits or Quarries in the Greenbelt Act, so we can say no to the Caledon mega quarry that would blast a hole on hundreds of acres of farmland; like my Bill 110, No More Highways in the Greenbelt Act, so we can say no to the super-sprawl 413 that would pave over 2,000 acres of farmland, 400 acres of the greenbelt, traverse 85 wetlands and threaten 100 waterways within the province. If we’re truly going to protect the greenbelt, then those provisions should be in Bill 136, Speaker.

In addition to increasing market supply—and I’ve put forward a number of solutions around increasing market supply, including the two bills I’ve talked about. Also, I’m going to continue to push this government to replace the $5.1 billion they’ve taken away from municipalities, money that’s required to build the servicing so we can actually build 1.5 million homes, so people can turn the water on, flush the toilet and have the services they need. We’re also going to need non-market supply as well, Speaker.

We’re also going to need a government that’s going to step up and support non-profit co-ops and supportive housing spaces in this province. Some 93% of the deeply affordable homes in Ontario were built before 1995. What happened in 1995? The provincial and federal governments got out of housing. We need government to be a partner with the non-profit and co-op sector again.

Finally, Speaker, we’re going to have to take action to get speculation out of the housing market. I mean, we saw a government try to benefit speculators by opening the greenbelt for development. We need to get speculators out of the housing market, Speaker. Nearly one third of Ontario’s housing wealth is owned by speculators. Speculators are driving first-time homebuyers out of the marketplace, which is why we need things like multi-residential speculation taxes, vacant home taxes and other measures to protect first-time homebuyers in the province—