Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 31, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 136, An Act to amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005 and certain other Acts, to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023, to repeal an Act and to revoke various regulations / Projet de loi 136, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2005 sur la ceinture de verdure et d’autres lois, édictant la Loi de 2023 sur la Réserve agricole de Duffins-Rouge et abrogeant une loi et divers règlements.

Questions?

J’aime tout le temps écouter mon collègue de l’autre bord de la rue, parce qu’il est tout le temps intéressant à voir, mais disons que—pas tout à fait d’accord avec ce qu’il vient de dire là. On a fait une motion. Je vous rappellerais qu’on a fait une motion, puis que vous avez voté contre, pour adresser, justement, le manque de logements. Et, après ça, ils disent qu’on ne travaille pas avec eux autres? Je ne suis pas sûr, moi c’est qui qui n’est pas transparent. Ça a pris trois mois avant qu’ils s’excusent. Mais pas rien que ça : en 2018, ils ont dit qu’ils ne toucheraient pas à la ceinture de verdure. Ils ont touché à la ceinture de verdure. En 2022, on se souvient que le premier ministre a dit qu’il ne toucherait pas à la ceinture de verdure. Il a touché à la ceinture de verdure.

Là, ils vivent une crise de gouvernement, un des—comment je dirais ça? Ils sont entourés d’une investigation criminelle, un scandale—le vrai mot—puis ils essayent de nous faire la leçon de transparence. Ils essayent de nous dire que nous, on ne travaille pas avec—

Merci, madame la Présidente. Merci aussi à mon collègue de Mushkegowuk–Baie James. Cette situation—je me souviens quand mon fils était jeune. Il aimait beaucoup jouer avec ses jouets—et c’est le temps pour prendre un bain, c’est le temps pour manger, c’est le temps pour faire dodo, et je lui dis : « Sam, viens ici, c’est le temps pour manger. » Et tout le temps, il m’a dit « après » ou « non merci, non merci ». C’est la même chose pour le gouvernement conservateur et le premier ministre. Quand le public est très fâché de cette situation, le premier ministre et le gouvernement conservateur disent : « Non merci, non merci. »

Mais maintenant, c’est une investigation criminelle et le public est très fâché. Pourquoi est-ce que le public est très fâché contre le gouvernement conservateur et le premier ministre?

I want to thank the member for his address this morning. Clearly, Speaker, the housing crisis is the most important issue facing not just Ontario but Canada today, and in our exuberance to get the job done, we made some mistakes, and the Premier has acknowledged that. The Premier has acknowledged that we were not on the same page with the people of Ontario. As a result, we brought forth this legislation that is going to codify the boundaries of the greenbelt.

But I’m going to ask the opposition: They know what a crisis we’re in as well as we do. It’s on the news every day. Will they get behind us now to help solve the housing crisis in Ontario, which will help solve the housing crisis in Canada—because without it, the future is bleak. I want to say to the members: Stop politicking on housing and let’s get behind the solutions that are brought forth by this government that has shown leadership on this issue.

Good morning. It’s great to see you all here this morning. As I was sitting down and preparing my notes, I thought, why are we here? Why are we here right now? That’s really what the debate is all about. How did we get here?

But I do want to say in the spirit of the season that yesterday was Halloween, and what I did say with all sincerity is that I hope that the Premier can carve pumpkins better than he carved up the greenbelt, because that’s what he was doing this time last year and he made a mess of it, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re here this morning.

Interjection.

Interjection.

To be fair to all of you, it wasn’t all of you. It’s a couple of people, mostly the Premier, that we have to protect the greenbelt from. And I’m glad that he saw the light. I really do believe that he felt the heat.

Interjection.

So why are we here? Why are we here, Minister? We’re here because you tried to carve up the greenbelt and give it to your friends, give it away to your friends—and not a lot of your friends, just a few friends. You know what? Families are struggling right now. I’m sure they really like the fact that you wanted to give a handful of people, well-connected insiders, an $8.3-billion payday while they’re just trying to pay the bills. We should be here talking about a return to real rent control. Why aren’t we talking about that? No, we’re talking about protecting the greenbelt from the Premier.

So why are we here? I’m going to keep asking that question. Well, we’re here because the Minister of Housing resigned. Another cabinet minister resigned. Then the Minister of Labour thought he was better off going to Woodbine than he was staying here. What does that tell you? He literally pulled the chute the day after the Premier did his backflip. That’s why we’re here. Three cabinet ministers—three. Maybe there will be some more.

Speaking of flip-flops, it’s connected. We did this greenbelt flip-flop because the government was discovered. Everything was ripped back. So we did the flip-flop with the greenbelt. Then we did a flip-flop on the MZOs. Why did we do that? Well, we did a flip-flop on the greenbelt because the government essentially got caught red-handed trying to benefit a small group of well-connected insiders—by his own admission, the Premier’s friends.

If we’re reversing the urban boundaries now, is it because we’re doing it for the same reason we did it for the greenbelt? It certainly looks like that. This morning I read a story about a well-known Conservative, Quinto Annibale, who—Vaughan Working Families, if we all remember that, and God knows what else—successfully got his greenbelt excluded—sorry, his golf course, which is a bit of a greenbelt in some ways, excluded from the greenbelt. What’s with that? Another well-connected insider.

Further questions?

Je veux remercier mon collègue pour faire l’effort de parler en français. Je pense que tu fais beaucoup de progrès; ça fait que merci pour la question.

Pourquoi les citoyens sont choqués? Parce que les citoyens voient très clair. On pense souvent que les citoyens ne nous suivent pas ou qu’ils ne comprennent pas. Mais une chose qu’on sait, c’est que les citoyens, quand ils viennent et quand ils vont voter, ils vont être clairs.

Puis, je me demande, moi, où est-ce qu’ils vont être aux prochaines élections? Parce que, quand un gouvernement n’est pas intègre, n’est pas transparent et est en pleine crise, et qu’ils sont investigués par la GRC, écoute, il y en a qui vont revoler, là. Il va y avoir du monde qui va payer cher.

Je peux vous dire que les citoyens—il ne faut pas prendre les citoyens pour des cruches, comme ils disent en français, parce que le gouvernement, ils ont essayé de les prendre pour des valises et ils les ont bourrés bien comme il faut.

Oui, on va voter pour ça. Pourquoi? On va protéger les citoyens contre vous, le gouvernement. Vous devriez avoir honte d’amener un projet de loi de même où vous dites aux citoyens : « On va vous protéger contre nous, le gouvernement. » Pas fort, pas fort.

Mais, la réalité c’est qu’il faut que le gouvernement aille se promener dans les parcs—qu’ils sortent de leur tour d’ivoire et qu’ils aillent voir ce qui se passe.

Moi, je n’ai jamais vu des « tent cities » dans le nord de l’Ontario. On en voit à Sudbury. On commence à en voir à Timmins—du monde qui vivent dans des tentes où il fait des moins 25 degrés ou moins 30 degrés. Puis, le gouvernement, ils disent qu’ils sont là pour les citoyens.

On traite de ce projet de loi pour se protéger parce qu’ils savent qu’ils sont pris dans un scandale, puis que tout ce temps-là, ils auraient pu mettre les efforts. Il ne faut pas oublier, là, que leur propre comité leur recommandait de ne pas utiliser la ceinture de verdure. Nous n’oublierons jamais ça, qu’ils n’étaient pas obligés de la prendre. Mais ils l’ont prise pareil—

Interjections.

Puis, oui, on reconnaît qu’il faut bâtir les maisons. Écoute, on a mis une motion devant le gouvernement pour demander votre support pour répondre aux besoins des personnes les plus démunies ou les personnes qui en ont besoin. Fait que, oui; mais ce n’est pas vrai qu’on va embarquer dans votre bateau de corruption. Ce n’est pas vrai qu’on va embarquer dans votre scandale. Ce n’est pas vrai qu’on va vous supporter et dire : « Oui, on va supporter ce projet de loi. » Ça protège les citoyens de votre abus—

Pour le député : vraiment, je crois que c’est un gouvernement vraiment honteux, et tous les gens en Ontario le croient aussi.

La crise du logement est vraiment réelle. Avec ce scandale, le plus grand jamais en Ontario, nous avons perdu beaucoup de temps pour améliorer les choses pour les gens. Nous avons plein de gens—les sans-abris. L’hiver s’en vient et il y a des gens dans ma circonscription qui vivent dans des tentes maintenant.

Est-ce que vous pouvez expliquer au gouvernement ce qu’il a perdu et comment c’est un autre échec à propos de cette crise de logement?

Je suis contente de dire que partout dans notre province, nos communautés grandissent. La population de l’Ontario a augmenté de plus de 500 000 nouveaux résidents l’année dernière et a dépassé les 15 millions pour la toute première fois. Notre population devrait croître de quatre millions de personnes au cours de la prochaine année. Donc, je me demande si le député d’en face se joindra à nous pour aider à construire les maisons dont nous avons besoin, tout en protégeant la « greenbelt »?

Another lucky coincidence.

Really, another lucky coincidence.

Why are we here? Well, the Premier’s chief of staff, Amin Massoudi, no longer connected to the government—caught up in this. The Premier’s director of housing, Jae Truesdell, no longer connected to government—exiled, gone, dismissed. The Premier’s former executive assistant, Nico Fidani-Diker, also caught up in this, also implicated—gone. Then we have the Premier’s hand-picked chief of staff for the Minister of Housing, Ryan Amato—gone, jettisoned. Four people directly connected to the Premier all gone, like that. That’s why we’re here.

You know why we’re here? We’re here because all roads in this scandal lead to the Premier’s office. It’s clear. The Premier can’t even remember who he talked to—or he did talk to or he didn’t talk to and then, all of a sudden, “Yes, I did talk to him but he talked to me about that before so there was no real problem with that.” Come on, do you think we’re all stupid—myself excluded, but the rest of us? To the Premier directly: How do you expect people to believe that?

The Premier is saying that he knew nothing, but these four people who were well connected to him in the file that was one of the most important things to the Premier—because we know what the Premier likes to do; he likes development and he likes building roads, so we know he was interested in this file. Those four people are directly connected to him. They worked for him. They worked under his direction. And I would argue that the Minister of Housing was doing that, but he said, “I’ve had enough.”

I’ve worked in a Premier’s office. I’ve worked with ministers’ offices; I’ve worked in ministers’ offices. There is no way on God’s green earth that the Premier didn’t know what was going on—not possible, not believable, not for a second. And if the Premier is trying to claim that he knew nothing and he was in the same position as Minister Clark and he stuck his head in the sand, that’s fine; just do the same thing as Minister Clark did, if that’s the case. I don’t think that’s the case, and I don’t think he’s going to do it, even if it was the case.

Now we have something else going on. Why are we here? We’re here because we have an RCMP criminal investigation into the $8.3-billion backroom deal. They’re starting interviews this week. But here’s the kicker. It’s connected in this debate. Why does the Ontario taxpayer have to pay for the lawyers of the people implicated on the other side—the Premier, the minister, the staff—to cover up what went on? Why are we paying for it? Why are we paying for the Premier’s lawyers? Why? It’s a criminal investigation. It’s not a civil investigation; it’s a criminal investigation. Somebody did something wrong. That’s what people suspect. They broke the law, and now they want us to pay for their lawyers. Do you know who should pay for the lawyers? The people who benefited the most out of this $8.3-billion backroom deal and the MZOs and the urban boundaries: the Ontario PC Party. Let them pay the bill. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay the bill. It’s totally wrong. I think the Premier, if he was standing on this side, would say exactly the same thing, and maybe in less charitable terms. That’s why we’re here.

Hey, folks, I don’t think it’s all of you guys. I really don’t. I don’t think you knew any more than I knew. I believe that. But there are some people over there who did, and there are some other people over there who stuck their heads in the sand as the greenbelt was being carved up for purposes that were not for the people of Ontario, to the benefit of few well-connected, already-wealthy insiders who stood to make billions and billions of dollars.

I know it’s $8.3 billion for the greenbelt, but how much is the uplift for the MZOs? How much is the uplift for the urban boundaries which just got reversed by the minister this week? How many more billions of dollars are we talking about? Are we into double-digit billions of dollars: $10 billion, $15 billion, $13 billion? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

It’s about the way this government thinks it can do business here, the way the Premier thinks he can do business here. That’s why we’re here debating this morning.

A year and a half ago, we didn’t need this legislation. Why do we need it? Because the Premier tried to carve up the greenbelt, just like he was probably carving a pumpkin last night—probably still cleaning it up, too.

Look, I think we should protect the greenbelt, but I think members on the other side have to ask themselves the question: What’s going on inside my party? What’s happening?

I saw last week—and I’ll give another example of this. All of a sudden the government, in unwinding the urban boundaries, and maybe the MZOs soon, took the previous minister, who had already done the right thing, and he got thrown under the bus—because it’s not just him, right? What I heard was, “We’re going to back the bus over him again.” Rather than backing the bus over the previous minister, instead of doing that, why not just do the right thing? It would be a lot easier that way. I don’t think it’s fair to that minister. I don’t think you can put it all on a small group of people. That’s just preposterous.

The truth is going to come out, folks. It’s going to happen. The Mounties—what about the Mounties?

The truth’s going to come out. It eventually will, so why don’t we just get there? If you know you’re going to end up somewhere, just get there. Just get there, because for all of you it’s just going to be another story another day that you’re going to have to explain to your constituents, that you’re going to have to answer questions for—that you’re going to have to defend the indefensible.

That happens over there on the other side. I know that sometimes you’re in government and you have policies that you don’t really believe in, but you’ve got to toe the line. You’re on a team. You’re playing on a team. I understand that.

This is different. This is a criminal investigation into an $8.3-billion backroom deal that benefited a handful of people who are already billionaires, for the most part, and who, by the Premier’s own admission, are his friends and his fundraisers. Why should you have to defend that? You didn’t do it. Maybe some of you knew what was going on and you just kind of turned your head; I don’t feel as sorry for you as I do for other members who are thinking, “What the heck is going on here? How did that happen?” Why should you have to defend that? It’s not a bad policy decision. It’s an action that has ended up in a criminal investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and that is very serious. That’s not a bad policy decision. That’s a question of ethics, and it’s important to the people of Ontario.

God love you, I’m glad I’m not in your spot.

Thank you to the member from Ottawa South for his comments.

Madam Speaker, why we are here: for the reason we got elected—from my riding, and most of my colleagues—for the historical reason that the people elected us to do the change and bring hope and dreams to the people of Ontario. That’s why we are here. I have to remind the member opposite.

But we are in a housing crisis. I was talking to, regularly, on a weekly basis—from building the one house or somebody building a subdivision, the house prices went up. The number one reason is the process. The municipalities have red tape and bureaucracy is killing our housing industry—no supply.

Our government is taking decisive action. We know that the greenbelt issue is—we acknowledged that, the Premier acknowledged that, and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing acknowledged that. That is what real leadership is all about—we admit and we move on.

This bill is a great bill, and I’m asking the member opposite to join us—

Thank you to the member from Ottawa South for his presentation. I also have a question about—the government admitted that they made a mistake giving preferential treatment for greenbelt speculators. Do they also admit and do you think they should admit that they made a mistake in giving preferential treatment to the speculators when it comes to the arbitrary MZOs? Because that still has not been reversed, and there are a lot of parts of the greenbelt that are actually not reversed through this restoration act as well.

I just want to say to the member, who I greatly respect, I don’t think you knew anything about this. I’m not trying to be critical of you. I’m being critical of the Premier and some other people close to the front row and in the front row who knew about it, or who were part of it, or who were in the offices.

It’s good that we’re here this morning to protect the greenbelt from the Premier or whoever else in the next couple of years ends up sitting in that chair from that side. I’m not sure who it’s going to be—it will be somebody, I’m sure. We shouldn’t have to be here this morning.

If it was about housing, you would go to real rent control; you would actually build a corporation that acted as a bank and worked with developers to build housing that was affordable, and a mix of housing. That’s what you would do. I think all three parties here have suggested that. Actually, you did that, as a government, way back in the 1970s.

Just get your hands dirty. Pick up the tools.

But this greenbelt thing, why we’re here this morning, is all about land speculation.

I don’t believe that the vast majority of people on this side knew what was going on. I think some people turned their heads, and there’s a group of people in there who knew what they were doing. Now what they’re saying is, “Pay for my lawyers.” I say no, we’re not going to pay for that. The Ontario PC Party should pay for it.

The last time it was changed—22 months; I think 2,000 people in the consultation; 17 changes, 340 acres; added 20 river basins and 20,000 acres. Okay? You guys took it out.

Interjection.

Come on. Stop saying the “17 times.” Just take it out of your talking points. Do we have whiteout? Does whiteout still exist? Somebody in the House leader’s office, get some whiteout and just take that line out.

Interjections.

Mr. John Fraser: Okay, they’re hearing me behind the desk. Just take it out, because it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything.

We’re not protecting the greenbelt from these people here. We’re protecting them from you. And you have to put forward legislation—

I think we’ve all seen it. I’ve seen a few MZOs where I’m going, “Yeah, they built the long-term care home, but how come they need all this other land? Oh, that’s interesting. And who’s building the long-term-care home and who owns all that land? Oh, that’s interesting. And where do they put their money? Oh, that’s interesting.”

But you know what? Here’s the good news: We’re going to be able to talk about this for the next three years, because it’s not going away, because the longer you drag it out instead of getting to where you need to get to—we’re going to keep talking about this—

Questions?

Response?

Further questions?

Thank you very much for your words today. I agree with you; we shouldn’t be here. It’s unbelievable.

I want to pick up on your theme of how much this is going to cost Ontario, both figuratively and literally.

We see this government—I can’t imagine how many of these individual MPPs had fundraisers with these developers. That’s a connection that I wouldn’t want to have to be worrying about in the middle of the night. So what about those fundraisers?

The Attorney General now is going to go to court, with our taxpayer dollars, to seek a special judicial review on environmental assessments simply so that they can ram through Ontario Place and their Highway 413. Who does that benefit? Insiders, speculators, friends of the Premier.

This goes way beyond the greenbelt in terms of what it’s going to cost taxpayers and what’s at stake.

To the member opposite, a very lively presentation you made there. I do have to say, 17 times that party carved out the greenbelt, so we could throw a lot of questions your way about lawyers etc. and transparency.

But through Bill 136, the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act—if this passes, and I hope it does—we intend to enshrine the greenbelt boundaries in legislation, which will be different compared to what the previous government did. Any future changes would require discussion and a vote by all MPPs. My question to the member is, will you join us and support a fair and open process?

That’s a good MZO, but do you know what? In 15 years, we did 18 MZOs—one, eight. In three years, you did 110. That’s a factor of 35 times more MZOs. We don’t have 35 times Stellantis plants across this province, right?

My point is, it’s a tool that you use to help your community. That’s a good thing. It’s a tool that we used 18 times to help communities. But 110 times, over the will of councils? That’s not to help communities.

Your MZO is a good MZO, and I stand behind that, and as a member you should do that. That was the right thing for you to do in this House. But for God’s sake, don’t attach it to the rest of the dirt.