I’d like to welcome to Queen’s Park today the Indo-Canadian Council for Arts and Culture, the Toronto Malayalee Samajam and the Indo-Canada Kerala Chamber of Commerce. They are going to be hosting a Kerala Day lunch reception right here in room 228, starting after question period. Everybody is welcome.

We are working with the city of Toronto, actually, very closely with respect to their official plan. We’re also working with them on a host of other issues; issues that, frankly, have been brought on by the member’s federal party—a federal party that refuses to pay for its share of services in the city of Toronto. We have shelters that are bursting at the seams because of the policies of the federal Liberal government.

This finance minister and this Premier have stepped up to the plate and are providing funding to the city of Toronto. The federal government has yet to match that funding, as they should be doing. We are working very closely with the city of Toronto, as I said, on its official plan. We are working very closely with them. The Minister of Finance is leading a team to ensure that we can address some of the challenges that they are facing, ostensibly because of policies of the federal Liberal government.

So if the member wants to be helpful, she can call 1-800-Justin and help them see the light so that we—

Interjections.

Do you know what we’re doing? We’re untangling the mess. But it’s even more than that. It’s high interest rates. Why? Because of policies of the Liberals. We had a Liberal cabinet minister on TV the other day say that the only reason that there’s tax relief from the carbon tax in Atlantic Canada is because Liberal members there said something about it. So why don’t the Liberals here and the Liberals MPs in Ontario say something about it and do something to bring more affordability to the people of Ontario instead of sitting on your butts and doing—

Interjections.

Well, Speaker, we’re working very closely with the city of Toronto on its official plan, but we just heard from the member from Don Valley, who doesn’t want to build homes in her community. The member from University–Rosedale, who is in agreement with us that more lands needed to be opened up with respect to building more homes—I’m delighted to hear that she, unlike her leader and her party, agrees with us that we need to build more homes and we need to do it in a different fashion.

Actually, I was just in the member’s community announcing two towers of rental housing—I think over 600 units of purpose-built rental housing. Do you know why that’s getting done? I’m glad you asked, Mr. Speaker. The reason that that is getting done is because this Premier and that finance minister fought tooth and nail with the federal government to remove the HST from purpose-built rentals. And do you know what that means? That means thousands of dollars in savings per unit, which is unleashing critical purpose-built rental housing like never before. We’re at the highest starts in over 30 years because of the policies of this government that that member continuously votes against.

So what is it? You actually want housing or you don’t want housing? They’re so busy fighting with each other, they have no idea what it is that they’re asking for. The Liberals have no idea. The member for Don Valley doesn’t want to build housing. This member wants to build it sometimes, but maybe not all the time.

The only party that the people of the province of Ontario can rely upon to get the job done is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario: four housing supply action plans, purpose-built rental housing at its highest level in 30 years, housing starts at their highest level in over 15 years. The people of the province of Ontario know a Progressive Conservative government will give them a bigger, better, stronger Ontario and—

Interjections.

She’s sitting in a caucus where they accomplished literally nothing. Did they build hospitals in Ottawa? No, Mr. Speaker. Did they build transit or transportation in Ottawa? No. Did they build long-term care? No. In the member’s own riding, we are building more long-term care than they built in the entire province of Ontario. That is the record of this government.

I say to the member opposite, do us a favour, call your former colleagues in Ottawa—the ones who are sitting on their hands, along with your caucus here—and ask them to do what the Atlantic Canadian Liberal MPs did: Demand that the carbon tax be removed. If they do that, we’ll get progress and it’s not just us fighting for the people of Ontario—

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. For nearly two years now, the Ford government has refused to give Toronto the green light to move ahead with inclusionary zoning, which would require developers to build some affordable homes in new big developments.

This feels like a double standard. We’ve got the government letting lobbyists quickly rewrite official plans to benefit their speculator friends, but at the same time this government is dragging its heels on making sure developers do their part to solve the affordable housing crisis.

So this is my question to the Premier: When will this government stop blocking Toronto’s inclusionary zoning law and allow the construction of much-needed affordable homes?

When will this government give the green light to build these supportive housing homes in Willowdale so we can house people who have no home at all?