They’ve talked about how it will operate, but there’s nothing in the fall economic statement—there are few details that have been provided as to how this new infrastructure bank will operate. I’m asking about that. How will it operate?

This fall economic statement is absolutely replete with affordability measures for the people of Ontario. I think the people in Essex county are going to love it. Starting on page 67 of the book with the fall economic statement, it starts to enumerate all of the affordability measures. It goes on to page 68, with more affordability measures, and page 69, and it just keeps going with all these affordability measures, including the gas tax cut, child care assistance, assistance to seniors. It goes on and on and on.

My question to the minister is this: Of all of these pages and pages worth of affordability measures, which one is his favourite?

Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to speak to Bill 146. A fall economic statement is a chance for the government to take stock and to think about what’s going on in the province—what the economy is looking like, what the people of Ontario are experiencing—and yet we have a government that has doubled down on things like an underground parking lot to fuel the profits of a foreign spa, an Austrian spa. We have a government that has doubled down on not helping the people of Ontario who are struggling with their rent, with putting food on the table.

A new report that came out yesterday speaks about one in 10 Torontonians visiting food banks. Just think about that: On your own street in Toronto, one in 10 of your neighbours could be using food banks. It’s a very troubling statistic for what has been in the past one of Canada’s most wonderful provinces to live in, and we want it to stay that way.

Speaker, we know that a $3-billion infrastructure bank is something that has been questioned. People are saying, “Look, Ontario’s problem with infrastructure isn’t getting it financed; the problem with Ontario’s infrastructure is getting it built on time.” Certainly in my riding we have the Eglinton Crosstown, which is billions over budget, and it’s so far behind that the government can’t actually give residents of Toronto a new date for when that line will actually be put into service. I would suggest that that’s the kind of thing that would actually make a difference in the people of Ontario’s lives.

We had talked about giving an increase to the Ontario Child Benefit. My colleague mentioned that. That would actually put money in the pockets of Ontarians to help feed their families as they struggle to pay rent and deal with double-digit rent increases.

We know that people are continuing to struggle with mental health. We know that we have an addiction crisis. We know that people are living on our streets and that shelter systems are full. This would have been an opportunity to provide some funding for that, to make sure that those people do have a roof over their heads, especially as the winter approaches.

Just today, we were visited—many of us—by the librarians of Ontario. We heard from them about how, certainly in the last budget consultations, they talked about the need for public funding for Ontario digital libraries. They have yet to get that funding. Just $15 million would give Ontario libraries the start to a digital library, and that would give live, online tutoring to students from K to grade 12. That is the kind of support that Ontarians need right now. We know that our schools are suffering. We know that our teachers are feeling stressed by both the demands from COVID that students are still facing, learning challenges, and that they need those kinds of supports.

Madam Speaker, we know that we have a government that has also doubled down on privatization. As you know, in the standing orders, we are not recognized as an official party, and so we have to ask for unanimous consent to speak to ministers’ statements. We asked for that last week, regarding the fall economic statement, and we were denied. And so, while I didn’t have a chance then, I did have a chance in the media studio to talk about the infrastructure bank.

Basically, what that infrastructure bank will mean is that private money will be looking for returns. They will be looking for returns that are greater than the returns they get on debt. The government can go to the market today and issue debt, and investors or people in the markets can invest in Ontario. What this infrastructure bank is about is giving an even higher rate of return to investors. We have pension plans that invest in these kinds of things, and they make returns of about 11%, but those are from for-profit companies. So what this infrastructure bank is really about is privatization.

When I listened to the minister in the media studio, he was asked that question exactly: Does this mean more privatization in Ontario? He shirked the question. He didn’t answer it directly. I certainly know that that is really what we will be facing in our health care system: more privatization. It could be in transportation, and it could also be in education. Those are things that certainly are worrying to the people of Ontario.

When I look at this bill, there are a couple things that are positive. We’ve heard about a couple things from members. Certainly the idea that there will be a tax on vaping—that is something that could discourage young people in particular from taking vaping up, and so that is something that we certainly welcome.

Related to the student debt that was talked about: I think that is quite troubling. Again, this is a time when we know that we are facing a period of potential economic slowdown in 2024, and so it seems a particularly cruel time to be basically telling students that you are going to call their debt without giving them any notice. Those kinds of things actually will hurt the people of Ontario, and I think those are the kinds of measures that show that this government really does not understand the affordability crisis people are facing.

As has been pointed out, the word “affordability” does not appear once. The government seems to be more focused on building million-dollar homes and enriching their friends in the greenbelt. They only retracted that decision when the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner basically told the people of Ontario what was really going on. Now we have an RCMP investigation into that. That’s the kind of thing this government seems to be focused on, rather helping the people of Ontario who are, again, struggling with rent, struggling in our health care system, struggling in our education system and struggling with mental health. Those are the things we should be focused on, Madam Speaker, especially as we think about recovering from the pandemic.

The other thing I’ll talk about is productivity. Productivity in the economy is really important, and one of the things that can drive productivity is getting more people into the workforce. We all know that working parents are struggling to find daycare. While the government has opened up a new daycare, as they were proud to announce, we can’t hire the people. The YMCA has talked repeatedly about how they are unable to fill the spots that they have. Of the 35,000 spots that they have, I think 19,000 are empty because they can’t hire ECE workers, and that’s because of the government’s Bill 124, which restricts the pay to those workers.

Madam Speaker, people who want to go back to work need a place for their children, and actually paying our ECE workers a fair wage, getting those spots staffed would help people get back to work. That would help our economy. Those are things that could have been talked about in this bill instead of simply some measures around the tax act, which again—that will help some wealthy Ontarians, people who can invest, who have investable income, but we know there are many working families who are not in that situation and are struggling today.

I would ask that the government side think about what true debate is. True debate is when we can listen to one side of an argument—or you have a view of one side and you listen to another side, and you say, by listening to the other side, you learn something new and you think about a better way to do something. I would certainly like the government side to think about the motion that was mentioned this morning by my fellow member from Orléans about reducing the provincial portion of the HST on home heating. That’s the kind of thing that could actually, again, put money back into the pockets of Ontarians. That’s an idea that could be a positive amendment to this bill that would actually help people who are struggling to pay for housing and pay for food.

That’s the kind of debate that I want to make sure we have here, where the government brings forward a bill and there’s a sufficient chance to debate that bill, for that bill to go to committee, have hearings that are fulsome, where people and stakeholders can come and talk about that bill, and then we see real improvements made. That, I think, would be a real sign to getting all members of this House to vote for this bill. That is something that could happen if the government side would listen to some of the ideas that are coming from those of us on this side of the House who also want to make this province a better place for the people of Ontario.

What I will say is that balanced budgets are something—you have to look at the economy at the time. You’ve got to look at the situation you’re facing.

When you think about the recession in 2008, that was a global recession, right? Yes, it was a global recession, and at that time there was some investment required to make sure that people were able to keep food on the table and survive those challenging times. Basically, we need to look at the situation around us to decide whether or not a deficit budget, balanced budget or surplus budget is the right answer.

I’m curious to get the member from Don Valley West’s take on a balanced budget. That is something that previous Liberal governments were not able to do, and it is something that, through the fall economic statement, we’re looking forward to in 2025. So I wanted to get her thoughts on whether she thinks that’s important, because I know a lot of people I talk to, not only in Kitchener–Conestoga and Waterloo region but across the province, are very keen to see that happen. I would like to get her thoughts.

It’s now time for questions.

Speaker, through you to either of the members: We agree that the mini-budget does not go far enough to address affordability issues. On affordable housing, however, a report stated not-for-profit development of rental houses is not being encouraged in Ontario, which sounds like it is recent, but it’s actually from a 2017 AG report on Ontario social housing.

How does the Ontario Liberal Party now reflect on this period, and what lessons have been learned to better address the current housing affordability crisis here in Ontario?

Further questions?

My question is directed to the member from Don Valley East. Having heard the member speak on many occasions and knowing enough about his background, I know that he would support building a healthier and safer Ontario. For that reason, I am sure that the member is supportive of our decision to provide more access to connecting women to breast cancer screening.

With that in mind, my question to the member from Don Valley East is, would you, then, confirm in the House today that you will support and vote for this budget, because you would be supporting a move a lower eligibility age for publicly funded mammograms from 50 to 40 years of age?

As is so typical of this government, there are lots of promises but nothing to back up the words with action. For example, there is a proposal to offer mammograms to women below 50, but there is no funding for that. You cannot perform mammograms unless there is funding for more staff, for more infrastructure, for more technical fees. So I find it audacious, preposterous, that this government can grandstand as though they’re actually going to help patients, when they say the words but don’t back it up with the dollars or the action to actually deliver on their promises. That is a very consistent pattern, time and time again.

But what’s even more outrageous is the fact that we have an opioid crisis, an addiction crisis across our province. We have a mental health road map that has been bandied about for the last five years that needs to see massive and sustained improvements and increases, especially increases in funding, especially as it relates to delivering those services in rural and remote parts of Ontario.

So I want to reiterate: There is this road map to mental health or mental wellness, but so much more needs to be done. I look forward to working with the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to push the government to address that in greater detail.

My friends in the government across, the members across: I would suggest, do a little bit of self-reflection and have some self-awareness before choosing your words. This is preposterous.

If memory serves me correctly—and I would certainly like to be corrected if I’m wrong—I don’t believe the previous Liberal government ever delivered a budget with a clean audit, whereas, in comparison, this present government has delivered, I think, every single budget and fall economic statement with a clean audit.

Now, I know that the member from Don Valley West, who herself is an accountant, must be absolutely scandalized by the record of the previous Liberal government. My question to the member from Don Valley East is, is he equally scandalized by it?

We know that people in Ontario are feeling set back by the rising costs of rent, mortgages, groceries and everyday essentials, but it’s very noticeable and evident in Kiiwetinoong. It is more extravagant, the amount you have to spend.

But what’s happening as well is the addictions, the suicide crisis, the mental health crisis. I want to ask a question to the members: Do you see anything here that addresses the addiction issues, the suicide crisis, the mental health crisis? Is there anything in the budget here that supports people, that will actually save lives, not save money?

It’s a pleasure to rise today on behalf of the residents of Ottawa West–Nepean to speak to Bill 146, Building a Strong Ontario Together Act.

Just for context, this is a bill that’s enacting budget measures following on the government’s fall economic statement, which came two weeks ago, right before the constituency week. That was a fall economic statement that really failed to reflect the moment that we are in here in Ontario. People in Ontario and Ottawa West–Nepean are really struggling, and we are not seeing any acknowledgement of that coming from the government.

But last night, Speaker, I was at the Cardinal’s Dinner, where the Premier spoke, here in Toronto. I almost fell off my chair, because the Premier actually did acknowledge that people were struggling here in Ontario. He acknowledged that homelessness is increasing, that we are seeing more people who are living on our streets and in encampments, that lineups at food banks in Ontario are increasing, that people can’t pay everyday expenses or afford a home. I thought, “Wow, this is really amazing progress,” and I was waiting to hear what the Premier’s plan was to address these issues that people are struggling with in Ontario. Instead, once again, somehow he’s powerless to do anything about it. The Premier of the province is somehow powerless to do anything about these problems that fall squarely within his jurisdiction. In fact, he’s busy trying to make people believe that everything within their control is absolutely amazing and everything that people are struggling with in Ontario is the fault of another government.

Now, I am the parent of a teenager. My daughter turned 13 this summer and was instantly a teenager. I don’t know how many other members here have teenagers, but this is reminding me very strongly of an experience I have repeatedly with my daughter. She likes to bake, and my husband and I have been very clear with her that the condition for using the kitchen is that you must clean up after yourself. The kitchen must be returned to the state that it was in before you started baking. And she always—

My question to either of the members, from Don Valley East or West, is around the unprecedented size of the contingency budget that is included in the fall economic statement. It’s now at $5 billion. Typically a government would put aside about a billion in contingency.

Is the member concerned about the size of the contingency, and why do they think the government is going in this direction?

Exactly—the member from Kitchener–Conestoga must have similar conditions with his teenagers.

Every time, she agrees: “Yes, yes, the kitchen will returned to the condition that it’s in.” And 40 minutes later, I walk into the kitchen, and the sink is full of dirty dishes, there is cupcake batter along the counter, and my daughter is next door in the family room watching TV. I call her in and I say, “What happened? You promised you would clean the kitchen,” and she says, “I did,” like she is physically not capable of seeing the dirty dishes in the sink or the cupcake batter on the counter.

So I walk her over to the counter, and I say, “But look, these weren’t here before you started, and neither was this batter on the counter.” And all of a sudden, she says, “Oh, that was my little sister’s job to clean up.” That’s what we’re seeing happen from the Premier of the province here. Apparently he is literally incapable of seeing the mess created by his government’s policies. And when he can’t avoid it, then somehow it’s the federal government’s fault; it’s the fault of the previous government.

As someone I spoke to said recently, this government is a perpetual victim. Five and a half years into their term, they are still the victim of the previous government and of the federal government. At a certain point, you have to wonder: If the Premier five and a half years into his term is a perpetual victim, then maybe we should stop electing victims and start electing people who actually want to use the power that they have as Premier of the province to make life better for people in the province of Ontario.

But what we have, in this moment when people are really struggling, is a fall economic update and now a bill that doesn’t mention the words “affordability” or “affordable.” Other words that don’t appear are “cost of living,” “rent,” “food,” “price gouging,” “social assistance,” “disability” or “education.” People are struggling daily, and yet this government is so bereft of ideas, so mired in scandal and police investigations of their government that they do not seem to have anything to offer the people of Ontario. And that’s despite the fact they have the funds, they have the resources to invest in the lives of Ontarians that will actually make their lives better. They’re sitting on $5.4 billion in a contingency fund that’s unallocated that could be going to address affordability, that could be going to address health care, that could be going to address disabilities, that could be going to address education. And instead of spending that money on things that will make the lives of people in Ontario better, they are just sitting on those funds.

The only ideas that the government seems to be able to come up with right now are ideas to make already-wealthy land speculators richer, and in that area, they’ve managed to be quite creative, because they have found quite a few ways.

So today, I want to offer the government a few ideas, remind them of the power that they actually have to get things done for people in Ottawa West–Nepean and in Ontario today. We are seeing record numbers of people using food banks in Ontario. Every single year under this government is a new record number of users. This week, we learned one in 10 people in the city of Toronto are now using a food bank. We’re waiting on the numbers in Ottawa next week, but I know that those numbers are also going to be a record because what I am seeing and hearing from food banks in Ottawa West–Nepean is that they cannot keep up with the demand and, in fact, they have had to extend their hours into the evening and on weekends to accommodate people who are working full-time and still can’t put food on the table without going to a food bank.

The food bank at the Pinecrest Terrace Community House told me that by the time people call them, they are desperate. They have tried every other solution they can think of to find food to feed their families, and yet the demand is so high that the Pinecrest Terrace Community Food Bank can’t give them an appointment for three to four weeks. People are going desperate with no food at all, waiting three to four weeks for a food bank appointment because the demand is so high.

Food banks are also providing less food because they can’t stretch it far enough, and food banks themselves are on the verge of collapse, having difficulty keeping the lights on. In my riding of Ottawa West–Nepean, the Caldwell food bank nearly had to close for six weeks this summer because they couldn’t keep the lights on and pay their employees any longer. Thankfully, the Ottawa Food Bank was able to step in with some emergency funding because of the thousands of families that would have had to go without food if the food bank closed for just six weeks. Yet, this government killed the social services relief funding which was keeping Caldwell and many other food banks across our province operating.

But the truth is that food banks don’t want to expand. They don’t want to be open for longer hours. They don’t want to be serving more clients. They want to see the government actually tackle the reasons why so many people in the province are hungry—things, again, that are absolutely within this government’s power that they could do something about today.

The government is directly responsible for setting the income level of people on social assistance, and what are they doing? At a moment of huge increases in the cost of living, they have left people on social assistance languishing in deep poverty at rates that are well below the cost of housing, let alone other expenses. Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa is now going for $2,050 a month. A single person on Ontario Works gets only $730 a month. If you even doubled it, they still wouldn’t be able to afford an apartment. A single person on ODSP is getting $1,308 a month. That’s still $700 below the cost of rent, and they still have to buy food, groceries and other medical necessities.

I have many constituents reaching out to me about ODSP. This is one email that I received: “My husband and I are both on ODSP and are needing to move from our home of 21 years as the landlady needs to sell.

“The amount that we get from ODSP and CPP disability isn’t meeting our needs now and on top of it is nowhere near enough to cover rent in today’s marketplace in Ottawa. Nobody wants to rent to someone on ODSP when you tell them that you are receiving assistance and definitely not to two people on ODSP. Our credit ratings are both in the high-700s and not even this helps us.

“How can we make the Ford government understand that there is no subsidized housing available anywhere? With food prices skyrocketing and heat and electricity doing the same, I just don’t know what to do anymore. The line at our local food bank is a nightmare and it is only getting worse.”

This is another constituent: “I’m writing in regard to Ontario Works and the fact that it is much too low for anyone to live on. ODSP was changed, and that was great. But Ontario Works needs to increase as well. Absolutely no one can live on $700 to $900 a month with rent, cellphone, food, transportation etc. Many people are becoming homeless, living in situations that are not healthy or safe. Shelters are full with waiting lists. Food banks are struggling to keep up with the needs. Ontario is increasing the amount of poverty in this province. It needs to change! Put yourself in the shoes of people that are struggling every single day. It is not fair to increase ODSP and leave everyone on Ontario Works unseen. This issue needs to be addressed, especially in our nation’s capital. Parliament Hill is well cared for while a block or two away, people are living on the streets.”

The government has within their power the capacity to increase social assistance rates today if they wanted to. They are choosing not to do that.

It’s not just people who are on social assistance who are using the food banks. In fact, they’re seeing an increase in the number of people who are working full-time. The food banks in my riding tell me they’re seeing people who haven’t been there for three or four years because they got a job and got back on their feet. They still have that job, they haven’t lost the job, but the job is no longer paying the bills anymore.

Statistics Canada data that came out earlier this week show that wages for the bottom 50% of wage earners—let me say that again: 50% of wage earners—in Ontario are actually declining. In 2021, the average wage for the bottom 50% went down 3.7%; the median wage went down 4.9%.

The government wants you to believe that affordability is somehow all the fault of the federal government—in fact, the member for Kitchener–Conestoga was just saying this—but they control the minimum wage for the people of Ontario. They can increase the minimum wage for people living in Ontario and help them to afford rent and groceries and other things.

To rent an apartment in Ottawa, someone working full-time at minimum wage literally needs to pay 77% of their income on housing. The living wage in Ottawa is $21.95 an hour. The minimum wage under this government is only $16.55. It’s absolutely shameful. People cannot get by.

In addition to increasing the minimum wage, the government could improve the quality of jobs in Ontario by cracking down on exploitative practices, including the use of permanent temps; facilitating unionization; bringing in anti-scab legislation. There’s so much the government could do to address the quality of jobs and wages in Ontario.

They could also address the cost side by addressing the cost of housing, bringing in real rent control, reinstating vacancy control. I hear so many stories from constituents whose landlords are trying to force them out, knowing that they can jack up the rent on the next tenants.

The government could also create a public agency, Housing Ontario, as my colleague from London North Centre has suggested, and actually fund and build not-for-profit, deeply affordable housing in Ontario. We used to do that. Even the Bill Davis government did that. Governments of all political stripes did that. The government could move on this today and start getting back into the business of building affordable housing in Ontario.

Then, there’s the price of groceries.

This is an email from a constituent about the cost of groceries:

“I am writing you this email as a constituent of yours from Nepean, and a resident of Ontario that is horrified by the rising grocery prices, and lack of social services available for ... Ontarians. Tonight, while grocery shopping at the Carling Ave. Metro ..., we were approached by a man asking for change, and then asking if we had any food. After talking to him about his situation, we asked if we could help with groceries.

“We got a cart for the man, and asked him to gather groceries he needed. He was now living in community housing, had access to a freezer and stove, and had already used the food bank for the month....

“The cost of groceries for this man came out to $240. Once upon a time, that would have been my family’s grocery bill for December (turkey, and all the fixings for the holiday included—and I had five siblings). I want to make it clear that this man did not abuse our generosity. His purchase was groceries for a month, with smart purchases like Ensure, and Gatorade, with his most indulgent request being three bags of Lay’s plain potato chips and toilet paper.

“I ask, how is the average Canadian supposed to stay fed? This was a single man, and these would have been enough groceries for my sister-in-law and brother for their two children for maybe two weeks, if they stretched it out. Went without any breakfast, avoided any ‘indulgent’ dairy or butter or eggs. Beyond what was required to make the four boxes of Kraft Dinner ($10).

“While Galen Weston weeps in front of the government over how mistreated he is by average Canadians, he abuses his monopoly on groceries and pharmacies to make us pay exorbitant prices.... What are we doing to help these Canadians? What are we doing to stop Shoppers from charging $30 for a Quo hairbrush (the only ones available by the way) or $4 for a box of Kraft Dinner. I have a difficult time believing that there has been a 400% increase in the cost of dried noodles and cheese powder.”

These are the kinds of cost increases that Canadians are dealing with at the grocery store. And yet, what did we learn today? We learned that Loblaws third-quarter profits went up 11.7% this year compared to last year. Loblaws raked in $621 million in profit in a single quarter while Ontarians are watering down their milk, cutting back on meat and reusing diapers. And yet somehow, all this Premier can bring himself to do is to gift investment opportunities to Galen Weston instead of siding with desperate Ontarians, which he could do today.

One area where we are seeing a slight increase in spending, Speaker, is in health care. But, sadly, even in this area, that increase is not going to Ontarians who are in desperate need of health care: the 2.2 million people who do not have a family doctor; the people who are waiting 12 hours to see a doctor at the Queensway Carleton Hospital. Instead, what we learned this week, thanks to a freedom-of-information request—because the government, strangely, didn’t want to volunteer this information—is that the government is paying three to four times as much to private, for-profit health care providers in the province of Ontario to provide the same surgeries that are being provided for much less in our public hospitals. These are public funds that are going directly into the profits of wealthy investors in Ontario instead of going to provide greater health care for people in Ontario who desperately, desperately need it. That’s in addition to failing to provide appropriate support for home and community care, and continuing their appeal of Bill 124, which means that we continue to bleed health care workers every single day.

Then, of course, there’s education, where spending is down under this government by 11%. This is despite the fact that our children are struggling. They are struggling because of the impact of the pandemic, where this government closed schools in Ontario for more days than any other jurisdiction in North America, and where this government is failing to provide the resources that our children need to recover their learning, to address their mental health and to make sure that our children have a safe and healthy place to learn every single day. In fact, when you look at per-student spending in the province of Ontario, this government is spending $1,200 less per student when you account for inflation between 2018 and 2023.

What does that mean in tangible terms for our students? It means that many of our students are in overcrowded classrooms. In Ottawa West–Nepean, in some cases the classroom is so crowded that the students can’t even have desks; they have to sit at tables because it’s the only way to pack all the students in. It means that our students who require special education supports aren’t getting those supports that they need, that schools are desperately trying to triage who gets access to the resource teacher, who gets an educational assistant. The educational assistants themselves are running in between classrooms, holding walkie-talkies, trying to figure out which student is having the greatest emergency so that they can provide immediate care to them while other students’ needs are going unaddressed.

It means that 50% of our schools do not have any kind of access to regularly scheduled mental health resources, and nine out of 10 principals in Ontario say they need more support for mental health than what they are getting from this government. It means that we have absolute chaos for school buses in Ontario, in no small part because the government somehow forgot to include non-bus forms of student transportation, even though students with special education needs and students who are in larger school boards, particularly francophone school boards with huge geographic areas—it doesn’t make sense to be running a big bus, and so kids can’t even get to school, which means they can’t even learn.

And it means, unfortunately, that we have normalized violence for our students in schools. One teacher told me that, as she was spending her own money once again, she spent money on an evacuation kit for her students because she knows evacuations are going to happen because of the level of violence. So this is absolutely a fall economic statement from the government that fails to meet—

Hear, hear.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I just—I’m not using this as a prop. I just want to make that clear. I’m just making sure I get everything out here.

On page 68 of the fall economic statement, it says, “On October 1, 2023, the government increased the general minimum wage from $15.50 to $16.55 per hour”—a 6.8% increase, Madam Speaker. A worker who is working minimum wage for 40 hours a week will see an extra $2,200—$2,200—added to their paycheque.

For the member opposite to stand up in her place and say that a 6.8% wage increase is not a factor, I don’t understand how that can be the case, because I’m pretty sure that anyone across Ontario would be very happy to see an extra $2,200 deposited into their bank account.

It’s now time for questions. I recognize the member for Kitchener–Conestoga.

To the member opposite: You may be aware that in the fall of 2022 the federal government had implemented a federal vaping tax, and subsequently, the federal government had invited all the provinces and territories to participate in this tax. Ontario is responding to this invitation to enable the federal government to levy an additional excise tax duty on vaping products which are intended for sale here in Ontario at the same rate as the existing federal excise duty.

My question to the member opposite is, do you agree with our economic statement and will you vote for it? Because what we’re doing is we’re entering into a coordinated vaping product taxation agreement.

It’s always an honour to rise here in the House, today to debate Bill 146, the budget measures act to implement the fall economic statement.

Speaker, we are debating this bill at a time when the people of Ontario are facing a huge affordability crisis, driven by an unprecedented housing affordability crisis. You would not know that reading the fall economic statement.

The government had an opportunity with the fall economic statement to change the channel on their $8.3-billion greenbelt scandal, to change the channel on the fact that they’ve wasted the last two years not building homes that ordinary people can afford to live in in the communities they know and love, close to where they work, and instead prioritizing benefits for a handful of land speculators.

Speaker, I want to tell you what I would like to see in the fall economic statement to address the housing affordability crisis coming out of what many have described as a master class plan to deliver the solutions Ontarians need to address the housing crisis that I released over two and a half years ago. There are three key points that we need to see in this fall economic statement: (1) is support to help co-ops, non-profit and supportive housing providers address the needs for deep affordability in our housing supply; (2) is we need to increase market supply by supporting municipalities to be able to build the infrastructure, to provide infrastructure for that supply and to actually legalize housing, which are in the Bills 44 and 45 I have proposed; and (3), the government could have used the fall economic statement as an opportunity to drive speculation out of the housing market so first-time homebuyers can be on a level playing field.

Why is it so important that this government actually make investments in non-profit and co-op housing—which for whatever reason they refused to do in the fall economic statement even though we’re facing an unprecedented housing affordability crisis? Well, first of all, 0% of rental housing is affordable for a minimum wage worker in almost every city in the province of Ontario; 180,000 households in this province are on a wait-list to access housing.

We know the previous governments, prior to 1995, invested in non-profit, co-op and social housing. As a matter of fact, 93% of the deeply affordable homes built in the province of Ontario were built before 1995. That was the year that the upper levels of government stopped supporting that kind of housing. Why is it not in the fall economic statement?

Think of somebody on ODSP trying to survive on $1,200 a month when rents in places like Guelph and Kitchener are now $2,000, even higher in a place like Toronto. Even the government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force—I don’t know if the government has ever read their own task force report—says, “While many of the changes that will help deliver market housing will also help make it easier to deliver affordable housing, affordable housing is a societal responsibility. We cannot rely exclusively on for-profit developers nor on increases in the supply of market housing to fully solve the problem.” That’s the government’s own task force. That’s why we need a fall economic statement that’s going to support co-op, non-profit and supportive housing.

Second, we have to drive speculation out of the marketplace. You know that multiple property owners now own one third of the homes in Ontario. Investors bought 77% of the over 3,000 condo apartments built in Kitchener-Waterloo between 2016 and 2020. There are now 16,000 homes being used for short-term rentals in the city of Toronto alone. So what can we do about that? The government could have introduced regulations for short-term rentals. They could have brought in a multiple-home-speculator tax to help drive speculation out of the marketplace. They could have had a province-wide vacant homes tax, so that first-time homebuyers, young families trying to own their first home, could be on a level playing field instead of bidding against deep-pocketed, oftentimes financialized investment vehicles.

Third, we have to increase housing supply in this province by legalizing housing: legalizing multiplexes, four-storey walk-up apartments, six-to-11-storey buildings along major transportation corridors. That’s exactly why I’ve proposed bills to do that.

Do you know what, Speaker? If you look at what the government has done, according to AMO: $5.1 billion taken away from municipalities to build infrastructure for housing, $227 in my own riding of Guelph, $40 million just down the road to my neighbour in Kitchener. It is clear that Kitchener needs an MPP who’s going to say yes to housing and is not going to say no to housing but also an MPP who’s going to join me here and demand that the government provide the funding that municipalities need to service those houses, otherwise they’re not going to be built. That’s how we can increase non-market supply, increase market supply and drive speculation out of the market to address this housing affordability crisis.