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—

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.

I’d like to thank the member for Ottawa West−Nepean for an excellent presentation on Bill 146. What the member has pointed out is what amounts to a clear and calculated omission of discussing rent or rent control within the fall economic statement, as well as Bill 146.

My question, though, is, how has this government ignoring the gaping loophole of vacancy decontrol, as well as the removal of rent control in 2018, exacerbated the homelessness crisis?