I always appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak to another bill, which we believe will help incentivize and move housing construction across the province of Ontario. I’ll be splitting my time, of course, with the Associate Minister of Housing, as well as the parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Today, obviously, we’re talking about Bill 134, which is the Affordable Homes and Good Jobs Act. The bill is realistically titled and is simply put, Mr. Speaker. First, I think it’s important to just talk about some of the things that we’ve been doing on housing and why we’ve had to bring forward this bill. It’s not just about housing, I will say; it’s also about helping unleash opportunity, specifically in St. Thomas. But I’ll get to all of that.

As you know, Speaker, we have been focused since 2018 on how we can improve the environment to build more homes across the province of Ontario. We have set a very ambitious goal of building 1.5 million homes across the province of Ontario—

Interruption.

But anyway, it’s probably the school calling to say that my daughter is not there. Since I know the school watches intently, my daughter, of course, has permission not to be at school this morning, so I think everything will be just fine.

Interjection: The 613.

Interjection: The 1-800.

As you know, we’ve been focused on building more homes across the province of Ontario. We said we want to build 1.5 million homes—a very, very ambitious target for sure—but we’ve also said we want to do that in every corner of the province because we know how important it is that all communities participate in this goal of building homes.

And it’s all kinds of homes that we are wanting to build. We want to build market homes, rental, affordable, attainable. The not-for-profit sector is important. We’re also talking about building more long-term-care homes for seniors. We’ve got some projects that we’re doing—a project in particular in Kenora, which is a mixed type of housing which has both long-term care, which has market and affordable housing elements in it. So, we’ve been very focused on that.

As you know, Madam Speaker, we’ve also introduced four bills, four pieces of legislation aimed at removing obstacles, cutting red tape, reducing costs so that we can get more shovels in the ground faster. We have seen the consequences of previous decisions, I would say, that really frustrated the home-building industry in the province of Ontario and which really kept them out for a long period of time. For over a decade, we had depressed housing starts across Ontario as it became harder and harder and harder to get shovels in the ground. At the same time, we saw infrastructure investment across Ontario not keep up with the demand of a growing population. All of that hurt in terms of getting more shovels in the ground.

So, we’ve said really early on in the mandate and made a commitment that we would bring in a new bill every year to help untangle some of the obstacles that were getting in the way, but at the same time, real progress on rebuilding our infrastructure so that we built a transportation system across the province that would help support a growing economy. Across that transportation centre, in particular in our larger urban centres of Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor, for starters, we want to build more homes along those transit corridors, which includes York region. When I say that, I mean the entire greater Toronto-Hamilton area. There are massive investments in transit and transportation happening in those areas, and we want to ensure that, along those corridors, we have as many homes built as possible. Not only does that help reduce our carbon footprint by taking cars off the road, but it makes it easier for people to get back and forth to work.

We also knew early on that we had to do a lot better in helping incentivize the construction of purpose-built rentals. We were at historic lows in this province when it came to purpose-built rentals and we were falling very, very far behind. A consequence of that, both on the rental housing side and on the home-building side, is that we started to see prices skyrocket and homes of all types becoming unaffordable.

We also started to see how it was impacting other sectors, whether it was for seniors, whether it was for students. We have some of, if not the best colleges and universities anywhere in the world, and people from all over the world want to come to our institutions here. As well, because of the changes and the improvements we made, as you will agree, Madam Speaker, in the education system, we’re seeing more and more Ontarians who want to further their education, whether it’s college or university or in the trades, becoming apprentices, which we’ve really seen a revitalization of that as well. But some of the factors holding us back in many communities, certainly in a lot of the smaller communities—the inability or the lack of available rental available housing stock.

So, these are all the things that we were facing. This bill here in particular, in turn, it brings forward a new definition of affordable housing. Now, this is a definition that takes into account a number of things, but most importantly, it takes into account both market conditions in an area but also income in an area. It takes those two factors based on CMHC data and StatsCanada data across the province. So in every community, the definition of affordable housing might be a little bit different so that we can meet the goals of each particular community, because what we heard from our municipal partners was that a standardized definition of affordability across the province is not something that would work for them. That is why the definition that we brought forward takes into account those conditions. I will say it has been very well received by our partners across the province—by “partner” I mean our municipal friends—and I dare say I think it was supported at second reading here in the chamber by all parties, so I was very, very happy about that.

That, then, also with this bill, helps build on some of the more recent announcements that we made, of course again constantly focused on putting more shovels in the ground. The Building Faster Fund is another opportunity for us to support those communities that want to get shovels in the ground. Now, I will acknowledge I have been hearing from some of our big-city mayors that they had hoped that we would change the parameters around the Building Faster Fund. As I announced yesterday, that was not going to change, but I wanted to make sure that our partners in all communities understand the purpose of the Building Faster Fund.

We’ve introduced strong-mayor powers across almost 50 different municipalities. These strong-mayor powers are focused exclusively on helping put shovels in the ground faster. That is our focus right now. We’ve heard it constantly talked about, a wartime effort to get shovels in the ground so that we can build more homes across the province of Ontario. So we extended strong-mayor powers to almost 50 communities, 50 of the largest or the fastest-growing communities.

The Building Faster Fund, which is an over $1.2-billion fund, is there to support communities that are able to meet their housing targets. I always try to give an example. There are some communities that are going to be able, in the short term, over the next year or two years, to not only meet but exceed their targets. There are some communities that will take a little bit longer to do so. But in those communities, which are more often than not in the short term, the communities that are able to meet their targets fastest are some of the smaller communities that have access to water and sewer capacity.

The reason that is important and the reason why the Building Faster Fund is so important to that—I take a community like mine in Stouffville. It is a smaller community in comparison to whether it be Markham or Toronto. They have the ability to meet and exceed their targets. They have the capacity in terms of water and infrastructure. But in order for them to do that, to meet and exceed the target, frankly, they need additional assistance, whether it is in terms of resources for planning staff, inspections, the whole gamut that helps them get the shovels in the ground faster, from review to shovels in the ground. They need assistance to do that.

The Building Faster Fund will give those communities that otherwise would not have the resources to meet and exceed the target access to funds that help them do it, while not punishing those communities that, for no fault of their own, might not, over the next year or two years, be in a position to meet that target, but may be in a position in the third year. Now, why bring that up? Because one of the things that is so very important—and we’re hearing this right across the board—is how important it is that we make bigger investments in the infrastructure to support housing.

Again, you’re going to hear this constant refrain: sewer and water capacity. We’re hearing it across the board. In order for us to meet our 1.5-million goal, we are going to have to make investments in that infrastructure, as well. We’ve started, of course, with an additional commitment in the budget to help unleash some of this sewer and water construction, but we know that we’re going to need to do more, and at the same time it is one of the reasons why we are so aggressively calling on—and it’s not just Ontario. I should say that it’s not just Ontario, but all across this country, provincial governments are asking the federal government to refocus their very generous housing dollars on those areas that will help us get shovels in the ground.

While the federal government, I will say, has made a very strong commitment—I believe it’s a $15-billion commitment to help build—and this is the part where it gets a little bit frustrating. It’s a $15-billion commitment, which is a strong commitment; I congratulate them on that, but that commitment gets us 200,000 homes according to the federal plan. I would suggest, Madam Speaker, that $15 billion will get us three million homes across the country, because where we are limited is by the sewer and water infrastructure. The provinces are prepared to partner with the federal government with the funds that they have allocated to get these shovels in the ground.

We had an announcement last week—I won’t talk about it too much longer. We had an announcement last week in Toronto where a $1.2-billion federal commitment would result in the construction of 2,300 affordable homes. I’ll say this: a wonderful commitment in terms of money, but not a good outcome in terms of the numbers when you consider what shovels in the ground and what that money would mean to unleashing home construction in all sectors—affordable, attainable, market, long-term care and purpose-built rentals. So we’re really, strongly calling on the federal government to reassess that and to work with every single provincial government so that we can build on that.

The other thing that this bill does is the Attorney General will be reviewing the Ontario Land Tribunal. I think this is a very important piece. We have to constantly review those. Whether it’s the land tribunal, in this case—we have to be in a state of constant revision of those programs and adjudicative bodies, because circumstances are changing so quickly across the province of Ontario, and it is our goal to build these homes. The minister will be beginning a review of that—again, working with our municipal partners and our home-building community—with an eye on eliminating red tape, eliminating delays and what it takes to make a decision faster. I think that has been—I don’t think; I know it’s been very well received by both our municipal partners and our friends in the home-building community.

I want to just take another moment to talk about, if I can, the importance of making the correct investments in housing. The Minister of Finance, more than a year ago, talked about the importance of removing the HST from the construction of purpose-built rentals. This is something that we were on for over a year. We talked about it. We advocated for it. No progress was made on that. But recently, of course, the federal government decided that they would match Ontario’s commitment to remove the GST—or the HST and the GST would be removed, so the HST is gone from purpose-built rentals. Now, why is that important? Because not only is it an acknowledgement that high taxes stifle our ability to compete, but it stifles our ability, really, to get shovels in the ground. What that means for a unit, a single unit, is a savings of about anywhere between $45,000 and $55,000 per unit, making purpose-built rental affordable housing so much more attractive to the home-building community. We are seeing them respond, really, in numbers that we could not have imagined. We are at the highest level of purpose-built rentals in over 15 years, and I’m very confident that when next year’s numbers are in, we will have exceeded all expectations, partly on the back of the reduction or the elimination of the HST on those homes.

And we’re seeing them want to get into other areas as well, whether it’s student housing, for instance, and how we can rejuvenate our cities.

We had our first housing forum yesterday, and that housing forum brought together stakeholders from across not-for-profits—there were mayors there, councillors there from across Ontario, home builders in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors were there.

I had a really good opportunity to speak to a number of mayors, but the mayor of Kingston, in particular, talked to me about Queen’s University and the challenges that they’re having with student housing there, but that some of the changes that we are making and some of the things that they want to do will allow them to take some of their oldest homes, which have become student homes—admittedly, I may have visited a homecoming or two when I was in university, in some of the older homes that they have. Some of these policies will allow them to take down some of the oldest student housing in their community and replace it with five-, six-, seven-, eight-, nine-storey buildings for student housing, which will have an incredible impact on that university’s ability to continue to compete and attract students—but also for him, an incredible impact on his city, because it allows them to rejuvenate areas of the city that otherwise have become unattractive for other people in Kingston to be a part of. So they are very, very excited by some of the things that we are doing.

I know Minister Flack as well as the parliamentary assistant are going to talk about the extraordinary things that are happening, how this bill impacts St. Thomas. I know it’s really important in their community. So I did want to touch on that, because I think they’ll do a far better job of it than I could.

But all of that is to say, as I wrap up, that it’s actually a very exciting step. Having this definition of affordable housing so well received, not only by the opposition but by colleagues across the province, really taking an obstacle out of the way, but also helping to build on some of the pieces that we’ve already introduced to get more shovels in the ground.

As I said yesterday at the forum, we have to dream big in this province, and we are not in a position where we can disappoint the people. I know we talked about it—a question period thing, that we’ve got to get people out of their parents’ basements. We are not in a position, as a parliament, to fail on that mission. If others could accomplish this in previous decades, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t do it.

We’re going to build more homes in our large, small and medium-sized communities across the province. We’re going to build them across the spectrum—as I said, market rental, not-for-profit, attainable student housing, seniors’ housing—because that is what the market requires us to do. That is what the people of the province of Ontario require us to do. This is the next step on the way—but it’s certainly not the next step.

And with that, I will yield the floor to the associate minister.