I know they’re on their way up, but I want to introduce two people: one Lynn Perrier, who has been an amazing advocate for animal welfare. She is going to be here in the audience today with her friend Esther Verred. Welcome to the legislature, ladies.

I would like to take a moment to welcome the parents of page Jessy Ashraph, who is also the page captain today: her dad, Ashraph Sulaiman, and mom, Auxeeliya Jesudoss. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I just also want to wish our great colleague Ernie Hardeman a very, very happy birthday.

I’m delighted to welcome Drew Woodley, the director of government relations for Ontario SPCA and Humane Society. Welcome to the Ontario Legislature.

Meegwetch, Speaker. I’m happy to present this petition.

“To Raise Social Assistance Rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and (soon) $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates continue struggling to live during a period of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I’m happy to sign this petition. Meegwetch.

I’d like to thank Dr. Sally Palmer, professor and advocate, for sending my office this petition.

“To Raise Social Assistance Rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and $1,308 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled”—at least—“for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas small increases to ODSP have still left these citizens” well “below the poverty line. Both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to survive at this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP” for starters.

I couldn’t agree more with the petition. I’ve affixed my name, and I’m handing it over to Harris for tabling.

I am pleased to also present this petition.

“Petition to Expand Long-Term Care in Sioux Lookout.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the current long-term-care facility at Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre has 21 beds;

“Whereas Sioux Lookout is a hub for 33 surrounding First Nations, 28 of which are not accessible by road;

“Whereas Sioux Lookout has 5,800 permanent residents and thousands of people travel there for medical appointments and social services;

“Whereas the wait time for a long-term-care bed in Sioux Lookout is five to six years;

“Whereas this long wait time puts an additional strain on Meno Ya Win Health Centre’s emergency department and its alternate-level-of-care beds; and

“Whereas these long wait-lists are preventing residents from receiving necessary care in a timely manner in close proximity to their homes;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to commit to building and resourcing 76 long-term-care beds in Sioux Lookout, Ontario.”

Speaker, it’s just 76 long-term-care beds. I am happy to affix my signature to this and give it to page Brooke to take to the Clerks.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas registered nurses and health care professionals are the backbone of Ontario’s public health care system; and

“Whereas nurses and health care professionals are fighting for better staffing, better wages and better care in Ontario’s public hospitals; and

“Whereas the government has the power to direct the funding and priorities for the Ontario Hospital Association in this bargaining process;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario ...

“Support nurses and health care professionals represented by the Ontario Nurses’ Association”—and the Ontario Hospital Association.

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature to it and give it to page Fouegap to give to the Clerks.

I am pleased to be able to read this petition entitled “Expand Ontario Seniors Dental Plan.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas seniors have to access the Ontario seniors dental plan through local public health units;

“Whereas the number of dentists registered with public health units to be covered under the Ontario seniors dental plan is low in northern Ontario;

“Whereas the small number of dentists registered with the Ontario seniors dental plan limits the capacity of public health units to serve their patients in northern Ontario; and

“Whereas the income threshold for seniors to be eligible for the Ontario seniors dental plan is unreasonably low—an annual net income of $22,200 or less for a single senior; a combined annual net income of $37,100 or less for a couple—thus creating a huge barrier for low-income seniors to access dental care;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“—to invest into community health centres, aboriginal health access centres, and public health units to build and expand dental suites and to hire more dentists; and

“—to facilitate the implementation of the federal dental care plan, which covers all seniors with income lower than $75,000, when it becomes law.”

Of course, I support this petition, will affix my signature and send it to the table with page Alina.

I have a petition entitled “Pass the Safe Night Out Act.” It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas we are experiencing a sexual violence epidemic, with Statistics Canada reporting in 2021 that sexual assault was at its highest level in 25 years and community support organizations reporting more crisis calls than ever;

“Whereas 65% of women report experiencing unwanted sexual advances while socializing in a bar or restaurant, and incidents of sexual assaults involving drugs and alcohol most often occur immediately after leaving a licensed establishment or event; and

“Whereas there is no legal requirement for the people who hold liquor licences and permits, sell and serve liquor, or provide security at licensed establishments and events to be trained in recognizing and safely intervening in sexual harassment and violence;

“Whereas servers in licensed establishments also face high risk of sexual violence and harassment from co-workers and patrons;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pass the Ontario NDP’s Safe Night Out Act to make Ontario’s bars and nightclubs safer for patrons and staff by requiring training in sexual violence and harassment prevention, by strengthening protections for servers from workplace sexual violence, and by requiring every establishment to develop and post a policy on how sexual violence and harassment will be handled, including accessing local resources and supports.”

I couldn’t agree more with this petition, affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Peter.

Thank you.

Interjections.

Orders of the day.

I return to the minister to lead off the debate.

I return to the minister.

I would like to wish my Uncle Ernie a happy birthday, who happens to be the member from Oxford.

Before you really get into that, you have to understand how time allocation—what it is, how it works. To fully understand that, you have to go back a few more steps on how this House actually works.

We’re here this afternoon. A bill was introduced, I believe, on the PAWS Act by the Solicitor General, and it was introduced for first reading. It’s customary that the first reading is—we all agree to first reading. You want it introduced. A couple of times—one, in particular, I know of that the official opposition, when we were third party, voted against first reading, and that was when the Liberal government of the time tried to sell Hydro One—or did sell Hydro One. We were so opposed to that that we voted against first reading. But normally, you allow legislation into the House.

Then, if it’s government legislation, it’s brought forward for second reading, and at second reading, customarily, you have eight hours of debate. That can be shortened or lengthened, but customarily it’s eight hours of debate.

The bill, now that we have a majority government, is passed by the government, obviously, if it’s a government bill, put forward to committee—committee is actually as important or, in some cases, more important than the debate in the Legislature, because committee is when people who are directly impacted by the bill or who have a special interest in the bill normally get to come before the committee and talk about their interest, their expertise to try to impact the bill, to try to change the bill, hopefully, to make it work better. That’s why this place exists: for the government of the day to introduce legislation for the Legislature and the committees to improve it. Although we may disagree philosophically with the reason for the legislation, it is incumbent on us all to try to make it as good as it can be for Ontarians.

So, the bill goes to committee, the committee hears deputations, and then based on those deputations, the committee members can make amendments, which are either accepted or voted down by their fellow committee members. Then the bill goes back to the House for third reading. Again, it will be debated, and third reading debates usually aren’t as long as second, because we’ve already gone through the committee process. So, let’s be realistic: Not much is going to change in the bill at third reading. Bills that we’re really opposed to—we get to make our points; try to make Ontarians understand what’s wrong with the bill, what’s right with the bill; and the government will try to make Ontarians understand why they’re putting forward the bill. Then there’s third reading—the last vote, the third vote, and then the bill goes for royal assent and is proclaimed.

That’s how it’s usually done, and there’s a few changes, but time allocation changes it totally. So, time allocation: The government decides that one or several of the steps aren’t needed, or they don’t want to deal with several of the steps.

This time allocation motion and the amendment to the motion are quite unique, because in my time here—and I’ve been here 12 years—this is the first time I’ve seen three bills in the same time allocation motion and three bills at three completely different stages, and they’re also treated differently. I’ll have to delve a little bit into the details to try to make people understand.

The three bills that are dealt with are Bill 136, more commonly known, to me, as the greenbelt reversal bill. If you will recall, the government tried to help some speculator friends profit in the greenbelt. Public pressure and the Auditor General, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and Integrity Commissioner raised big concerns, and the government backtracked. That’s Bill 136, the backtrack bill. We understand why the government doesn’t want to hear a lot more about that. The government has got other problems with that, because the RCMP is looking into that.

Bill 150 is also kind of the same type of situation. It’s on urban boundary expansion. Actually, that was a bigger attack on farmland, on open space than the greenbelt legislation. It didn’t receive as much public response, but actually, it was as big an attack, and the government has been forced to backtrack. So they’ve put forward Bill 150, An Act to enact the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023 and to amend the Planning Act with respect to remedies. That’s basically—they tried to overreach, and now they’re having to back up.

It’s interesting, for members who are new to this place, or newer: That’s not something that commonly happens, that governments severely overreach and then have to backtrack.

This government is—remember when they severely, severely overreached and tried to use the “notwithstanding” clause?

Interjection: Oh yes.

I move that, pursuant to standing order 50, and notwithstanding any other standing order or special order of the House relating to 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, Bill 150, An Act to enact the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023 and to amend the Planning Act with respect to remedies, and Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023;

That when Bill 136 and Bill 150 are called for third reading, one hour of debate shall be allotted to the third reading stages of each bill, with 30 minutes apportioned to the members of His Majesty’s government and 30 minutes to the members of His Majesty’s loyal opposition; and at the end of the time, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and shall put every question necessary to dispose of this stage of each bill, without further debate or amendment; and

That when Bill 154 is next called as a government order, the Speaker shall immediately put every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill without further debate or amendment; and

That Bill 154 shall be ordered for third reading, which order shall be immediately called; and

That when the order for third reading is called, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of Bill 154 without further debate or amendment; and

That no deferral be permitted on any votes on Bill 136, Bill 150 or Bill 154.

Speaker, I would like to put forward an amendment to the motion. I move that the motion be amended by adding “and that, in the case of any division relating to any proceedings on the bills, the division bells shall be limited to five minutes” at the end of the motion.

This petition comes from Ontarians. Thousands of Ontarians have been putting this petition forward now for months. It is to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the Canada Health Act requires provinces to fund medically necessary treatment for Canadians; and

“Whereas a growing number of people in Ontario suffering from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) have to seek out-of-country treatment at their own expense because doctors in Ontario don’t have the knowledge or skills to understand EDS symptoms and perform the required delicate and complicated surgeries; and

“Whereas those EDS victims who can’t afford the expensive treatment outside of Ontario are forced to suffer a deteriorating existence and risk irreversible tissue and nerve damage; and

“Whereas EDS victims suffer severe dislocations, chronic pain, blackouts, nausea, migraines, lost vision, tremors, bowel and bladder issues, heart problems, mobility issues, digestive disorders, severe fatigue and many others resulting in little or very poor quality of life; and

“Whereas despite Ontario Ministry of Health claims that there are neurosurgeon doctors in Ontario who can perform surgeries on EDS patients when surgery is recommended, the Ontario referring physicians” often “fail to identify any Ontario neurosurgeon willing or able to see and treat the patient;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“Require the Minister of Health to provide funding to hire one neurosurgeon who can and will perform neurosurgeries on EDS patients with equivalent or identical skills to the international EDS neurosurgeon specialists, including funding for a state-of-the-art operating room with diagnostic equipment for treatments for EDS patients; and meet the Canada Health Act’s requirement to afford equal access to medical treatment for patients, regardless of their ability to pay for out-of-country services.”

I want to thank St. Paul’s and the folks across Ontario who are surviving with EDS. I’m glad to see this petition here, and I look forward to supporting them further. I affix my signature and will pass it—

Remember that? And then a few weeks later, the Men in Black bill came: “This never, ever happened.” Remember? It was rescinded to the day before it was passed, and I remember them all—I’m not sure if the member from Oxford did, but I remember everybody else clapped themselves on the back and they were so proud that they implemented the “notwithstanding” clause to override workers’ rights. They weren’t as happy two weeks later when they had to rescind.

Now, both these bills are the same type, Bills 136 and 150, both the greenbelt and urban boundaries retraction acts: “We’re so sorry. The Premier said he’s sorry.” The one thing he didn’t say is, “I’m not going to do it again.” Because when you look at Bill 154, the other bill in this time allocation motion, it says, “Sorry, not so sorry.” That’s what that is.

This time allocation motion actually is Bill 136, “Sorry, we tried, but the RCMP got involved”; Bill 150, “Sorry, we tried, but the RCMP got involved”; and Bill 154, on Ontario Place, is, “Okay, we’re going to try again, but we’re going to change the law so, hopefully, no one else can get involved after the fact.” That’s what this bill is.

In order to do that, the government has now employed the time allocation motion. But Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act—basically the greenbelt; not the greenbelt, the Ontario Place bill. It has only had 6.5 hours of debate on second reading. It hasn’t passed second reading and hasn’t gone to committee, so what the allocation motion is doing is, it’s going to go to second reading vote; no committee; and then direct to third reading vote, no debate.

The government is so sure—no, they’re not, actually. If they were sure that people were actually in favour of this, they would hold committee hearings about Ontario Place in the city of Toronto, and the hundreds of people, the thousands of people who are in favour of this would come and congratulate the government. But that’s not what they’re doing. They’re shutting it down.

Especially the newer members can say, “Oh, well, you know, it’s close to Christmas. We’re done talking and no one wants to hear this.” Regardless of whether you agree that we should spend $650 million on a parking garage for a private spa, or whether you don’t; whether you agree that it’s a good idea to lease some of the best waterfront public land in the province in the city of Toronto to a private spa company for 95 years, whether you agree or not, there are some things in this bill that should cause everyone, agree or not—and especially the members on the government side, it should cost them some sleep at night.

Because at the end of the day we all know they’re going to vote for this. But there are things in this bill where, and I’ll read—I’m not a lawyer; I’m not a legalese person. But “No remedy,” section 2—oh, I just got a note. Okay. Good note.

So, “No remedy

“(2) Except as otherwise provided under 4, in an order under section 13 or in a regulation ... compensation or damages, including for loss of revenues or loss of profit, are owing or payable to any person and no remedy, including but not limited to a remedy in contract, restitution, tort, misfeasance, bad faith, trust or fiduciary obligation....”

So this bill basically prohibits, under this act, suing the government with respect to anything done under the act, including government misrepresentation, misconduct, misfeasance, bad faith, breach of trust, or breach of fiduciary obligation.

I thought the government was here to make sure that people respected laws, not give yourselves the right to break them or know, with this legislation, that they are going to be broken and you’re trying to stop it from happening—not stop the laws from being broken, but stop from getting caught. Now, I know that most of you—I think that I’m safe to say that all of you did not work so hard to get elected, work so hard to represent your people, to vote for stuff to introduce bad-faith legislation like this. What kind of government puts forward legislation insulating themselves from bad-faith decision-making? Come on.

The Ford government—and it’s got a great track record.

But the “notwithstanding” clause, the greenbelt reversal, the urban boundaries reversal, and now you’re trying to legalize your own mismanagement and bad faith and who knows what else. You’re trying to head the RCMP off at the pass on this one—really.

You’re going to vote in favour of this; I understand this. But if you think about it, why don’t you let the Legislature do its job? If the Ontario Place lease is such a good thing, if it’s going to revitalize the province for the next 95 years, release the details. We’ll all be so happy. Not a made-up business case—release the details of the lease. Release the details of the lease. It would make us so happy. If people are so in favour of this legislation, hold committee hearings. Do you know what? You’re not even going to have to spend money on travel. I’m sure if you hold them here, they’ll come to you. They will come to you.

Part of the reason for why they’re doing a shortcut here—I believe there is some legal action already started, and this legislation is retroactive. So people who are trying to do the right thing, they’re cutting them off at the pass before they even get there. And everyone is so happy on the government side. They’ll go home and be so proud of this.

I’ve got a challenge. I’ve got a challenge. This little thing I read—you know when you have political ads? Would you buy a car, a refrigerator, a house or anything else if it said, “This contract prohibits lawsuits against the government or remedies with respect to anything done under the act, including government misrepresentation, misconduct, misfeasance, bad faith, breach of trust or breach of fiduciary obligation”? I guarantee you would never, ever, ever deal with a company who did that—ever—and yet this government is passing legislation like that. I challenge all the members on the other side to put that at the bottom of your political ads. I challenge you. I challenge you to do that and see how well it works.

Now, you’re hoping that no one will ever remember this, that you’re passing laws to break laws, but it’s our job as the official opposition to actually hold the government to account, and that’s what we’re doing.

And for the members who I am sure aren’t actually on the other side and who aren’t actually in favour of this—they’re just going along with the flow, hoping that they don’t get tagged with this bad-faith breach of trust, but they just might. You just might. Some of you will. And if something goes wrong, the people who came up with this idea are not going to have your backs. You’re going to be all on your own. So in order to give you a bit more time to think about that, I would like to amend the amendment and say that the division bells shall be one hour at the end of the motion.

Once again, I thought this was going to be a boring debate about procedure. The procedure that we’re talking about today is how long we should ring bells.

On the question of tolling the bells, we have rules in the procedural book, which is called the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly. The bells are set out in rule 30 of the standing orders, referred to primarily as “deferral of requested division,” and also, under the same rule, the division bells and how long they should be rung. So it’s worth, first of all, explaining what all that means.

For those who are watching these proceedings and might not know the technical language that’s being dealt with before us, the word “division” refers to, of course, a vote, and that, of course, refers to how the parties divide on a vote—not necessarily dividing along, but frequently dividing along, party lines. Any member of this 124-member House may vote in any way they see fit, and that’s called a division. In our common parlance, it’s called a vote.

It’s called a division because that’s archaic language meaning, “How do you divide to one side or the other?” That reminds me of the favourite song where the line goes, “The parting on the left / Is now the parting on the right,” and that’s from The Who, probably one of the greatest rock bands in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

We do the same thing here. We call for a division, which is a vote, and people part to one side or the other side. In fact, that was the common way of doing it back before, when assemblies such as this did not necessarily meet in one chamber, as we do on a regular basis, but sometimes met, for example, in an open field, where the king would call an assembly and all of the great powers of the land would assemble, together with their knights and retainers, and they would meet in a field. This was sometimes referred to as a “parlement,” which is an old-fashioned word employed to describe that kind of meeting. If there were a vote in the “parlement,” there would be a parting. Some people would part to the left and some would part to the right, and that’s how you would indicate how you were voting. That parting was called a division, and the division, of course, is, just as I said, an old-fashioned way of talking about how you vote.

The method that we are proposing to resolve the issues before us today is to limit the amount of further debate taken on issues that we’ve already debated an awful long time about. I don’t have the exact time allocations in front of me at this very time, but we can actually talk about each of these previous bills that we’ve already discussed and probably look back through the record and determine exactly how long we’ve discussed each bill.

The three bills were already read into the record. I was personally in this House when we debated all three of those bills. I can tell you that with regard to the greenbelt, I think we’ve had an exhaustively long discussion about that. In fact, it has actually occupied the time and attention of many members of this House, and of course, we don’t need to beat that dead horse anymore. I would imagine that members of this House would be very, very much in favour of limiting any further discussion on that bill, which we’ve already discussed at incredible length. I mean, I can’t imagine any other topic that we’ve discussed more than that. Certainly, the opposition has discussed it a lot as well. So I don’t see any reason for us to really draw that out anymore. There’s other business we need to get along to.

Similarly, on the Planning Act legislation, the same could be said. We’ve beaten that dead horse so much that it’s not to be beaten anymore. I would imagine that members of the opposition would be in a hurry to get that done, right? You would imagine they’d be in a hurry to get those pieces of legislation finalized since they’ve talked so much about it. I do want to go over how much we’ve talked about that in relation to the housing crisis, and so it’s worthy to simply go through the Hansard and see how many times the opposition has talked about the housing crisis.

I can tell you that I’ve had a brief opportunity to go through the number of times that the Leader of the Opposition has referred to the housing crisis. She referred to it most recently on November 29—that is of this year, of course—then again on November 28 of this year. Again, on November 22 of this year, she did so twice—in fact, three times. The Leader of the Opposition talked about a housing crisis again on October 24 a minimum of three times, perhaps even four times. She talked about it at length on October 23, when she delivered lengthy comments to this chamber with regard to that issue. I’m going through the comments now, and it looks like the comments take up at least three and a half pages of Hansard. Again, the Leader of the Opposition delivered a lengthy speech about the housing crisis on October 3 and—just going through the material that I have before me—took up more than four pages of Hansard records with regard to those comments. Again, on September 25, and then again on April 24—on the same date, April 24, she gave a lengthy dissertation on the housing crisis. On March 27, again, she spoke to the housing crisis, then again on March 1.

Going back to last year: On November 17, she made reference to the housing crisis. On September 7, she gave a lengthy address to this assembly of over two pages in length in the Hansard, again on the same topic, being the housing crisis. She also gave a lengthy address to this House on August 11 on the same topic, being the housing crisis.

If indeed we are to take the comments of the Leader of the Opposition at their face value, then we would imagine that the Leader of the Opposition believes that there is a housing crisis in Ontario. One would conclude that she wishes that we would proceed with as much expedition as possible, and therefore, it makes perfect sense that we do so with regard to Bill 136 and Bill 150 and Bill 154, all of which intend to deal with the housing crisis. And the faster that we can get that passed, the better we can tackle the housing crisis, of which the Leader of the Opposition has spoken of so often and at length in this assembly.

I, myself, had the opportunity to be at St. Clair College on Friday of last week, and I had the good fortune of speaking with approximately 75 students at St. Clair College. They appeared to range from the ages of 18 to 19 or 20 or 21. We had a good two-hour discussion. Of course, as is my style, I did not talk during the entire two hours; I invited them to talk to me for the entire two-hour period.

Madam Speaker, let me tell you what these young people at St. Clair College were concerned about. They were concerned about housing and, most specifically, they were concerned about their ability to purchase housing. That, I suppose, would give credence to the Leader of the Opposition and many other members of this assembly, all of whom agree that housing in the province of Ontario has become very expensive and we need to do what we can in order to put that housing back into an attainable situation so that young people, like my friends at St. Clair College, who I spoke to on Friday, can attain and purchase those houses. These young people were in a training course, and their training course was the police foundations course, and they were particularly interested in policing issues and associated issues such as that. But I can tell you, during the entire two-hour discussion, the topic that dominated the discussion was their ability to purchase houses. That was the number one topic, and so, as it is linked to these statutes or the bills that are before us today, the proposal that the bells should be rung for five minutes so that we can expedite the hearing of these bills and pass them into legislation is quite apropos, I would say.

Let’s talk about what these young people at St. Clair College told me on Friday, because, of course, it is directly related to our topic of discussion. They were interested in getting into the housing market. Some of them will graduate from their program and they will get employment and they will start at what I consider to be a very favourable salary, probably with a nice benefits package and a pension to go with it. If they land employment within the policing sector—and, of course, in order to do that, they’ll be greatly aided by other legislation that has already been passed in this Legislature by this government, and that was legislation that provided that people who are seeking employment in the policing field would be able to do so and would be able to do so faster, as long as they could fulfill certain requirements.

One of the other measures that has been taken by this government is to provide enhanced options for people to get into police colleges by waiving the tuition that applies to that college. I’m sure that’s going to be very attractive to those young people I spoke to on Friday at St. Clair College. That’s going to get them into their employment faster; that’s going to get them into a good-paying job faster. And hopefully if we can resolve the amount of supply available in the housing market by increasing the supply by a dramatic point, then those people, like these young people from St. Clair College, will be able to afford that attainable housing which all of us really want to provide.

One of the bills that’s before us is Bill 154, the New Deal for Toronto Act, and I can see that that has received a certain amount of comment since it’s been introduced into this chamber. Now, the New Deal for Toronto Act is certainly an interesting situation. It’s got certain proposals in it. One of those proposals is to return the Don Valley Parkway and also the Gardiner to the jurisdiction of the province of Ontario.

I suppose some people would look at that and ask themselves why that needs to be done or whether or not that’s a good idea or a bad idea. I suppose some people might look at that situation and say that they would like the province of Ontario, perhaps, to take over those highways because of certain reasons related to the number of people who travel into the city of Toronto on a daily basis from the surrounding areas. That is certainly something that members of this assembly know a lot about because the majority of the members of this assembly must travel into the city of Toronto in order to be at this assembly at any given time. I myself have travelled along both of those expressways. They’re no mystery to me, and I’m sure they’re no mystery to many members of this House.

The question is to what extent these are being used by people who don’t reside in the city of Toronto. I suppose there are traffic counts that could tell you the amount of traffic that’s on either one of those. Then you could extrapolate that data and determine how many people are entering the city from the exterior based on the number of people who actually reside in Toronto and also based on statistics which might suggest how many people residing in the city of Toronto actually own automobiles. Then you would have to make an educated analysis of all that data and decide whether or not the amount of traffic travelling along those auto routes is actually traffic that emanates from within the city or emanates from without the city or at the exterior of the city.

I would think that if we had done such an analysis, it would be pretty simple. It would probably demonstrate without any shadow of a doubt that those two auto routes are carrying a considerable amount of traffic that emanates from outside the city of Toronto and for people who are travelling into the city for various reasons, such as employment. That might be used as one justification for saying that the route in question might preferably be operated and maintained by the province of Ontario.

On the opposite side, of course, you could have reasons for not doing so as well, but the whole deal is exactly that: It’s a package deal. There’s give and take in any package deal, and I think that the give and take in this particular package deal is probably something that ought to be very good, not only for the city of Toronto but for the people of Ontario as well, because we want to keep Ontario moving and in order to keep Ontario moving, we have to have the routes that we’re talking about.

So that would be part of the reason why we would want to expedite the New Deal for Toronto Act, which is Bill 154.

Now, I’d like to refer to the amendment to the amendment, which is to change the ringing of the bells from five minutes to 60 minutes. I’m not quite sure why the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane wanted to change that from five minutes to 60 minutes. The debate that we’re going to have on the amendment and then the amendment to the amendment and perhaps even the main body of the motion itself will probably last longer than 60 minutes, so any member who needs to get to this assembly probably has plenty of time to get here, as long as they’re notified that we’re having this debate right now.

I would imagine that each of the parties represented in the chamber is already notifying their members that there could be a potential vote this afternoon, so it, of course, is probably redundant to ring the bells for 60 minutes. In fact, I would suspect that if we had to do so, there would be a lot of standing around. But I’m not entirely committed to not ringing the bells for extended periods of time. I can understand why members might need to have that bell rung for longer than five minutes or for perhaps five minutes. I haven’t heard quite yet an explanation as to why, but perhaps I’ll hear an explanation during this lengthy debate about why we should ring the bells that long. Perhaps I’ll be persuaded during this debate that the bells should be rung longer. I’m not a person who can’t be persuaded. Some people have persuaded me to do things that I thought I would not do. That’s pretty reasonable and fair, to talk about that.

With regard to Bill 150, which is the planning statute law, that is, of course, an issue that we’ve talked about already at length in this Legislature. It’s been the topic of conversation for quite some time, and there’s been a long, long debate about that. I think that people have had plenty of time to say what they wanted to say and get it on the record. If you were in favour of that bill, you could have stood in this House and you could have given a 20-minute speech and let the members of this assembly know how you felt about it.

I had the opportunity to do that myself. I spoke to the planning statute act, which is, at this stage, only a bill. I had my own opportunity to do that and spoke to it for quite some time. During my remarks on that particular bill, I explained the process of an official plan and how official plans are adopted and passed in the province of Ontario. During the course of that discussion, I explained how official plans are the official and basic planning document of any given municipality and that the municipalities themselves go through a very long process with regard to passing their official plans and that during that very long process there’s also a public consultation stage. During the public consultation stage, people are invited not only to send in their comments but at the same time may actually personally attend public planning meetings to give their views at a public planning meeting. That, of course, demonstrates that the opportunity to take a look at planning already has gone through a considerable public consultation process at the municipal stage, which is not to say that it can’t go through another consultation process at other stages or at other levels, but I’m just pointing out that the official plans have already been through a public consultation stage.

Therein official plans are adopted or passed by their own municipal council and then passed up to what is the higher authorizing authority for official plans. In certain circumstances, the higher authorization authority is a regional form of government. It could be a county; it could be a regional municipality. In some circumstances, for other, smaller municipalities, the authorization body is actually the province of Ontario. Those are the two situations that could apply under Bill 150.

As I’ve said, we’ve had a considerable amount of discussion and debate on Bill 150 already, and if the housing crisis, as it has been described, is to be dealt with, it might be a good idea to do it expeditiously and in particular with relation to these three bills that are before us.

I’m not sure, with regard to Bill 136, what more could be said. As I said, Bill 136 had already been the topic of a considerable amount of discussion, and I don’t see any further reason why we would be extending discussion on that any further. I think that all members of this House had more than one more opportunity to speak to that particular bill, and those opportunities were definitely used, and I think that members of this House used them very well.

To speak to the greater issue of housing: I had been talking about the approximately 75 young people that I had been having the honour of speaking with last Friday. Their main concern was getting into the housing market, and one can understand that concern because many of those people were at the age when they were going to get their first job in the relatively near future and start earning money. Perhaps some of them have already started doing that, and perhaps some of them have already managed to save a considerable amount of money and perhaps save up for a down payment.

Of course, in this housing market, to get a down payment is somewhat of a challenge. The typical down payment, if you want to avoid the CMHC financing rules, has something to do with a 20% down payment of the purchase price. If we take a very modest home in the current market and in the current atmosphere that we have today, you might find that a modest starting home might be in the neighbourhood of $500,000. Now, that of course depends on where you are in the province of Ontario, so that’s a somewhat unilateral figure that I’m choosing. If you wanted to put a down payment on a $500,000 starter home, you would need to put a down payment of $100,000 if you wanted to avoid CMHC financing rules.

That was a common thing to do when housing prices were not as high as they are today. Even with regard to today’s housing market, attempting to put down a down payment of 20% in order to avoid the CMHC’s financing rules would be a challenge for many people, because saving up $100,000, even if you have a good-paying job, is not easy to do. It might take you several years. It might take many years for some people. Still, it’s a good goal. It’s a good goal for people to have in mind, and it’s a goal that I know several people have achieved in the past.

One of our goals as a government is to make sure that in the future, going forward, the opportunities that were afforded to those of us in the past who were able to buy houses and get into the housing market are also opportunities that will be afforded to others going forward into the future, and that includes those young people I was speaking to on Friday at St. Clair College in the police foundations course.

Now, there are other rules that can apply. If you don’t attempt to get out of the CMHC financing rules, you can also put 10% down, and 10% down on a $500,000 home is $50,000. That’s a more obtainable objective—certainly more obtainable than $100,000—and that might be the objective that most people are going to try to get to these days. Of course, even if you put the 10% down at $50,000, you would then have to deal with CMHC financing, and that might entail certain conditions that you have to comply with in order to get the mortgage.

I can speak to the issue of many people attempting to deal with the down payment by, I’ll say, reverting to various methods so that they can perhaps get into the housing market earlier, and that’s what these three bills are talking about: 136, 150 and 154. All of these bills have to do with getting housing into the market and increasing the housing supply, so that by increasing the housing supply, the price of attainable housing can move downward.

One of the other things that has forced up the cost of housing supply in the province of Ontario is the increase in interest rates. Now, there was a certain point not that long ago when interest rates had gotten to a point that was so low, nobody believed they could go any lower, and perhaps the people who believed that they could not go any lower were correct, because it appears that they’re not. In fact, interest rates have now started to head in the opposite direction. Interest rates have started to increase and go up. It’s not surprising for a first-time homebuyer to now be seeking to finance a mortgage at perhaps a 5% or 6% or even 7% interest rate. Of course, interest rates are challenging, and all through life we face all sorts of challenges.

I’m about to propose a challenge to the House today, and so I will do so: I move the adjournment of the debate.

Well, it is your birthday.

The Ford government.

Forty-five bills.