Oh, yes, overachievers.

I think that it’s really important to note that the RCMP has identified a special prosecutor. The RCMP has launched a criminal investigation into the greenbelt changes made by the Ford government. Of course, the investigation centres around the controversial decision to open up protected greenbelt lands for housing development, which has sparked quite serious scrutiny.

The role of the special prosecutor, which is really shocking when you read it, is connected to the complexity of working with witnesses who may be bound by confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements—and that they are there to deal with issues of security. This is the special prosecutor. This is serious. The fact that this is what the government has wasted time and energy doing, that this is not over, is really something that this government should take to heart and should—instead of continuing to move bills forward that are not focusing on the people of Ontario, that are focusing on themselves in the light of this special prosecutor, the RCMP investigation, and in the light of what we expect will be revealed tomorrow in the Auditor General’s report.

I’m sorry to say, it probably will be a sad day when we see some of the workings around the MZOs in the province that are under investigation and some of the other things that the Auditor General will reveal. Let’s remind ourselves that that’s how we got to this part in the first place. An Auditor General’s investigation revealed clearly that there was preferential treatment of insiders and developers when it came to the Ford government’s use of MZOs and urban boundary amendments and the greenbelt expansion. Then, of course, we had the Integrity Commissioner’s report. Side by side, those two reports paint a very damning picture of this government. The Integrity Commissioner’s report found, in fact, that the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing broke the Integrity Commissioner’s act. The shocking thing is, he broke the Integrity Commissioner act when it came to insider dealing and when it came to conflict of interest. These are serious, serious charges.

Subsequent to that, we, as the official opposition, have attempted to strengthen the laws for us, as legislators, to follow, but also so that we can begin to build faith and trust in the people of the province of Ontario that what happens here, in their House, is acting above board and with the utmost transparency and integrity. So we did put forward a bill, the Strengthening Members’ Integrity Act, which was an act that would have strengthened the bill. In fact, it was the Integrity Commissioner himself who asked for some of these changes, to allow him to be able to do a more thorough investigation.

We put that forward as an opposition day motion. Many of us debated why this would be important—that as people who represent our ridings and represent the province, we should expect to be held to a higher standard; that given the cloud of suspicion that has befallen this House, we would expect that a government would be more than willing and eager to make changes so that they could show good faith and show that their intentions were to never conduct themselves in the disgraceful way that they had up until this point. But the government, again, said no to these changes.

Then, finally, in order to, again, look at the ways in which we govern ourselves—both sides—we put forward a private member’s bill called Cleaning Up Corruption Act, 2023. Because there are glaring and obvious loopholes in our integrity laws, we thought that it was time for the standard for elected officials in our province to be raised; that we needed a system that values the integrity Ontarians expect from the government, and also a system that allows Ontarians to hold their government accountable and prevent cultures of corruption, preferential treatment and backroom dealings from becoming the norm for those who hold public office. This was a good bill. This was a bill that would amend the Auditor General Act. It would also amend the Members’ Integrity Act. Those are the two acts, again—those are the two independent officers of the Legislature. As you will recall, it brought forward the reports that have put us where we are today. The very fact that we’re standing here today, debating a bill where the government is revoking, rescinding, restoring or repairing what they have done to the greenbelt is because of these reports.

So I think the fact that we have been focused on trying to learn from the lessons from the government’s actions, that we have genuinely been trying to protect the respect of this place and to protect democratic norms in the province—we put those forward, and the government, of course, has voted them all down.

It is stunning to me that, perhaps—we know how this place works. Perhaps the government doesn’t want to support anything that His Majesty’s loyal opposition puts forward. I guess I can go that far—that that’s fine. But where is your legislation? Where are you putting forward legislation based on what we’ve experienced in this province, based on the cynicism, the profound lack of trust in government that is the direct result of your actions?

I ask the members on the other side: Is this something that you want to be associated with? Is this what you want your legacy to be?

It is my contention that if the government moved forward with bills that strengthen some of these provisions that help guide us, people would see that as an act of good faith.

We have here the Seven Grandfather Teachings carving in the Legislature. Really, they are a set of guiding principles for how to conduct an ethical and a respectful life. What we were saying with these two bills that we moved forward to strengthen the Integrity Commissioner’s act and to pass the bill, which was the act to end corruption in this province—what we were saying was that we, too, need to be governed by a set of principles, just like we see there.

I’m genuinely disappointed—I almost want to say “sad”—that we have a government that doesn’t want to take action on this. It is really something that you would think that the government would be moving forward on—that we shouldn’t have to be saying that, and people outside this House shouldn’t have to be saying that this government is not acting in their interests or is acting for the benefit of insiders. But if you put something forward—again, Ontarians are a forgiving people, and they would see that this is a government that has learned the error of their ways and is working to earn the trust of Ontarians. That’s what we have to do every single day when we come to this House. We earn their trust to be put here and to be elected here, and it is our job every single day to earn their trust. Whether you’re in opposition, whether you’re in government, whether you’re a cabinet minister, or independent MPPs, that is your job.

Unfortunately, I have to say that turning down those two amendments, and then the debate that we’ve been seeing in the House shows there’s nothing that’s really changed here.

We’re going to discuss Bill 150, which talks about revoking changes that this government’s abuse, essentially, of issuing MZOs—but the irony of the fact that we have had time allocation on a bill that did not go to committee, which was the Ontario Place bill, which in that bill gives a new minister extraordinary powers to issue MZOs. The irony of it is insane.

So we are here to discuss a bill that is reversing bad actions when it comes to good faith on the part of the government issuing MZOs.

We just passed this morning Bill 154, the Ontario Place act that didn’t go to committee, that had limited debate—because the government again used their majority to stifle debate on this—and then, in fact, we would basically call this bill “passing a law to break the law” because, in this bill, it gives extraordinary powers to one minister. I think it needs to be said that it’s giving extraordinary powers to one minister. It’s so strange to me that this is a government that says they don’t like big government, that they work for the people, but they love to concentrate power in the Premier’s office. Now we see power concentrated in the Minister of Infrastructure’s office, and in this bill—really, this is a bill that’s about the government giving itself the power to bypass and even break multiple provincial laws in order to essentially ram through the Ontario Place redevelopment on behalf of a private luxury spa operator, with near total impunity. Again, I talked about all the things that the people of the province are struggling with—top of mind is not a luxury spa that most people won’t ever be able to afford to go to. But this is the bill that gives this government immunity or writes into the bill, basically, a law to break the law. It prohibits lawsuits against the government or remedies with respect to anything done under the act, including—and here’s a list to beat all lists—government misrepresentations, misconduct, misfeasance, bad faith, breach of trust, or breach of fiduciary obligations.

They’re ahead of the game.

Isn’t that crazy? Exactly.

So are you anticipating that you will need to protect yourselves from this? It just goes beyond anything that anybody has seen. We know the government has pushed the envelope with indemnifications like this before. We saw that they gave long-term-care operators indemnities. We saw that they give themselves indemnity when it came to some other bills. But these go so much further than any previous legislation. But what for?

Interjection.

Let me just say that this is not normal. Governments that behave like this are not generally democratic, I would say. This kind of concentration of power, exempting themselves from the rule of law, does not speak to a democratic government. Nobody you would ask would say that. I don’t know how you can think that this speaks to a democratic government. There are governments around the world that would pass laws like this that would be called autocratic. People would never expect to see something like this in the province of Ontario, but here it is.

This is not the only assault, I would say, on our democratic norms in the operating of this House with these two bills—not only the Ontario Place bill where debate was stifled on. There was no committee. All the people who were upset—Ontario Place for All—all the people who were concerned about all the things that you were going to do with Ontario Place were not allowed to come to committee to speak to the government to say, “I don’t agree with this. Why do you have to cut down 850 trees? Why is this necessary? Why are you spending, basically, three quarters of a billion dollars of my money to build a parking garage for a private spa?” They don’t get to ask those questions. I can understand why the government wouldn’t want them to ask those questions because none of the answers are a good look at all for this government.

The idea that you are time-allocating these important bills—both the Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act and Bill 150, which is the bill to restore the forced urban boundary expansions of this government—is nothing short of an assault on our democracy. There is no other way of putting it. People that I talk to feel this.

As I said, what the government did when it comes to the greenbelt—I have never seen people mobilize like this on any other issue. And the fact that this government had to walk this back is because of those people, because of their work in this province.

But a normal—

Our normal process is, we have second reading debate and then we send bills to committee. If you really concerned yourself, as I know some of the MPPs opposite do, with our Westminster parliamentary tradition, you would know that committee is a vital component of our democratic functioning. People come to committee to speak directly to their government on bills that impact them and their lives. They come with expert ideas. They come with lived experience. They make suggestions to make bills better. But the government did not allow this. In fact, at committee, the government only allowed one hour to hear from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who promised that he was an entertaining guy when he gets going. The jury is out on that, I have to say.

When I asked this question in the House—don’t get angry now—about why people weren’t allowed to come and speak to this bill, the Premier stood in his place and said the people of Ontario “don’t give two hoots about” the greenbelt. Come on. People do care. They’ve shown that they care because they’ve written to all of you; I know they have. And despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to depute at the committee—which, again, is an important part of our Westminster parliamentary norms—the committee room was packed. There were people in the hallway. Even if they weren’t allowed to speak, they wanted to hear what was being done with the greenbelt.

So I just have to say that, in all the disappointing things that we have seen when it comes to the greenbelt, the fact that people were shut out from this debate is right up there with one of the biggest disappointments that I share with this government, along with some of the other actions that, again, seem to shut out people from this House and from the things that are important to them.

When it comes directly to the bill itself—I have three minutes left—there were a lot of questions that I have and that residents and stakeholders have, and I have here many, many of the submissions from stakeholders who weren’t able to speak at committee.

One of the things that they were really concerned with is that this government restore some, but not all, of the protections to the greenbelt. Let’s be clear: The greenbelt is not better off. There are still protections for the greenbelt that have not been restored with this bill, particularly when it comes to the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. That important area had four layers of protection; only two have been restored. We moved amendments that would have restored those amendments, but the government voted those amendments down. As was said by one of the stakeholders, by only returning two of the four prior Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve protections, the Ford government is not keeping its promise to Pickering residents—that’s from Stop Sprawl Durham. They have quite a few things to say, but they weren’t able to say them at committee.

The other thing that I think is important to note is that when it comes to protecting the greenbelt, people were very concerned that there still exists in this legislation a process for removals. So there still exists, in the legislation, a process for this government to continue to remove, at a future time, lands from the greenbelt. First of all, that is in direct conflict with what the Premier and, in fact, the minister has said—that we won’t be making any changes to the greenbelt in the future. Unfortunately, I feel like that’s a dog-whistle signal to developers—“Hold on. We’re doing this now, but there is provision here to allow things to be removed from the greenbelt.”

I also want to say that many questions remain. Will this government, now, that they have returned this—does this mean that the government does agree with their own housing task force, that they did not need the greenbelt to build housing? Many people are not buying what they consider a cover story about housing, because many experts, including your own task force, said that the greenbelt is not needed to build the housing that we needed.

Unfortunately, we have wasted so much time in the province. We’re so far behind in getting people the housing that we have needed. We have spent a year, a year and a half—even longer. The government has been in power for five and a half years. All the time, effort and angst over this greenbelt grab could have been spent developing strategies and developing good ideas to help people with their housing, because we know people need housing.

In our riding, in Hamilton, we have people sleeping on the street, on cardboard. They need to be housed. We have seniors struggling to keep a roof over their head.

I wish, rather than the government carving up and eyeing the greenbelt, that they had their eye on people in this province—

Come on.

Thank you. Further debate?

It’s a pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on Bill 136, Greenbelt Statute Amendment Act, 2023. It’s a pleasure to speak here, this afternoon, for third reading of our government’s proposed bill before this House.

I want to lead off with an overview of the bill, but I know my colleague across the way mentioned—just for the record, I know this was a debate at committee on Friday; thank you to the committee members for working with us on a Friday.

And before I forget, as I mentioned at committee, my thoughts and prayers are with the member’s family, during this difficult time, on the passing of her aunt.

At committee, we debated about the amendments you mentioned earlier. This bill, actually, ensures that the greenbelt is protected in whole and that those two additional amendments, which were in the original Greenbelt Act, are not required. It would actually create duplication and red tape. We are ensuring the greenbelt is protected and whole—to be clear, for the record. Just to read that into the record here, this afternoon—they would not be necessary.

The proposed Greenbelt Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, would amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, 2001, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Act. If passed, the bill would enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2023—that is, our proposed legislation would effectively restore the protections that were previously provided by an earlier act dealing with the agricultural preserve.

There are many pieces to this proposed legislation, so I will highlight the major actions and what they would do.

I’ll speak on how we are proposing to put the lands back into the Greenbelt. I’ll talk about the lands that we’ve recently added to the greenbelt and look at our proposals to strengthen the protection of the greenbelt. We’re proposing to return 15 sites, totalling 7,400 acres—or, for those who prefer metric, 2,995 hectares—of land that were redesigned or taken out of the greenbelt in Oak Ridges moraine areas in late 2022. The lands in question, which we propose to return to the greenbelt, are in the cities of Hamilton, Markham, Pickering, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, the towns of Ajax, Grimsby, Whitchurch-Stouffville, the township of King and the municipality of Clarington. As I mentioned, we are also proposing to reverse the redesignation of land in Grimsby, which is the protected countryside of the greenbelt, and the land in King township, which is the Oak Ridges moraine area.

We’re also proposing to update the land use schedules of the greenbelt plan. This would help us restore the same protections to the lands that they had before the change in late 2022.

I should mention that some of the lands we are restoring or redesignating also come under the policies of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. For the lands that also fall under the policies of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan, we’re also proposing to reverse the redesignation made in 2022. A redesignation changes the uses that are allowed on a parcel of land, and in this case, we would be restoring the designation of those lands to “countryside” from “settlement area.” This would have the effect of limiting the uses of these lands and giving them the protection that they had prior to the changes in 2022.

We’re also proposing to restore protections previously provided by the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act, 2005. This would mean reinstating the easements and covenants provided for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. These easements and covenants restrict development by limiting the land to agricultural uses, restoring them to what they were before the changes in late 2022, and would recognize the importance of the agricultural lands in this area. It would also ensure their sustainable use for present and future generations.

Speaker, as my colleagues have mentioned in this place on many occasions around this legislation, on parliamentary conventions and procedures, this legislation, if passed, would codify the greenbelt into legislation.

Interjection.

If a future government—I know we have a new Liberal leader—no offence, Speaker. I know you’re in the Chair right now. We have a new Liberal leader who has said that she’s open to opening the greenbelt. That is her prerogative, and if they ever—hopefully many, many years from now—form government, they may choose to open the greenbelt, but they will have to answer to the people of Ontario if they do that. And to do that, they would have to bring forward legislation to change the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges moraine and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve as well.

This legislation would enshrine the boundaries of the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges moraine areas in legislation. It would also remove the regulatory authority to change these boundaries in the future. Just like the very bill we’re debating today, any changes to the boundaries of the greenbelt area or the Oak Ridges moraine area would need to be debated and passed in this House. All the same due diligence needed for regulation would continue, such as including consultations on any boundary changes on the Regulatory Registry and the Environmental Registry of Ontario, also known as ERO, most commonly.

We’re also proposing the additional protection of the boundaries through the legislation because Ontarians have made it clear that they want an enhanced level of protection across these lands while still making sure lands are available for important infrastructure, as was intended when the original Greenbelt Act was passed in this place in 2005.

Speaker, I’ve talked mostly about what our proposed legislation would do to reverse actions taken since 2022. Back on that date, lands were also added to the greenbelt, as I mentioned earlier. Lands on the Paris-Galt moraine were added, and 13 urban river valleys were added as well, or expanded. The lands that are designated as urban river valleys provided a corridor of protection for natural heritage, like wooded areas and waterways, that run through urban areas as well. These corridors connect the greenbelt to the Great Lakes, inland lakes and areas beyond the greenbelt’s boundaries.

Speaker, in addition to protecting natural features and water features, urban valleys protect recreation, tourism and cultural opportunities in all natural settings. While some privately owned lands may be included in urban river valleys, the policies of urban river valleys apply only to publicly owned lands, and they rely on municipal official plan policies for their implementation. In these official plans, urban river valley lands are mostly designated as parks, open spaces, recreational areas and areas for conservation protection and/or environmental protection.

Speaker, taking together all of these reversals and additions, we’re adding 9,400 acres—or, again, for those metric individuals watching this afternoon, 3,800 hectares—to the greenbelt.

Let me tell the House a little bit about the Paris-Galt moraine. The moraine extends from Caledon to the Paris-Brantford area and is home to critical groundwater resources. It’s about 130 kilometres long and spans as wide as 11 kilometres at certain points. We’ve added land in the Paris-Galt moraine to the greenbelt area, and we’ve designated it as a protected countryside with a natural heritage system.

Speaker, the future of the greenbelt is bright. As the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing stated earlier this year, our government will soon be proceeding with the planned 10-year review of the greenbelt. This review will be led by impartial, non-partisan experts in conservation, agriculture and the environment, and it will include engagement with Indigenous communities and municipalities. Once the experts have finalized their recommendations, they will be provided to the Auditor General and the Commissioner of the Environment for consultation. This is to ensure that the review process is fair and guided by recent recommendations to improve the process.

Speaker, the greater Golden Horseshoe is one of the fastest-growing regions in North America. I know as I was sitting here listening to the debate this afternoon from my colleagues, the member from Essex was so kind as to give me a Christmas card. Within that Christmas card, he wrote a lovely note congratulating me on recently—well, not recently—getting engaged this year. Then, he said, “I hope you have a marriage happy and long and that you have lots of children.” Well, that’s not up to me, Speaker; it’s up to me and my partner. I don’t know how Meghan feels about that, but it demonstrates that our—

Interjection.

The ayes are 61; the nays are 24.

Further debate?

Pursuant to the order of the House passed earlier today, I am now required to put the question.

Mr. Flack has moved third reading of 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. Is it the pleasure of the house that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion please say “nay.”

I declare the motion carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 30, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 / Projet de loi 154, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur la relance portée par la croissance (cité de Toronto) et la Loi de 2023 sur la reconstruction de la Place de l’Ontario.

Ms. Surma has moved second reading of Bill 154, an Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023. Is it the pleasure of the house that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

All those opposed, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote is required. Call in the members. This is a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1618 to 1623.

On November 29, 2023, Miss Surma moved second reading of Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Second reading agreed to.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 / Projet de loi 154, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur la relance portée par la croissance (cité de Toronto) et la Loi de 2023 sur la reconstruction de la Place de l’Ontario.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy has moved third reading of Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

This is a recorded vote. Call in the members. This is a five-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1628 to 1633.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy has moved third reading of Bill 154, An Act to enact the Recovery Through Growth Act (City of Toronto), 2023 and the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Mr. Flack, on behalf of Mr. Calandra, moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 150, An Act to enact the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023 and to amend the Planning Act with respect to remedies / Projet de loi 150, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur les modifications apportées aux plans officiels et modifiant la Loi sur l’aménagement du territoire en ce qui concerne les recours.

Today, it’s my pleasure and privilege to rise for the third reading of our government’s proposed Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023. I’ll be sharing the government’s lead-off time today with the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

Speaker, it would be helpful to look at the bigger picture in which this legislation has been brought forward. When our government took office in 2018, it very quickly became apparent that Ontario is facing a severe housing shortage. This isn’t something unique to Ontario. Indeed, the rest of Canada and many other G7 economies are facing similar challenges. Ontario remains the engine of the Canadian economy. It is our economic brand for people all over the world.

Speaker, many of us in this House have stories of family members coming to Ontario to build a better life. I think of my parents and their forefathers; my mother was from the Ottawa Valley, just like the member from Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke—one of the founding fathers, actually, of the city of Pembroke. And why they came was for opportunity. My father—on his side of the family—came from England to build a better life right here in Toronto. An important part of that dream was to own their own farm, own their own home, own a place where they could raise their family. And with a decent job and watching the pennies, it was attainable for most people.

But today, things are much different. The math simply doesn’t work for first-time homebuyers.

I have an example to share. I’m one of four boys. Each of us was able to buy our own house at a very young age and make the down payments, get into the mortgage world, and make payments and build equity in our home, knowing it would go up in value over time. Unfortunately, every one of our daughters and sons in our family has not been able to get that job done yet. It’s wrong. We need to change it, and that’s what this government is faced with doing and will continue to do in a very prudent way.

People with good jobs are being priced out of the market. Even families with two good incomes find it impossible to get onto the housing ladder and to make it work. At the same time, rental accommodation is desperately scarce. Even though we’ve seen new rental starts and builds year over year up 43.5%—or nearly 15,000 new units—rental accommodation still is desperately scarce.

Affordable rental apartments were a rite of passage for young people just starting out and making their way in the world, in Ontario and Canada, for newcomers adjusting to life in Canada, or for seniors who want to downsize and stay in the community they raised their families and want to continue to live in. But the construction of new rentals has virtually ground to a halt up until the last year. People avoided investment in rentals because it just wasn’t profitable. The result is a generation of young adults being forced to live in their parents’ basements or people making do with less as their rent costs more.

Speaker, we know that demand on our existing housing supply will only intensify. More than 500,000 people moved to the province in 2022 alone. In my adult lifetime, I’ve seen the population of this province more than double. Recent projections show that as many as four million additional people will move to Ontario by 2031, making this province nearly 20 million people in total. In 2022, Ontario’s population was just over 15 million people, and by 2046, that figure is expected to be north of 21 million souls; that’s almost 44% growth. In fact, some of my colleagues in the GTHA will say that in the next 10 years the GTHA itself will be the size of Ontario today. In a little more than two decades from now, we have an opportunity to change our housing market conditions as they sit.

There’s a very good reason why people are moving to Ontario in droves, by the millions: It’s opportunity, it’s promise, and it’s about building a better life, just like the generations before us who built Ontario and who built Canada.

Our government’s open-for-business approach is attracting investment and spurring job creation. Businesses of all sizes are setting up shop. Last year, 18,000 businesses opened right here in Ontario, representing 41% of the Canadian total. Good things happen in Ontario. Since we took office in 2018, over 700,000 jobs have been created; where many were lost, we see job growth continuing on the rise.

We want the province to thrive, to be a place where people can come to build a better life and raise a family. To match this bold growth, we need a bold plan to build more housing. That’s why our government is determined to work with our partners to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031.

Speaker, this picture I paint, one of severe housing shortage coupled with a strong economy and growing population, illustrates why our government has placed building more homes front and centre. Since taking office, our government has brought forward four housing supply action plans. The plans have helped get shovels in the ground faster to build the full range of housing to meet the needs of all Ontarians—this includes affordable, community, market and rental, high-rise, low-rise and long-term-care housing. We’ve made good progress, with housing starts returning to levels not seen since the 1980s.

The severity of the housing challenge Ontario faces was the driver behind our government’s original plans to open up more land for housing development. One of the ways we sought to do this was by expanding some urban boundaries through the official plan process. But as has been acknowledged publicly, these decisions may not have been made in the way that supported our goal of building 1.5 million homes while balancing the needs and priorities of local communities and instilling public trust.

That is why our government introduced Bill 150, the Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023. This proposed legislation would reverse provincial changes made in November 2022 and April 2023 to official plans and the official plan amendments in 12 municipalities. Those are the cities of Barrie, Belleville, Guelph, Hamilton, Ottawa, Peterborough, and Wellington county, and the regional municipalities of Halton, Niagara, Peel, Waterloo and York. The reversal includes changes to urban boundaries while maintaining protections for the greenbelt. This really is a reset for the government to work with our municipal partners so that we can remain focused on working together.

Speaker, let’s look more closely at how the proposed legislation would work. The reversal of the official plan decisions made by the province would be retroactive to the original date they were made, either on November 4, 2022, or April 11, 2023. Construction that has already received a building permit since that time would be able to continue. Applications already in progress seeking planning permissions—for example, zoning bylaw amendments or plans of subdivision—would continue to be processed. These in-process applications would need to conform to the municipality’s official plan, approved under the Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023.

As we have discussed, the proposed legislation would reverse changes to urban boundaries while maintaining protections for the greenbelt. However, through the legislation, we are proposing to maintain a limited number of provincial changes to the official plans. These instances include changes the province made to protect the greenbelt, to protect public health and safety, and to align with existing provincial legislation and regulations. The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing will be further exploring these retained modifications in his remarks, in a few minutes.

We recognize that, in some cases, more than a year has passed since the plans were first approved. That is why we have a 45-day engagement with municipalities. This ends on December 7, 2023. We anticipate that the impacted municipalities, as well as affected lower-tier municipalities, will submit comments and provide information on proposed updates.

We wrote to the affected municipalities on November 2,and asked them to submit comments and information on the projects that are in progress. We also wanted them to bring forward requests for provincial modifications that they would like to see maintained from the original decision. More specifically, we asked for information on projects where construction has already begun based on the official plan or official plan amendment decisions—particularly those projects that are directly enabled by the provincial changes that were made to the plan, and we asked for more information related to these changes that the municipality would like made to that official plan, based on the modifications the province had previously made and which the municipality supports.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs will then assess the items brought forward by municipalities in a consistent way, based on criteria. For example, the ministry may consider items such as whether the change is consistent with provincial policies—for example, increasing housing supply or boosting density around transit—or whether the change might resolve the conflict with provincial legislation or regulations, or if the change might be needed to address a public health and safety concern, or changes may be needed to address a provincial priority project—for example, a long-term-care home or a transit-oriented community. If the proposed change meets the criteria to be included in the official plan, the province will consult with the municipality and explore the most effective way to implement it.

People are understandably passionate about the communities they serve, and we acknowledge that time and attention lately have been focused on ensuring we’re living up to the standards that people expect of all of us.

Our approach, which I believe is more productive, is not to focus on those things we disagree on, but rather to focus on the things we agree on with respect to official plans.

I’m happy to report that this bill has generally been received by the different parties we work with in a positive way.

Shortly after we announced we would be reversing the official plan decisions, we received a thoughtful and constructive letter from Colin Best, president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. Mr. Best outlined the association’s thoughts on how the municipalities and the province could work best together. Mr. Best said, “We commend the government for making efforts to ensure that these changes are made in consultation with municipalities and that considerations are being made to ensure that no unintended consequences arise from the proposed reversal.”

The 45-day consultation window I mentioned earlier will ensure affected municipalities have their say as we finalize the official plans. We will evaluate the feedback from the consultation to determine the appropriate next steps, potentially, including further legislation or other actions.

Also, Niagara region chair Jim Bradley was quoted in the media, saying, “I want to commend Minister Calandra and the provincial government for making that decision and reviewing the official plans, not just ours but numerous municipalities right across the province.” Those comments show that we are on the right track with this legislation and with the general reset that we have been working to achieve.

Speaker, the proposed Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, would introduce immunity provisions to help mitigate legal risk for municipalities and the province resulting from this legislation. The proposed immunity provisions would apply to all matters related to modifications under the act affecting 12 municipalities’ official plan matters.

Bill 150 would also amend the Planning Act to introduce immunity provisions related to the making, amending or revoking of ministerial zoning orders.

Bill 150, the Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, is about working effectively with our municipal partners. It’s about rebuilding trust so we can continue to focus on building more homes right across Ontario. Our government wants to ensure that people have ready access to a home that suits them, day in and day out. Whether that’s home ownership or a rental apartment, this is another step on the important pathway to helping Ontarians realize their dream of affordable, accessible housing.

Thank you for your attention, Speaker.

With that, I would hand it over to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

It’s wonderful to be here this afternoon with all of you to speak on another very important piece of legislation. I’m pleased to share the government’s time today, as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and speak to the Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023. I’d like to spend some of my time discussing how this proposed legislation will better support our municipal partners in advancing local planning priorities while helping us address the province’s housing supply crisis.

Speaker, as all members of this House know, one of our most valued relationships is with our partners at the municipal level. They are and will continue to be an integral part of our efforts to build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031. As I’ve said in this House before, the province is on the right path to building more housing, but our municipal partners need our support, and they need us to take some additional steps.

Since being appointed to the ministry, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Associate Minister of Housing and I have been working very closely and meeting with colleagues at different levels of government to find ways to build housing even faster. We’ve been asking our municipal partners what they need to do to ensure we are maximizing opportunities to get shovels in the ground.

One of the ways is through municipal official plans. As you may know, Speaker, official plans set out where offices and shops can be located; where industry and development can thrive; where parks and schools should be located; where infrastructure like roads, water mains and sewers will be needed; and of particular interest to us today, where new housing can be built.

Official plans can help implement the provincial planning statement. This statement sets out the province’s priorities for land use planning, including direction that municipalities must follow when making decisions under the Planning Act for community development and growth. Land use planning helps set the goals for the community while keeping economic, social and environmental factors in mind. Planning helps balance the interests of property owners with the interests of the community as a whole, and municipalities work to reflect the interests of their communities in their official plans.

The official plan process is complex and nuanced and requires balance—a balancing act between long-range and big-picture planning, between long-term infrastructure goals and short-term development pressures and between opposing land uses that need to be managed so they can successfully co-exist. All of this and more brings us to why we are here today.

Our government recognizes that municipalities are in the best position to understand the unique needs and the concerns of their communities. Our proposed legislation would wind back provincial changes to the official plans and the official plan amendments made by the ministry in November 2022 and April 2023, except where these are needed to align with legislation or regulations such as the protections for the greenbelt.

Speaker, it’s my privilege to talk about these exceptions. The provincial modifications we wish to keep were made to protect the greenbelt or protect public health and safety. We also want to retain the modifications that bring official plan boundaries into conformity with existing provincial legislation and regulations.

Let’s look at the modifications we’ve made to ensure municipally approved official plans reflect the policies and mapping supporting the greenbelt. In some cases, the municipality-adopted urban boundary in the official plan may have encroached into the greenbelt when this type of urban expansion doesn’t align with the greenbelt plan. As you are aware, Speaker, we also have before the House—which we also passed recently—legislation to enhance greenbelt protections. We work through the official plans to identify and then address inconsistencies within the greenbelt, and these are some of the modifications we’re proposing to retain in the official plans of the city of Hamilton, the county of Wellington and the regions of Niagara, Peel and York.

Another set of modifications we propose to keep relates to Indigenous communities and their interests. These modifications would strengthen the approach municipalities take in working with Indigenous communities. They would also help to ensure that obligations are met; for example, ensuring that where a marked or unmarked cemetery or burial place is found, Indigenous communities with a known interest in the area are notified. To align with Indigenous interests, we are proposing to keep these provincial changes in the municipally approved official plans for the cities of Hamilton, Belleville and the county of Wellington.

Another set of modifications we propose to maintain relate to incompatible and sensitive land uses. A stark example of an incompatible land use would be a heavy industry facility next to a long-term-care home. In that example, an official plan would need to reconsider not only the long-term-care home but also the industrial plant. The plant, which might be a major employer and a significant contributor to the community’s prosperity, would likely find its operations hampered because of its proximity to a long-term-care home. And the residents of a long-term-care home would find their quality of life negatively affected by the plant.

These examples show us where official plans have an important role to play, in this case, to ensure that land is used in a way that works for everyone. To this end, the provincial modifications would have added language to some official plans to clarify that the municipality would need to follow provincial guidelines so that we don’t end up with long-term-care homes next to heavy industry, to continue with that example, and if it proves impossible, the official plan includes language to ensure measures are taken to mitigate any potential adverse effects.

To align with these sensitive land uses, we are proposing to keep these types of modifications to the municipally approved plans of the cities of Hamilton, Peterborough, the regions of North York and Niagara.

As we’ve seen that provincial modifications were made to address health and safety as it pertains to sensitive land uses, other modifications were made to address safe drinking water. Municipally approved official plans must include provisions for wellhead protection areas, and this requirement is in alignment with the Clean Water Act.

Many municipalities across Ontario rely on wells to supply safe drinking water to their residents, and we must guard against the risk of pollutants seeping into the ground and contaminating well water. That’s the purpose of wellhead protection areas. These are the areas around a well where landowners and the municipality must manage any activities that could become sources of contamination, and these wellhead protection areas must be identified in official plans. To that end, we’re proposing to keep modifications like this to the municipally approved official plans of the cities of Barrie, Belleville, Peterborough and the regions of Peel and York.

Recognizing the province’s investments in infrastructure and the need to plan and protect for new infrastructure corridors, we are maintaining a set of modifications related to infrastructure and planned corridors. These corridors are reserved for large linear infrastructure projects such as new highways or hydro transmission lines. Once potential future corridors are identified by the province, they need to be included in official plans. As a result, we’re proposing to keep modifications that protect the Highway 413 corridor and the northwest GTA transmission corridor. These affect the official plans of Halton and Peel regions.

As I have said, reversing the provincial official plan decisions that were made would better reflect the local priorities and support the needs of local communities, needs and priorities that are consistently evolving, which means that the plans that shape them must evolve as well.

We recognize that in some cases the province may have modified and approved an official plan more than a year ago. And a lot can happen in that time. Plans might need to be adjusted to account for local priorities and planning for 2051 and potentially to support our province-wide target of building at least 1.5 million new homes by 2031, and that is why we’re also looking for feedback on potential changes that were originally made by the province that the municipality would like to keep.

We’re also interested in what projects might already be under way, and we have given impacted municipalities until Dec 7, 2023, to provide these updates to the official plans. Municipal staff can also reach out to the staff from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to provide additional information.

Speaker, I should also add, the immunity provisions in the legislation would apply not just to the provincial government but also to our municipal partners. These strengthened immunity provisions will mitigate any legal risk that may arise as a result of this legislation.

As the Associate Minister of Housing has said earlier this afternoon, the proposed bill has generally been well received by the impacted communities. By focusing on items that we all agree on, we’re able to leverage the municipal official plans to help meet our shared priorities. This collaboration will address changes to accommodate circumstances or projects that are already under way or to maintain changes that the province made.

Speaker, we must not lose sight of the impetus for our proposed legislation. Ultimately, we want more homes in Ontario—a lot more homes—and not just homes in downtown Toronto but homes across communities in Ontario, whether it’s in my riding of Perth–Wellington or in the riding of Ajax or in Ottawa. We want to achieve our goal of building at least 1.5 million new homes by 2031 by supporting our municipal partners. And this is not just an aspiration; this is a practical objective we’re already delivering results on.

Over the past three years, housing starts have been robust and, despite a recent slowdown, this has continued well into 2023. From January to October of this year—the latest figures that are available—Ontario saw almost 75,000 housing starts. That’s essentially unchanged when compared to the same period in 2022. And for rental accommodations, 2023 saw an increase in rental starts of almost 41% compared to the same period in 2022. In 2022, Ontario saw nearly 15,000 rental starts, which was an all-time high. And I’m pleased to report that in 2023 we had already surpassed that figure at the end of October of this year.

Speaker, as I’ve said, all levels of government need to work together to address the housing crisis. Our proposed Planning Statute Law Amendment Act, 2023, is another way that we are collaborating and engaging with municipal partners to support their communities as they develop and grow. We are committed to increasing the housing supply in Ontario. Our call to action is to get shovels in the ground across this province, from Windsor to Mississauga to Kingston, Speaker. We need all hands on deck, but we need to move forward in a way that is reasonable, responsible and strikes the optimal balance between local interests and provincial priorities.

I know when the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing came into his role, he reached out to our municipal partners on the housing task force recommendations. Our government has already implemented full or partial recommendations—23 of the 74—and we continue to work on those that are remaining with our municipal partners. I know my local municipalities appreciate the opportunity to provide that feedback, to share with the minister what they believe could be the next steps in our housing supply action plan, which I know the minister has mentioned is coming in the new year—something to look forward to in 2024.

As we continue to move forward, to get more homes built across our province, Speaker, it is about ensuring that the dream of home ownership is there for the next generation and for future generations that come to Ontario—no matter where they come from, whether it’s another province or another country in the world. We will ensure that our communities remain vibrant places to live, work and raise a family. This is why I urge all members of this House to support this bill.

Further debate? Further debate?

Further debate?

As I rise today, I just have to remark on what we just witnessed in this House, which was a shocking abuse of power.

This government passed a bill, the Ontario Place act. They shut out debate at second reading. They passed what’s called a time allocation motion to short-circuit debate at second reading. They did not send it to committee for people to talk about this important bill that will impact Ontario Place and has given the government extraordinary powers to protect themselves and to issue MZOs. Then they short-circuited third reading debate. We were not allowed to debate this at third reading. These are key components of our Westminster parliamentary democracy—key—and we just witnessed this government abuse that.

I would say, you know, there’s a famous philosopher—his name is John Stuart Mill. He wrote on things that this government—it might fit with their philosophy on government. John Stuart Mill talked about the tyranny of the majority, and that’s what we’ve witnessed here. This government has the majority and they used it to further their own ends, and they shut out the people of the province of Ontario when it came to what they’re doing at Ontario Place.

My question would be, Madam Speaker, why have they done this? To build a luxury spa for a foreign company—it’s a remarkable question. Why would they use this extraordinary use of power and short-circuit democracy for a luxury spa for a for-profit, private company? That’s the question. You know, eventually, all things come to light—the light of day, as we see with this legislation. The question is, what has Premier Ford signed Ontarians up for? Why are we not allowed to debate this bill? Why can we not see the details of the 99-year lease given on behalf of us? What we just witnessed here is nothing short, as I said, of another nail in the coffin of what we used to think was a democratic province in Ontario, and it really has been shameful, shameful behaviour here today in this Legislature.

I also want to respond to the member from Perth–Wellington, who said they’re going to codify in law these changes that they’re making to the greenbelt. But follow with me: We are here debating a bill that is putting in place restoring a bill that this government already overturned. It’s a bill that they passed; they overturned the bill, and now we have a bill before us to do that. So it doesn’t matter what you codify in law. You said your government has said they won’t open the greenbelt, but you did do it and here we are with a bill before us that’s simply trying to overdo what you’ve done, which is to overturn a previously existing bill.

It used to be, again, in the province of Ontario, that statutes and laws warranted a certain amount of respect. They’re weren’t just obstacles, as this government likes to say, the laws of the province of Ontario. Things that were debated and voted in this esteemed House are not just things you can overturn. They’re not just obstacles for this government to get its way. They used to command a certain amount of respect, but unfortunately I don’t see that here. So the idea that we’re passing a new statute to reverse the repeal of another statute—the irony is unbelievable in this House. I’m sorry to say, Madam Speaker, it is, to me, really disappointing and—what is the word I want to say?—a disappointing and disgraceful moment here in this House.

Again.

Again.

I also want to go back to saying that the reason we are here debating this bill that is going to revoke/reverse the things this government did when it came to forced urban boundary expansions on municipalities across the province—the reason we are here: We are sharing this victory with all of the people that came together, the grassroots organizations that worked together to push back on this government. They attended rallies, they took signs, they signed petitions, so they were united in demanding that this government—you know, they were asked to protect the greenbelt in perpetuity, and then they understood that the second part of the greenbelt scandal, greenbelt scandal 2.0, if you will, was this forced urban boundary expansion and the issuing of MZOs all across the province. This is the second piece of a land grab scandal that has seized this House, that seized the government for at least the better part of a year.

It’s also the reason that we have, for the first time in the province of Ontario, a government that is under criminal investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It’s stunning. I just want to make sure that we understand how serious this is because the division—the special prosecutor that is looking into the actions of this government is the sensitive and international investigations unit. This unit looks into high-risk matters that cause significant threats to Canada’s political, economic and social integrity of its institutions across Canada and internationally. Those are some serious matters.

So I would like to think, as I have been saying, that the government, the minister and the Premier understand where we are in the province; that this is a government that has learned the error of their ways, has learned that we are in a situation like this because of acts of this government that disrespected the laws, that disrespected the will of the people of the province of Ontario. But as we see with the bill that was just passed, it would be apparent that they have not learned the lesson.

You know, it’s been said many times, and I’m of this sentiment: The Premier said he was sorry, and I agree with people across Ontario who say he was sorry that he got caught and it only just looks like this. All the evidence, all the bills that keep coming forward confirm this is not truly sorry; this is “Sorry, but if I hadn’t got caught, where would we be?” If he hadn’t got caught, where would we be? If we hadn’t had an Integrity Commissioner’s report, where would we be? If we hadn’t had an Auditor General’s report, where would we be? If we hadn’t had excellent investigative journalism, where would we be?

If we hadn’t had the Leader of the Opposition, Marit Stiles, who wrote to the Auditor General, who wrote to the Integrity Commissioner, who filed FOIs, all of this would have remained hidden. The government would be going on as business as usual, working not for the people of the province of Ontario, but working for their developer insiders, donors to the party, friends and family, guests of the Ford government, friends of the Ford government. That’s what we would still be doing. And I submit that the bill that we’ve just passed, the Ontario Place bill, that’s the same behaviour. That’s the same behaviour. And the truth will out, as they say in Shakespeare. I believe that is the case.

Let me speak to this bill, Bill 150. This is the Planning Statute Law Amendment Act. Really, what this does is it reverses the harmful, unilaterally imposed urban boundary expansions that this government forced on municipalities in the past year. We have been saying this is the right thing to do, to reverse it, but we were also saying it was the wrong thing to do in the first place, that you’ve done this. But it did take an Auditor General’s report, an Integrity Commissioner’s report and, as I said, an RCMP investigation and extraordinary advocacy from the public to get the government to begin reversing its preferential treatment of favoured speculators.

And even after these extraordinary reversals that we’re seeing here in these two bills, this bill still does not reverse many other planning policies that continue to make rich speculators richer and that harm the public interest and that still fail to deliver the housing that Ontarians need. Despite what the government does, despite what the minister of housing says, this does not come close to delivering the housing need in the province of Ontario. You’ve set us back, so far back when people are in such, such desperate need.

It’s interesting; I would say that we were clear. Experts have been clear, and we’ve been saying that this government didn’t need the greenbelt and they didn’t need this forced urban boundary expansions to build the housing that we need. The government’s own affordable housing task force said clearly shortage of land is not the cause of the housing crisis.

So really, honestly, again, why did this government waste a yearplus with greenbelt grabs and forced urban boundary expansions instead of implementing policies that might actually get homes built? Why didn’t you introduce inclusionary zoning? Why instead of investing in a luxury spa—sprawl, pardon me; I almost said “spa” again. We’ve been saying “spa” a lot, but I meant to say “luxury sprawl.” Instead of investing in that, why didn’t you invest in non-market housing that we’ve talked about? The solutions are there: co-op housing—

Interjection: Supportive housing.

Really, I can only conclude, if the government agrees that it was a mistake to give preferential treatment to speculator friends with the greenbelt grab and the forced urban boundary expansion—it agrees, obviously, that it was a mistake to give many of those speculators arbitrary MZOs who are now under investigation by the auditor. My question is, if they see this as a mistake, if they agree that it was wrong to give preferential treatment, if they agree with the Auditor General’s investigating these MZOs and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing clearly saying they will be looking at all of those MZOs that were issued, why are you giving a new minister the unilateral power—one minister, one person, the power to issue MZOs without public scrutiny? That’s the mess you got into in the first place, but you’re doing it again. It defies logic.

So let’s just take a leap of faith now and say that the government has seen the error of their ways and that they’re reversing these MZOs and these forced urban boundaries because they see that that was not the direction to go in. But then, the question is, if you see that we don’t need the greenbelt land—you’re putting those back—and we don’t need those forced urban boundaries, do you now agree with your own housing task force recommendation that we don’t need these lands to build housing? Is this signalling that you now do not agree that we need to encroach on farmland, that we need to lose more prime agricultural farmland, that we need to build on heritage natural spaces to build the housing we need? I can only assume that’s what that means.

Going forward, we will be keeping an eye on you to see what changes you continue to make. As I said when we discussed the greenbelt reversal bill, there still is a provision in that bill that allows for the government to remove lands from the greenbelt. The minister was very clear and the assistant minister for housing was very clear to say that they reserve the right to use greenbelt land to build infrastructure. So this greenbelt land is not protected in perpetuity. This bill reverses some of the harmful decisions, but you’ve left loopholes in there that will allow the greenbelt and farmland and urban boundaries to be expanded at the signing of the pen of a minister.

The urban boundary expansion has been called “greenbelt scam 2.0,” because as we know, this unilateral grab of greenbelt lands was not put in the public sphere; people weren’t given the opportunity to consult on it. And then, when it came to forced urban boundary expansions—let’s be clear: This is a government that bigfooted municipalities and regions all across the province. These are municipalities and regions that put forward official plans, and this government just overrode them, just unilaterally decided—“Thank you, councillors; thank you, local planners; thank you, local citizens, for all the effort you put into coming up with your reasoned, well-thought-out official plans, the ways that you were going to build your own communities. Thanks anyway, but we’re just going to take all of these and we’re going to override them. We’re going to rewrite them in the minister’s office.” That is an incredible, incredible, heavy-handed action on the part of this government. The regions that had this happen to them—they were mentioned before, but this government ignored councils in Waterloo, Barrie, Wellington. There were also significant changes made to Hamilton.

I want to talk a little bit about what happened in Hamilton. In Hamilton, on the same day that the government opened up greenbelt lands for development, the government also forced the expansion of Hamilton’s urban boundaries by 2,200 hectares of land—again, overriding city council and overriding the will of the people of the city of Hamilton. And I need to be clear: This is almost three times as much land with an urban boundary expansion as was lost during the greenbelt grab. Again, the people of Hamilton, who had been advocating for a frozen urban boundary, spoke up. I will say that, in Hamilton, we had a referendum, and something—90% of the people, I think; there was an extraordinary number of people who filled out their referendum and returned it to council. Of that, it was an overwhelming majority—I think it was perhaps 90% of the people who said they wanted a firm urban boundary; they didn’t want to expand. That was the will of the people of Hamilton. It was the decision of Hamilton city council, and it was the decision of Hamilton’s city planners. Despite this being submitted to the province, the previous minister, Mr. Clark, overrode it, just like that. He threatened that he would in an op-ed—an extraordinary, unusual op-ed that he wrote to the city of Hamilton in the Hamilton Spectator, saying that he would overturn it, and sure enough, he did.

This is a government that not only overrode democratically elected councils, but they abdicated their duty to consult with First Nations.

We know that so many of these deals happened in the back rooms. We also know that the vast majority of the developers that benefited from the urban boundary expansion were the same speculators that benefited from the greenbelt grab.

So we have, again, the Integrity Commissioner and the Auditor General to thank for some of the records that show what happened behind the scenes.

I think it needs to be made clear that in the Integrity Commissioner’s report, developers from Hamilton were invited by this government to a meeting where they were shown the changes that were going to be made to Hamilton’s official plan; they were shown before Hamilton city councillors were, before Hamilton planners were. These developers were in a meeting and said, “Are you comfortable with the changes we’re going to make to the official plan?” These are developers and lobbyists. It turns out that they are one of the same developers that bought tickets for Doug Ford’s stag and doe. This is no way to conduct business. It’s shocking that insider developers would be given a heads-up on the changes that were going to be made to Hamilton’s official plan before Hamilton was. And if that isn’t evidence of preferential treatment, if that isn’t evidence of insider dealing, I don’t know what is.

I want to go on to say that there was a court challenge, as there always is with this government, and records were revealed. In these records that came directly from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, these records revealed—they were internal documents that showed that this government knew the decisions they were making around urban boundary expansions were not needed. The documents said clearly that in many municipalities, including in Hamilton, the Hamilton frozen boundary expansion would have been sufficient to build the houses that we need. It showed that there was no understanding of the cost that would be incurred by municipalities like Hamilton—which actually means Hamilton taxpayers. They didn’t take into consideration the cost that would be downloaded to taxpayers when this forced urban boundary expansion required the city of Hamilton to build infrastructure—roads, schools, fire stations, fire hydrants, sewer, waste water. All those costs are not on the developers; they’re on the city of Hamilton, also known as the taxpayers. The ministry’s own documents revealed that they didn’t know what those costs were going to be, and they still went ahead.

The ministry’s own internal documents said that they knew that this would impact prime agricultural land, which we all know—farms feed cities. We’re losing agricultural land at an unsustainable pace—that wasn’t a concern—and that the environmental impacts would be significant, but they weren’t taken into consideration. This is the information that the ministry used to make their decision when they went ahead with these forced urban boundaries. It’s unbelievable that that would be okay, that that’s part of the decision.

Again, was this about housing? I would just say that no one actually is buying the line that it was about housing—and the line is the point that I want to say, because Ryan Amato was quoted in these documents telling bureaucrats and telling assistant ministers, “Hold the line. It’s all about housing.” And that came when the heat was on. So they even said it was a line: “Hold the line. It’s all about housing.” That was their cover story. Ford’s hand-picked adviser was saying, “Hold the line.”

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s own documents showed that the 77 individual changes that were proposed to Hamilton’s municipal plans were requested by unnamed parties, third parties. We don’t know who made these requests, so it’s like the province is governed by Mr. X and unnamed third parties who had direct influence in changing how land was used in the province and in Hamilton. So, absolutely, this was another sketchy backroom deal that benefited well-connected speculators and, as we say, has done nothing to build homes for our community of Hamilton.

I would just want to make sure that you are aware that Hamilton is meeting the housing targets that we agreed on with the province—actually, we’re exceeding those within our existing urban boundaries. It’s proof positive that these lands, this greenbelt grab and this forced urban boundary expansion that made people rich was not needed to build the housing we need.

I also want to talk a little bit about the MZOs. Again, this extraordinary number of MZOs that have been issued in this province is like an albatross around the neck of this government. We know what you’ve been up to, because of the extraordinary number of MZOs that have been issued.

This is an insane fact: Guests at Doug Ford’s daughter’s wedding received 18 MZOs—more MZOs than the Liberal government issued in their time in office.

Interjection: And we thought they did a lot.

Sure, go on.

Interjection: You have one minute.

Bill 141, the Defibrillator Registration and Public Access Act, received royal assent in June of 2020, and it will be four years this June, if nothing happens, that we’ve gone without this registry, which does two things: It lets people know where defibrillators are if there’s an emergency. It helps paramedic services know that. So you can imagine right now that if there’s somebody who has a cardiac arrest—and 7,000 people a year have a cardiac arrest in Ontario—if they have that somewhere in Ontario—and you can imagine if it was a relative of yours and they had a cardiac arrest and there was a defibrillator in the elementary school or in an office nearby, but nobody knew.

The other piece of the bill was—and the member from Nickel Belt and myself wrote the same bill as the member from Eglinton–Lawrence; we just travelled that bill, and I’ll explain how that happened in a little while. Inside that bill, it says if you have a defibrillator and it’s registered, then you have to maintain it. It’s not that much to maintain. It’s multiples of years to replace pads and batteries so that it works in case of a cardiac arrest, because if you find a defibrillator and you go to apply it and it doesn’t work, there’s going to be a bad result. So it’s a great bill; they were all great bills.

What happened is, the House leader at the time was a new House leader, and I spoke directly to the House leader and suggested that we debate the member from Eglinton–Lawrence’s bill, because they were all the same, and she had a slot. We could debate it, get it to second reading, and I said, “Let’s travel the bill,” and the House leader, to his credit at the time, said, “Yes, we’ll travel it. We’ll get it done.” It was travelled, and as I said, it passed third reading and received royal assent in June of 2020.

So it’s three and a half years since we debated second reading here—four years actually, so three and a half years this law has been on the books, a law that will save lives. Defibrillators do save lives, and we know that if we get to people within three minutes, they’re likely going to survive.

As I said in my question, the person sitting next to me in this chair is living proof that defibrillators work, and if they couldn’t find it or it didn’t work, he wouldn’t be here. That’s the purpose of the bill.

The reason that I’m annoyed at the answer that I got to the question is, two years ago this member talked about this bill and said we need to do something, two years ago this January, and nothing has happened, no regulations, nothing.

The government has an opportunity to enact a piece of legislation that will keep people safe, that will keep people alive, that will prevent families from having empty chairs. So what I would like to hear from the parliamentary assistant—and I very much appreciate the fact that you’re here—is that somebody is going to do something, that you’re going to get it done because it’s been three and a half years. As I said in my question, three minutes saves a life, but it’s three and a half years we’re waiting. Three minutes, three and a half years—and 7,000 people a year.

I really sincerely hope that the government is working on getting this thing done before we come back here. It can be done. It’s been three and a half years. It will almost be four if you don’t get it done. It’s a good thing; it’s an opportunity. We put forward this bill, and it’s been put forward in the past, and it didn’t get done. If I hear in the response from the other side, “Well, you guys never did it,” fine, okay, sure, but you’ve had an opportunity for three and a half years with a law that’s been on the books and an opportunity to do it, and irrespective of what happened 10 years ago or five years ago, you need to do it. It would be good for all Ontarians if this law became enacted as soon as possible.

Pursuant to the order of the House passed earlier today, I am now required to put the question.

Mr. Flack has moved third reading of Bill 150, An Act to enact the Official Plan Adjustments Act, 2023 and to amend the Planning Act with respect to remedies. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion, please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it. I declare the motion passed.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

There being no private members’ public business designated for debate today, it is now time for the late show.

The member for Ottawa South.

Did you talk about Kaleed at all?

Madam Speaker, I think if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at 6.